May 1, 2022
How the hell do you buy an NFT?
Well I’ll tell ya.
At the beginning of the month, I met with my mentor who said to me, “If you want to learn about web3, just do it.” He suggested that by May 1st, I own an NFT.
In full transparency, before this meeting, I dabbled with the thought of purchasing an NFT. I had trolled around Twitter and Discord, set up a Coinbase account and wallet, but never bought anything.
So what changed?
I now had a goal to own an NFT.
So what did I do…
I read daily newsletters like Milk Road and Axios Crypto, and weekly papers like BCheque’s. I read white papers and mirror posts on Twitter, and Google searched terms I didn’t know.
I listened to episodes of WAGMI, Proof, Bankless, Over the Brink, Overpriced JPEGs, and Modern Finance on my way to/from work.
I talked to people in IRL and asked them questions about web3/ crypto.
I explained what I was learning to my friends and wrote down summaries in my own words.
I started joining discords of collections and projects that interested me and actively engaged with its community of members.
Next, I had to decide whether to mint an NFT or buy an NFT on the secondary market? Joining a community at its infancy was important to me so I knew minting was in my future. A friend recommended I look into Surge. When I joined their discord, the community was responsive and welcoming. Many of the members were also minting their first NFT. It was education driven with a well laid out roadmap. So, I decided I wanted to mint one of their “passports” and my first NFT.
Following this decision, I needed to understand the steps to successfully mint an NFT for this project. I reviewed the process outlined within their discord channeI. I accessed their content only through their official links and signed up for their pre-sale mint via a google doc link on their discord. I received approval via email within 24 hours.
Now that I was on the pre-sale mint list, I waited until their minting day. Typically, a few weeks prior, projects will post their mint price as well as a date/time for minting. Surge happened to be .08 ETH (not including gas) on April 28th @ 11EST. In the meantime, I made sure to transfer enough ETH into my Coinbase wallet from my Coinbase account. Depending on the bank, it can take anywhere from 2-7 days to transfer $$ is in a Coinbase account, ETH can be purchased and transferred into a wallet almost simultaneously. This process can be done on a phone or desktop.
Leading up to the mint, I checked my wallet daily to make sure my ETH was ready. Looking back, that was completely insane and I wouldn’t recommend it. On the day of minting @ 11EST, I connected my wallet to Surge’s official minting website and the next thing I knew, I had minted an NFT. I refreshed my wallet to ensure my NFT was there and indeed it was.
Phew.
Looking back, the actual minting of an NFT was a lot like going to my senior Prom. A lot of hype for one day and just like that, it's over. The process that led me to minting an NFT, however, was a different story altogether.
This past weekend I spent time with some old friends in a town I used to call home. Some of my friends were new moms, while others were on baby #4. Some were transitioning into new career fields while others were working towards their next career milestone. No matter where we were in life, one commonality held true. Goals.
Whether our goal is to run a marathon or own an NFT, we all have them. But what happens if we don’t achieve our goal? What happens if we fail?
One might say well, we pick ourselves up and try again. We keep trying and trying because we believe that we cannot live fully without achieving that goal. We become fixated on the achievement rather than the process.
Why do we do this?
I believe we do this because we fear what other people think. We compare ourselves to others. We don’t want to be perceived as failures. This is human nature. This is normal.
What if we took this fear… this comparison… this perception out of the equation and evaluated ourselves based on our own growth in the process?
What if, instead of comparing ourselves to other people, we compared ourselves to our past and present self?
Would that change the feelings we had about our goal regardless of its outcome?
I’m throwing a lot of rhetorical questions out here because I hope it causes us to think. To evaluate the why and the how, rather than just the end result of a goal.
Whether or not I was an NFT holder by the end of the month didn’t really matter. Through the process, I met people I never would have met, asked questions I never thought I’d ask, read materials I never knew existed, but probably most importantly thought differently than I ever really did.
We learn by doing, we learn by succeeding, we learn by failing, but in doing such, we learn about ourselves. Goals aren’t always about succeeding or failing. Goals are about getting outside your comfort zone and discovering those parts of yourself you didn’t think possible.
Will leave you with a recent Times Square advertisement I saw walking home from dinner this week…
Till next week… just do it, stay creative, and keep it real.
May 1, 2022
How the hell do you buy an NFT?
Well I’ll tell ya.
At the beginning of the month, I met with my mentor who said to me, “If you want to learn about web3, just do it.” He suggested that by May 1st, I own an NFT.
In full transparency, before this meeting, I dabbled with the thought of purchasing an NFT. I had trolled around Twitter and Discord, set up a Coinbase account and wallet, but never bought anything.
So what changed?
I now had a goal to own an NFT.
So what did I do…
I read daily newsletters like Milk Road and Axios Crypto, and weekly papers like BCheque’s. I read white papers and mirror posts on Twitter, and Google searched terms I didn’t know.
I listened to episodes of WAGMI, Proof, Bankless, Over the Brink, Overpriced JPEGs, and Modern Finance on my way to/from work.
I talked to people in IRL and asked them questions about web3/ crypto.
I explained what I was learning to my friends and wrote down summaries in my own words.
I started joining discords of collections and projects that interested me and actively engaged with its community of members.
Next, I had to decide whether to mint an NFT or buy an NFT on the secondary market? Joining a community at its infancy was important to me so I knew minting was in my future. A friend recommended I look into Surge. When I joined their discord, the community was responsive and welcoming. Many of the members were also minting their first NFT. It was education driven with a well laid out roadmap. So, I decided I wanted to mint one of their “passports” and my first NFT.
Following this decision, I needed to understand the steps to successfully mint an NFT for this project. I reviewed the process outlined within their discord channeI. I accessed their content only through their official links and signed up for their pre-sale mint via a google doc link on their discord. I received approval via email within 24 hours.
Now that I was on the pre-sale mint list, I waited until their minting day. Typically, a few weeks prior, projects will post their mint price as well as a date/time for minting. Surge happened to be .08 ETH (not including gas) on April 28th @ 11EST. In the meantime, I made sure to transfer enough ETH into my Coinbase wallet from my Coinbase account. Depending on the bank, it can take anywhere from 2-7 days to transfer $$ is in a Coinbase account, ETH can be purchased and transferred into a wallet almost simultaneously. This process can be done on a phone or desktop.
Leading up to the mint, I checked my wallet daily to make sure my ETH was ready. Looking back, that was completely insane and I wouldn’t recommend it. On the day of minting @ 11EST, I connected my wallet to Surge’s official minting website and the next thing I knew, I had minted an NFT. I refreshed my wallet to ensure my NFT was there and indeed it was.
Phew.
Looking back, the actual minting of an NFT was a lot like going to my senior Prom. A lot of hype for one day and just like that, it's over. The process that led me to minting an NFT, however, was a different story altogether.
This past weekend I spent time with some old friends in a town I used to call home. Some of my friends were new moms, while others were on baby #4. Some were transitioning into new career fields while others were working towards their next career milestone. No matter where we were in life, one commonality held true. Goals.
Whether our goal is to run a marathon or own an NFT, we all have them. But what happens if we don’t achieve our goal? What happens if we fail?
One might say well, we pick ourselves up and try again. We keep trying and trying because we believe that we cannot live fully without achieving that goal. We become fixated on the achievement rather than the process.
Why do we do this?
I believe we do this because we fear what other people think. We compare ourselves to others. We don’t want to be perceived as failures. This is human nature. This is normal.
What if we took this fear… this comparison… this perception out of the equation and evaluated ourselves based on our own growth in the process?
What if, instead of comparing ourselves to other people, we compared ourselves to our past and present self?
Would that change the feelings we had about our goal regardless of its outcome?
I’m throwing a lot of rhetorical questions out here because I hope it causes us to think. To evaluate the why and the how, rather than just the end result of a goal.
Whether or not I was an NFT holder by the end of the month didn’t really matter. Through the process, I met people I never would have met, asked questions I never thought I’d ask, read materials I never knew existed, but probably most importantly thought differently than I ever really did.
We learn by doing, we learn by succeeding, we learn by failing, but in doing such, we learn about ourselves. Goals aren’t always about succeeding or failing. Goals are about getting outside your comfort zone and discovering those parts of yourself you didn’t think possible.
Will leave you with a recent Times Square advertisement I saw walking home from dinner this week…
Till next week… just do it, stay creative, and keep it real.
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