bettyliedtke – Page 19 – FindYourBuriedTreasure

If you could go back….

If you could go back in time and change one event in history, what would it be? That question – or something similar – is the basis for countless movies, television shows, philosophical discussions, and theories about the space-time continuum. It was also the question at an online Table Topics contest I recently attended. In a Toastmasters Table Topics competition, contestants are asked a question – generally an open-ended, there’s-no-wrong-answer question. They have to respond immediately, and speak for one to two minutes on the [...]

By bettyliedtke|September 26th, 2020|Accountability, Columns, Toastmasters, Values|2 Comments

A Champion for Change

“Champions for Change” is the name of the feature, and I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was when I saw one of the champions being showcased – a young man named Lual Mayen. He was born as his family was fleeing South Sudan, and has lived more than 22 years in a refugee camp in northern Uganda. The first time he ever saw a computer was in 2007 during a refugee registration, and after he told his mother he wanted to buy [...]

By bettyliedtke|September 18th, 2020|Achieving Dreams and Goals, Columns, Gifts and Talents, Making a Difference, Uganda, Values|Comments Off

Where were you that day?

If you’re old enough to remember it, I don’t need to say any more than that for you to know what I’m talking about. Yesterday, on the anniversary of what we now simply refer to as 9/11, everyone remembered exactly where they were, what they were doing, and how they found out about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. Most of us remember other things about that day, too. How surreal it felt. How we knew instinctively that the world had [...]

By bettyliedtke|September 12th, 2020|Achieving Dreams and Goals, Columns, Values|Comments Off

Labor Day Long Ago

One day many years ago, I was going through some old files at work and came across one labeled “Women in Labor.” It caught my eye, mainly because I was pregnant with my first child at the time. The file had nothing to do with delivering babies, however. At the time, I was working in the Communications Department of a labor union, and the file was part of a collection of research and background information on stories for articles and newsletters on different aspects of [...]

By bettyliedtke|September 5th, 2020|Columns, Holidays|Comments Off

A Front Row Seat

This is the week of the Toastmasters Annual International Convention. It was originally supposed to be in Paris, France, but instead it’s taking place in my home office. And in kitchens, living rooms, lofts, studies, and wherever people around the world have their computers set up. For the first time ever, the Convention and all its activities – including the competition to determine the World Champion of Public Speaking – are taking place online. I’ve been to a number of International Conventions, in locations from [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 28th, 2020|Columns, Toastmasters, Travel|Comments Off

Lessons Learned

I visited a club in Barbados last night, after meeting a woman from Barbados a few weeks ago in North Carolina. I was in North Carolina at the invitation of someone I met in Saskatchewan the week before that. He and I were the only ones who showed up at the meeting – apparently the Saskatchewans knew something we didn’t – so we chatted for half an hour and exchanged contact information before calling it a night. These meetings were all virtual, of course. I [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 21st, 2020|Columns, Toastmasters, Travel, Values|Comments Off

A Mess and a Message

“Whenever there’s a mess like this, I try to look for the message in the mess,” my friend told me a few days ago. “And then I try to find the miracle in the message.” As you might guess, my friend is a very faith-filled person. I have seen her step out in faith when most people – myself included – would be paralyzed by fear, indecision, or doubt. The statement she made came as she was telling me about a close friend of hers [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 14th, 2020|Columns, Faith, Health and Well-being, Values|Comments Off

A Morning Long Ago

I still remember how I felt when my first child was born, and I became a stay-at-home mom. It was a major transition for many reasons, not just the obvious one of taking care of a newborn baby for the first time in my life. One of the things I remember vividly, for some odd reason, is attending a Tupperware party a month or so after my son was born. I’d been to Tupperware parties before, but always in the evening or on the weekend. [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 7th, 2020|Columns, Family|Comments Off

An Unusual Way to End the Day

“We’ll be starting the meeting with a brief yoga session.” These are not words I expected to hear prior to a meeting I recently attended via Zoom. Especially since the meeting had nothing to do with exercise, meditation, or health and well-being. Still, I was game, so I put my exercise mat in front of the computer, put on a pair of stretchy, comfortable pants – not yoga pants, officially, but they would do – and got ready for the session. The meeting was a [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 2nd, 2020|Columns, Health and Well-being, Toastmasters|Comments Off

A Close-Up Look

Note: Due to a glitch in the system, I don't think this went out yesterday (Friday) when I originally posted it, so I am resending it. If you're actually receiving it a second time, my apologies. Please don't feel obligated to read it again. However, I think it's important enough that you may want to! I was planning on writing what would have been a mildly humorous blog today, but then I got an email from Tom Kephart, a friend who’s also an Emergency Room [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 24th, 2020|Columns, Health and Well-being|Comments Off

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