Columns – Page 58 – FindYourBuriedTreasure

Corrections for Christmas songs and symbols

The StarTribune published an article last week about Christmas music. The point of the article was that most people today are annoyed with how early, how often, and how much they are assaulted with the sound of holiday music in stores, on the radio, and pretty much everywhere they go throughout the months of November and December. What caught my eye and captured my attention most, however, was a little fine-print detail you almost had to read between the lines to see. The titles and [...]

By bettyliedtke|December 21st, 2012|Columns, Holidays, Music/Singing|2 Comments

Guess who’s coming to your holiday dinner?

If you were having a dinner party and could invite four people from anywhere and anytime in history, who would be on your guest list, and where would you hold the dinner? Every once in a while, I’ve had to answer questions similar to this – usually in a Toastmasters Table Topics session or contest. But this time, it was during a Holiday Happy Hour with a writing group I belong to. There are actually two separate groups, because the first one was growing too [...]

By bettyliedtke|December 14th, 2012|Columns, Holidays, Quotes and Sayings, Toastmasters, Writing|6 Comments

A foggy morning clears the air

It was extremely and unseasonably foggy last Sunday morning – the kind of fog that feels surreal if you’re out driving in it because at times it is so thick that you can’t see anything around you. Even the deacon who delivered the sermon at Mass commented on it, noting that he had to be extra careful while driving to church from his home that morning. “What it really did,” he said, “was make me slow down.” He went on to talk about what a [...]

By bettyliedtke|December 7th, 2012|Columns, Family, Holidays, Values|3 Comments

Hitting the big time starts with hitting the small time

The first order of business this week is for me to let you know when you can watch the episode of “It’s a Woman’s World” that I mentioned in a column a few weeks ago. I was one of three writers on the panel that day, and in addition to discussing writing issues and attitudes, we each read an excerpt of our recent work. I read one of my Villager columns. If you’re in the metro area of the Twin Cities, you can see the [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 30th, 2012|Columns, Professional Speaking, Writing|2 Comments

What to do when it’s difficult to give thanks

“Finding the Treasure in Our Gifts from God.” That was the title of my speaking program in Uganda this year, and it’s one I’ve been invited to present several times since coming back to the States. Part of the program focuses on our talents and traits – the skills and abilities that come naturally to us that we don’t always appreciate and sometimes don’t even realize that we have. Another part of the program calls attention to the gifts that are all around us – [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 22nd, 2012|Columns, Holidays, Professional Speaking, Uganda|Comments Off

Treasures all around us are hidden in plain sight

I’m always amazed when I see, for the first time, something that was right in front of me all along. Sometimes I even have to laugh at the irony. Such was the case a few years ago with a coffee mug I had owned and been using for several years before that. On the mug is a picture of a scene from nature – snow-capped mountains alongside a forest of deep green pine trees, and the rushing waters of a flowing river lined by rugged [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 16th, 2012|Columns|Comments Off

A positive experience outshines negative ads

“Quiet on the set!” Yes, they really do say that. At least, they did last Sunday when I was in St. Paul for a taping of the show, “It’s a Woman’s World” for SPNN – the St. Paul Neighborhood Network. But they – meaning the producer of the show – said it just once, when two of the people in the room were having a whispered conversation on the side and didn’t realize that an individual recording of one of the show’s participants was about [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 9th, 2012|Columns, Respect, Writing|Comments Off

Passion and compassion lead to a cycle of success

“You’re passionate about what you’re doing, and you really care about the people you’re working with.” I’d love to tell you this was something that was said about me, but it wasn’t. It was said to my friend Ruth, and it’s something she shared with me when we got together recently to catch up on what’s been going on in our lives. Ruth is an indoor cycle instructor. She leads classes at the fitness centers where she works, and she is so good at what [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 2nd, 2012|Columns, Health and Well-being, Values|Comments Off

Find your voice – and use it!

“I found my voice. Now what do I do?” That was the subject of a session I presented at the Toastmasters District 6 Fall Conference last Saturday, and it’s a question I spent a long time trying to answer for myself. When I first joined Toastmasters, one of the reasons was that I felt I could express myself fairly well in print, but not when I was speaking out loud. I didn’t have any noble or global ambitions at the time, I just wanted to [...]

By bettyliedtke|October 26th, 2012|Columns, Professional Speaking, Toastmasters, Uganda, Writing|Comments Off

Enjoying the changes that autumn brings

During the past few weeks, I’ve been at three different Toastmasters meetings where the theme of the meeting was autumn, or the changing of the seasons. At all of them, participants and guests were asked what they liked best about the fall season. Probably the most popular response was about the fall colors. Even though we experience it every year, there’s something magical and mesmerizing about the glorious colors of fall when they first start to appear. Throughout the season, we continue to marvel at [...]

By bettyliedtke|October 19th, 2012|Columns, Toastmasters|1 Comment

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