Friday, July 02, 2010

Extravaganza 2010 Part III

May 15, 2010. Saturday. Super early start. My parents, Kamal, and I had our aloe drink, tea mix, and shake as early as 4:30 a.m. My travel blender was stationed at my parents' room throughout our stay just because my father, in my opinion, made the best smoothie in the universe. He even prepared breakfast smoothies for my brother and his friend, Uncle Mat.
By 6:30 a.m., the whole of Suzie and Fadzil's Extravaganza 2010 party made our way to Singapore Expo. At the venue, the general qualifiers joined the long queue at their designated entrances. Daniel, Kamal, and I queued at GET Entrance. Also a long queue, but way shorter than the one at General Entrance. The better queue was at the Millionaire Team Entrance. The best was the VIP Entrance, and my parents qualified. So was my brother, at the last minute. Other VIP qualifiers in our party then were Suzie, Fadzil, Bakar and Liza, and Azhan and Ros. The ultimate best entrance would be the one meant for President's Team Members and the Chairman's Club Members, of course.
Being VIP qualifiers meant earlier entrance and the ability to secure good seats for the rest of the party. Once the GET Team Members entered the hall after the Millionaire Team Members, Daniel and Kamal helped the VIP qualifiers to guard the seats while waiting for the general qualifiers. I roamed the hall for photo opportunities. Once all of our team members were inside the hall, Kamal and the fellow old boys from Koleq actually gave me one of the best photo opportunities as they spiritedly performed their Bung Wak cheer.
Prior to the training, the hall buzzed with activities. The hyped crowd sang and danced along to the DJ's mixes, flags of 13 countries formed a choreography, international distributors swapped products not available in their respective countries and formed new camaraderie in the process, and everybody simply had fun. Imagine the energy of 18,000 people, united by the mission for nutrition.

The Extravaganza training commenced at 10:00 a.m. and ended at 6:00 p.m. Within those 8 hours, the audience was kept excited by:

+
The success stories, both on health and wealth, presented by the experienced Herbalife Independent Distributors comprising of the President's Team Members and the Chairman's Club Members.

+
The business growth in Asia Pacific and its potential for the next decade as presented by the Chairman and CEO of Herbalife himself, which was also acknowledged by credible economy watchers, as shown through the video presentations.

+
The insight of how powerful Herbalife nutrition is, as presented by Dr. David Heber, Chairman of Herbalife's Scientific Advisory Board and Medical Advisory Board, as well as the director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of California, Los Angeles.

+
The recognition of new GET Team Members, new Millionaire Team Members, new President's Team Members, and a new Chairman's Club Member.

The presentations were well translated to English, as well as other languages representing all walks of nationalities. Nevertheless, even without the translations, all of us shared one language. The Herbalanguage: the true passion and excitement of all the speakers, the testament of the powerful Herbalife products, as proven by the health and business results.

During the afternoon break, I prepared basic Formula 1 and Formula 3 shakes for lunch while Kamal exchanged testimonies with distributors from other countries. Basic shake, yes. One serving only requires 300ml water, four level scoops of Formula 1, and one level scoop of Formula 3. Low in calories but high in nutrition. The new young distributors in our party commented on the high concentration and energy level of the audience, thanks to the nutritious shakes taken for breakfast and lunch, and as snacks throughout the training, with those in weight-gain programme taking the shakes as desserts after their regular colourful meals.

As the training continued, there were more powerful presentations. I personally admired, and still do, Arlene Balangue, a former Accounting Professor at a university in the Philippines, who does Herbalife full time now. Her motivations are the health she gained, the flexible time for her husband and children, and her ability to help other Filipinos, particularly the women, acquire financial independence. At 51 years old, she runs full marathon and cycles as a hobby (refer the top right photo above, for her health and fitness transformation).

Herbalife Asia Pacific Extravaganza 2010 also paid tribute to the late Jim Rohn. He met Herbalife founder, Mark Hughes, in the early 1980s, and personally motivated him, and consequently other Herbalife independent distributors worldwide to find success beyond the self-imposed limits. Truly, truly inspiring.

As inspiring was, of course, more presentations by the special guest speaker, Dan Waldron, Chairman's Club Member. More on his presentations in Part IV. Soon.

No comments: