What's in there?

Today, I'm bound for Hi Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) for the second leg of my Asian tour as a motivatiion speaker. Last week I was in Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei and gave and inspiring speech at Global Brunei 2010, which was organized by Enterprise Asia. The organization also did invite me at the gala night for the awarding of Asia Entreprneurship Awards.

My trip to Saigon is an addition to my career as an international speaker on success and personal development. This is yet another opportunity for me to share my thoughts in a foreign land with a foreign crowd.

I woke up at 3:30am to check my luggages. I made sure I got everything I need for the event. Although this time, I decided to leave my wireless head microphone.

I reached Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 at around 5:30am.

Wait a minute. Breakfast is served. I'll eat first.

Alright. I'm back. Whew! This is a turbulent flight unlike my Brunei travel via Royal Brunei. So yes the breakfast was a bit delayed. The food tastes like a Filipino dish with one interesting banana cake made by Max's.

I'm traveling to Vietnam because I was invited to speak at the Asian Publishing Conventiion, a prestigious and highly anticipated event for authors and publishers in Asia with international delegates as well. I'm honored to be in the list of speakers, a Filipino by race!

I think there are only two Filipinos to take the center stage and I'm thankful to the organizers for giving me such a privilege and rare opportunity to share my experience and insights on publishing and it's related industry.

My topic, which will start at 4:00pm today, July 8, will be "The New Publishing Mindset and Why Size No Longer Matters." In this lecture, I will be sharing some case studies including my personal journey to having my own publishing business. I will be teaching some strategies using the new media as a platform of marketing and promotion of books and other published materials.

I'm excited with this event not only because this is my first time in Vietnam, wchich I can only see on the map and history books. It's also because I'll be talking to business people in the publishing industry. Speaking in front of these wonderful crowd gives me some nerves but I will surely perform at my best later. One belief that I always keep to myself is that as a speaker, audience expect no less than your best. Therefore, there's no room for me give less than they expect.

I brought some books with me, a total of four titles. I hope to find a publisher to co-publish some if not all of my tittles in other countries. That's another reason why I decided to join this event. I think my experience here will add some fun to my credentials. Don't get me wrong I love it when I speak especially when I realize that it's a Filipino speaker again on stage.

Vietnam is an interesting nation. I've heard many developments and have seen many of them on papers and magazines. Today until Saturday, I will have to see it by my own eyes!

In terms if currency, I still don't have a Vietnam Dong. But I'm sure, I'll carry millions of Dongs after touch down. I will find it hard to convert later because P100 is actually equivalent to like 49,000. So I downloaded an application for iPad. It will make my life easy. It's fun to convert. You will see the local value of your money in a foreign land!

But it doesn't matter. Last time in Brunei, My books were sold out. I only brought a few copies. But I got more than P15,000! My audience, who are entrepreneurs and business owners bought all titles for BND25 or roughly P800.

We expect to land in 20 minutes so I'll reserve my thoughts about this lovely and historic country. My speech later, hopefully, with God's blessing, will be another hit! I hope to be of help and contribute to their success, too!