I only briefly want to touch on this as I've already gone over it in several posts. So let's recap:
To get your post on the Trending page:
Sounds great, right? The cool thing is that you can even do this several days in a row to keep your page up there and rack up even more fake internet money.
That said, expect to pay around $100 SBD per day that you promote the post in order to have enough juice to pump it. If you want to pump each post for 3 days (the maximum allowable before @GrumpyCat rapes you with a downvote), then that's $300 SBD/week.
$300 SBD = $600 USD
$600 USD x 4 posts = $2400 per week
$2400 isn't bad to stay on the front page of a "major" social networking platform indefinitely.
What's that? You don't have $2400? What are you some kind of fucking loser or something?
Listen, I understand if you live in India and make like $2/day. I was just in Malaysia and saw junkies sleeping on the street. I don't think they've ever even watched porn on the internet, let alone used Steemit. THOSE guys don't have a fucking chance, sadly.
But if you're living in a Western country where you have the opportunity to go out and make big boy money, what the fuck is your problem? Shit, even if all you have is an iPhone, you have enough tech to run a scalable business. What's your excuse?
Oh wah wah I have a job and six kids and my mama has a bum leg... fuck your mama. You trying to make some money or you trying to make some excuses?
Nobody cares about your excuses, my brothers. I don't care WHAT you want to do in life - if you make the decision RIGHT NOW that you're going to do it, then you can. And don't come at me with that, "Well ACKSHULLY you CAN'T be an NBA player if you're not a seven foot tall black guy." Fuck off.
Anyway, I forgot my point... alright. So... what was my point again? Shit. Something about STEEM... oh right. Yeah so you need money.
Actually, what you REALLY should do is save like $10k and move to Thailand. Assuming you're single with no responsibilities like a mortgage or kids, that is. And if you have kids, I don't know what to tell you. You're fucked. Unless you're a woman. Then just get married. And if you're married... I dunno, just get divorced and take half his shit. THEN move to Thailand.
Fuck... I'm getting off topic again. Anyway, the point of this article is that despite their "wants," most people are too lazy to be champions.
Most people don't have $2400, either. And they DEFINITELY don't have it to spend on fake internet money. And if they do, it's as an "investment." Not so a bunch of upvote-hunting losers can skim their posts to leave low-effort comments, too dim to create anything of value.
Shit, most people don't even have $240. And hey, I wasn't always a baller who opts for the $6 shawarma instead of the $4 one. I used to be a loser too.
A few years ago I was living in LA, my hometown. Shitty place unless you're making $10k/month, and even then it's nothing to write home about. Yeah sure if you're from... I dunno.. Iowa or something where the weather sucks then yeah, Cali seems pretty good. And LA does have a lot of beautiful women.
But the traffic is terrible, rent is expensive, and it's actually very boring and overhyped.
Anyway, there I was, living in LA and being a loser. I was even a fucking UBER driver of all things. And not even one of the cool ones that have bottled water and candy in the backseat of their Lexus, the ones who will drive-thru Jack In The Box for you and let you use their aux cable. Fuck that. I was bitter, like a smelly taxi cab driver who says shit like, "In my cahntry, I was a doc-tehr!"
Driving for Uber in LA is terrible. You don't make any money and the traffic literally makes you want to kill yourself. My only salvation was my daily hour and fifteen minute yoga class at the Equinox in West LA. It was only there that my body and mind were at peace with the world long for enough for me to forget that I was a 33 year old NEET, driving for Uber and living on hardboiled eggs and oatmeal.
My day literally looked like this:
Yoga was literally the best part of my day. Any yoga addicts reading this will understand. Any yoga addicts who take classes at Equinox West LA with Maeve REALLY understand.
So many beautiful 40+ MILFS....
Jesus Christ this guy just walked in and he smells so fucking bad... Oh my god bro, wash your feet.
Anyway, lots of hotties over there. All doing yoga. And they loved me. I spent as much time as possible at that beautiful place. Because I knew that when I left, I'd have to go back into the real world - driving around a bunch of people who were rich enough to pay for Ubers and go to trendy bars and taco stands.
Meanwhile, I was so fucking broke and hated driving for Uber so much, that I tried to figure out the absolute minimum amount of money I had to make every month in order to survive. It was something like this:
Rent: $1500/month
Equinox: $220/month
Everything else: As little as possible
I was eating hardboiled eggs and oatmeal literally for every meal. I would buy Frank's Red Hot Sauce and eat it with everything, just so the food I was eating would have some flavor. My parents, who live in La Quinta, would come down and visit once a month to stay with me. While officially under the auspices of "wanting to get out of the desert," I think they just wanted to spoil me with real human food while allowing me to preserve my dignity.
So here I was, 33 years old, no friends, a depressed Uber-driving fuckboy with no prospects, motivation or goals. Sure I had ideas, things I wanted to do. I'd work on them for an hour or two and then give up. You know how it is.
I had given up on making anything out of my life. While I hated my day-to-day experience, I loved doing yoga at Equinox. I loved my yoga teachers and my friends at the gym. I didn't want to give that up, and if driving for Uber and eating 20 hardboiled eggs a day was the price I had to pay, then so be it.
I lived like this for over a year.
One upside to driving for Uber was that I had lots of time to listen to audio books while I was driving around. Since I had no money, I pirated everything from various torrent sites. I'd just go hit up the Pirate Bay, filter by audiobooks and download everything I could fit on my phone.
Listened to some great books on there. I must have listened to all of Nassim Taleb's books at least 20 times each while playing Dota.
After exhausting all the books I found interesting, one day I found myself stuck in traffic without anything to listen to. I'd already listened to all the good stuff, so I figured I'd give the last book on my phone a try: "Be Obsessed Or Be Average," by Grant Cardone.
I pressed play and immediately wanted to throw my phone out the window. I hated this guy's voice. He was too high energy for me, like one of those used car salesmen you'd see on TV. It was terrible. I turned it off after 30 seconds.
Time passed and once again I found myself in the car with nothing to listen to. I figured I'd give ol' Grant another try, but this time skipped the introduction.
The first chapter was actually tolerable. I could tell he was of these self-help guys who tries to get you hyped about life. The book starts with him telling his own story. I won't ruin it for you in case you ever decide to read it some day, but suffice to say he was also once a loser like you - and me - and he pulled himself out of it through sheer determination.
He had an engaging delivery so I kept listening. Then I heard the part that hooked me.
I don't remember the exact phrasing, but he said something like:
"Getting what you want takes a tremendous amount of work. If you're not obsessed with making it happen, it never will. You have to get so hyped that you work 15 hour days 7 days a week until it happens. And then when it happens, you need to upgrade your goal into something else that gets you hyped so you don't stagnate."
Something like that. He explains it much better than I can. It was so rare to hear someone say that obsession is a good thing, I was just kind of caught off guard. Especially coming from my 6-day a week yoga habit where they preached things like "balance" and "being happy with yourself the way you are."
I kept listening, drinking every drop of Kool Aid from the Grant Cardone Goblet Of Hype. Halfway through listening to the book I knew I had to make a change - and I knew exactly what I was going to do: I was moving back to Australia.
Now, that's a story for another time, and definitely too long for a single Steemit post. But the point is that listening to that book was what made me realize that there was no easy way to get what I wanted. If I wanted to make the big bucks, have a truly interesting life, and become an "important person," then I had to become obsessed with the outcome.
I set off on my mission to Australia two months later. While I was there, I made more money than I'd ever made in my life. I was smart enough to save, and that's why I can play around on this stupid platform. That's why I spend two hours typing up 2700 words of bullshit from a hostel in Phuket, sitting next to Mr. Stinky Feet, and pay for a bunch of internet strangers to read it for no reason other than my own vanity.
As someone who changes his city/country often, I can't emphasize the importance of a change in scenery for refreshing your motivation. In Hebrew we say, "meshane makom, meshane mazal."
Change your place, change your luck.
And it's true. You go to a new place, meet people who don't know you're a loser, and you get a chance to start fresh. You can invent whatever persona you want for yourself and people don't know any better, so they just believe you. Stay in your hometown and all your "friends" and family members will snatch your ass right back down to their level once they see you trying to escape your hell.
You look at successful people today and you say, "wow, they're so lucky." But you don't see the years of shit they had to eat to get to where they are.
If you saw me in the Israeli army being depressed, doing mindless tasks and questioning my life choices, would you have been jealous?
If you saw me in the middle of the mall trying to sell hair straighteners to random girls, would you have said, "Wow he's so lucky!"
If you saw me stuck in LA traffic for 6 hours a day, driving for Uber, would you have wanted to trade places with me?
Fuck no.
Yet all of those situations lead me to where I am today - working from my computer in a tropical place, making fake internet money from companies that print fake internet money. Learning Muay Thai from dudes who don't speak English. Spending 3 hours a day working on my tan. Making friends from all over the world. Banging 22 year old Argentinian girls on their gap year. Making a name for myself in the crypto space while STILL managing to remain authentic - NOT being pigeonholed into writing sterile, sexless articles for CCN.
There's no way to predict when you'll have your breakout moment. You just gotta do the work, but it's hard when you've already built yourself a little cocoon of Netflix and your loser friends. One thing I'm thankful for is my ability to abandon any situation, location, friend or even family member if they try to pop my balloon (just wish I could get rid of the girlfriends faster).
Life is too short for that shit. Some day we're all gonna feed the worms anyway, so you might as well make the most of it. Maybe you hurt your mommy's feelings or you have to dump your fat girlfriend. Boo hoo. Trust me, ripping off the band-aid is worth it. It hurts at first, but there's nothing like being free. You really can control your own destiny. You just have to do the work.
Three months ago I didn't even know what an ICO was. Now I have companies begging me to work with them, begging me to take their money. Why? Because I'm a blockchain expert? I don't even fucking understand how Bitcoin works.
But I've probably sent 3000 emails in the past three months, reaching out to people who do. I've written 100 articles on Steemit about crypto. I make it seem like I'm at least borderline intelligent enough to handle their business affairs properly.
Did I start like this? No way man. Two years ago I was an Uber-driving NEET, single-handedly keeping the hardboiled egg industry alive. Four months ago I was selling hair straighteners to a bunch of Arabs in one of the worst neighborhoods in Australia. Three months ago I was dropshipping bunny-shaped iPhone cases from AliExpress. Two months ago I started getting clients.
But you know what? Every day I wake up and my #1 priority is making enough money so I can stay in Thailand. I'm grateful for my past experiences, but I have no desire to go back to selling hair straighteners in kiosks. I've had a taste of the good life, of having so much money that I can buy 100 high karma Reddit accounts without thinking about it. Nonchalantly dropping a few $k into STEEM just to get attention from a bunch of randos on Steemit. Buying the $6 shawarma with extra chicken like I'm fucking Bill Gates or something.
And besides, I'm gonna be 35 this year. What's the famous quote? Lemme find it...
