Welcome to the Steem blockchain! You are now inside a brilliantly conceived creation not even possible, until a relatively short time ago. If you have just recently arrived in the Steemisphere, you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed and a little uncertain as to what you should do next.

You are now reading all that I can do to help you past that and get off to a “flying start." You are reading what I would like to have been quickly introduced to, when I was where you are right now.

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This has been written for those who are interested (as I am) in investing in their long-term success.

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For the rest, I think "scrolling through" or "jumping around" (using the bookmarks below) this post will still hold some value for you. You may even decide there is enough value here to bookmark this post for future reference.

In the "strange and wonderful" new world of blockchains, where you truly have free will to do whatever seems best to you, it is your choice!

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

Brief Introduction to the Steem Blockchain

Starting with the creation of bitcoin in 2009, a whole new asset class came into existence. As a group, they have been and are still commonly referred to as "cryptocurrencies."

That is certainly applicable in many cases, starting with bitcoin itself. If you are not already aware, you will quickly come to realize, however, that Steem is much more than a "cryptocurrency." Much, much more.

Perhaps you have been told that Steem is a "social network" blockchain. That is certainly getting much closer and there is definitely a social network at the core of the Steem blockchain.

But ... There is still more!

Conceptually, it provides the foundation for what some refer to as a "virtual ecosystem." There are tools readily available to support financial transactions. Combine that with a social network and you have the basis for business transactions - mutually beneficial exchanges of value. There are both individual and collective enterprises "in here" that are already taking advantage of this opportunity.

My growing appreciation of the enormous potential led to the writing of my Prosperity: Freedom and Opportunity for Ordinary People post on Independence Day here in America - July 4th, 2018!

While all of this is a good starting point, the Steem blockchain is really still just in the early stages of realizing its full potential. Very recently, HF20 was executed successfully. What is that? HF20 is the 20th "hard fork," i.e. the 20th time the Steem blockchain has been successfully enhanced - continuous improvement - over its first two years of "life."

• Note: It is very important to understand, unlike Bitcoin, that each hard fork in Steem, by design, requires a super-majority consensus before it is carried out - preserving the integrity of the whole network, by preventing the "splintering" into fragments seen in other blockchains.

HF20 provides support for billions of transactions vs. millions! Even though Steem already holds the "title" for the most daily transactions in the "crypto class." In other words, HF20 is a major "scaling up" of what can be done structurally on the Steem blockchain, with a proactive eye on future growth! 👍

As a specific example, HF20 provides the foundation for launching a new concept on the Steem blockchain - Smart Media Tokens [SMTs]. These currently have a projected "go live" date in the 1st quarter of 2019. There is a great deal of excitement about the potential of this new feature.

There is a lot more to Steem, but for now, this introduction is to help you understand you have joined at a very good time. And the future is very exciting!

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With that, let's get started!

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

Job 1 - Your Security and how to Protect Yourself!

No matter your impressions of our Steem blockchain, both now and in the future, I would encourage you to never lose sight of one key (pardon the pun 😉), fundamental point. It is still software. Running on a computer. And, therefore, vulnerable to those who can't figure out anything better to do with themselves than prey on the rest of us!

You simply must protect yourself! Be very clear there is no one who can do it for you. This is, after all, a blockchain where the only person who should have access to your private keys is you. And the more you understand that, I trust the more you will come to appreciate it.

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So ... Now what? First, let's illustrate what will follow next:

_{Illustration of Steps to Access Keys in Steemit Wallet}

For your security, steps to take right away:

1. If you are already logged in with your private owner key (the original password you were given on signing up), then proceed to Step 2. If not, then log out and log back in with it. Then proceed to Step 2.
2. In the drop-down list under your icon (upper right of Steemit screen), click on the 'Wallet' link.
3. Click on the ‘Permissions’ link. As illustrated above, you are now looking at the Steemit interface provided for you to access all of your keys!
4. Systematically go down the list illustrated above and capture both your public and private keys. Store them in a very secure place known only to you. Ideally, multiple secure places …
5. As illustrated above, the access to your all-important private (only you should have them) keys is available by clicking on the “Show Private Key’ buttons.

• Tip 1: You always want to use your key with the lowest level ofsecurity needed. For just about everything you do in the Steemisphere, that would be your private posting key! You can, of course, post with it, as well as conduct all of your most common activities.
• Tip 2: The one notable exception to Tip 1 is when you want to complete some sort of a financial transaction. In that case, you will be prompted to provide your private active key to complete it. And, even then, since you are logged in with your private posting key, you’ll simply need to enter your private active key into the dialog provided to authorize whatever financial transaction you’ve initiated. Once closed, you continue on working under the log-in credentials provided by your private posting key.
• Tip 3: There is never a reason to log-in with your originally provided password. This is your private owner key. Others may suggest using it to log-in to authorize changing your other password and other keys, which is the only time it would be required. I have no idea, though, why you would ever do that, as long as you keep them safe and secure.

• Image Note: Yes, dear reader, if concerned with seeing keys in it, you are looking at my public keys, in this image. If you haven't already, you will learn, due to the "open book" philosophy of the creators of our Steem blockchain, they are fairly easily seen by anyone. As are yours! See "bonus" details, under SteemWorld, in the Indispensable Tools section of my User's Guide post.

OK, so now ... Before reading any further, in this post (or any other post), please go take care of this. Log out and log back in. With your private post key. Right now.

For your own sake! Then, of course, I hope you will come back and finish reading this!

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Now that you are back, dear reader ... 😉 One final note, under your security, which I was originally going to leave out of an introductory post like this one. But, I decided to put it in here, as I would want you to do the same for me, were our roles reversed.

As you will see, there are some very talented people "in here" and they are hard at work adding value to our blockchain. But ... Just like in the "real world" there are those who have talent all right, but it is being applied in trying to hurt you. And me ... Please read this post from @arcange about a new, insidious form of phishing - attempt by others to steal your keys!!

@arcange is one of our Steem Witnesses (which you will read more about in a minute), who works tirelessly to protect his fellow Steemians on our blockchain. Thank you @arcange, for all you do!!

• Note: With your safety and security covered, hopefully you will never need it, but if you do, here is the Stolen Accounts Recovery page provided by Steemit.

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With all of your keys secured and safely “tucked away,” we’ll now shift into “high gear” and provide a brief outline of a number of different topics which will be very helpful to you in getting off to a “flying start.”

First, we’ll cover the “fundamentals!”

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

The Fundamentals

In sports, it is not uncommon for us to hear references to "what it takes" to be successful. In one way or another the conversation usually gets around to the fundamentals of the sport and getting them down cold.

We will briefly cover some of them here, although entire posts have been written about each of them:

1. Upvoting

It is very unlikely there are very many Steemians who have "joined the cause" for any reason other than hearing that we can be paid to contribute to this social network. Yes!!

“Out there” you show approval of someone by a "like," a "heart," or whatever ... “In here” you show approval by sending them money! How? By a process called upvoting. Is it your money? No!! It is our Steem blockchain’s ”pool” money!

The “slice of the pie” you can send to others is determined by the amount of Steem Power (SP) in your account. The amount of it you choose to give to any one upvote is determined by the slider bar. The slider bar only appears, once your account has more than 500 SP in it.

With every upvote cast, the amount available for your next one is reduced. Temporarily! This mechanism is in place to prevent abuse of the pool. You will want to work on establishing a rhythm to your upvoting that takes this into account. In so doing, you will maximize the value of your upvotes.

You have two upvoting options:

• Manual: Wherever you go in Steem, below the content you are reading, there is a little green icon to click for upvoting. You can (and should) upvote the quality content you like - both posts and replies. Ideally, you will also invest the time to add value to either of these by writing something down about why …
• Auto: As you make progress, you will realize you’ve reached a point where you don’t have enough time to manually support everyone you may wish. You are encouraged, for those who have earned your consistent support, to set up these Steemian accounts for an “auto” upvote. There are a number of options for this service. Two free ones, to get you started, are @steemvoter and @steemauto.
• Note: Another auto voting option is to follow a “curation trail.” That is not covered in this introductory post.

2. Three "Coins"

Great, we get paid! How? With what? Unlike most blockchains, Steem has three different "coins:"

• Steem (STEEM): This is the primary “currency” of this blockchain, for which it is named. It can be purchased on a number of exchanges external to the Steem blockchain, e.g. Binance and Bittrex.

• Steem Power (SP): We obtain SP by “powering up” our STEEM. Inside of Steem, as it is not available to anyone on the “outside.” The amount of SP we hold, in turn, determines the amount of influence we have inside Steem’s “social network.”
  You will quickly find this is where you want to be, if you are at all interested in your Steem investment. As a partial incentive, SP earns a continuous small amount of “interest,” called “vesting,” i.e. the amount of SP you hold steadily increases, even if you do nothing but hold on to it …

• Steem Dollars (SBD): This is Steem’s “stable-value” currency designed to be pegged to $1 USD – the international “fiat” reserve currency. As with STEEM, it can be purchased on some external exchanges, but not on as many as STEEM.

Many more financial details can be found inside Steemit’s FAQ pages.

3. Reputation

As in the “real world, your reputation “in here” is very important to your long-term success. You will find the reputation score next to any Steem account’s name. All Steemians start off with a “rep” of 25.

Your reputation increases based on the upvotes of others., which emphasizes the Importance of Community covered in a following section. The impact of any one upvote on your “rep” is based a combination of how high the other account’s “rep” is, the amount of SP they have, and the size of their upvote, i.e. on the sliding scale from 0 to 100%. Our reputation scores are based on a log10 system, meaning the higher it goes, the more difficult it becomes to increase it further still.

Overall, our “rep” is designed to be an indicator of the value we are adding to the Steem blockchain and our influence on others to do the same.

4. Levels

We all want to measure progress. Particularly in the area of our finances. Right? On our Steem blockchain, this is done by common references to the somewhat whimsically named levels you see below:

_{[Thanks to my favorite "numbers lady," @paulag, for her assistance in producing these.]}

As we can see, these levels also utilize a log10-based system. And, as stated above, an important initial goal is to have >= 500 SP in your account. Once achieved, you are now a "minnow!" You then have access to the coveted upvote slider bar. This gives you more control over your upvoting.

5. Transactions & Wallet

OK, @roleerob, most blockchains have a wallet of some sort. What is the equivalent in Steem?

The Steemit interface provides users a wallet. Some highlights of the services provided in it:

• Up-to-the-minute balances of all 3 Steem “coins.”
• History of all your financial transactions.
• An internal market to conduct exchanges between SBD and STEEM.
• A transfer mechanism to send either STEEM or SBD to other Steem accounts.
• Interface to @blocktrade’s website to execute exchanges between all 3 Steem “coins” with other common “cryptos,” e.g. BTC, BTS, ETH, DASH, etc.

There are other wallet interfaces, which are not covered in this introductory post.

6. Authoring

Great! Having covered all the financial aspects of Steem, now what? Well, until you write something and post it, you are unlikely to get paid! Once you do, then you begin to accrue the “author rewards” you will see beginning to appear in your Steemit wallet.

Here is a brief introduction to some key authoring points:

• “Job 1” is to produce quality content. Of course, ”beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but there are minimum “standards” you will commonly see referenced in the Steemisphere – at least one picture / illustration and at least 200 words.
• Sourcing your content. You do not want to have even the slightest perception of plagiarism tied to your content – both for your sake, as well as for our Steem blockchain. Please be diligent about ensuring you have provided adequate sourcing / links to any externally referenced content in what you write.
• A well-designed post improves readability and the perception of your reader about its quality. Formatting options:
  1. Markdown – The “easy button” solution derived from its use on GitHub – the “center of the universe” for the open-source community. Use of it helps lower the ”tech-savvy” threshold everyone needs to get started.
  2. HTML – If the limitations of the “easy button” solution let you down, you can always embed HTML code directly into your content.
  3. SteemPress – For the ultimate in formatting, as I understand it, a WordPress-based plugin linked to the Steem blockchain. And tied to Steem accounts @steempress and @steempress-io. I have not yet had the time to fully explore the possibilities of this option, but I hope to in the near future.
• There are some additional key concepts found in the Adding Value section of this post below.

7. Curating

While writing great content in your posts, don’t stop there! You can also get paid by looking for and supporting the quality content in the posts of your fellow Steemians. You can and should, as much as your time permits, add value to these posts, by replying with your own content.

You will want to quickly decide how much time to devote to this, as it is an essential part of building a following. Which is vital to your long-term success …

Once you do, then you have made it possible for others to upvote the content of your replies, as well as your posts. You then begin to accrue the “curation rewards” you will also see appearing in your Steemit wallet.

8. Following

Somewhat self-explanatory, as most Steemians come here with experience in one or more other social networking platforms. Simply stated, when you follow another account the Steem blockchain then ensures that all future posts, from that account, end up in your feed. Your own "personalized" feed, if you will.

Lots of different "input" on Steem about this. What to do, what not to do, and why ... In this introductory post, I will not attempt to go over them in more depth.

9. Voting for Witnesses

While not necessary to getting started quickly, I recommend you make some time to learn about the vital role of the all-important Steem Witnesses. This post of @enginewitty does the best job I have yet read of explaining what a Witness is in everyday language.

You will also find out about an excellent source of detailed information on Witnesses in the Honorable Mentions section of my User's Guide post.

With this outline of the “fundamentals” down, you are hopefully excited, dear reader, to get going on interacting with the Steem blockchain. So, next we’ll look at my recommendation of the “big four” tools and apps you’ll want to become familiar with as quickly as your time permits, to “get off to a flying start!”

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

Getting Started on Your Steem “Toolbox”

Anywhere we go in the “digital universe,” we need someone’s creative genius applied to creating the needed interface(s) you and I will need for our browsers. Separately, I have written an entire User's Guide post on the topic of some of the Steem tools and apps available to you.

For your benefit, I would highly recommend you read that post and become familiar with them, at your earliest opportunity.

Very briefly here, though, I have listed what I would suggest to you as the indispensable "starter kit" tools and apps you will want to focus on getting into your ”toolbox” first:

1. Steemit

The original user interface to the Steem blockchain, built by Steemit Inc.'s core development team. For many of us, this interface is our first introduction to the Steemisphere.

2. Busy

A broad-based interface, similar to Steemit, Busy is simply better, for the most part.

3. Partiko

For your smartphone, in both Android and iOS native-language versions, lead developer @crypto.talk and his very talented @partiko team created and are steadily working on both maintaining and improving this essential app.

4. SteemWorld

As an engineer, I am a "numbers guy." Well ... I can't imagine what "stat" you think you might need on your Steem "journey" that is not "at your fingertips," with SteemWorld - the wonderful app created and maintained by one remarkably dedicated and talented Steemian, @steemchiller!

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OK, @roleerob, with the "fundamentals" covered and a good "starter set" of tools and apps up and running in my Steem "toolbox," now what?

You want to begin to apply them inside one or more Steem communities!

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

Vital Importance of Community

If you are like me, you may think of yourself more in the "lone wolf" category, than in the "community spirit" category. If so, while helpful to anyone getting started "in here," this section is particularly for you.

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We all have strengths and weaknesses. Thankfully, we don't all have the "same list!" You need the strengths of others, to help you along the path of your "journey." Equally true, they need yours! Well, how is that going to happen, without you working inside a community?

How can we measure the value of thoughtful and well-timed words of encouragement? What about opportunities to provide you with some missing information that will prove to be invaluable to you going forward?

Yes, you might get lucky just stumbling blindly along (like me) and seeing what happens. Joining a community early on, helps you with overcoming the ”Challenge” described at the beginning of my Chapter Two: My “Journey” and the Pay It Forward Community post. Much better than the “go it alone” approach you might be tempted to take.

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There is a lot to learn about the Steemisphere. It can seem overwhelmingly complicated, but you will grow to appreciate the ”rich diversity” of all that is happening inside of it. For your encouragement, this should represent confirmation to you of the good decision you made to get involved with the Steem blockchain.

You cannot, however, ”know it all” and should, therefore, quickly grow to appreciate the need for the well-intentioned help of others. Properly understood, it is a “win-win” for both you and them!

So … It is highly recommended that you be very intentional early on, to invest in finding at least one community to join, as quickly as you can.

Relatively new to the Steem blockchain myself, I am certain there are many communities inside Steem I know nothing about. I've never even heard of them yet. And they may well be better suited than any of the ones which follow, for you!

But ... In getting right on overcoming the ”Challenge”, you've gotta start somewhere right? To get you going then, here we go with a ”starter” list from my “journey” ...

General Interest and Support Communities:

• The Peace, Abundance, and Liberty community found at @minnowsupport. The largest community on the Steem blockchain and an excellent place to start!
  Note: You will find more detail about this wonderful community in the Honorable Mentions section of my [User's Guide](https://steemit.com/steem/@roleerob/user-s-guide-to-the-steemisphere-version-1-0) post.
• The Helpienaut community found at @helpie – a diverse group of Steemians supporting each other, led by @meno.
• The Pay It Forward Community found at @pifc – building the Steem blockchain by promoting the posts of others, led by @thedarkhorse.
• Steem Community found at @steemcommunity (support their Witness!), led by @abh12345 and @paulag.
  Some of their community-building initiatives:
1. The Curation & Engagement League of @abh12345 – tracks and encourages engagement.
2. Redfish Power-Up League of @paulag - helps track the progress of redfish on their way to becoming a dolphin.
3. The Minnow Power-Up League of @steemcommunity – helps track the progress of minnows through 4 levels on their way to becoming a dolphin.

Special Interest Communities:

These communities have a narrower, more specific focus.

• Curation-based communities:
1. The @curie community – The “gold standard” community focused on curating and supporting great content.
2. The Curation Collective communities found at @c-squared and @c-cubed (c-squared Exponential!).
• The @utopian-io community – Focused on supporting the open-source community that develops all of our apps!
• The @partiko community – Focused on supporting the essential smartphone app listed in the Steem “Toolbox” section above!
• The @steemitworldmap community – Focused on travelers and photographers linking posts to their global map!

Personal Focus Communities:

The ones into which I have currently chosen to invest most of my time.

• The Pay It Forward Community found at @pifc.
• Steem Community found at @steemcommunity.

As you consider the role of joining one or more communities in your path forward, please reflect on what I wrote in concluding my True Story: Encouragement on our Steem Blockchain post on the single biggest day of encouragement I’ve yet had on my own:

”So, as we can all see in finishing this story, from the earnest, just getting started ‘plankton,’ through the channeled individual efforts joined together in a ‘common cause’ community, all the way up to a dedicated, philanthropic ‘whale,’ everyone can contribute to the encouragement of someone.”

”You just never know where one click on an upvote, mention in a post or reply, entry into a community's latest inspired effort to help others (all of the above!) will lead!”

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I have documented my experience learning about communities in my Chapter Two: My “Journey” and the Pay It Forward Community post. After ”wandering around” for a while, there you will find my story on why I selected the Pay It Forward community to focus in on supporting ...

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Now that we properly understand the role of communities on our “journey,” we’ll finish this post coming back to the basics of why most of us are even “in here” – adding value to our investment in the Steem blockchain!

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

Adding Value to the Steem Blockchain

If you will permit me, dear reader, may I suggest to you that everything you do in here should be done with an eye to adding value to our Steem blockchain. It is a “win-win” thought process. Clearly you win, as the value of your account goes up!

Do not lose sight, however, that everyone else also wins! How? As we all do our best, the overall value of the Steem “cryptos” also goes up!!

As with much of this post, any of the following four key concepts could each be posts in their own right. For this introductory post, though, I will be covering them briefly, to improve your understanding of “what it takes,” to begin to be successful “right out of the gate” …

1. "Hard" Skills – Your Tech-Savvy Skill Set!

Inside the Steem blockchain, you are fundamentally creating content online. Primarily in writing, backed by illustrations, as much as you deem best. It is inescapable there is at least a minimum level technical skills you will want to have, as you begin working on establishing yourself on our Steem blockchain.

The following are some brief points about some aspects of doing this you will want to consider:

• Markdown and HTML: The “easy button” solution to writing online is to use the Markdown formatting made available by several of our Steem interfaces. If you are like me, though, you will grow frustrated by the limitations of Markdown and want to begin to educate yourself on inserting the HTML code you need to accomplish your objective. Our Steem interfaces support mixing them both.
  
  

• Links: A powerful aspect of building online content is the use of links. These provide real benefit to your readers. Here are three types you will likely be using with almost every post:

  1. Steemian links – You want to be sure and always refer to your fellow Steemians by their account name preceded by the “@” symbol, e.g. @roleerob. If you do, then you will see the link automatically appear in your text. This is then used to create notifications to them of you saying something about them in your post and / or reply.
  2. Source links – This is a very important part of writing quality content. Providing source links to both illustrations and content which is not your own. You will quickly find yourself in trouble “in here,” if you don’t.
  3. Additional info links – You will likely find lots of situations where you do not have another person’s content in your post, but you will still want to refer your reader to something they wrote. Or something elsewhere you wrote!
     
     

• Formatting for readability: Your post will be more visually appealing and perhaps present more of a professional appearance if you are thoughtful about the use of what is commonly referred to as “white space” in breaking it up. Here are a couple of types:

  1. Dividers – These can be simply created by typing “---” on a new row, as detailed in markdown help sites. If you’d prefer something more elaborate, like what you see in this post, there are plenty of examples around.
  2. Line breaks – Sometime all you need to open it up your text is a “hard” line break. In our Steem editors, one quick way to do this is enter “< br >” (minus spaces and “” …) anywhere you wish to place one. This HTML code will produce it.
     
     

• Illustrations: Hard to overstate the value of good illustrations and images. A minimum standard to be considered as having created a good content post is to have at least one. Unless your post is very short, it is generally a good idea to have more than one.
  
  Be careful about sourcing them properly. A safe bet is to use public domain sites or ones clearly referencing Creative Commons licensing allowing you to use it.
  
  Once you’ve found an image you like, right clicking on it, in most browsers (like the Brave browser I recommend) will give you a ”Copy image address” option which you can click on and then paste into your content. Along with sourcing details.
  
  [Note: “Tech tip” above provided by @viking-ventures, part of the @pifc community. 👍 She’s also a knowledgeable source of more info on … sourcing! Properly!! 😊]
  
  

• English and Native Language: Going the ”extra mile” of writing in two languages creates real value for your readers. Particularly if English is not your native language. Think of it as good “customer service” to your reading audience, as English is generally accepted as the “universal” language of the Steem blockchain. Among others, Google Chrome’s translate feature is a valuable (if somewhat unreliable at times …) tool. Cut and paste any link into the Chrome browser and right click to get the “translate” option.

2. "Soft" Skills – the Personal Touch!

These are essentially your “people” skills. You don’t want to lose sight of the fact there is a “real person” on the other side of everything you do here in this “digital universe.” This will be underscored for you as you begin establishing yourself as part of one or more communities.

Covering the ”fundamentals” of our interaction with others “in here,” in Steemit’s FAQ pages, you will find reference to this – the post of fellow Steemian @thecryptofiend on Steem Etiquette. It should be required reading for all of us!

In my Reflections: Adding "Value" to the Steem Blockchain - Chapter 1 post, I wrote this:

”… how do we measure the "weight" or the "value" of lending a helping hand and / or supplying words of encouragement to our fellow man? Particularly at critical points in time? For them, not us? I do not pretend to be wise enough to answer.”

”How about contributing to the overall well-being of our fellow man? In whatever way we may feel "led" or be inspired? In whatever form that may take, on any given day and in any given circumstance? Again, same answer. I do not pretend to be wise enough to know.’

So, while impossible to quantify the value of these aspects of human interaction, I believe we can all agree they are very important to our long-term success on the Steem blockchain. Just as it is so, in the “real world,” so it is “in here,” as we are ultimately interacting with “real people” …

3. Inescapable 4-Letter Word – Work!

You will find many posts in the Steemisphere which, in one way or the other, imply the Steem blockchain represents some sort of “get rich quick” opportunity. I would like to quickly dispel any notion you might have, dear reader, that this is true. It is not!

Just like what we have all experienced (hopefully) in the “real world,” to be successful “in here” takes a considerable amount of effort. It takes work! But, again like in the “real world,” hard work combined with perseverance through the inevitable challenges we face does ultimately pay off. You have to have faith and “keep on keepin’ on!” 👍

I cannot improve here on the ”Law of Sowing and Reaping” section of my Reflections: Adding "Value" to our Steem Blockchain - Chapter 2 post. I would encourage you to take the time to read it. The central focus of that post was work – the effort that must be put in to add value…

4. Establishing a Rhythm

If you haven’t already, you will quickly find there is a dynamic tension between the time you spend writing your own posts and the time you spend curating and supporting others who are also writing posts. To be successful long-term, you need to work on getting this balance right. Work on establishing a rhythm to how much of each you do and when.

I would like to suggest a “hard fact” which will help you in establishing this rhythm. Part of curating should be upvoting your fellow Steemians, just as you want them to upvote you. As discussed above, every time you upvote your VP (“voting power”) goes down. Opinions vary, but most would tell you to never let your VP get below 80. I try to seldom let mine get below 90.

The good news is that your VP will come back, but it takes time. SteemWorld is my favorite way to stay on top of when I can resume upvoting with full VP. In the meantime, you can work on your own posts! The beauty of using Busy is you will have your work there in draft form, until you click Post. Perhaps you can write one all in one sitting and that is great.

You should find it helpful to establish a rhythm between writing your post and curating the posts of others based on where you are with your VP.

5. Understanding "Perceived Value"

My final point in finishing this section covers what is somewhat difficult for us all. To help with realistic expectations, in my True Story: Encouragement on our Steem Blockchain post, I wrote this about what I think is very important for you to understand:

”It starts with appreciating what can be simply stated as "perceived value." From there, thinking about what we perceive to be of value vs. what others perceive as having value. If your primary purpose in contributing content on Steem is financial reward, then we all need to be clear the "free market" will ultimately decide what that will be. For us ... No matter what we may think ...”

So … Even after putting in all of the effort discussed above, we still have no guarantees of success. If you don’t already, you will come to appreciate what this represents.

All of this said, though, I would encourage you to focus on writing about what interests you, what you are passionate about! That will generally “come through” in your content creation, as you steadily improve your skills.

This, in turn, will improve your chances of finding the success we all desire – reaching and connecting with an ever-growing list of followers, who show their appreciation for your effort by upvoting it! 👍

_{Image Source}

I have written and will continue to write, as inspired, about the essential importance of adding value to our Steem blockchain. To date, here are my posts:

• Reflections: Adding "Value" to the Steem Blockchain - Chapter 1: Inspired by a “Chapter One” (of my Steem “journey” …) Discord exchange with @discordiant, it covers the “marathon race” nature of our investment of time and effort into the Steem blockchain. And the present value of the ROI (return on investment) on it, as well as the future value of the “greater good” …
• Reflections: Adding "Value" to our Steem Blockchain - Chapter 2: Inspired by the American Labor Day holiday, it focuses on the work involved to be successful. While working to create it, I was inspired to write the supporting Reflections: My Life as a Hay Farmer post, which won a coveted Curie Community “exceptional content” award and is my highest pay-out post!

_{Introduction | Your Security | Fundamentals | Steem “Toolbox”
Importance of Community | Adding Value | Closing}

Closing

You have now read through "lessons learned" in what I now refer to as "Chapter One," of the story of my Steem "journey." In this post, based on a combination of my experience in life "out there" and what I have learned "in here," I have put everything I have to offer into helping you get off to a successful start on your own Steem "journey."

All input is welcome and much appreciated. I would particularly like to hear from those who have been helped by this post and by those who have constructive comments about how to make future versions of it better.

Until "next time," all the best to you for a better tomorrow, as we all work together to build our Steem Community! 👍 😊

Respectfully,

Steemian @roleerob

Posted using Busy.org and “immutably enshrined in the blockchain” on Sunday, 28 October 2018!

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P.S. There is a very intentional link between “Version 1.0” in the title and “Chapter 1” of my Steem “journey.” There will almost certainly be a Version 2.0 of this post, in the future. I am continually learning and Steem is continually improving. As an example of both, in “Chapter 2,” I have been introduced to @steempeak’s impressive new SteemPeak interface – which will be an almost certain replacement for Busy …

Source: Glowtext.com

Interested to read more of my Steemisphere "series"? Great! Here you go:

• User's Guide to the Steemisphere, Version 1.0

Interested to know more about why I would invest my time in this post? Helping build our Steem Community? The following post tells you my story:

• Chapter Two: My “Journey” and the Pay It Forward Community

_{This account is protected by @dustsweeper}

Author’s Note:

From conception, this post was designed to be interlinked to my User's Guide to the Steemisphere, Version 1.0 post you see referenced above. Not just linked at the “post-level” either, but at the “section-level.” This requires using HTML code to create bookmarks.

Sadly, I have now learned Steemit Inc. does not support the HTML code needed. Specifically, the ID attribute. I have no idea why. 👎

While very frustrating to find this out, only after all the work I have put into both of these posts, I cannot change it. I can only move forward and do the best I can, now knowing this restriction is in place.

Life goes on …