IF THIS ISN'T TENACITY, THEN WHAT IS?

Two years ago I met a friend of mine who was doing very well financially and I begged her to show me a way to make money. I knew whatever she was doing would have a level of legitimacy, and so she asked me what I could do. I told her I could write as well as other things I listed and so she introduced me to hive. But before she did that she gave me two topics to write on for her and promised to pay me half of whatever the post made. I didn't know how it worked but since she said money was involved I was willing to do it because I was short on bills in school. The two posts I wrote generated $50 and $55 respectively and I got 5,000 naira for both which by the way is nothing compared to how much that was made.

She explained that she only gets $10 from the entire 55 dollars and half would be $5. Then she used a subsidized bank rate to exchange the money for me. I was happy I got something and wanted to continue no matter how small. I wrote a couple of posts for her after that until later on she decided it was time I started my own blog. I imagined that if she could get $50 - $55 from my writing, I could get more. I took her offer of my own blog and got on board with hive. My first post generated $24 and I was ecstatic. Although my phone wasn't good at that time I was determined to continue writing on hive.

But then I discovered I wasn't making enough money as I did in my first post. I asked her why, and all she told me was to keep on writing. It didn't make sense because she didn't tell me anything more than that, so I decided if I was going to make it, I needed to discover the secrets of getting curations on hive. I decided to take time to read other people's posts and was getting some light. I stumbled into hive learners community and from there started to know a lot of things about hive that I never knew. Later on, she (My on-border) added me to a WhatsApp group alongside 20 other people she had onboarded, and from what I saw, none of them were doing well on hive except her, yet we didn't know how she was doing it.

At one point I got frustrated because it was as though I was working blindly, but each time I remember I wrote a post that made her get $50 and $55. I was motivated to find out the difference between those posts and the ones I was now writing. I started paying attention to what it meant to write quality content, but after some months I finally figured out the engagement strategy. Each time I discovered new secrets about hive, I would go and tell those in the WhatsApp group we created, but only one of them did listen to me. Finally, the votes started coming in little by little until my hive account was hacked alongside the hive account of my onboarder and that of the girl who listened to me (who was Even doing way better than me because she was a better writer than I was.)

At this point for me, my onboarder and the lady that was following me all our work had been wasted. The lady that was following me was so devastated about everything that she gave up on hive because all her efforts had been wasted. My hive account was cleared, but I knew giving up wasn't an option. So I made new friends and was able to get my account back (which wasn't easy). I learned a lot of things from then to date, but if there's one thing I would say has gotten me this far, it is tenacity. I don't know how I do it, but I'm not one to give up on what I believe in especially when I've seen a spark that it can work. All I need is that spark, and I would put in my life to make it work.

This doesn't just apply to hive, even in my career. It took me 3 years plus of consistency to become the graphic and web designer I am currently. And it took me over 5 years of consistency in social media management to get my first major clients that were ready to pay me big. In all these processes came different challenges, from not knowing anything about what I wanted to do to not being able to afford the full course and having to settle for the scraps from YouTube and learn from other professionals by observation. I've also on different occasions let myself be used just so I could learn on the job. On several occasions I have had to call friends to help me in those small contracts I told the client I could do and give my friends 80% of my profit for the help they rendered. But in all these, I've grown with tenacity and become better at what I do.

ALL PICTURES ARE MINE