Mitch From Maui, Stranded In Mexico

Aloha, I’m Mitch.



I'm originally from Battle Creek, Michigan, where Kellogg's cereal was founded.

I'm an adventurous graphic designer focused on branding and t-shirt campaigns. I moved to the beautiful and peaceful island of Maui, Hawai'i three years ago with a vision to build the Euphoric headquarters, to work more closely with my marketing mentor and Steemit blogger @silentpower, on various branding and website projects, and to surf of coarse!



What I Do

I love art and I love business. I design graphics for my own brands, my own t-shirts, other brands, and joint venture shirt campaigns. My in-person meetings are usually at the beach near my place in Maui. I make most of my money via Paypal from my design clients, usually small and medium sized businesses run by "new age" entrepreneurs who I meet on Facebook, which I consult with and design graphics for their brand and marketing strategy.



Another source of my income is from Teespring, where I design and sell niche based t-shirts with facebook ads. Some of the shirts you may have seen us launch are the "ugly christmas sweater" longsleeve shirts which we made for several different niches. That was the first time I ever made more than $10,000 in one month selling a product online.



Right now, I'm taking a break from selling t-shirts to niches to focus my attention on designing t-shirts for entrepreneurs who I genuinely vibe with, and preferably they already have a big list of followers and customers, but no t-shirts available in their online store yet. So, I make a t-shirt available for their audience to buy, and make sure their website is setup properly to sell the shirt. I'm stoked about my latest shirt with Subtle Energy; the shirt is energetically coded to help you and those around you to feel good when you wear it.

Other than business, I'm an avid adrenaline junkie and go on adventures whenever I can. I skateboard, surf, snowboard, wakeboard, cliff jump, go camping and travel as much as possible.



Life In Mexico

Currently, I'm in Mexico, traveling and exploring. I've been here for two and a half months and it's been an incredible experience. What I love most here are the tiny home-style kitchens off the side of the streets run by Grandmothers and Mothers who cook delicious traditional meals for under $3 USD or 55 pesos! My favorite Mexican dish so far is the molé rojo, which is a traditional recipe in Mexico that consists of a unique combination of ingredients such as cacao, chiles, coffee, among others, and is usually mixed with chicken and served with tortillas.  Not only the food is great here, most of the people are very kind and family oriented. I've met several awesome friends during my travels here including the states of Mexico, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, San Luis, Chiapas and Oaxaca. Almost every state has pre-historic Aztec and Mayan sites! I encourage you to come experience Mexico for yourself. My friends who have always lived in Mexico showed me an Aztec ritual called the temazcal, which is basically a natural sweat lodge that looks like an igloo built from clay. Temazcal means 'house of heat'. It's a profound experience being in there for over an hour, in the dark, with others, with the hot rocks in the center, chanting and singing together, for the intention of detoxifying the body, mind, and soul.



My Start In Cryptocurrency 

I've known about Bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies for over five years, but I've STILL never gotten into it until right now on Steemit! I feel like an absolute dumbass for waiting so long, but Steemit has caught my attention and I'm ready to ride the wave of creativity, expression and freedom here. I first heard about Bitcoin while I was in the Dominican Republic with the Global Information Network, through another GIN member and one of my mentors, Eli Rook, who is an author, freedom enthusiast, and is quite the visionary when it comes to entrepreneurism and taking full advantage of valuable opportunities as they arise; or BEFORE they arise. You can check out Eli's best selling book, The Big Fucking Secret ,to learn more about this genius and his perspective of how to successfully live life on Earth. Although I heard about Bitcoin through Eli and his mastermind more than five years ago, I still haven't put any time or energy into earning Bitcoin. Since then, over the past five years, I've watched Bitcoin's value rise tremendously. I've listened to friends tell me about their successes using Bitcoin, and I've learned a bit about the wallets, other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, BitClub, etc. and I just wasn't ready. Now, I'm finally ready to go down the rabbit hole.



Why I'm Starting With Steemit

One of my mentors started using Bitcoin and getting into several of the different cryptocurrencies and began mining with a few of them. Last week, he shared a couple posts on facebook that linked to a platform I had never seen before, Steemit! The first post he shared with me was his Presidential Campaign and the second post being his atrociously embarrassing male makeup tutorial. I started to see how much cryptocurrency he was bringing in with his posts on this platform. At that point, I was inspired to the core, I knew if he could post about that, I could have some fun writing and creating content about my life, knowledge, wisdom and creations with the intention to inspire. Steemit is the fun, creative and lucrative way to earn cryptocurrency that I've been looking for. Steemit is shifting the way the social media game is played, allowing us to get away from the traditional monetary system as quickly as possible.



Stranded In Mexico

As I'm writing this, I have zero dollars and zero pesos and zero bitcoin. You're probably wondering how and why I don't have any money right now, although I've got legitimate clients I'm designing for and bringing in shirt sales for on their websites. The reason is; I've been on so many adventures recently here in Mexico, I used all of my savings. Also, I tried accepting Bitcoin through my personal website and Paypal didn't recognize the BitPay payment gateway that I was using. Consequently, Paypal is holding one of my payments for thirty days. I intended on using that payment for my flight back to Maui on July 15 and for my rent once I arrive back to Maui. Summarizing this story, I'm stranded in Mexico until the Paypal payment comes through, or I earn enough money through different sources, such as earning Steem. I'm not putting ALL the blame on Paypal and the way the government-run monetary system works, because I take responsibility for the actions I make and I know I put myself in this situation, and I can and will get myself out of it.



The Dream

Despite being "stranded" in Mexico, I'm still living my dream; exploring the world, co-creating with friends, expanding my network, having fun doing what I love, pushing forward with my creations and I'm ultra excited about being part of this revolutionary community and platform. I'm also excited about utilizing my graphic design skills to provide value to the Steemit community; so don't hesitate to contact me if you'd like to setup a deal with me to design graphic elements that will upgrade your Steemit posts, comments, branding, or anything you think will be a game-changer. I'm up for it!

Mahalos

Mahalos to everybody using Steemit right now (that's thank you in Hawai'ian).. especially to the creators of Steemit, @ned and @dantheman. Ned Scott and Daniel Larimer have provided a place where we can experience and add to the new paradigm of social media and cryptocurrency. I'm stoked!

Have an exquisite day and feel free to come mastermind and surf with me in Maui. Aloha.

"Success is being happy on the way to your dream.. and you're always on the way to your dream." ~ @mitchmahoney