Their Stories, Their Motivations, and Why They Are a Step Ahead: Meet Medium Top Writer and DeSo Community Builder Mike Goldberg
What day is it, today?
Today is the day, the series continues!
Series? You’re asking? Yes, it’s already the 5th article on writers on Web 3 in the blog. So, if you haven’t read about the other writers in Web 3.0 — 2 poets and 2 storytellers — it might make sense to do so. It will for sure help to become familiar with the Decentralized Social (DeSo)blockchain. Because, next to portraying writers, I explain little by little what DeSo is.
Meeting Mike: Learn, Grow, and Share
Now, LFG (let’s f*cking go!) and meet Medium writer Mike Goldberg
Mike is a 2X Top Writer on Medium, a real estate investor, and an occasional prankster.
Next to learning karate with his wife and two children, he is currently writing his first book. A little more about that later.
Mike is one of the OGs of DeSo with an account age of 276 days.
Initially, his friend, Marketing legend Craig Clemens told him about the decentralized social media blockchain.
Craig has demonstrated a keen sense of trends in the past. Mike missed out on a bunch of them due to a lack of understanding and — as he says — his own ignorance.
Craig Clemens told me about it back in March. He said “Get on this right now.“
I’ve known Craig for like 20 years now. He’s as close a friend to me as you can get. Those times when I didn’t listen to him because I didn’t understand, I’ve regretted more than words can say.
He told me about internet marketing back in like 2003. I didn’t get it, figured it wouldn’t be sustainable.
In 2013 he encouraged me to invest in BitCoin. I didn’t get it, and secretly hoped for it to crash because I didn’t want to be wrong about it.
Luckily, he realized that continuing to ignore his friend will not help him in any way. He learned from his mistake, decided to work on understanding what doesn’t come to him naturally, and jumped right into DeSo.
Well, that’s what most people do. They don’t understand something, so they mock it and hope for it to fail. That’s the exact opposite of what you should do. If you’re consistently wrong about things you don’t understand, maybe you should try to understand them. Or find out why people with a track record of getting these things right understand them.
This time, I’m not going to let my own ignorance cause me to make the same mistakes.
20 Years of Writing
Mike’s writing journey started 20 years ago.
In the beginning, he would write for himself on LiveJournal. It was at a time when Mike had the urge to write to make sense of where he was and where he was going. The stories of his life pushed their way out.
Writing, he hoped, would enable him to track events, put them together, and eventually use them one day.
This was at a time when Social Media was non-existent. Neither MySpace, nor Facebook, nor Twitter were out there. But when Social Media became a thing Mike noticed that his contributions were a little different compared to others.
While most people were sharing memes or sharing their two cents about the news of the day, I’d get into these big thoughts, go down these rabbit holes. I didn’t have an agenda, I wasn’t selling anything, or manipulating people to align with a political movement or anything. I was just… thinking out loud. But trying to do it in a way for other people to connect.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turns out, that’s the secret sauce of a good writer. Connection.
Today, Mike writes on Medium, Quora, LinkedIn, and recently also Substack.
His success reflects in being a top writer on Medium. Plus, his articles were printed by a Magazine. The latter, he attributes to Ayla Croft who he met through Deso.
A Purpose-Driven Community
Its community is the main reason for Mike to be active and write on the DeSo blockchain.
I absolutely love the community on DESO. That’s it. That’s reason enough for me.
He feels a close connection to everyone. The engagement, the positive feedback, the appreciation of his work make him feel at home. His voice is heard as he provides value to others. DeSo is the place where he seems to have the most positive impact.
I have a voice, and I feel that people find value in my voice there. It seems like I can do the most good there, you know?
Like, here we are building this community. How do we build a community? Who will be the voices of reason? Who will offer value to others?
This community is built so heavily on trust. We have to trust people we invest in are the real deal, and not some scam artist simply setting up a rug pull. How can you tell the difference?
That’s what I want to be here for.
Clearly, he is someone who has been around for most of the time of DeSo’s existence. He’s been engaged with the community almost from day one. Other creators, builders, writers, or developers feel like close friends he’s having a fun house party with.
It’s also been surprising to him how engaged everyone is — and how this new environment made others who already have had their great share of success and popularity in life a little more equal.
When Carole Baskin followed me, when Pamela Anderson gave me diamonds…
I mean, that doesn’t really happen on Twitter. Not to this degree anyway. It really feels like we are all in the same boat, no matter who or what you are. It’s a great opportunity to confront one’s imposter syndrome!
Jeffery David and I talk pretty regularly — he called me out of nowhere one day and we became friends. He’s the music producer and manager of the band Echosmith. He’s written more hits than you can imagine. He’s creating his own record label on the blockchain, and DeSo is the path to do it.
DeSo As Source of Inspiration for His Book
At the same time, he’s using his experiences on DeSo to write his book “The Art of Becoming”. The goal of the book is to explore how we overcome ourselves and our limiting thought processes. You know, all of the things that are typically in the way of getting what we really want to achieve in life.
Mike sees DeSo as a perfect use case. One that happens in real-time.
It’s a matter of learning how to recognize opportunities, how do we look at those opportunities and evaluate them? And then how do we find the courage to go for it?
Whatever happens, we are learning. If it succeeds (and I do believe “When”), what did we do right? It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t luck. We made decisions. How did we come to those decisions?
If it fails? What mistakes did we make? What can we learn from those mistakes?
Big Potential for Writers That Come to Play the Long Game
Even though Mike’s mission on DeSo is bigger than earning money, he is very confident that writers will be able to earn a good amount in the future.
Why in the future? At the moment, he sees the blockchain as being in the very early stages. The structures are not fully set up for writers yet. But from where he stands he clearly sees the potential.
If we build this to fulfill its potential, it’s inevitable. Look, Nicolas Cole is on DESO. Tim Denning is on DESO. They know. And others will follow. Guaranteed.
The time to be here is now.
Looking at Mike’s stats, he’s definitely built a solid foundation for the future:
- 276 days on the platform
- 1784 Diamonds received, at a current value of USD 261.57
- Creator coin price at USD 285.73 with 58 coin holders
The long game is Mike’s game. You see that in the way he talks as well as in the way he behaves on the platform. When asking him about the number of diamonds he’s making with his writing, he is clearly not seeing it as a particularly interesting part of his journey on DeSo.
Depends on the post and how meaningful it is to people. Anywhere from 2 to 20 diamonds, if I had to guess.
It’s hard to measure what’s meaningful. One of my most diamonded posts was a picture of my favorite coffee mug. Who knew?
I didn’t post that to get diamonds. I just was responding to something @meeks said in a post.
Shake Your Fingers to Get Ready to Ride the Wave of the Future
Nevertheless, the view of the future of DeSo through Mike’s eyes is as bright as a diamond.
Yes, work needs to be done. The community needs to be built and grown. And the structures need to be set up for writers to find a cozy home for their thoughts.
I’m very confident. The potential is definitely there, and we all see it. It will be a matter of creating the structure to do so (easy), and building the community to the point where it is widely adopted (the challenge). But we are definitely heading there, and I’m feeling pretty confident we’ll get there.
And even if there will be obstacles on the way, being early is a huge advantage for everyone who made it to DeSo in time.
Similar to Mike’s coffee mug that received an unexpected amount of attention you can never know exactly what the tipping point will be. Soon, a huge wave of everyone who’s tired of classic Social Media might break on DeSo beach. And then, that foundation that writers like Mike are already laying on DeSo will be their springboard to broaden reach much faster.
We all know how it goes:
If you’re new somewhere you automatically orient towards those that have a following. It’s a social shortcut. We trust someone who managed to build relationships with a number of people. Because if there are so many already who find value in a person’s ideas why wouldn’t we, too?
Through being early, providing meaningful writing, and making friends on DeSo, Mike is and will continue to be one of those people.
There’s no guarantees for anything, I need to make that clear. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But I also know there’s a huge upside for early adopters, and that’s enough for me to want to take that chance. That, and the incredible community we’ve built so far!
There is still a chance for everyone, no matter where you are right now, to write your story on DeSo like Mike.
Today, the future is only a few clicks away.
One of Mike’s Favorite Pieces to Share
Getting on Board
When you arrive, follow my profile freedomxx and say hi!