Life is a weave of pieces of stories put together by our choices, actions, inactions, reactions, experiences and lessons drawn from them. When properly arranged, one can draw invaluable life-long guides from them and can as well reveal trends created by the steps that were followed which could also serve as a pointer to others in the journey.
Permit me to begin this post by sharing an excerpt of my curriculum vitae as it relates to Hive and Hive-engine as follows.
- Content creator earning Hive and Hive-engine tokens (2019 to date)
- Content Curator (reward Distributor) with Hive and Hive-engine Tokens (2020 to date)
- Hive-engine tokens trader (2020 to date)
- Hive-engine tokens miner (2020 to date)
- Hive-engine Dividend/collateral token holder (2020 to date)
- Hive-engine tokens investment educator (2020 to date)
- Hive-engine tokens promoter (2020 to date)
- Top 10 Token Stakeholder - SPORTS, LIST, CHARY (2021)
- Hive-engine tokens DeFi pool liquidity provider (in-view)
I didn't know that the seemingly insignificant decision I took in August 2019 would have a lot of influence on my finances and investment drive two years after. It all stayed like a joke like I wasn't going anywhere serious till the turnaround happened.
Hive blockchain is one very big digital community hat presents us with several earning and investment options and where knowledge is lacking, one can get lost on the myriads of options available. As such, one doesn't just get successful by joining Hive, but getting the right awareness that would inform the choices of communities to engage and projects to invest in. Going deeper, all the communities and projects running on Hive have their unique growth cycles hat must be understudied and understood independently.
It all started the day when I notice a user's #sportstalk post which earned over 100,000 SPORTS token then and I got curious to know why. I had not seen a Steem nor Hive post earn that amount of units before that time. I got questioning and I got to understand that "curation" actually existed on the SCOT tribes. Before this time, I had received some PAL claimdrops and I sold them, not actually knowing what else I could have done with the tokens. This discovery made to begin to make some computations as per combining amount of token staked, percentage of upvote given by curator and amount of token distributed in the process. For me, the prices of the token didn't really matter at that time. All that mattered was how one can become influential by being able to distribute such a huge amount of token to another user. Going deeper in my search to have known how cheap it was to buy some SPORTS then got me and I started buying them. From 1,000 tokens to 10,000 to 100,000 to my first million, I was just enjoying myself.
I got fascinated and got to read about other tokens and too began to purchase them. Interestingly, all the funds used were obtained from content created on the main chain. I learnt abut tag usage and stared earning the tokens too from my contents. Gradually, I had a handful of tokens that were staked and that afforded me the privilege of distributing some tangible amount of tokens to other content creators. By December 2019, thing got clearer and I started understanding what I was actually doing and also wrote about them. The traction those posts earned in terms of engagement made me understand I was in the right direction.
By March 2020, I was already determined to go with Hive the moment I knew that Aggroed was on Hive's side and was ready to create Hive-Engine. More excited when some of the communities whose tokens I had invested in opted to also move to Hive blockchain. I then took my decision to face these tokens squarely and take up the second layer curation responsibility to a whole new level. That's when the top stakeholders spots with the tokens became appealing to me and I doubled up efforts to purchase as much tokens as I could, staked them and maximized my curation. When I started counting how profitable the venture was, I created separate curation accounts and encouraged friends to invest in Hive-engine token curation as a business.
Here on Hive, some users encouraged me to go for me why some told me I wasn't rational enough with my decision to concentrate my curation on Hive's second layer tokens. However, I stuck with my instincts and gave my dream the best push I could ever with the supports of those that truly encouraged me. I'll sincerely appreciate @Taskmaster4450le, @Dtrade @Jongolson, 
From when I scrambled for tiny upvotes to when I'm able to distribute upvotes rounding to hundreds of dollars monthly, I have seen a tangible growth with my investment journey on Hive's second layer. My SPORTS stake alone distributes over $60 monthly at this low prices, while LEO, CTP, POB, LIST and others contribute over $50 too to content creators. This is just the beginning of things. I still hope for the more beautiful and better days ahead. With 0ver 80 tokens in my wallet and more to come, the dream of creating my own community-powered token is still fresh and virgin. While my learning and preparation process may be slow, I'm sure that the dream will come through soon.
The summation of the testimony of my journey from a Janitor to a CEO on Hive through Hive-engine token curation is that of having a vision, setting goals to actualize the vision, planning and adopting the right strategy, and growing with the process to where I've reached. There were challenges while the journey ensued but that was surmounted by my determination and discipline. I would say, anything is possible for a determined heart.
Thank you for your time in reading through this long blog. I hope it inspired you!