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In the walking world I have a one-person business consultancy and train management and personnel for improved results. Not the results of the company, the results of the people as more often than not, the two are quite closely aligned when viewed in the context of a career.

***<h3>Valuable work, valuable life</h3>***

In general, the most satisfied people and valuable employees have something in common, a lot of what they do is hidden from sight. What I mean by this is that they add value through several unrelated streams and often their colleagues do not see the full picture of what they are doing, not that they actually hide it.

This has pros and cons to it as these employees are often rewarded and pushed higher through the companies but for the colleagues next to them, they do not see why they were not chosen instead as 'they do the same amount of work'. This means that there can be resentments held by colleagues who feel that there is special preference being given.

The other problem with this is that management can often miss these employees also as often their complete set of value streams lays out of sight of any one manager. It takes a special kind of manager to recognise the values of these talents and find a way to give them the space to widen their streams and both enjoy the freedom and increase added values.

***<h3>Narrow faces</h3>***

At Steemit, there is a similar situation going on as there are so many various offsite interactions and streams that if one only looks at what happens in any one stream, it may appear that not much is getting done. 

For example, if you only read a person's blog you are only likely to see one side of them. If you only read their comments, you will probably see another and if you talk to them on Discord or steemit.chat you will likely get another view.

The problem is that for many, what is an indicator of success at Steemit is the size of the voting on posts but that can be affected by many factors that go unseen by those who may only read that particular post or even the entire blog roll.

***<h3>Over stream, under stream</h3>***

There may be a nonsense post of a photo that gets a significant return but without knowing what other work the poster is involved with judging that particular post independently is potentially very uncharitable. Similarly, someone else may put a lot of work into their content and get high rewards on content that one may say is undeserving of it but, they may not see the other roles that person plays.

There are many ways to support Steemit and content creation isn't the only form but, not all pay. This means that some people only focus on content creation while others post less, or lower quality but spend their time onboarding, helping newbies in chat, discussing potential changes, flagging trash, submitting to @utopian-io, developing apps, building new interfaces, trading advice and a whole range of other aspects.

I have been helped by many people in all of these ways both directly and indirectly even if I am not interested in their content, even if I think that some of their individual posts are undeserving of rewards. They have helped me better understand so many aspects of Steemit, Steem, trading and a whole range of areas that if only read their content, I would miss.

***<h3>Increasing Flows</h3>***

Of course, Steemit is first and foremost driven by the content here and that should of course take focus first. Many newbies I have helped in chat are worrying about curation rewards, claiming income, getting engagement yet they haven't yet read the FAQs, do not understand the difference between SBD and Steem and have spent no time on developing content.

When I came in to the platform, I had no idea of any of this at all and spent a great deal of time doing what *I thought* was valuable. If I had carried in the same attitudes I train my clients in, I would have spent less time knowing and more time exploring to see how the land lays and which way streams can flow.

I think that before one can start extending into new streams and creating multiple revenue flows, one should spend some time learning how the platform works at a basic level and seeing how they can add value in their core river. From this point, it is fairly easy and organic to start branching out.

***<h3>The lay of the land</h3>***

Today, I <a href="https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@tarazkp/new-user-contracts">submitted a UI tweak to Utopia</a> and got it approved by a mod (pretty cool), I helped a couple newbies understand a few things about Steemit workings and some ideas for content, I upvoted a user for original content who last week I flagged heavily for plagiarism, wrote an episode of a fiction series, discussed onboarding issues, and spoke about cryptocurrency trading with seasoned professionals. 

I am not saying that my idea for the UI was great, nor that I am the best source for content or platform advice, my upvote is not overly valuable, my writing is not going to win a Pulitzer for literature, my views for onboarding are not commonly held and my ability to add value to a crypto trading discussion is very limited indeed. 

But, how many other casual users of another 'social' platform can say that they have the ability to add some value across such a diverse set of topics and still have a chance to get rewarded in various ways for their input?

There are many facets to Steemit and a wide range of roles that act within and off of the system. It is narrow-minded to only look at one surface and assume one knows all that there is. Dig deeper, you may discover that you have been mistaken about many things. I know I was.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]