Is Blogging Good For The Mind, Body, and Soul?

By Lior Levin

Anyone who has ever blogged will tell you that blogging has had an impact on their life and I, personally, will be the first one to tell you that this thinking is true.

I have become a blogging enthusiast which I compare to finding something in life that makes you feel really great — you just want to share it with the world! Needless to say my friends are hearing about blogging all the time; some are into it themselves and others just haven’t tasted the good life yet.

But, is blogging good for the mind, body, and soul? Is so, how? The only way I can tell you is by sharing my take on what blogging has done for me.

What blogging does for the mind.

Traditionally speaking, I have not been known as an outgoing person, rather most people would consider me to be a good listener. Not that listening was a talent of mine; I didn’t figure I had anything worth saying. And, if I had something to say I wasn’t sure it would come out as sounding intelligent, so I just kept my mouth shut. I think this sort of behavior describes someone who is introverted.

I was still acting like that when I first started blogging because I wasn’t really blogging — I was blog reading. Then, I got up the nerve to leave a comment one day and suddenly realized I had blogged! Nobody came back and told me that my comments were stupid or “virtually” laughed at them. I have to tell you I only wrote a few lines, but I was pretty proud of myself as I had voiced an opinion.

Still, I was treading slowly, picking my blogging comments carefully. At first, I was spending 15-20 minutes at blogging sites each day and catching up on the thoughts of others, but have since increased that practice to a couple of hours daily.

Did that make me feel good about myself? You’re darn right it did! I discovered that I had lots to say, plenty of opinions to share and judging by the feedback people were interested in what I had to share.

Blogging is good for the body

When I tell people blogging is good for the body, they laugh. But, I see them giving me the quick once over and they’ll admit that I have lost a few pounds (10 in fact.). They find it difficult to equate blogging with weight loss because how can you lose weight when you are sitting on your butt?

I admit there is a fine line here, but let me explain: I used to be an avid junk food eater. It was common for me to have a bowl of chips by my side or a chocolate bar in my pocket for in-between meals.

Now, I have a new rule to follow: there is no food, drink or smoking allowed in my computer room. So, with all the time I spend there blogging and gaining enough confidence to start a new business thanks to blogging (another story), I just don’t have the time or desire to gorge myself which explains the weight loss. Regarding smoking, I went from using a pack a day and am now down to five cigarettes. So you tell me: is blogging good for the body?

Blogging is good for the soul

Your soul is the center of your being and where you form your beliefs. It is where your religious beliefs lie, but it is also the core of who you are. I found blogging gave me confidence to speak up. It showed me that I was intelligent, interesting and had something worth saying. It allowed me to believe in myself so I could move on to do things in my life that I may have never done otherwise. It also allowed me to form a circle of friends and to allow others the right to their opinions as well.

So is blogging good for the mind, body and soul? I think I have proven that it is. Blogging for me is like having a virtual psychiatrist.

I hope you are enjoying blogging as much as I do. If you’re not yet posting your thoughts and knowledge — you should be!

Author Information

Lior Levin is an owner of a SEO agency working with a nursing wear company called Milk Nursingwear and also with a task management start-up called Producteev.

Photo Credit: Artem Chernyshevych

Let Your Negotiating Skills Turn You Into a Money Making Outsourcer

By Lior Levin

If you are looking for a great online business with hardly any startup costs and a great market then you need to become an outsourcer. No special education is required, and the only skills you need are to be a good negotiator, middleman, go between or whatever you want to call yourself, although my name for it is the “outsourcer”. Here are some tips to get you going. First though a brief explanation of what an outsourcer is.

The Outsourcer’s Job

There are tons of individuals that offer freelance services to clients. For example, writing web content, directory article writing, press releases, transferring domains, trouble shooting, or transcribing and this is just a few examples. The outsourcer becomes the jobber. He will go and find clients that are in need of these types of services. Then ultimately he will act as the go between for the freelancer and the client.

In summary both of these parties have now become the outsourcer’s client. So the outsourcer will offer to do the job for $50. for example, then will turn around and hire a freelancer to do the job for $35. So the outsourcer has made himself $15. for just being the middleman. Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it? It is, but it does have it quirks.

The Outsourcer Workplace

Freelancing Sites

These are sites that provide the meeting place between freelancers and clients. Now clients or freelancers do not have to go though a middleman (outsourcer), they can deal direct with each other. However, there are individuals being the outsourcers, who will bid on these freelancing jobs and then hire the freelancers to do the work for them. The focal point for all this to take place is on these freelancing sites. Some sites are better than others, and although they all offer the same type of service they do differ.

ScriptLance.com – This is a freelance site that often is considered as a beginner’s site. This means for individuals that are just starting into the freelancing business. Outsourcers will often use this site because they can pick up the services of new freelancers who are not established and will work for low pay.

Freelancer.com – This site works on the same premise as being a freelance directory but is a step up in respect to scriptlance. Here the freelancers have a little more experience although many of the jobs are low paying. A lot of this has to do with the fact that there are a lot of outsourcers that use this site as well. Most of this is based on the premise that many of the freelancers do not have English as their native language therefore they will work for very low wages. This gives the outsourcer the opportunity to capitalize on hiring these individuals at a low rate and still meet the average price the clients will offer.

Elance.com —  Both the freelancers, clients and outsourcers conduct themselves in a more professional manner here. There is a mixed group in that many projects are conducted directly between the clients and the freelancers, but there are also many outsourcers that use this as their working foundation as well. What makes this site different is several factors.

The clients are willing to pay more for higher quality work. Their expectations are far greater however compared to clients on the other mentioned sites. The freelancer is willing to produce much better caliber work because they are getting paid well for it. The outsourcer here does well but often will favor bulk work or large volume contracts.

So why an outsourcer?

So the big question is why in the world would a freelancer go through an outsourcer when they have the opportunity to go directly to the client? Good question, but there is a sound answer for this. Freelancers are good at what they do, but many of them just want to do their job without the extra tasks of having to deal directly with the client. They make their money doing their job not at the admin. part of it. So really the outsourcer is looking after all the administrative type duties for them.

He is the one setting up what the job entails, how it is suppose to be done, the deadlines, the approvals and ensuring payment is made. This can be time consuming for the freelancer and many times it is much easier for the freelancer to deal with an outsourcer as opposed to the client. In addition to this, with freelancers many times it comes down to a lack of confidence or poor presentation skills and they are not able to land the jobs, whereas an outsourcer is a pro at this.

So now you have the basics of becoming an outsourcer, so how about it? Are you a negotiator? If so then it can make you money.

Author Information

Lior Levin is an owner of a SEO company working with a nursing wear brand called Milk Nursingwear and also working with a task management start-up.