Charles Siaw as @positivesteem is our motivational blogger, poet at heart, economist by training, father of an autistic son, die hard optimist, and is sharing his positive outlook with us on Steem! Since August 2016 when Charles joined Steem, he has made 175 blog posts and over 5,000 comments especially in responding to readers on his posts making following him ideal for having an ongoing conversation!

Would you join me in reading the posts Charles has written as @positivesteem because I have been enjoying reading many the last few days?

Here are a few of the posts I have enjoyed the most with some of my favorite quotes which I discovered thanks to the recommendation of @michellecarter in upvotable 37 and the upvote from @ace108 earning which was rewarded with $30 SBD in tips!

#1

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The Value Of My Post Is Not Determined By Its Earnings at https://steemit.com/popcontest/@positivesteem/the-value-of-my-post-is-not-determined-by-its-earnings. This post was so good that I wanted to immediately get to know Charles better and started reading a lot more of his posts! For writing posts, when we aim for amazing posts like this we often attract readers into our every day posts.

Favorite Quotes

When we write a post at Steemit, naturally we would hope that the post be well received and earn as much as possible. A lot of times, we also felt that the earnings of our post do not commensurate with the time and effort that we have invested to come up with the quality post. This can be very discouraging especially when we are tempted to compare our earnings with that of other posts which in our opinion may not be as good as ours but somehow managed to attract much higher earnings. Comparing earnings is a futile exercise, those who have higher earnings normally have put in a lot of hard work to build their standing, branding and reputation in this community.

RE: Exactly and no one is immune to the power of comparison to help with feeling like what we do is not good enough!

I am a veteran minnow, having joined Steemit slightly more than 1 year ago. As at 26 September, the earnings for my last 7 posts have been between a low of $0.97 to a high of $9.14 with an average earning of $3.23 per post. Of course I wished that I could earn more but that is the reality that I have to accept for now. Instead of comparing my earnings with others, I have to question myself, which areas do I need to improve. If you take a look at my profile, you will see that I have been posting almost on a daily basis since the second week of September. So despite the lackluster earnings, what is it that motivates me to write daily?

RE: Consistent earnings are awesome and I enjoy seeing a focus on the motivation which is above earnings!

My main motivation stems from my belief that the value of my post is not determined by its earnings. Do I think that my post deserve higher earnings? Of course I do. However the validation of whether my post is good or not does not come from its earnings. A more accurate measurement of the value or worth of my post is its impact on my readers. I am a motivational blogger and my vision here is to spread positivity at Steemit one post at a time. Therefore if more users are inspired or motivated by my posts, then the more valuable my posts are.

RE: This is how I think also. The more good I do, the more valuable my posts are regardless of the rewards!

Your next question will be “How do I gauge the impact that my post has on its readers? This impact can be gauged to some extend from the comments that readers have for my posts. These comments will reveal the response of the readers towards my posts be it positive or negative. The comments that I received for my posts are also served as a motivation for me to write daily.

RE: Same here. The comments here gave me the courage to give up filming new video classes and switch to doing Steem full time!

The rest of the post shares some of @positivesteem's favorite comments readers have made and provides an awesome look at the power of simply showing up and trying to be helpful here every day!

#2

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Lessons From My Autistic Son at https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@positivesteem/lessons-from-my-autistic-son is an awesome introduce yourself post by Charles where I got to know him better!

Favorite Quotes

Hello everybody, my name is Charles Siaw and I am from Kuching, Sarawak. #introduceyourself I am not sure how many of you have heard about Kuching, it's located in the island of Borneo. It’s summer all year round here, the only difference is there is a dry and wet season.

RE: I like that Charles shares his real name here along with consistent pictures to be himself because we are naturally programmed to make our deepest connections with other people!

One of the highlights of my life was attending the Anthony Robbins’ programme “Unleash The Power Within” in Singapore.

RE: I loved reading Awaken The Giant Within a few months ago and am amazed how much most of us have in common when we get to know each other!

#3

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Hello, I Am Positivesteem, The Motivational Blogger And This Is My Calling Card at https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@positivesteem/hello-i-am-positivesteem-the-motivational-blogger-and-this-is-my-calling-card has an awesome picture of the Steemit business card Charles made and shares his journey in being a father.

Today is my first anniversary at Steemit and I am taking this opportunity to re-introduce my myself. This may seem a bit odd but I am doing this for two reasons. My first introduction was too brief. Secondly, during my one year at Steemit, I have grown as a person and so I am introducing to some extend a new me.

RE: Deeper introductions especially the longer we are here I think make Steem a better place for us all!

The most important lesson that I have learned is that we have no control over what life throws at us. But we all have a choice on how we choose to respond to the situation that life has put us. We can moan and groan, feel sorry ourselves and complain that life is not fair. Or can we pick ourselves and ask how we can help ourselves and others who are in the same situation. That to me is one of the most powerful lesson that I have learnt. I need to appreciate the silver lining in every cloud and this is my journey to positivity. So for those of you who are facing tough times now, know that you can act to make your life better.

RE: Amen!

When I first joined Steemit one year ago, I choose the username @positivesteem as I had a positive outlook towards life. However I wasn’t too sure what I should write about. I wrote some poems, my experiences with my autistic son and my experiences at Steemit. I looked at what topics are trending and to some extend tried to imitate some of the more popular authors here. Upon reflection, I discovered that I enjoyed writing positive posts, posts that can inspire and motivate others and posts that are able to give hope to others. That defines who I am as a person and thus this has become my identity, branding and much more than that my calling. Therefore I am the motivational blogger and my mission here is to spread positivity one post at a time. I sincerely hope that my posts will able to inspire and motivate others. In that way, I will have achieve to some extend my mission.

RE: Lovely to see such a clear mission statement for why post here?

#4

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I Need Your Help. Please Vote for My Nomination For @jerrybanfield Upvotable Contest at https://steemit.com/steemit/@positivesteem/i-need-your-help-please-vote-for-my-nomination-for-jerrybanfield-upvotable-contest is the first post I have seen by an author nominated in reaching out for help with votes on the comments!

@michellecarter has nominated my post for Jerry Banfield Upvotable Contest, because in her own words "you really deserve a break and a boost for all the good you are doing!" Please cast your vote here

RE: Thank you very much for sharing the nomination with your readers and asking for help! I believe this request helped get Michelle's comment voted up to the top!

I love seeing requests for help because we all need to feel safe asking for what we need AND feeling like we can answer honestly without pressure to give only one answer.

#5

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God Is Love (An Original Poem) at https://steemit.com/popcontest/@positivesteem/god-is-love-an-original-poem.

God is love
That’s why He gives us
The free choice in choosing
Whether we want to love Him back

God is love
That’s why He desires us to love others
So that we can be a channel of His love
For love is an expression of Him

RE: Have you read A Course In Miracles? I am nearly done with the workbook now!

#6

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First Steemit Meetup In Kuching And Other Firsts For Me at https://steemit.com/teammalaysia/@positivesteem/first-steemit-meetup-in-kuching-and-other-firsts-for-me shows the transition Charles made from author into being an investor after making his first Steem purchase directly from another user in his local currency which is the Malaysian ringgit.

This week, there were a number of firsts for me. It is also the first time that I bought Steem. Although the amount is small (only 100 steem), this represent a paradigm shift for me. Since I have been spending so much time and effort at Steemit, I might as well invest in Steem, build up my Steem Power and increase my influence. This is also a refection of my trust and believe in the potential of Steemit. I strongly believe that in the long run, the price of Steem will go up and up. So now my role at Steemit has expanded from writer and curator to investor as well. The fact that this is a peer to peer transaction also makes it to my knowledge the first time there is direct transaction without going through exchanges between two Malaysian Steemians. @awesomianist transferred his Steem directly to my Steemit wallet and I just banked in the agreed sum into his bank account. By doing this, we not only save transaction fees but also time as well. I do hope that some one will create a platform where peer to peer transaction can take place without the need to go through exchanges and incurring transaction fees.

RE: So excited to see a direct transfer locally of Steem in Malaysia and the transition Charles made into also buying some Steem to be an investor as well as earning rewards as an author! Charles is very much an investor today as we can see at his wallet now at https://steemit.com/@positivesteem/transfers.

If we want the price of Steem higher, authors like Charles making purchases and powering up rewards is exactly what we need! Charles I salute you for being today one of the top 10% of investors in Steem Power with over 1,176 Steem powered up as seen at https://steemwhales.com/?p=136&s=power&hl=positivesteem out of over 380,000 Steem accounts!

#6

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Steemit Success: Celebrating My 700 Followers Milestone, My In-Depth Sharing on the Who, Why, How, Where And When Of Followers And A Giveaway of 10SBD For The Most Voted Comments at https://steemit.com/steemit/@positivesteem/steemit-success-celebrating-my-700-followers-milestone-my-in-depth-sharing-on-the-who-why-how-where-and-when-of-followers-and-a

Therefore the quality of the followers is much more important than the numbers of followers.

RE: SO TRUE!

Firstly, I want active followers which means users who are active on Steemit who are more likely to read my post and vote for me. If most of my followers are inactive, then it is unlikely you can get a lot of votes.

Secondly, if possible I prefer followers who are interested and like my content, what I write should resonates with them. In this case, the chances of them voting for, commenting on and resteeming my post will increase exponentially.

Thirdly, it would be most ideal if my followers can become my fans. In this case, the line becomes blurred on whether they vote for me because they like my content or just because they like me. A case in point is a poor quality posts with lots of likes.

RE: this took me SO long to learn in my business online. We do not need to please everyone or even the majority. Do a great for the people that love us and want to read everything we create. Serve those followers every day and realize that more will come with great service to those that exist. More is also not better because more followers makes maintaining relationships with individual followers more challenging.

How do I get followers? This is the million dollar question, how the heck do I get people to follow me. From my own personal experience and from my personal observation of successful bloggers here, the number one method of getting followers is, the more my contribution to the Steemit platform, the more followers I can attract. The more I can help others, the more followers I can get. Steemians can help other users in a variety of ways such as sharing tips with newbies, creating logos, developing apps or tools for Steemit, sharing tips on how to make money from cryptocurrency and the list goes on. An excellent example of contribution is the SteemJ.com by @jerrybanfield which is currently trending. Therefore it is critical for you to ask yourself, how can you help other users, how can you enhance their user experience, how you can encourage or motivate others. Only you will know what type of skills set you possess and how you can use it to help other users.

RE: Thank you very much for mentioning me here which I just saw today! As we can see, often building followers is not at all a fast process. Sometimes it might take a follower months to notice something that is awesome. In this case, it took me 3 months to notice the compliment here. What is amazing is the combined weight of all of what we do together when we consistently show up in a place like Steemit where we are rewarded for our service with readers and earnings which snowball over time even if starting from $0 and 0 views. Imagine how all of this will look in a year or give years or ten years!

Who Is Next?

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Thank you very much for discovering @positivesteem here with me! Would you help me find the next author to feature in upvotable 39 because working together feels great in discovering authors we love following and inspiring the writers we want most to keep writing for us? I prefer authors matching most of these criteria below!

• Authentic introduction and ongoing sharing including real first and last name along with ongoing pictures of self, family, friends, and life.
• Post earnings which appear to be lower than the expected output given the effort, consistency, and quality.
• New posts daily or a few times a week for at least a month.
• See upvotable 36 and upvotable 37 for examples.

Here are a few authors I am considering in future upvotables based on previous recommendations!

1. @rok-sivante recommended by @healthiswealth
2. @vangelov recommended by @ecoinstant
3. @steemed-open and @sean-king who I have been following for months and have consistently inspired me to open my mind!
4. @lexiconical who met with me in person at Florida's first Steemit meetup and is collaborating with me on posts about the witnesses!
5. @eveuncovered I love her posts and maybe I will do some in the same style :)

Would you please comment below with the author you think I should feature next because I go forward by reading the highest voted comments first and then scrolling below? If you pick the winner, I will give you a $20 SBD tip along with $10 for the top upvoter (assuming it is a person) on the comment!

Love,
Jerry Banfield

Shared on

• Facebook page with 2,248,979 likes.
• Twitter to 105,304 followers.

PS: This post today is a part of my service as a full time witness for Steem! Witness votes are the most important votes we make on Steem because one vote for a witness lasts indefinitely! Would you please make a vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because when we make our votes, we feel in control of our future together? Thank you to the 1173 accounts voting for me as a witness, the 258M VESTS assigned from users trusting me to make all witness votes by setting me as proxy, and @followbtcnews for making these .gif images!

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