Guest Speaker

I know, I know, I never knew I'd get to this point, but there I was yesterday, standing in front of a group of people, rotarians, all older than me. I was there upon the invitation of my friend Charmz because of her husband Rico, who sits as President of this particular rotary chapter. The first thing that struck me was how similar the set-up was with the Toastmaster session Cie and I attended at Greenhills months ago. Both flags of the rotary and the Republic of the Philippines are at the background, and there was a gavel used to command attention to start and end the session.

Everyone was clad in their navy blue blazer with various pins and I was struck by the presence of women. I thought most rotaries are exclusive to men. Well, apparently there are those types, and there are also the types that would hold session and have a drinking session at the same time. This chapter is mostly husband and wives, grandmothers, even, serious about serving others; after all, this is a civic organization. Later on, I asked Cha and Rico what their cause was, and they say there are various causes- education and to alleviate poverty amongst the top priorities. Right now they are building an education centre, through a $20M grant from Rotary International, which will be supported and implemented here by the various chapters involved in this herculean task.

The Tuesday session has its agenda included in a newsletter of some sort, complete with pictures of past sessions, announcements, birthday posts and other reminders to its members. They start promptly while others are having their dinner, and by the time I was introduced to speak, we were laughing because Charmz was heaping me with all these praises, being privileged to introduce one of her closest friends," who is a marketing manager, a writer, smart and beautiful..." At that point I was forced to make a comment that," That's why we're friends..., " to which the grandmothers beside me laugh in heartfelt appreciation.

I give my talk about what I do, how we make our business, and how what we do influences, improves people's lives. I opted to speak informally, and decided to use storytelling as a method. I talked and I realized this approach is effective if you're trying to tell a group about something new..and interesting. A rags to riches story is always interesting, mixed with chaos and challenges, and it is almost like a telenovela. I expected questions about franchising, and I told them upfront that I will not do any hardselling, and that I am leaving contact information for franchising inquiries. Later on, I get a lot of questions, almost one or two from each participant, and that's how I realized they found my story interesting.

There was Nanay, a woman in her 7Os, who I later learned,has contributed over P50,000 to the club last year, who made my night when she said, " I liked your promo where you give away free Nestea with my rice purchase. That's very good."

There was another lady, a doctor, who kept asking me if we were affected by Ministop. Turns out she owns buildings where she has leases to 2 Ministop outlets. I tell her to give us a crack at the site when the lease expires. She keeps remarking how young I look to be a manager. I tell her I am not that young, but in my heart I felt a better 25- well-liked by the women, admired by men. A better 25 because I don't care so much how others see me because I know myself better, and hopefully, well enough to make better choices in life.