I have now been on Steemit.com for 6 years and 5 month and it still continues to be the best platform to share, make friends and earn rewards.
when I first started on here I spent the first 2 months mostly just learning about how everything worked.
Now I know some of you maybe thinking.. " wow that's an awfully long time!" But understand that back in the day there wasn't much information on how the blockchain functioned or how any of it was suppose to be used.
And so without much guidance plus being relatively new to all this crypto blockchain techy stuff it made for a very slow start.

If your new "now" it's so much easier to learn a lot quickly, you can simply head over to the FAQ section.
Yeah I know it sounds simple maybe even boring but from my time and experience here I think giving that a good reading can now get you a pretty good understanding about how much of this works.
Or you can also check out a post by the Steemit Team here Guide For Newcomers it's pretty accurate and will explain a lot of it.

Once I figured out how most of this blockchain technology fitted together and the enormous opportunity Steem offers I just knew I wanted to be part of this project.

This is basically social media after all "it's suppose to be fun" but to be honest I think this will always be a thing here where people arrive expecting charity and getting rich quick.
Yet I don't think it really matters because hopefully there will always be someone here like myself who is looking for something more. And what I mean by this is something more stable and consistent "like a real business" rather than making a million dollars and vanishing.

I'm a big believer in having goals, as I think this way it gives you something to look forward to, something to be proud of, and something to measure, so during my very early stages on Steemit it quickly became a personal goal of mine that I wanted to reach and become a Steem powered Dolphin. This means holding around 5000 SP to support the Steem currency, yourself and others.

At first it seemed like a reasonable but still very tough long term commitment and goal, please remember that back in the day this was much more difficult to obtain and also valuable as Steem was worth around $4.00!
I always knew it would take a lot of time to reach dolphin.. haha but honestly I never thought it would of taken the time that it did, as many things chopped and changed over time on the Steem blockchain from when I first started.

Some changes helped me on this quest while others didn't but I think one of the saddest was the whales no longer "or atleast rarely voting" on content.
This was because firstly they didn't feel people were locking-away enough of their SteemPower to preserve it's value which is very understandable once you know how most of this works but hey it gives us the chance to have their thrown away Steem POWER at a cheaper rate.

Lol but you know what "hey whales" you could of voted on me I never have powered down, not once!

It might be shocking to some but it's true, since day 1 for over 6 years now not a single powerdown as been prompted, your Steem is safe here and it's almost like burning it.

Anyway moving on and getting to the point of this post, it's to announce that there is a new Nonuple Dolphin in the block, yes that's correct I have now finally reached the 45000 Steem-Power mark!

Ridiculous Silly Dolphin Hat

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Images By @simonjay

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Yea I had no idea that such a hat even existed until a friend of mine came to me with this silly hat as a gift.

She told me that I often spoke "about this weird being a dolphin thing" and so she thought of me when she saw this crazy hat. Apparently the store was having a clear out, and so selling them dirt cheap, as they were soon to be dumped because nobody was buying these fish hats!?

I mean I can't think of why not?... lol

Anyway I already had a few people before ask me if I was going to power down any extra SP earned once I reached this point? And the answer is of course... NO.

I have always wanted to be a Dolphin and now a Nonuple Dolphin, so it's completely out of the question when it comes to powering down. I wanted to get here because it gives me the opportunity to give back more to those who have helped me reach this far and to of course those who have supported me in the past or any "long time" followers.

But not only that, getting this far gives me more SP to play with and protect, so when I do find any posts or comments that I enjoy and upvote hopefully this time "unlike back in the days before reaching Dolphin" the author will receive a bit more than 1 pence lol.
With more SP a vote can add more value to your created content, I haven't even gone into all the benefits on how keeping Steem within the system can add value but the point is I cant do it without your support, so please continue supporting the strength of this account as I have no interest in powering down from this Nonuple Dolphin "the 45k mark".

Anyway of course the next question I got asked was "What will I do next considering I have now reached one of my bigger long time Steemit goals?"

For a long time now I thought that for this dolphin to have it in mind to make it's way towards Orca was a bit of a extreme goal to have. I was sure at the time I would of got demotivated somewhere in-between what was still a very long road.
But thinking about it more I firstly had to remember and realise that we had already crossed the half way mark to reaching Orca which was when we initially reached 25k on Nov 7th 2021.
Also I'm now reminded and "still can't believe" that we are finished with the dolphin ranks, so gang I'm thinking, look we have done this 9 times now, surely we can do the equivalent of another Dolphin rank one last time for Orca!!?

I believe it can be done.

"pssst! what about whale?"

HaHa hold your horses! No! As for "Whale" I feel it's impossible for me personally, unless the Steem price did dramatically fall down again to a really low price for heck knows what reason, or if there was a sudden huge amount of support each and everyday from whales "which I don't think I will ever see that miracle happen for me".
So heck no, I don't really think towards "Whale Status" even if I do reach Orca, Whale is a completely different ball game to reach and I won't be thinking about it.

And so it is done? The journey's end?

The end? No the journey does not end here as my new quest now begins, my new quest will be on to becoming Orca which means reaching 50000-SP! At least this I feel is still possible for me to achieve at some point in the future.

I normally set a goal for when I think I might reach the next level but I previously already set a goal when I had 40k SP for Orca sometime in 2023 and so we will stick with that.

The target for Orca would be 2023 before the end of July, while this continues to basically be impossible to reach when calculating the average gains, it as already been done before, 8 times actually which as been amazing!

How you say, well by getting involved, for example we managed to reach our goal at the beginning of November the other year rather then December, this was of course thanks to the "Steemit Diary Game, Season 1 and Season 2" which I took part in.
But there was also another great initiative which I had been hinting at as I mentioned how often people were simply just powering down all their Diary Game rewards leaving the value of Steem flat.
And so the Club5050 was initiated which means users could get rewarded for powering up most of their earnings and so a big thank you to @steemcurator02, @steemcurator01 and @steemitblog who continue to provide fun ways for users to engage or earn rewards. They still continue to suppurt those on Steemit like for example they have been suppurting various communities grow, check out Booming Support Communities Previous to that was also the Steemit Academy opportunity which was really successful, probably more so than what most of us expected. And recently like I already mentioned the Steemit Team are encouraging curation teams to vote outside communities which I think was very much needed.

I also wanted to thank any whales who have upvoted me along the way and helping me get this far. Of course as you probably already know I continue buying a bit of Steem here and there when possible to also support this initiative forward. To get the road to 50k to a flying start the beneficiaries of this post are set to %100 Steem Power up, so show some support here with your best upvotes, this will also encourage me to continue on buying even more into Steem. Vote more and I will buy more. I also had a lot of support from all the smaller fish in the sea so a big thank you to all of those who initially voted as that's helped me also reach Nonuple Dolphin!

So guys hop-on-aboard the new Nonuple Dolphin powered ship and join me on my quest for Orca power, and heck if you stick around long enough I'm sure you will also get rewarded a long the way.

To get us all into a real flying start any %100 up-vote's or SBI's is very much appreciated, again beneficiaries of this post are set for %100 all of the earned Steem to be powered UP, I will also as mentioned be buying some more STEEM, this is to celebrate and help push us and Steem forwards on this new goal.

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February 2023 Month Results For #club5050 !!

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Secretly win a %70 Upvote with over 33000 SP From Me
You can win the Upvote by simply doing ALL 3 steps below..

1. Upvote the post at %100
2. Write on the comments box "Done"
3. And finally answer the question- Will Steem go up or down within the next 22 hours?
   To enter you must have no less than 15 SP, there will only be "one winner" any edited post, complainers or trouble makers are automatically disqualified, hurry you have 22 hours for placing your valid entry!

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Our Ship Is Now Octuple Dolphin Powered 🏆

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Source: giphy.com

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So if you like this page I need you guys to do me 2 easy things.

1.First please upvote this page.
2.And secondly don't forget to follow me below.

Also since votes don't always = $ and if you want to see more you can send me Steem Power Tips to @simonjay to help support me, not only me but also support the value of the STEEM currency as I have not powered-down a single time in 6 whole years.

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[Follow Me Here @simonjay