I made it to 41! That was a struggle! I know that each level is exponentially harder than the one before, but it seems like this one took me forever. I like to watch Steemnow.com to see the decimal points, and I was stuck at 40.997 for a while. I know it's only going to get harder from here, and I'm up to the challenge.
I'm at 41, and I did it without bots, without paying for upvotes, and without investing a ton of money. I did invest about $50-$75 after trying for a couple of weeks with little success. I'm not sure how much it helped. My main strategy is to provide thoughtful, quality posts, on a variety of topics that interest me, hoping that others engage with my content. It seems to be working so far.
I post a few times per week, depending on my schedule, my motivation, and what's going on in my life at that time. I really hope my followers are getting something out of my content, and are motivated to interact through upvotes and comments. I try to spend some time each day viewing my feed, and voting on content I like to see.
From here it's only up! Upvote that is.
Thanks for viewing, and I hope you follow me for more!