Hey Steemians
I've been blogging on Steemit for over 1 year now. I only joined in May 2017 and of course almost 99% of us signup for a Steemit account with the expectation that "Hey ! I can post stuff and make some money !"
How cool is that .. the dream of being able to sit at a nice cafe just blogging away and it all gets paid for just by the content you write. For most Asians , this is like the ultimate dream job which our parents would think we are just wasting our life away as we do indulge ourselves in a 7am - 10pm job ( yes anything less then that is considered you are not a productive worker here )
SO these are the 3 most frequent myths which I like to clear up
Let me break it down to you and this is only from my own perspective.
Steemit is Easy Money
That's a bunch of crap for whoever that says it. Unless you had like a few BTCs and pump it into steemit in 2016 which had a crazy inflation rate of about 400% , you would have enough steempower to upvote yourself a nice meal everytime.
Reality : You really need to put in the hours and be able to engage with communities and also fit in. Like the saying goes , its not who you know but who knows you . And apart from paying for your upvotes, I guess its best to be engaged with communities or run a credible project like Steemhunt , Steempress, 
Steem Witnesses Makes a LOT of money !
I've been asked this a LOT ! My normal responds would be, anyone can be a witness ! After all , you just need to know a bit of technical and setup a server and you are good to go. You should try it ! ( with a grin )
Reality : Like seriously ? If we used our rigs to mine other coins we would get compensated more. Unless you are in the top 21 witnesses, you don't really earn a lot. At my current position of witness no. 89 , its like 5 steempower every 24 hours . Now the actual fact is that even after you get your witness server up and running. You would need to start to be voted in to be allowed to produce a block to be paid. So its like running an election ! You need to campaign and tell everyone on steemit as to what you plan to do to help the steem blockchain. I've seen so many great developers on steem and I've voted on their witness.
Have you used up your steem witness votes ? Please make sure you use them. Vote at http://steemit.com/~witnesses
You can survive on Steem Income ?
Now, I've been asked this a LOT ! Can you really survive on Steem income ? Of course when the price is high and mighty like in January where 20 SBD can bring you about RM600 ( USD150 ) But what about now when the price of per steem is merely $1.30
Reality : With all the panics kicking in , the cold sweats in ... yes ! Its harder and a lot more sacrifice needed to be done. You Starbucks cafe sitdowns needs to be transitioned to something a bit more cost effective like the local coffeeshop where you can get a nice hefty meal and loads of drinks for the total of 1 mocha at Starbucks. The environment is not as nice, however the effect is greater.
I was talking to a few steemians, now is actually the best time to gain your Steempower. Remember the saying that is 20% effort and 80% results ? Well ... all the efforts you put into steemit now with more blog posts and more videos and getting involved in more projects. All of these will gain you more Steempower since the price is low , each payout will generate more Steem and SBD.
Conclusion
I remembered at SteemFest , one of the first persons which I met was
which asked me Why do i even build the community of Steemians ? Its not I'm paid by steemit ? I was stunned by the question but it got me thinking , its because the only way to achieve my 2020 goal is to be involved in community and since I've done it before with a well known brand, I wanted to challenge that it can be done with something extremely new to the world . Blogging on the Steem Blockchain !
So by saying that .... there is absolutely no free ride on Steem. You gotta be involved in communities or projects. That does not guarantee you big upvotes however I 'm sure you will grow to love the communities and make loads of new friends. And who knows , the upvotes will start to come in. I've seen this happen many times to those involved in the projects on steem.
Cheers and have a great day ahead.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://ourwebz.club/bitrocker2020/the-hard-truth-about-steem/