Welcome to episode 29 of the Profitable Speaking Podcast, where we provide practical tips and insights to help you succeed as a public speaker. In today's episode, I'll be discussing speaking internationally. I've titled today's episode, keynote Speaking, enjoying a Global Adventure. Now, you may be wondering what kind of adventure we're talking about. It's a true. Firsthand tale. My recent trip to speak at the APSs conference in Singapore, just last week, I had the extraordinary opportunity to travel to Singapore, an incredible city state that blends the traditional and the ultra modern. It's a place where cultures collide in the most beautiful of ways. In this episode, I'll be sharing my experience from the exhilaration and fun of stepping onto a global stage to the unique cultural nuances that I accounted, and of course, The challenges and victories that came along the way. I'm gonna look at a few different points about those different things. This isn't just about keynote speaking. It's about embracing the adventure that comes with it. The adventure that brings a new perspective, not only to your speaking, but also to your understanding of the world. So to help me cover more, I've broken it down into some tips. Let's get into it. Number one, do your research. Before you even think about expanding your business and speaking internationally, it's important you do your research and understand the place you're heading. And this includes like things like local culture, the laws and the regulation. It's really important you understand where you are going and what you should be doing while you're there. So for example, before I went, I wasn't sure about the culture of speaking on stage, whether I should be wearing a suit and a tie or what. Because in Australia I would wear a suit, but an open next shirt. So I contacted a friend who was a speaker in Singapore and asked him and he said, no, you'll be fine without a tie. Think about what's what you're going to be doing and think about could it be different where I'm going? And contact someone who actually knows if you've got friends in the city, or if you've got friends that have spoken there before, give them a call and find out understanding things like what's casual dress. So you see, drinks on the Friday night before the conference is gonna be casual. What's casual in this culture? Is it a pair of shorts and a polo shirt, or is it long pants and a business shirt with the sleeves rolled up? You never know. So it's worth finding out. And it can really depend on the temperature too, of course, because in Singapore for example, it was 32 degrees, feels like 42 degrees, so it was really stinking hot compared to when I left Australia, it was four degrees Celsius. So understanding that the temperature will also affect what you wear, but also what you do while you're there is important. I found like for me, being a firefighter, I'm used to being in hot temperatures, but the humidity and the way it works over there, it sounds stupid, was it was just so oppressing the heat after being in a more dry heat here, even though where I live, we do have high humidity like they've got in Singapore. There's just something about. The heat there, that's different. Now, I'm sure if you've been there for a while, you get used to it and it becomes natural, a bit like it does wherever you live. If you live in a cold climate, you get used to the cold, understand that these things do affect what you can wear, what you can do, whether you walk places, et cetera, et cetera. So once you've looked at those sort of things, also think about what you need to pack. So when I wasn't speaking, I was generally in shorts, an polo shirt or a t-shirt. If I was out walking around and I had, stuff that could dry quickly, that I could wash easily et cetera, because, Being so hot, I stink, I sweat. So think about all those sorts of things and and pack accordingly. Number two, be aware of the costs. Doing business internationally can be expensive. You'll need to factor in the cost of not only travel and shipping, marketing, all sorts of things getting around. So one of the things I discovered in Singapore is that taxis are actually really cheap compared to here in Australia. So while I could catch the M R T, which is the underground railway, I suppose the best way to put it like a subway taxis were often the best way to get around for me in this case because I could walk outside. My hotel and I could just jump in the taxi into the air conditioning and get driven where I wanted, and rather than having to walk to a subway station or r t and then travel and then get off and walk the last bit, if I'd done that in a suit, I would've been absolutely dripping where, because I'm not used to the weather there. So in my case, I had to factor in some money for taxis. When it comes to food was really cheap in Singapore. Now other places have been to, it's really expensive, but given the population and the fact that they eat out a lot you could get a full dinner at night for about$6 50. So it was very reasonable and you could get, good amount of food for that. And the food's different. That's the other thing too. You've gotta be aware of what you might be used to in, in your country is entirely different to what you'll get in another. So one thing I found was it was actually. More difficult to get something with vegetables in it. So you know, lots of rice and lots of meat and a couple of vegetables, but with more vegetables, more fiber, those sorts of things. Depending on what your diet's more difficult. And so things to think about buying presents for people. In some countries you can find really good presence. Other countries, it's just cheap merchandise. So be aware if you. Come bring, buying something, bring back for family. Sometimes there's not much to actually get depending on where you go in the world, some places are better than others. Another thing is phone charging and MacBook or, computer and tablet charging. I bought a a charge of four. Singapore that allowed me to do four different USB charging cables, but I found that it just wasn't enough to charge my MacBook and I didn't have a trans transformer that fitted in the system. Sorry, what I was saying, plug that fitted in the system over there. So I just went to one of the local Chinese markets and I was able to pick up a 35 watt. USB charger for$22. So it was really cheap just to buy one that could charge my MacBook and my iPad Pro. While you might not, have the right thing if find your local discount stores and that you can often Buy one relatively cheaply, and if it lasts a week that's all you need it for. If worse comes to worst. Number three, build some relationships. It's really important you build relationships with other local speakers. Why? Because. You need friends when you go to these places. Otherwise, you're gonna be sitting in the hotel room alone, go out and have coffee with people, or a cold drink or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be alcoholic drinks. Sometimes it's a case of meeting someone for a morning. I met up with a friend of mine and he took me on a walking tour of the city and it was awesome. We got to know each other quite well. We had coffee, introduced me some of the. The coffee culture over there, which is different. And I got to see so much more of the city and I got a really great explanation of what he does and how the city, is, and the library and all sorts of stuff. It was really awesome. So get out and meet people for drinks or food's. Always a good place to meet people because you can make lasting friendships. If you're gonna be a speaker, you're gonna have these people come to your country and you're gonna go see them in other countries, or you're gonna run into them at airports. Make friendships because it's a lonely trip sometimes being a speaker, cuz you're on your own a lot. So having other speakers that you can meet at airports or at hotels and things like that, makes life so much easier. The other thing about building relationships with local speakers is you learn how things work there. They can give you insights into the industry. They can give you insights into the culture. They know what it's like. It's a bit like, your country. So you know it's really worth well. It might open some doors for you. Yes, that is a possibility, but I don't look at it that way. I just see the friendships and if doors are open down the track, that's fine. I genuinely enjoy getting to know people and getting to know more about their culture. Re and remember, you can ask questions of people, you can pick their brains and learn a lot as well. And it's always fascinating me to learn more about other places, other people, and the way they do things there. Next up we've got be patient things happen at different paces in different countries. We've seeing that thing of, country time versus city time. Everything moves faster in the city. Everything moves slower in the country. It's not always true, but it's just one of those, sayings. The fact of the matter does come into play when you go to different countries. If you go to Fiji, for example, it runs on Fiji time. Fiji time is very different to what you'd experience in the city in Australia. So understand the difference in the way the country runs. Some things just take a little bit longer and you need to develop a little bit of patience. Time zones will also come into play. Ringing a home or sending messages home. Sometimes I'll be sitting there, it's eight o'clock at night. Oh, I'll send a message. Then I realize it's 10 o'clock back in my country, or it's, 12 o'clock, or I'm writing to someone who I normally write who's in another country. So therefore, I'm now dealing with an entirely different zone to the one I'm normally in, compared to the one there. And it gets quite confusing, quite frankly, but, realize that when you're in another country, it might be midnight somewhere else. So ringing them probably not the best thing to do. Also you find that people do things at different times in, in Singapore people tend to eat a cooked breakfast, it seems, whereas in Australia we have cereal a lot of the time. So understand that, things happen at different times as well. And also shops can open at different times a lot of countries especially Europe and places like that, they run very late into the night. Whereas here in Australia, the shops are shut at five or six o'clock and not much happens after seven o'clock at night, except say on Friday, Saturday nights. And so the shops are open early in the morning here, whereas. I know in Singapore, most of the shops didn't open till 10 o'clock, so just be aware of that. If you're thinking you're gonna get up and go shopping early in the morning, you're probably not. Some places are open but lots aren't. Be flexible. Things don't always go according to plan. You've gotta be prepared to adapt and change your plans as needed. Flights change all the time. That's one. That's good. They're late to arrive. They're late to leave. Don't get stressed over it. There's nothing you can do about it. Make sure you leave space between. Connecting flights. If you leave 20 minutes between collecting flights, you're gonna learn a very expensive lesson. Okay? Leave a bit of time, even if it's an hour or two hours, because invariable planes will land up to, half an hour to an hour late. Another example, we got on the plane, everybody was seated, and they let it go on behind me who was drunk, very drunk, and. But I don't know, someone upset him, but he came running down the hallway of the plane chasing someone. So then we had to wait while they grabbed him and dragged him off the plane. And then luckily he had his luggage in the locker, not under the plane, cuz then we would've had to wait for him to get his bag off under the plane. So security came and took him away and we didn't see him again. That kind of pushed our flight out by three quarters of an hour, even though we got on board. Couldn't leave cuz then they had to reschedule, they had to resubmit all the paperwork because they were one less passenger. So understand, it just happens event schedules get behind sometimes when they're running an event things can happen which push the schedule behind. So you could gain time in your speech or you could lose time in your speech. Be aware that could happen. Okay. It's just the way it is. You need to be flexible. You gotta understand that you might lose five or 10 minutes off your speech time, so know where you could cut or, drop a little bit without affecting your speech. One of the great things is when you're being flexible, you get to meet people who you didn't think you'd ever meet. I happen to be at the conference in Singapore and I got to meet the Ukrainian ambassador to Singapore, which I didn't know before I was going there. In fact, I didn't even know five minutes before, but it was an awesome opportunity and she was lovely. Have a go at anything that's asked of you. You'll learn things when you have a go. People will ask you to come and help with things. Can you help me move this? Could you get someone to do such and such or whatever? Just go with it. You're there as a speaker. Okay? Do whatever's asked of you. Again, the more you help people produce a great event, the more chance there is, you'll be invited back to speak again. Be a help. Remember, you're not there to be worship. Yeah. When you're on stage, everybody's looking at you and they clap and all that sort of stuff, but that's not, you're not there for that. You are there to help the audience. So helping the conference organizer is all part of that, okay? Remember, this is not about you. It's about them. Stay healthy while you're there. Exercise and eat right. I woke up early because I was out of time zone sink, so six o'clock over there was eight o'clock in my country, and so I always get up and go for a walk, it was nice and warm, of course, by that time, but it was, It keeps you healthy, gets the blood moving, gets your head thinking, all those sorts of things, and you get to see things that you wouldn't see if you walked in the middle of the day. City's quite beautiful on sunrise or sunset. Try to eat as normal a diet as you can. It's not always easy, you don't want to have. Problems, and get a block bowel or something interesting. You end up in hospital. So try and get as good a diet as you can while you're over there because you don't wanna get run down. I always pack protein bars or food bars, so I've got something. At least if I get stuck somewhere, I've got something to eat. Don't forget to pack any medications you have. Include the boxes or your scripts, because in some countries, you know what we have here is illegal there. You need to prove that you need it for your health. Now I was doing everything right. I still managed to catch a small cold, as you can probably hear, my nose is a little blocked and my throat's are a little croaky. It was really good until the last day when I got on the plane and I thought, oh, this is great. But the chances are you're going to other countries. You're gonna come in contact with bugs that you don't get in your own country. Plus you're going through airports where there's people from all over the world breathing, so be aware of that. We all know Covid is still around. That's a thing too. Wear a mask, if you will. It's totally up to you, but look it's not unusual to catch something, so stay healthy and hopefully you'll, won't hit it so bad. Make sure you adapt to the local technology. Get into the communication loop at the conference you're at. So this time in Singapore I discovered WhatsApp. It's not something I've used here. My kids use Snapchat. I use Facebook Messenger and the phone and all that. Obviously in Asia, WhatsApp is the way to go. So I got a crash course in WhatsApp and they're only too happy to teach me how to use it. And now I'm, obviously taking it under my wing and I'm using it. All the time, but it's really important you get in those communication loops. Otherwise you won't know what's going on around the conference, what other speakers are doing, et cetera, or what changes are happening. Also, embrace LinkedIn. LinkedIn was always a bit of a dead platform to me, especially here in Australia. It really was a pretty poor quality social media platform. But I've noticed it's been changing over the last. A couple of years, and I certainly know now that it, within Asia it's really used a lot. And so I was lucky enough to sit in on a session by a LinkedIn expert, and I've taken that to heart and I'm now starting to use that more. That's the technology that's used in that market more so rather than say, We use Facebook, maybe here or something like that, or or TikTok or Instagram, et cetera. Remember, different cultures communicate differently. They adopt different technologies. Swinging technology. Make sure you check your slides. You won't always be able to adjust your slides. I was lucky enough to be able to. Jump in just before my speech and change one word on one slide. But you can't expect to have your own laptop on stage. You'll have to hand your speech over to the tech team who are always amazing and they'll take care of it for you. And make sure when you're options age, you've got a timer. I always use a Logitech controller with a countdown timer on it and a buzzer in my hand when I got five minutes ago. But if you can, and like at this conference, they actually had a timer on a laptop that I could see. It makes a big difference being able to see how much time you've got left. It really does. Use that timer in that way you can try to use you as much of your time as possible without going over. It's really important that you stay in control of your time. Next, don't give up. Speaking internationally can be challenging, but it's also really rewarding. And look, don't give up on your dreams of expanding your business into new markets if necessary. Look, speak for free. Get your foot in the door. It's worthwhile. If you want to go into a market, you need to invest in your future. And if that means paying your own airfares to go over there and speak, then do it if that's what you want to do. Okay. Make sure you have a profit plan, a long-term plan, or a short-term plan on how you're gonna make your money back on that investment. Sometimes you have to invest money to discover things. It's the same as what, most businesses would call r and d. In our case, our r and d is investing in going and speaking at conferences that maybe you're not being paid at. What you learn. Will be invaluable to your future. Okay? You'll be learning from others while you're there. You'll be learning from the conference. You'll get to see speakers you might not all normally see, so you'll learn from their experience as well. Have fun while you're there. It can be a great adventure. Enjoy the process and learn as much as you can. Go out and be a tourist. Go and see some of the city. Okay? Don't just sit in your hotel, get out and walk around. My wife always taught me that, the first day I arrived somewhere we go for walks. Because you've been sitting on a plane for eight hours, nine hours. Get out and go for a walk. Go and see something. Okay. You don't want to travel to another part of the world and not see it, even if you just go and see a couple of tourist things. So I went over and, I had a look at Gardens by the Bay and I went to the new aquarium and those sort of things, some of which I'd done before, but they'd changed and other things I hadn't seen before, but take advantage of being in that country. Okay. You may only come that way once. You may never go back there. And I do this in every city. It doesn't matter if it's another country or not, I went to Hobart a few years ago with my son, and it was the first time I've ever been to Hobart and I was 50 years old and it was like, wow, I've never been here. I might never go back. I don't know. So we saw as much Hobart as we could. Don't be scared about getting out around the city and having a look at the place. Okay? Most places are inherently safe and places like Singapore are very safe, I can tell you. But get out, have fun, enjoy yourself. While you're there, smile and be grateful. Okay? Many people will never see what you are seeing, even if you're tired or you're feeling a bit exhausted from, doing something mentally or you've been flying all night. Whatever. Be grateful what you are seeing. 90% of the world's population will never see. They will never leave their own city, their own state, their own country. Okay. Just have a look at the percentage of Americans that actually own a passport. It's not as high as what you would think, so get out there and enjoy it and live every single day. Okay. Experience the life speaking will give you the opportunity to experience things that you just wouldn't believe. Speaking on the world's stages was always my dream, and as I tick off more countries, my dream just grows bigger. Europe, the Middle East, and USA. Next on my list, whether I get paid to do it or I speak for free, I will get there. Why? Because I have a message to share and a desire to see the whole world. You can do this. It's there for you. Take a leap of faith and just go out and get some. I hope you found this episode of our podcast about speaking internationally valuable and informative. If you did, I have a challenge for you. Hit that like button and subscribe to our channel right now, and then share this podcast with another speaker who could use the tips and strategies I've shared. Let's help each other grow our businesses and make an impact in the speaking world together we can reach even more people and make a bigger difference. So don't wait. Take action now and share the love. Thanks for tuning in and get ready for more exciting content and interviews in the future. Talk to you soon.