I'm not a professional writer.

No, in fact, I haven't been a professional ANYTHING for the better part of a decade. I'm just another lost soul on the internet, another displaced world traveler who, from time to time, feels the financial requirements of "real life" start to weigh down on my permanent holiday, despite my strong distaste for that kind of lifestyle. In fact, I just recently finished a 1 year contract at a REAL JOB. Albeit, it was unique, and it was in a place few others ever get to see, but, it was still a job. The first one in five years. I make myself a sick just thinking about it.

Prior to signing up for the contract, I was holing up on a remote island in Malaysia, trying to save money by living in a simple shack on the beach with my girlfriend. One day, I made a google search for "how to make money on the internet". For anyone who has ever thought about trying this: don't. Unless, of course, you want to crank out surveys for a slave driving monkey, see every supplement ad ever created and possibly be asked to become a cam-girl.

After some re-working of the original search query, I discovered "Steemit" in its infancy. It was cutting edge, with just enough mysterious geekery to make it seem viable, I liked the idea. I knew next to nothing about "crypto" but, I decided to jump on the train to untold wealth anyway. Oddly enough,I gained traction fairly quickly, as the community hadn't started the dismal abomination of circlejerking itself out of existence yet, and I became hooked.

But, as with all things that one does not understand, I quickly lost my grasp on the forward-momentum, and my $1000 articles were replaced with $10 articles. Still, people read my work, commented and even followed me. I learned a lot from other aspiring writers, and even saw a man tie a bee to a leash. It had its merits, and the interaction and small amounts of money made me feel something you don't get to feel often as a travel bum:

I felt validated.

Unfortunately, real life came knocking on my door with an opportunity to good to refuse for myself and my girlfriend. A remote eco-facility in a naturally wonderful part of the world thought that my particular concoction of dis-jointed skills would be a good fit. I abandoned my dreams of digital nomadism, and settled into a real job. Really, a brick and mortar job is a fairly standard way of life,, so I won't go into the details here. At some point, my standard paycheck needed to pay some standard bills back home. So once again, a badly formed Google search lead me to a Twitter account for a new money transfer service. Their most recent tweet read:

"Canadian writers wanted"

I thought hard about it. Having no experience, no background in the field and no spare time, it seemed pointless. That's when I remembered Steemit. If people read my work there, perhaps it was worth something.

I copied some links to my blog, composed an email and sent it off, fingers crossed that I would at least receive validation that my work was worthy of consideration from someone who I could verify knew what they were talking about.

Then it happened.

They LOVED my work, commissioned me for a series about traveling abroad and even dug into my own personal story for inspiration for a future campaign. All because of my Steemit post. One $33 magic crypto money blog post earned me over $1000 worth of commissioned copywriting, and gave me a foot in the door for an industry I could have only dreamed of working in.

That's it. Thats my story about how Steemit helped get me a job, and proof that it could help you too. The Internet is a strange place, full of more opportunities than we can fathom, and Steemit has proven to me two-fold that the world truly is at my fingertips.

Good luck to all!