Hey grail. You seem like an interesting individual, welcome to steemit!
If you stick with it, I think you'll probably be glad you did. And yeah.. If you look at it more just about.. Learning and being a part of a community I think you'll do better and have the better attitude, a lot come for the money and leave when it doesn't happen fast enough.. But.. If you really take your time and genuinely interact with others and network and make good friends, I think just about anyone can do well on here. However mindset is really important! And.. Interacting with people. In my opinion anyways! I'm sure some do well basically just spamming and never responding to people cause they have huge audiences.. But for most people, I think it's smart to pay attention to comments and try to respond to all of the legit ones.

On that note there's a lot of bots and fake profiles and it's a mess sometimes to figure out, there's also scammers and attempts to steal your account and info, so.. Be wary and you should prolly spend some time learning about ways to protect your account at some point.

In addition to that, I would suggest taking part in some of the contests on here, they are a great way to earn extra steem and make new friends and just to have some fun as well. I suggest looking into #newbiegames and #newbieresteemday and other similar communities! Communities are really important on here as I mentioned above, this is social media.. So.. Those who are good at being social tend to do well! Anyways.. I think that's enough for now, good luck on here and if you have any more questions please feel free to ask! I don't know everything, but I might be able to help or at least find someone who can. :)