It's been four weeks since the end of my seven-month Steemit vacation. That seven months may go down as one of the single biggest missed opportunities of my life.
I first joined Steemit in July 2016 after watching a video on Facebook that my friend @lukestokes posted. At the time, STEEM was trading at about US$4 and a $10,000 or even $20,000 post on the trending page was not uncommon.
Before I wrote my first post, I powered up US$1,000 of my own money. I wasn’t really bothered if the price went down. It was money I could afford to lose. It was more about buying into something I believed in, something that could disrupt both social media and perhaps even the world’s dependency on fiat. I felt it was right to have some skin in the game.
I had some great success in the beginning, with hundreds of upvotes and $4000 in rewards on my first two posts alone. I was so thankful and excited.
From then, I stayed up late and woke up early, almost daily, to write Steemit posts. Burning the candle at both ends, my wife began to ask, “Who is this other woman named Steemit?”
For those next four months I hustled; posting consistently, connecting with some great people, and building a small following. Every single reward I earned I powered up. I never transferred a single cent from the platform.
By November, four months later, the price of STEEM had fallen below 10 cents. As you can imagine, there was some negativity around. Even some of the most popular, trending authors were whinging and complaining about all sorts of stuff.
It was a bit difficult to stay positive, but I believed in the potential of Steemit and enjoyed connecting with people. My plan had always been to persevere no matter how low the price of STEEM went.
But then I hit a wall. We moved across town to a new area; we went to the Gold Coast on a two-week holiday; we got our kids settled into a new school. I had pressure in my business, cash flow challenges, blah, blah, blah.
The bottom line was I had lost the sense of urgency I initially had. Other urgent things crowded Steemit out.
I had always planned to come back to Steemit; but one month away became two, which became three, and then four. Then I thought, well, it’s been so long now I’m embarrassed to go back.
Then one month ago, after seven months away, Bitcoin surged and STEEM rose back above US$2. I visited Steemit and saw that my 6400 STEEM was now worth $15,000. I was overcome with FOMO, and well, here I am one month later.
Some Soul Searching
I’ve been doing some soul searching over the past month, trying to understand how I could have let that happen. Reconnecting with old Steemit friends, most of whom have welcomed me back with great enthusiasm, I’ve tried to think what it must be like from their perspective to see me back, now that the money is good again.
I saw some of the people I had connected with previously on steemit.chat in the postpromotion channel, like @cristi and @razvanelulmarin. They were still consistently posting and reaping the rewards of their consistency. I saw @stephenkendal who started out in the beginning faithfully posting every day for only pennies, and now had a massive following. He too was reaping the rewards of consistency. I saw @churdtzu, @meesterboom, and @fyrstikken all still going strong.
They and many others had all persevered through a long, arduous, and difficult season, and they hadn’t given up. And here I was, after not so much as a comment or upvote for seven months, coming back and posting articles again like nothing had ever happened - re-awakened to the value of Steemit because the price of STEEM had risen.
Thinking about this from their perspective helped me to evaluate my motivation for being on this great platform. At worst I was a selfish, money-hungry leach who was only on Steemit for what I could bleed out of it. At best, I was someone who had failed to see the true value of Steemit - friendship and connection with like-minded people, and an opportunity to serve others.
How My Inconsistency Was a Massive Fail
I look back on this Steemit hiatus as one of the biggest fails of my recent life. Here are the two main reasons why:
1. The future financial impact will likely be enormous.
2. I treated my friendships and the community of people on Steemit as expendable.
Allow me to explain…
The Financial Cost of Leaving Steemit for Seven Months
After four months of hustling on Steemit, and powering up all of my rewards, I built up 6400 STEEM. That’s an average of 1600 per month. Assuming I was able to maintain that pace, over the next seven months, I could have powered up an additional 11,200 STEEM, amounting to a current total of nearly 18,000 STEEM.
That means my inconsistency on Steemit has cost me about $20,000, and that's not even considering the future value of STEEM. If and when STEEM hits a price of $90, that 11,200 STEEM that I failed to earn will be worth $1 million.
That’s a massive cost, and a painful realisation. Inconsistency in business, or any endeavour, leads to missed opportunity.
If I then consider the missed opportunity of investing more of my money in STEEM, the financial cost is even greater. Had I stuck around during those seven months, perhaps I would have had a market awareness that would have provoked me to buy even more STEEM to power up.
At US$0.10, another 10,000 STEEM would have only cost me $1000. Today that would be near $20,000, and at a $100 STEEM price, that’s another million.
The Relational Cost of Leaving Steemit for Seven Months
King Solomon of Israel said, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” That’s Proverbs 22:1 in the Bible.
I will keep posting on Steemit and attempt to make up for the financial cost of my Steemit hiatus. But one thing that’s tougher to earn back is reputation, and according to Solomon, that’s more valuable than STEEM.
Relationships have always been important to me. I consider myself a pretty loyal person in “the real world.” But looking back on my Steemit journey, I have to acknowledge that I haven’t been very loyal. I made friends on Steemit and then just took off, without even saying goodbye.
That’s not the way a friend should act, and I’m sorry for that. It was a big blow to my reputation, but I hope that in time I will prove that it’s not all about the money for me and that I highly value my relationships here.
Not long after returning to Steemit, I connected with @sirknight who, together with some other great people, are doing a phenomenal job organising #teamaustralia. Thanks for all you’re doing to help us connect and build relationships with one another.
What You Can Learn From My Inconsistency:
Consistency is something I've learned and practised in other areas of life to get results - in business, in my personal and spiritual growth, and in my health. But on Steemit, I allowed life pressures and other more urgent things to move me off of my daily writing discipline.
If you’re new to Steemit or you’ve felt discouraged because you haven’t quite received the rewards you were hoping for, hopefully, my story can be an example for you of what not to do.
If you can see my missed opportunity, and what I wish I would have done differently, perhaps it will help you keep going and avoid allowing urgent things in your life to pull you away from the importance of consistently building a following on Steemit.
Here are two key things you can hopefully learn from my failure:
1. Consistency on Steemit is easier when you have a long-term vision.
When you value STEEM, not at its current price but at its future price, it doesn’t matter where the price of STEEM is today. When the price of STEEM was falling, I lost sight of the long-term value of sacrificing daily to keep posting and keep building a following.
2. Consistency on Steemit is easier when you focus on building genuine relationships.
The real value on Steemit is found in building a following. This requires that you not only have a heart to serve others by consistently producing valuable content for others, but that you build genuine friendships with people here. Those relationships form a sort of tribal accountability that will help you persevere through challenges and difficulties.
featured image source
money down the drain
backstab
Is there anything you wish you had done differently since you first signed up on Steemit?
Jason Staggers
It's like this with anything. After knowing the outcome you could've done better. However, you unlike most people were smart enough to keep money invested, and put in some initial work. You're $15k ahead and that's not a small amount!
That's so true and thanks for reminding me of that. I'm really thankful I never powered down. I'm in this for the long haul.
Exactly. What about the guys who've been posting every day, and pulling their money straight out?
They've made a lot more steem, but a lot less money
What an interesting story! However, if you weren't into it, you weren't into it. I don't think you should regret (too much) not forcing yourself to be here. If you did, then maybe it would have become a chore for you and you still would have left for a period of time. It's the past. You're here now. You didn't power down. Life is good!
You missed out but still gained a lot, and now you are wiser. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to seeing more content from you now. Cheers
Very true. Thanks!
As a newbie to steemit this article is really appreciated. Thanks @jasonstaggers
You're welcome. Thanks for commenting to let me know.
This post received a 1.9% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @jasonstaggers! For more information, click here!
Thanks Jason, this seems a very honest description, I am still trying to recharge my voting power. Seems to me you really like investing. Any tips you can give me, my spouse has completed her property manager certification but can't find a position for months now. She doesn't have any experience. What can she do?
It's hard to say without knowing the local market and what she's done so far to try to find work. The best thing she can do is build her network. Connect with as many people as possible, win them over, and let them know she's looking for work. Often real estate agencies promote from within. The first step may be to get her foot in the door doing something she's overqualified for. Hope that at least sparks some ideas. All the best and keep me posted how she goes.
Thanks Jason.
I probably wasn't as avid as you last year in July, but I too took a hiatus after some of the negative aspects and after the initial high wore off. But I caught my second wind back in January and haven't looked back since. Congrats on your 'hidden' treasure!
Thanks and well done on your consistency.
Gold!
Upvoted 100% and resteemed.
An eye opening story for me Jason as I have only been here about 6 weeks.
Interesting to learn of the situation over the past 7 months.
SK.
Thanks, mate. I appreciate that. The future is bright!
I only wish I had gotten into this earlier.
and you are right about consistency. Just plugging away, day by day, will get you there in the end.
I've been here probably as long as you have been away. I came in just after the price of STEEM crashed. So my earnings have never been very good.
But, as you say, if you have a long vision, and plan to stick around, the small payouts now will be offset by much larger payouts in the future - possibly.
But no matter what, the connections and friendships you can make on here worth a lot more than mere money.
I really like how so much of the online stuff then bleeds over into the real world, with face-to-face contacts and Steemians helping each other.
So you went away for a while because things go busy. No worries. Write some posts and tell us what you go up to while you were away. ;-)
Then go to my blog and vote the crap out of everything! hehehe
You've done well building up a strong 66 reputation over that time.
So true about these connections bleeding over. I'm looking forward to more of that in the future here in Australia.
And great idea about posting some of our adventures over those seven months. Cheers
Very good advice. Welcome back! I am trying to get into a consistency habit on a daily basis. It would be easy to slack off an enjoy the fruits of prior labors for a week, but then have to work "for free" for a week until payouts again.
Thanks @swenger. I guess it always comes back to thinking long term and building a following.
Wow man, that is some serious steemit self reflection. I may be having the opposite point of view. I hung in strong since July 2016 and feel I should have made more headway than I did.
Granted, I'm happy about my progress but I guess was hoping it would be more on par with the estimated scale you listed in this post.
All we can do is keep on posting and keep on curating! :-)
Just trying to keep it real :)
I wondered if I was overestimating what I could have achieved but I've seen others who stayed the course and kept powering up at least that.
Either way, you've built up a great following over the last 8 months. Well done for that.
Thanks! Have had my nose to the grindstone for sure.
Everyone that is into trading crypto or really doing anything with crypto/blockchain can look at missed opportunities every day that are worth potentially millions. Should've sold, should've bought, should've learned to code a long time ago and have my own ICO on Ethereum... We all just have to learn to live 'no ragrets' and make the most of the opportunities we're given.
Indeed. Hopefully, we can learn from some of those mistakes along the way as well. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us 😀.
Yes the decision may sound stupid in hindsight but I think you made the right decision at that time given limited knowledge.
It is easy to blame yourself on something you can't control. And yes, one sold have long term goals and should never get stuck on the present.
Thanks for the encouragement @saithe. At least we're here now. There is still so much opportunity!
Yup realizing mistakes is the first step for improving yourself 😀
Now you can build up the future for steemians ;)
Thanks, I plan to!
Happens to the best of us. Live & learn.
Absolutely
Understandable. Same here. been away for couple of months. You can contribute to steemit in other ways too ;) like steemgigs, do comments, proof-read their articles and provide articles too. Glad you back in ;) and for long term!
Great post, Jason. I love the honesty, humility, and perspective. I'm glad you're back. Don't beat yourself up too hard. Many others never even tried, or they only posted once or twice. You've built real relationships and that's what really matters. Many years from now, you'll still be a Steemit old school sage by being as early as you are. :-)
Thanks for your kind encouragement Luke. Steemit old school sage... I'll have you to thank for that. Someday I would send you on that Costa Rican getaway but you'll probably be able to buy half of Costa Rica by that time 😂
What an excellent post @jasonstaggers. A lesson to us all? Yes, I think so. Your honesty in respect of what you call your failure is good to see. I actually call that extreme ownership. You've taken ownership for your own actions, or lack thereof, and have been humble enough to think of the implications to others' also. You took action and have posted steemit-gold since your return.
It's an honest and humble post mate, and one of the better one's I have read so far. For a new steemian, 13 days in, it's an inspiration and it's great to see honesty broadcast across this platform. I have also engaged with some excellent people, yourself and @sirknight among many others and I look forward to more of the same.
Awesome post mate, I look forward to many more. @galenkp
(My humble vote is not worth much but you have it along with a resteem).
Thank you friend for your kind words.
Thanks for the reminder and encouragement about being consistent. Great post
Thank you
Hi Jason it is a great piece and I can understand how a person could almost feel embarrassed coming back to the platform in a way after such a long time off but I look at it from a couple different angles. For starters it really depends on how much a person needed the money and the time in their everyday life. Personally I was spending so much time on Steemit last summer / fall that I needed the money that I was earning. I couldn't afford to spend that much time and not be able to pay bills. My expenses were high. I really put a lot into the platform. I ultimately had to power down my entire account. I never really earned that much. About $4,500 Steem power and I did pull out SBD from earnings earlier. I came back several months ago when things hadn't recovered and would do small posts just testing the waters. They would make $2 or $6 or low amounts like that. But then it started building.
I don't feel like what you did was bad. It would be like a miner shutting off his equipment if it wasn't profitable to mine. You actually held your position. Those who did that came out better than those of us who had to liquidate because of financial pressure. I was honestly only giving the platform a 20% chance to survive. It was very sad but things did not look good at all. Now things have totally turned around in an instant. It is nuts really but I'm not wasting the opportunity.
p.s. if you initially look at my last post it looks negative but it has an alternative ending. ;-)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Brian. From a financial perspective I agree. I guess what struck me coming back was the relational element which I had missed to some degree previously.
I can't imagine what it must have been like for you and others when it did turn around.
Well it certainly would have helped for us to have never powered down but really when it boiled down to it there was really no choice for some of us. It really didn't seem like things were going well at all and so I made peace with the fact that it was going to be the decision I made at the time. Ultimately if I wouldn't have done it my account would have been worth around $10,000. Not life changing money but certainly could have helped. Luckily I was around enough during that down period writing comments and came back almost 4 months ago not from a blog post perspective that people remembered me and so now I have gotten to a point where I know I'm going to get a certain amount for my posts. Hopefully that continues for the time being.
The great thing is it's still early days for Steemit. There's still time to build up a sizeable balance of Steem.
Yeah I agree. And even if Steemit doesn't get super huge like Reddit size or Facebook size we can still make a lot of money.
It's always easy to see in hindsight, but at the time not so easy. I was aware of bitcoin about 5 years ago and could of bought 1000's of them for peanuts, but I didn't want to take the risk. So don't be to hard on yourself my friend, we all do it. Cheers
Thanks silverbug. I do feel much better getting that off my chest. Now I can move forward with a clear conscience. As far as the missed financial opportunity, I suppose we all have those.
That's just life my friend, the sharpest minds in the business miss out too. Cheers
Great post! I'm new to steem, but am already developing a long term plan to vary my content from simple photos and short paragraphs, to more informed blogs , behind the scenes of my work etc. Basically, I'm focusing on putting out consistent quality content that I would like to see from others. I appreciate you sharing your insight!
Well done. That sounds like a great plan.
I had a few months off, which was a mistake (hindsight being 20/20).
I'd like to move away from the idea that a steemer has any sort of obligation to be active.
We're always quick to tell people that steemit owes them nothing; that they're not entitled to any sort of payout just for gracing us with their presence, and I think that mindset needs to cut both ways.
Nobody let's anybody down by going quiet.
You can't shirk obligations you don't have.
That's a good point. After all, Steemit is not a cult and we should not judge or manipulate people if they choose not to be active. Also, because time is valuable, if the money is not worth the time, then just like with any investment, it may make sense to sit on the sidelines.
That said, Steemit is also a social platform. With any relationship, I believe there is an obligation to stay engaged to some degree for the sake of the strength of the relationship. In my example, had I just stopped posting articles but was still around to comment from time to time and engage with other authors, I don't think this post would have been necessary.
It is interesting though that those who have the greatest stake in the platform (whales) don't seem to bother as much with relational engagement. It's as if the power precludes the need to connect. On the other side, many feign relational nicities to win favour and upvotes. This issue of human motivation really gets exposed with the whole monetary benefit aspect of Steemit.
Great comment. Would be good to continue this discussion over a beer some day.
I know #teamaustralia has raised the topic of an Aussie steemfest. There are certainly a lot of us now.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a group together on the Murray, on houseboats.
Call it Steemboating.
Maybe in a year or two :)
I agree. Like anything you do in life, consistency is key to success. Thanks for sharing your story and warning others. I'm sure you will be back to where you want to in no time. We all learn from mistakes and move forward... even if it's a million dollar mistake. I try to live my life with zero regrets. :) Maybe being away from 7 months wasn't the worst thing, you got to spend time with your family, and that's priceless!
This post has received a 4.26 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @jasonstaggers.
A good return on my investment. Thanks @booster.