Life Lessons from Pickleball™
Meet Shelley and Sher, the dynamic duo, who found more than just a sport on the Pickleball court - they discovered how Pickleball was weaving its magic, creating connections, boosting confidence, and sprinkling their lives with amazing joy. Inspired by their own personal transformation and the contagious enthusiasm of their fellow players, they knew this was more than a game. Join them on their weekly podcast as they serve up engaging conversations with people from all walks of life, and all around the world reaching across the net to uncover the valuable Life Lessons from Pickleball™.
Life Lessons from Pickleball™
E33: Beth Abu-Haydar: Discover Her Passion for Pickleball and Global Health
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How can pickleball arrive at exactly the right moment in life and become a source of joy, friendship, balance, and renewal after years of meaningful work in the world?
In this episode, Beth Abu-Haydar shares her remarkable life journey, from growing up in Beirut, Lebanon during its golden era, speaking Arabic, English, and French, to building a career in global health that helped improve the lives of women and families around the world. Beth reflects on her multicultural upbringing, her move to the United States for graduate school, and her many years with PATH, the international nonprofit where she worked on major public health initiatives, including efforts to reduce maternal deaths from postpartum hemorrhage through affordable, life-saving innovation.
Beth also talks about how pickleball entered her life during COVID, when a friend encouraged her to try this funny-sounding sport that quickly became a bright spot in a difficult season. What started as a new activity soon turned into a deeply meaningful part of her life, bringing laughter, movement, friendship, and a sense of community at exactly the right time. She shares why pickleball felt like recess for adults, how it helped strengthen friendships, and why trying something new can be one of life’s greatest gifts.
This is a thoughtful and uplifting conversation about pickleball, global health, PATH, maternal health, postpartum hemorrhage, Lebanon, Seattle, friendship, resilience, healthy aging, community, and the life lessons that remind us to stay open to new experiences, embrace joy, and trust that even late in life, something unexpected can become a beautiful new chapter.
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An uplifting collection of short reflections and life lessons inspired by our podcast conversations with people from around the world. Through stories of community, empowerment, and joy, the book offers inspiration both on and off the court. about community, empowerment, and joy through the game of pickleball.
A portion of every purchase supports Operation PaddleLift™, a Global Pickleball Federation initiative providing paddles, balls, nets, and other essential pickleball equipment to underserved communities around the world.
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Life Lessons From Pickleball With Beth
Speaker 1Hi , I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick . Welcome to Life .
Speaker 2Lessons from Pickleball where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court .
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us . Welcome everyone to Life . Lessons from Pickleball . Oh my gosh , how fun it is for us to have Beth Abu-Hadar as our guest today . Beth , you have had such an interesting life , and especially beginning with your birth in Beirut , lebanon , in 1956 .
Speaker 3And then you attended a French school and spoke Arabic and English at home . Wow , beth , trilingual . That's incredible yeah .
Speaker 4Can we start Tell us about the Lebanon you grew up in ? Well , the Lebanon I grew up in was really idyllic . You know it was the golden era of Lebanon . My mother was American . She had met my dad when my dad was studying in Massachusetts and she was a very courageous woman . She just married the love of her life and moved across the oceans , hence speaking English at home with her , arabic with my dad and French in school .
Speaker 4We were a new country that had recently been gotten independence from France , so there was still a lot of French influence at the time in Lebanon , but it was really just . You know , people call it the Paris of the Middle East at the time and , you know , because the food and the climate and the lifestyle and there was a lot of international interest in the country . So I grew up with really a lot of influence , multicultural influence , which was very , was a very rich experience growing up . And you know I came from a very , very large family . My dad was one of nine , so I had , you know , 32 cousins . You know we it was raucous . It was a very , very fun time growing up . You know we had our differences but we always had to get around my grandmother's table at Sunday and be civil and have a good time together .
Speaker 1Yeah , she kept you all together , just all together .
Speaker 3Well , and what I didn't realize , what you talked about in what you'd written us earlier is the beaches and the mountains .
Speaker 4Well , lebanon is a very small country , you know . It's about 120 miles long and 40 miles wide , and so it's a stretch of coastline , two chains of mountains and valley in between , skiing in the morning and then you're going to the beach in the afternoon in April . So it really was . It's a beautiful topography , it's the landscape is actually gorgeous , it's and the climate is fantastic . You know , clearly the country is going through some major , you know , upheavals right now and it's very sad to see that happening . But , you know , I am hopeful that , you know , golden days will come back at some point , because there's a lot of entrepreneurship , there's a lot of innovation , there's a lot of , you know , love for the country all over the world .
Speaker 1So , yeah , lovely hope , that hope that returns as well . And so , when did you leave Lebanon ?
Speaker 4I left in two waves . I came here initially in the late 78 to pursue a master's degree at the University of Michigan in the School of Public Health , and then I went back and worked at the American University of Beirut School of Public Health for a few years and then came back in 82 to pursue a higher degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .
Speaker 2My goodness .
Speaker 4And then I stayed .
Speaker 1And what made you stay ?
Speaker 4I met Steve , my husband . That was one of the major reasons I stayed . And the second reason is the country really was in the midst of a really terrible civil war and it was just an opportunity to to be here . It was just an opportunity to be here and obviously it wasn't feasible for my husband to go back there with me and work at the moment . So we decided to stay here and he got some advanced training in Seattle and we fell in love with it and ended up , you know , putting roots down in Seattle .
Speaker 1Another place where you can go to the mountains and go to the beach .
Speaker 4Yeah , exactly that was very important for me . The other place was called Mayo , which is , I'm sure , very beautiful , but I needed the water next to me .
Speaker 1I'm very much that way . I came here for the lake , nothing else . I couldn't go anywhere else , I just kept being pulled by the lake here . So , yeah , that's very cool . So then you started working at PATH . Tell us about that .
Speaker 4When I started it was 29 people , mostly Peace Corps returnee Peace Corps volunteers . So it was very exciting for me , having come from overseas , to be surrounded by people who had experienced living abroad and I worked there for many , many , many years and today it's an organization that's about 1,600 people with 27 offices around the world and really they do amazing work from the ground up type of an organization working to really understand and help address some of the key issues , key health issues in developing countries . So all the work they do we do I no longer work for them , I'm retired , but they do is based in developing countries .
Speaker 1And I am very moved by the one advancement that you were a part of for women giving birth . Can you tell us about that ?
Speaker 4Yeah , it was a project I worked on for about 15 years and women all over the world and even in this country , sadly still are dying during childbirth from excessive bleeding , and it's really mostly a very preventable condition with proper care and , you know , follow up during pregnancy . But when it happens , you know it's an emergency , a very , very dire emergency . And most countries that are under-resourced don't . You know women don't have access to emergency services . They're often having their babies at home or in very , very rural areas , very far away from health services , and when they do get to the facilities they don't always have the blood supplies or the necessary surgical
Global Impact and Pickleball Passion
Speaker 4procedures .
Speaker 4So we worked very hard on looking at what are some of the things we do here to prevent and treat , treat women who are hemorrhaging . And then what ? How can that be transferred overseas ? And we work to basically take a device that was designed by a doctor in Bangladesh out of their need and work with a company in South Africa to design it and test it and introduce it at a , you know , fraction of the cost it is available in this country . So a balloon tamponade is what the device is called . It costs $350 here and we were able to have it manufactured and approved and regulated out of South Africa for less than $10 so that services could have access to it .
Speaker 4And , of course , this involved a lot more than just developing a device . We had to do human trials , we had to get approvals from WHO and other major health organizations , we had to get regulatory approvals . Ministries of health had to be able to introduce that and include it in their budgets and , of course , the training then on the use of the device . So it was a commitment , but a very , very amazing experience for me , and I met some amazing people in the process and worked with top experts around the world to to come , come up with something that was available and it is now , you know , currently being used in quite a few countries , saving lives saving rewarding work , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1I'll say . I'll say wow , thank you for that on behalf , wow , thank you for that On behalf of women everywhere . Thank you for that . So how did pickleball enter your world ?
Speaker 4Oh , what a good , what a wonderful time of life .
Speaker 4Well , you know it was , like probably many of us , during COVID , we were all working , you know , our life was kind of upside down . All of a sudden I was on , you know Zoom calls , starting from five o'clock in the morning , you know . And because all our work was on Zoom , as you all experienced as well . And so , luckily , in Washington state , we were still allowed , you know , to go out and and enjoy the beauty of our environment . And I would go out for walks , you know , and just to to clear my head .
Speaker 4And I was walking with a friend one day and she goes , you know what , I started playing pickleball and I'm like what is that ? What a weird name , how does that work ? She goes don't worry about it , just come and play . You know it's really fun . And so , you know , she dragged me out because I was like I don't know how to play . You know all the anxieties about not knowing how to do something and she said , eh , let's just go . So , eh , just let's just go . So she , you know , we went , we got out on the court and I was like , wow , this is really fun , I can do this . You know , I was a squash player , so I get , I had a little bit of head , that's it .
Speaker 4I knew there was something and and then I started playing and you know , was , I would say , pretty hooked immediately and was , I would say , pretty hooked immediately . And then , you know , we had a group of friends that were all still working and I said , let's go out at night , you know , and play , we can do it safely . You know , I'm with my husband on one side . You know we were in our little bubble and we started playing and we would just go out at night . We found these lit courts . You know it was November , january and December and January in Seattle , so we were wearing almost our hiking and skiing clothes to go out .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 4By golly . We were determined to get out there and play and , honestly , this group of friends . We were good friends , but we have become incredibly good friends as a result of this and , of course , I've met a lot of many other friends Shelly and many others in the process .
Speaker 1So that's how I got into pickleball .
Speaker 3In fact , shelly can speak personally about that . Do I have to admit that she beat me ? Yeah , only once .
Speaker 1Only once I've been on the other side of your racket as well . Oh , wow , no-transcript people like you on this podcast and the ways that you're changing the world and then , in the same time , enjoying this amazing game and meeting all kinds of wonderful people . So what kind of what life lessons would you say you've learned , maybe while you were playing on the court and thought , oh , that's a good thing for me to remember when I'm in , you know , living my life , or lessons that you've learned in life or that you really put into play when you're on the court . Or maybe you learned in your work or living overseas ? Or , yeah , what are some of the insights you have ?
Embracing New Adventures
Speaker 4You know it's hard to jump into something new in life . You know , we all are faced with new tasks at work , new responsibilities , parenthood , you know , and sometimes you just say , oh , I wish I didn't have to do this . You know , I just kind of want to . But jumping into something new is always exciting and you know , once you're able to do it , and if you're lucky to have a mentor or a friend to drag you out on the court , or a mentor at work , and you do it , and you realize , wow , this is stimulating , invigorating new challenge and little successes make me feel really good about it . And you know , and , um , it's just , it's , it's good to mix it up in life . You know , and and I think that , um in in in my work , you know , I had to . I traveled a lot and some of the travel was really hard and and some of it was very , um , foreign , and some of it , you know , I was , I was in uganda when there was an ebola crisis once .
Speaker 4Oh , my goodness , you look back on these experiences and you think , um , every new experience is enriching and and pickleball was like that . You know it was a new experience and it was . It came at the right time . We , you know we , needed something really positive during COVID and , and it was so enriching and so invigorating and , you know , community building . And so I think for me , I look back on that and I just think , you know , I had a friend who pushed me to do it , so it was easier than just walking out on the court on my own , but I think that is a good life lesson . You know that sometimes jumping into something new can be really positive .
Speaker 3Right , definitely , definitely . That's good , because sometimes we don't . If you wouldn't have jumped in , you would have missed , really missed out .
Speaker 4Yeah , exactly .
Speaker 1Yeah , Are any of your path ?
Speaker 4former colleagues playing pickleball with you or I'm trying to get them out there . I have a couple that are newly retired that we've been trying to get out there , you know , and because that would be fun , you know , to reconnect that way . We stay connected at other levels but it would be really fun to be connected that way . And I guess the other life lesson is with pickleball . You know we are so competitive in our culture and society and life and this was a game that was really just fun . I mean , you know it gets more competitive as you get better , as you get better .
Speaker 2It does .
Speaker 4But for me , my biggest memory of it starting off was the laughter on the courts , you know , and just the pure joy people were having . Even when the ball went like wacky to the other side , there was this big laughter . It wasn't oh my God , I'm so bad at this , you know I need to get going , I mean , I'm sure we all have some of that in our heads , but that things can be fun without having always to be competitive , you know , and that's something I'm trying to hold on to sometimes .
Speaker 1Which would be a good balance , even for the people who are still working at PATH or any other organization , especially when we're working in those fields that are very demanding , high stakes , life-changing , life-challenging and then to have this outlet , that's just recess , it's just fun . And we actually one of our guests has a company where they do pop-up pickleball and they will set up an entire court . They'll bring all the paddles , they bring all the balls , and companies are now doing pop-up pickleball for their company to do . Bonding and networking and path , I think , would benefit a lot from something like that because you all are doing such amazing work there yeah , I like the word recess that you use .
Speaker 4I like that that it's a break from the demands of life . It is indeed .
Speaker 1Yes , how might our audience support PATH ? It's a nonprofit right .
Speaker 4It's a nonprofit and it's all grant-based's . Probably the most difficult is continuing to write grants and get money from the US government , from the Gates Foundation , rockefeller Foundation , other foundations , but very you know , spoke to them , you know and donate money to whatever projects they want . Some are more interested in maternal health , some are more interested in our vaccine program , some are more interested in our HIV AIDS programs or malaria programs . So there are definitely ways to do that and always appreciated . I think the best way would be to go to the website , which is pathorg , and take a look at some of the work that the organization is doing and see if it speaks to anyone .
Speaker 1That's lovely . I definitely want to promote that . I learned about PATH when I first moved to Seattle and I was so moved by all the work that was being done and it's been amazing to watch the evolution of the organization . It was 20 years 25 years ago almost that I came , so , yeah , pretty impressive .
Speaker 1And very grateful for the work that you did . I'm very moved by the women's lives that you have saved because of the work that you've done . Dying at childbirth even here in America , particularly women of color it's insane how many don't survive , and so the work that you're doing is really changing the lives and saving the lives of so many women . I didn't expect to get so emotional about this , but yeah , it really touches me . Thank you so much .
Speaker 4Thank you . I was a small , small , small piece of them , but I met midwives who had seen moms dying and you know , and it's traumatic , yeah , yeah , it's very traumatic for them . So it's good to know , you know there's a solution . So that's what we have to keep working towards .
Speaker 1Yes , yes indeed , and all hands on deck or on the court as the case may be . Well , beth , how fun , and Shelley has talked so lovingly about the time that she's had with you on the court , and it really means a lot that you've taken the time to talk with us and I look forward to seeing you on the court too .
Speaker 4Yeah , same here . My pleasure . Thank you for inviting me and Shelley , see you out there . But , cher , I do do hope that you know we we can cross paths on the court sometime . That would be really fun .
Speaker 1Look forward to it thank you so much and thank you , go ahead .
Speaker 3Shelly , I was just gonna laugh and say it's not supposed to be competitive .
Speaker 4But watch out , I know just trying to keep that under wraps .
Speaker 1Just a little bit competitive , competitive , with a smile . Yeah , yeah yeah , oh well , thank you so much , Beth .
Speaker 4Thank you for being with us . Yeah , great talking to both of you Thanks , oh , thank you .
Speaker 1See you around and thank you to everybody . Wow , thank you for joining us today . I can't believe how emotional I am , but , wow , how lovely that there are people in this world who are saving lives , changing lives , and I am a firm believer that pickleball is one of the things that's helping to change this world . So hope to see you all on the court and we look forward to another conversation next week . Bye , bye , bye , bye . See you all on the court and we look forward to another conversation next week . Bye-bye .
Speaker 2Bye-bye , bye . If you love our podcast , we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball . This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations .
Speaker 1On Apple Podcasts , spotify or wherever you listen , go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner , and on YouTube , click the subscribe button under any of the episodes .
Speaker 2Thanks , so much Hope to see you on the court .