How the Greek crisis made me (almost) rich

Introduction

Hey steemians!

I'm @CryptoGreek77 and i am from... wait for it.... Greece!
I'm 40 y.o. with a lovely wife and 2 awesome kids (5+2 y.o.).

I'll use the introduceyourself post to tell you how the financial crisis that destroyed my country made me change my life for the better!

I hope it inspires anyone who is unhappy with his/her present situation..

1994-2009: The super lucky phase of my life

I won't bother you with the usual boring stuff about my childhood etc.
It was ok, so nothing to mention except that i was very good at playing the guitar!

guitar

My real life begins in 1994 when i left home to study Civil Engineering (i'm also good with math, numbers, statistics etc.).
My best friends and I formed a rock band and started playing in every possible gig around.
We were good, so eventually some studio guy recommended us and we signed for a big record company.
Needless to say, we became well known and had 3-4 amazing years of touring and making money from gigs, while studying 😃 (i'm not bragging, i'm explaining how i got my startup money)

Fast forward, in 2004 we got bored and quit the band as it was never our dream to be full time musicians. We just had fun as college students. My postgraduate studies and military obligations were over, so I returned to my home town and became a civil engineer.

After working for 2 years at a major local construction company, i decided to start my own small construction company as Greece was in a bubble and money was falling from the sky.
Everybody and their grandma were building or renovating houses!
Easy money for us construction engineers 😉
Until 2010...

2010-2012: The dark years

Boom! Enter crisis, IMF, recession etc. I think most of you have heard what happened to Greece so i won't bother you with that either...
Just keep in mind that banks almost got bankrupt, they stopped funding people and businesses, so the whole economy got frozen. Nobody spent money on anything except food and other necessary stuff.
Who would build or renovate a house? Everybody (even civil servants) were scared of losing their jobs, and too many people did lose them.

So we, construction guys, were the first to be hit by the crisis. Our income fell to almost zero, and most of us were practically unemployed but with office expenses running!

depression

However, after the first shock, i pulled myself together and thought "ok, construction is dead for the next years, i have to do something".
I saw it as an opportunity to quit a job i didn't enjoy (except for the bubble period) and do something i really like and matches my skills.
So i started researching other options.

2013-Now: The new era. There, i did it!

After considering many options, i decided to be a forex trader!

Why? Because i am good with numbers, calm under pressure, good with computers, I like working alone, I hate arguing with clients and partners, and the most important: i still had some spare capital to start with.

trading

So i started reading as many trading books as i could, watched tens of tutorials and practiced with demo and a small amount real account.

Oddly, i was successful from the first month and never had a negative one. Begginer's luck? Probably.. Skills? I don't know, but somehow i managed to be successful. Not enough earnings to feed a family yet, but it was promising.

And then.... the epiphany! Why not trade Cryptocurrencies?!

I had heard about them some years before, but it was too early and the only info could be found in a few crappy websites made by geeks who could not explain things to an ordinary guy like me. I even had some spare pc's that could use for bitcoin mining but i didnt bother... (banging my head on the wall now)
I also got close to invest later, but then Mt. Gox happened and i did not.

However, now i had the trading experience and some spare capital to risk in crypto.

Being successful in a bullish market is easy, unless you buy at ATH and panic sell during dips.
After a few successful months the profits from crypto were much higher than forex, so i quit FX and now I trade crypto full time.

I'm super satisfied. Not millionaire (yet), but i'm on my way. The most important thing is that i love what i'm doing, i see it as a hobby. I love trading and i would do it even if it was a game with points instead of money.

What am i doing in steemit?

I was about to start a wordpress blog to post daily TA's for my favorite coins, and then i remembered i saw some posts from steemit.

I wasn't familiar with the platform. As a trader, i knew STEEM but i didn't know what it was about. So i decided to research it.
It really blew my mind!
This thing is a genious implementation of blockchain and crypto!
Converting people's time and thoughts to money is really innovative!

However, i'm not in just for the money.
I like writing and i love technical analysis and trading, so I joined this community to share my ideas, meet new people and get inspiration from you steemians!

I hope to be a useful steemit member!

Follow me if you like to see my analysis and make some money together! @CryptoGreek77

If you have any suggestions or requests about my TA's please leave a comment!

Thank you! Let's get the party started!

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A big welcome to Steemit from lovely southeast Asia! I wish you all the best on the journey!

Very interesting!! I look forward to seeing more great work from you I upvoted and Followed you. Welcome to the community!!
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Thank you mate!
I hope i'll be useful!

Nice to see you here brother. Wish all the best

Welcome to [email protected] my pleasure to see you here.steemit is a very good community here you will enjoy a lot.best of luck for future help and upvotes please follow me.

Welcome to steemit! This is a wonderful platform with great people and communities! I followed you and look forward to your posts! Don't forget to check out the other aspects of the Steem Blockchain as well; DTube, Steepshot, DLive, Zappl and DMania. Be active and have fun! Cheers @stwbll

Thank you!
I'll check out the other aspects also ;-)
Cheers!

The cool thing about the Steem Blockchain is that you can choose which way you feel the most comfortable interacting with it. Have fun!

Hey, I'm Oatmeal Joey, and I play guitar too.