and the Breakthrough award goes to...

Last night, Queencie invited me to the last session of her 12-week Dale Carnegie Course. It was the last session for them to give two more little speeches but also a graduation time where awards were distributed. From what I got last night, the course focused on public speaking, but communication in the general sense. They had talked about relationships that needed work, issues in the office that lacked healthy communication...and the biggest thing was The Vision, seeing where you wanted to be or who you wanted to be within a reasonable time frame.

Queencie gave her speech about being in Nepal, volunteering and teaching, and feeling a sense of freedom and happiness. Other classmates talked about businesses that they were starting, relationships that were improving...dreams that had long gone unfulfilled and now after this course, a timeline was set, goals seemed easier to meet, perspectives and outlooks were changed, and the dream was within reach.

I was so proud of Queencie! At the end of each "round" of speeches, the classmates voted for three people who deserved an award for their performance and Queencie won a book for her Vision speech. At the very end, the classmates also voted for classmates to win the "Breakthrough award" and the "Outstanding Performance" award for the entire course. Three people were named as top nominees (she was nominated for both) and she won the Breakthrough Award. Call me cheesy but I seriously got teary-eyed when she was called. It's so rewarding to see her proud of her accomplishment and also to see how the past months of hard work have paid off. Her classmates described her as being a changed woman...a butterfly out of her cocoon...a blossoming flower.

It was quite inspirational to listen to the classmates' dreams unfold and how they got from Point A to Point B. I thought, ANYONE can take these principles, motivate themselves and live out their dreams. Why are so few of us actually doing it? Our minds are riddled with all these dreams and goals that never get accomplished and for what reason? We abandon these dreams to follow the road that everyone else around us takes and we neglect the side paths that wind through more narrow but more beautiful trails.

Fortunately for the group of classmates finishing up the Dale Carnegie Course, they had already accomplished some dreams within that 3-month period, and they had a new vision to work toward in the months to come.

"No matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is TO HAVE DONE IT." -R.W. Emerson