The Trip I Thought Was Just a Trip
The first time I ever left the country, I expected it to be about the country.
New food. New streets. New stamps on a passport that had never been used before. That is what a "first time abroad" is supposed to be about, right?
But somewhere between the flight, the hotel room, and a cruise called Dragon Bay Premium, I realized this trip was never really about Vietnam. It was about something I had been quietly avoiding to say out loud for years — something about myself that I already knew, but refused to admit.
Why I Was Even There
I did not fly out for sightseeing. I flew out because the community I belong to, Kasosyong Malupet Group, was celebrating its 6th anniversary — a group built by entrepreneurs, both big and small, all chasing dreams that were never just for themselves, but for the country they came from.
I want to be honest about something here: for the longest time, I did not consider myself one of them. I run a bookkeeping and virtual assistant service. I help businesses with two things that quietly keep them alive — systems and software. I have been doing this for four years, first as a bookkeeper for a US-based company, and now for local entrepreneurs as well. But somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that what I do does not count as "having a business." I saw myself as staff. As support. As someone standing beside the real entrepreneurs, not as one of them.
That belief followed me all the way to a cruise in the middle of Vietnam.
The Room Full of People Who Had Businesses I Didn't Think I Had
That night, after dinner on the third floor of the cruise, our group's founder, Arvin Orubia, set up an open space at the back deck. Tables. Equipment. A DJI camera he was adjusting himself. I stood beside him, quietly observing — partly because I am naturally drawn to the technical side of things, and partly because I wanted to learn how vlogging setups actually work. At one point, he simply told me, "Ikaw na lang ang bahala sa camera." So I did. I held the camera, adjusted the angle, and pointed it at him every time he moved or called someone into frame.
And then he started to talk.
The vision he shared was big — the kind that makes a room go quiet before it erupts into applause. It was not a vision for himself. It was a vision for the Philippines. We felt pulled into a mission bigger than any one person's business plan.
When the talk ended and everyone gathered into one big circle to talk, drink, and share stories about business, I found myself standing among people with more than 30 years in business. People holding government positions. People running companies far larger than anything I could picture for myself. I was the youngest in that circle — 23 years old, surrounded by people mostly in their late 20s to their 60s.
And still, I never once felt like I did not belong. If anything, I was one of the most vocal ones there — in a room full of entrepreneurs, while quietly telling myself I was not one.
"Tambay Lang Po Ako"
There was a moment at the airport, before we even flew out, when introductions were happening. Someone from Visayas was meeting someone from Luzon for the first time, all converging in Manila before the flight to Vietnam. Names were exchanged. Businesses were introduced. Networking, as it always goes.
Then someone turned to me and asked, "Ano pala business mo?"
And without missing a beat, I said, "Tambay lang po ako."
Everyone laughed. I laughed too. But underneath the joke was something true — I genuinely believed it. I run a service. I help businesses with printing, software, and systems. I have clients. I have a brand. And yet the word "business" still felt like it belonged to someone else, not to me.
The Story That Made It Click
Later that night, while the conversations kept flowing, someone shared a story about a friend back home who runs what he calls a "sari-sari store." Except when you actually looked at it — the volume of supplies, the size of her inventory — it was not a sari-sari store anymore. It had grown into what could only be called a grocery. He just had not caught up to that reality yet. No POS system. No formal setup. Just a woman who had built something bigger than he gave herself credit for, still calling it by its smallest, most familiar name.
And it hit me.
Sometimes we do not get to define our own reality. Sometimes it takes someone else — a friend, a mentor, a stranger on a cruise — to point at what we built and say, "You know that's not small anymore, right?"
I had been doing that to myself. I had a business. I had a service people paid for. I had a brand with my own name on it. I had simply refused to call it what it was, because somewhere in my head, "negosyante" was a title reserved for people older, richer, or further along than me.
The Sign I Had Already Seen
I remembered something I had scrolled past on Instagram, weeks before this trip:
"How many more signs do you need, to know what you already know?"
At the time, it was just another quote. That night in Vietnam, it became the exact sentence my situation needed. How many more people had to tell me I run a business before I let myself believe it? How many more clients did I need before "tambay lang po ako" stopped being my go-to answer?
I did not need another sign. I already had all the signs I needed. I just had not let myself accept them.
Belonging Isn't About Qualifying
What stayed with me most was not the realization about business labels — it was what it revealed about the people around me. I was accepted in that group long before I accepted myself. Nobody there made me feel like I needed to "graduate" into being called an entrepreneur. They already saw it. I was simply the last person in the room to catch up.
That is the part I want to leave you with. You can be surrounded by the wrong circle, work incredibly hard, and still feel small — because the room does not reflect back who you actually are. Or you can be surrounded by the right people, and even if you still see yourself as "just staff," "just tambay," or "just someone helping out," the right group will keep pointing at the truth until you finally see it too.
I am grateful I ended up in a group that did that for me. Not because they gave me a business — I already had one. They just refused to let me keep calling it small.
Mabuhay ang Pilipinas
Vietnam was beautiful. I mean that. But nothing about that trip compares to the pull I feel toward my own country, and toward the community back home that keeps showing me who I already am, one conversation at a time.
If there is one thing I want you to take from this story, it is this: stop waiting for permission to call your work what it actually is. If you are already doing it, already serving people, already building something — say it. Own it. The signs are probably already there.
Faith without action is Fiction.
HAPPY 6TH ANNIVERSARY KASOSYONG MALUPET GROUP!!!
Kyle Nelson Omac helps businesses with bookkeeping, virtual assistance, systems, and software. Read more stories and connect with his work at kylenelsonomac.com.