Last week I announced my first milestone: doubling my voting power. While writing this, I am getting closer to my 0,03 $ SBD up-vote goal. Awesome. So far, I have invested most of my earnings straight back into the platform to accumulate more Steem Power. So, why am I so focused on getting more Steem Power, rather than cashing out the earnings I receive so far and put it into different coins?
I already felt and thought that I was lucky on Steemit and knew that I have finally found the right ‘Social Media Platform’ to share my content on. This is not based on the fact that you can make money on Steemit, but because of the atmosphere we got going on here. I do not take the earnings I have received so far for granted and would like to show a little bit of my gratitude in this post to the people who helped me during the early stages on Steemit and have taken me to the point where I am right now.
During my first two weeks spent on the platform, I have learned some valuable lessons and made the usual newbie mistakes. And these guys took the time to welcome me and teach me. So, this is what I’ve learned and this is to whom I owe it to.
Let me share you the steps I took to reach my first milestone: doubling my up-vote in SBD.
Obviously, signing up for Steemit was the first step I had to take, this one was easy. In this case: 1+1 = over 9000.
Steemitchat. Connect & Share
After some Google research about Steemit, I found out about Steemit Chat. Basically, 
Hive account@lemony-cricket was the- it/it’s person/being... ah well... the anonymous, a gendered entity who said hi to me on chat. I reached out, and I got answered. While staying on chat for a while and introducing myself 
Hive account@emilclaudell found out that I was a photographer, he asked me if he could DM me, because he had a question. “Can you give me some tips for my next lens?”. We started chatting and now, he is my young Padawan. He did good on his last exam and I made him a promise that I will be doing a product photography post-processing video tutorial if he passed. I will most probably do this on @dLive.
Quality over Quantity
So, I didn’t know what voting-power was in the beginning, or how it was supposed to be used. 
Hive account@geekpowered “I should’ve taken the time to go through your blog before. You’re killing my voting-power”. Sorry man… and thank you so much for up-voting my posts. It got me motivated to keep on releasing more quality posts instead of the 'easy-way-to-go' posts.
© 2018 - 
Hive account@rubencress - www.rubencress.nl
Be aware of Copyright infringement.
Well don’t take this personal 
Hive account@r00sj3, but let me share this with the blockchain. She flagged one of my posts, assuming it wasn’t mine, but actually, she helped me spot an image that was mine and used on a different website. She woke up the 
Hive account@steemcleaners crew and they flagged me. Pretty confused what was going on I asked Hive account@geekpowered what was going on and if he could see the ‘low rated’ post as well. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t understand how the flag-system worked, and I would’ve still been flagged for something utterly unnecessary. After that I told her not to worry about the ‘mistake’ she made, she apologized, Steemcleaners upvoted my post, so yeah… nothing lost, only gainzzz.
Right time, right place
“Are you just as cool as in your profile picture?” I replied: “I am fucking tired. Lol.” 
Hive account@saywha introduced me to a ‘secret’ high society, 4th world order group chat on Steemitchat that’s planning to buy a Whale-shaped island, I don’t know why he added me to the group. But let’s keep that a thing for the Universe to know. Thanks to Hive account@saywha I’ve met a lot of people who teach me about the platform.
Of course I had to verify myself... to proof that I was a 'real' person, and real people have shoes on their heads.
Get inspired, motivated and set goals
And then something happened. I’m not sure how to start, or how to write about this guy without making it sound that I’m ass-kissing. Just keep in mind, that I had no idea how much 1 SBD was worth, and I was assuming the payout amount was in USD and not in SBD. Until later I found out about that. All of the sudden, I got an insane up-vote from 
Hive account@acidyo on my introduction post. -read as- My first post and my first introduction with Steemit. I had no idea. And for some reason he supports me most of the time when I make a post. When I have found out what the value was of one single up-vote from him, and how difficult/hard it is to reach that for 99% of the people here on Steemit. He became an example for me. Without the support of Hive account@acidyo I could not give this Steem away. So, I’m setting up a goal to help out new members whenever I’m getting more and more SP. I am sure a lot of people have gotten the support from him. My end-game-goal: beat Hive account@acidyo with voting-power and up-vote the shit out of him.
Hospitality
After me making jokes about asking for a place to stay whenever I have the chance to visit Serbia, this guy literally said and offered a place to stay and that it was no problem. 
Hive account@svemirac, I told you that you were on my ‘list’, this is the list. Not only for taking time to read some of my posts. But mostly because of that gesture.
© 2018 - Hive account@rubencress - www.rubencress.nl
Get nominated but don’t join every fucking challenge/contest you see.
I believe 
Hive account@anomadsoul from the 
Hive account@ocd curation team, was the first one who nominated one of my posts about a little social experiment. It’s interesting how people react and interpreted the things you do. I'm not a big fan of joining contests. I'd like to curate or be a judge when I have more time and earned the respect of the community.
Pick a witness [OCD-Witness]
The crew that I support. OCD-witness for witness! Their OCD page offers great curation all over the globe and is a good read. There are currently 35 curators that curate for @OCD and create these posts. Too many to name them one by one. OCD Curators, you know who you are.
Get others join Steemit
So the first person I got on Steemit is Jaka, we have met a few months ago in a Telegram group chat that’s about mining. Since some most of my Dutch friends are pretty skeptical about Cryptocurrency I find it a challenge to get them on Steemit. Anyway, I wanted to give my last 1 STEEM to 
Hive account@jemmanuel as a welcoming gift. I’m looking forward to seeing how he does on the platform and how he will connect with other Steemians.
Hopefully this post was inspiring and motivating you. What were your first steps on Steemit that made you get closer to your goals? Do you have milestones or goals set-up on Steemit? Let me know and drop a comment below.
My values when you give something.
- Never refuse a gift.
- Never give to receive.
- You have so much to give.
Cheers,
Ruben
