You have a lot of great advice in there and it is well backed up from personal experience.

My first bit of advice is that if you are going to extensively rework a story that isn't in a publication I would probably start over with a new story based on the first one in a new publication. Once a story have faded down the timeline it is hard to get it seen unless it was curated and even then it is dicey.

I would try trimming your story even more. 9 minutes is a pretty long read for Medium. I'd take out everything before the My experience bit. You want to start with a bang that hooks your readers.

Your strongest bit is the 8 tips. They are supported by the story which comes before and your story is powerful and relatable. I would trim your story so it is nice and tight, no unnecessary details. Then it will feed well into your tips.

This was a great read. Thanks for sharing it.