My coming to this point on Hive (in life) was never something I had imagined. It is not even close to my imagination but instead beat all imagination of what I want to achieve as I grow in life.

Hive changed my life in so many ways, helped me grow musically, helped me connect more socially and even gave me respect among my siblings, peers and family members. Now, let me share with you how hive has helped me do all this.

MY JOURNEY TO HIVE (steem)

It started 2018 when I discoverd Hive by a friend @k-banti who was very active and was pesting me to join. I declined coming in because I never believed in earning money online. Anything that involves making money online, I see them as scam.

I watch my friend @k-banti struggle for votes, he was very active and that time, earning a $4 dollar vote to him, was like me earning a $40 vote now on my post. He would rejoice like he won a lottery. He ended buying himself a smartphone worth $150 from the earning he had accumulated, while me was just there who could not afford $4 from anywhere. I only depended on the allowances I get from my father. If my father doesn't send anything, I am left with nothing.

I thought of my life, I thought that I had nothing. I saw it with evidence that earning money online was real and not a scam. I met with @k-banti and asked him, how can I join this platform and he assisted me in creating account. If I can remember vividly, It takes about 2 days or more to get your account ready after submitting your preferred username.

Before I chose this username @starstrings01, I thought really had on what name to use since I saw this platform as a blogging platform alone. Later on, k-banti told me I could use my stage name which was then starstrings because I played the guitar.

I thought of it then decided to use it but I had no idea on how to upload videos. I know there was the likes of dtube for uploading videos in the platform but I had no gadget except and my guitar that's all. I had no effect pedal, no sound card, a faulty Personal Computer (PC), a phone which had a bad battery and a bad camera. I really had nothing to create a good blog content not to even say a video content.

I was never good at writing and content creation. In fact, part of me hated anything language, so it was hard for me. Since I saw writing was not my thing and I can not make video content, I decided to move to buying steem with the little money I had on me. Then I got devasted when the value began to drop still it was worth nearly nothing compared to how much I bought it. The amount of steem I bought then would be about 20-30 steem, I can not remember the value. I ended up leaving the blockchain since it never worked for me.

MY COME BACK TO HIVE

After I left in the year 2018, I came back last year 2020 during corona period. @k-banti reached out to me and told me about the steem fork to Hive and said everything was better. He persuaded me to give it a try and I thought, why not since I had nothing doing and was at home. Then, I wrote this introductory post here. it was a wack introductory post, it shows I didn't know much on writing an introductory post.

One of the biggest help I had in getting accustomed to hive was from @theterminal. I learnt a lot from engaging with other newbies, I learnt about tags and things newbies need to know when coming in. I got to know that I need to engage more to gain visibility on Hive, which I did as if my life depends on it.

I started getting support from people as I began to engage and the first few support I had was from @steevc, @minnowsupport, @josediccus. They were the ones that kept me going from their votes on my posts.

I began to add more quality to my content, and started getting votes from @appreciator. I was so happy seeing my post earning up $10. The truth is my first $10 post reward was from his vote.

After some while, it got to a point that I focused more on onboarding people into Hive than blogging. So I created @hivepack account which I used to onboard people to Hive. That account alone had onboarded 80 people to hive. Before @roomservice made the referring possible on hiveonboard.com, I had onboarded over 30 people to hive. That makes at least a 100 people I had told about Hive and also created an account.

Then later, I noticed many of them leave as soon as they make their introductory post or the first post after their introductory post. This really pained me a lot that I decided to take a break in bringing people to Hive and make a new approach in helping people discover their way in Hive.

BIRTH OF THE NEWBIES INITIATIVE

The Newbies Initiative was born when I started helping people find their way on Hive. I got the idea when I saw a post from @victoriabsb about taking care of 5 newbies or so, and it went in line with what I wanted to do.

The initiative started last year September and has grown to gain support from @aliento. I never thought the initiative would have gone this far and has really been helpful to newbies who participated. You can follow @newbies-hive to check out the initiative.

HOW HIVE CHANGED MY LIFE

I know this is the part you are wanting to read and I would definitely share it with you. The truth is that if they remove Hive from my life, there is practically nothing left. My life presently is better than I imagined it to be and I would tell why I say so?

When I started Hive, I was using an Infinix device that was very slow in terms of navigation and processing. The camera was not even something to mention about. As I engaged and built on the blockchain, I was able to change my phone into a Xiaomi Redmi device.

After 9 months that I got this device, it was stolen and with the help/support from @whatamidoing, @k-banti, @projectmamabg, @cwow2 and others that I didn't mention (apologies), I was able to buy an iPhone XR after 4days which my phone was stolen.

This is something I appreciate Hive for; the friends I have made across different countries.

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As I said earlier, before I started blogging and engaging on Hive, I had no gadget or instrument for making contents, but now with my earnings from Hive, I have gotten to buy a gasoline generator, a guitar, an effect pedal, a combo speaker, a sound card, a studio mic, a studio headphones, a ring light and phone stand, and lastly a touchscreen laptop.

I was able to buy all these gadgets without the help of my parents and if I am to calculate the money spent on getting all these gadgets, it would be almost $2000 if not more. With these gadgets I have been able to make better video contents of good quality.

If you are not in Nigeria, $2000 might not be a big deal to you but to many of us it is. Why is that so? Because most of the salaries paid are not even up to a $100 per month. While I was having my IT in the year 2019, I was paid $20 per month. In that $20, I would remove money for feeding, and data subscription.

Now Imagine someone that earns $20 per month be given $2000. Definitely, he would be very happy and grateful from his heart. In fact, he would pray for you; that is how it is for me.

Sincerely, I would never have gotten these gadgets or any time soon. I would not be living a better life if not for Hive. I have gone back to school, and most of the fees I need to pay in school, I pay them without having to disturb my parents for money.

Last week, I was able to support my cousin who needed money to buy a new phone with $40 from my Hive account. I don’t have any job I am doing, so there is no way I can afford $40 if not from my Hive account and these is not the only thing I have done for my siblings and family members.

Now, I can basically afford all my needs with my activities on Hive. A big fact is that, what I earn on Hive a week is more than what most Nigerians earn from working 7am to 7pm everyday in a month; Not to talk about my earnings in a month.

Moreover, being able to onboard my friends and support them (special thanks to ocd incubation program) has given me more respect from them. I love the fact I get to support them and motivate them to be active often both in engagement and writing.

Lastly, if you onboard people on Hive, first focus on a few number of people you can easily reach out to before you onboard more than you can support because if you do more, there would be many who would end up leaving (loose motivation) before you reach out to them; as they say, quality is better than quantity.

This is my entry to My Hive Experience Contest by @livinguktaiwan. If you want to participate, click here to visit the contest post

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