Vusi is a professional speaker and businessman. He is not only rated as Africa’s No 1 public speaker, but also of the worlds greatest. Vusi is known as ‘The Rockstar of Public Speaking and has spoken in 4 of the 7 continents and to over 350 000 people each year. He was described by Nelson Mandela, as “a true reflection of the freedom for which we fought.”
Vusi Thembekwayo Dreams and Ambitions | My life mission is very simple. I want to be to public speaking what Steve Jobs was to Apple. What Mohamed Ali was to boxing, what Michael Jordan was to basketball. I want to be the greatest there ever was. That’s what I want to be.
Speaking to Emotions | Always remember that there is a humanness about you that attracts people to you. Very few people are attracted by technique. That’s why you’ll get very few people who will romanticise about being good debaters, because debaters are trained how to be technically sound. Public speakers are trained on how to be emotively sound. We’re trained on how to move your emotions. Barack Obama got up and said, “Yes we can.” He didn’t debate; it wasn’t a technical debate. It was an emotive call to action to say, “yes… yes we can.”
The Best Advice I’ve Received | My father used to say to me, “everything you need to achieve all your wildest dreams you already have.”
Finding Your Purpose in Life | A lot of people ask me the question, “So, how do I know what is my purpose in life?” My answer to that is always this: that which you can do best with the least amount of effort, that’s what you ought to be doing. And it sounds so simple, but so many people haven’t actually thought around what it is that they do best.
Going through the Learning Process | The lady who taught me public speaking for many years used to use an analogy. She used to say, if you took a potato and you’re a potato farmer, it doesn’t matter how much water you’d water that potato with on a given day. It doesn’t matter how much it rains on a given day. The potato’s rate of growth is fixed. And so too with developing a skill and a craft. Your rate of growth is fixed. It doesn’t matter how much you try and work at it, or how much you try and short-change the process; you can’t do it. The best way you can do it is to commit yourself to the learning process, and to go through that learning process. So I always encourage people: never, ever try to short-change the suffering. Never, ever try to walk away from the difficult times, the difficult moments, ‘cause those are the times that will build you and prepare you for what’s to come.
Starting with Small Successes | I really focus on the successes I’ve had and then go about creating small, little successes. I’ll never go after the big fish. I always start with the small fish and conquering the small stages and the small platforms. And as you conquer those platforms and those stages, your confidence grows. And as the old idiom would have it, success breeds success. So, if you’re successful, and you’re becoming even more successful, you get into the habit of success, and that really helps build up your confidence.
Focusing on the People | Entrepreneurs need to focus their time on vetting character, because any venturing capitalist will tell you this: you never find the horse; you find the jockey. It’s never about the business; it’s about the guy driving the business. And so even if you’re going to go into a partnership with people, it’s very seldom about the business you’re pursuing. It’s more often about the person whom you are going into the partnership with, right?
Networking | When I meet people, my task – every single time I meet a person in any social space, if you and I are involved in a conversation – is to make you feel like you’re the only person in the room at that moment. I’m not focused on anybody else, I don’t talk to anybody else, I don’t focus on my phone. I try to engage in the discussion, and it’s all about you and I in that moment.
Questioning the Status Quo | Young people create discomfort. We question. We question authority, we question thinking, we question tradition, we question relevance. That’s what we need to do. Lest we don’t do that, we’ll never advance our people forward. And so, when I talk about our generation being manufacturers of discomfort, what it is that I’m saying is not we should go out and seek to be controversial, but rather, that we need to ask the questions that the older generation is not willing to ask, purely because they’ve accepted the status quo. In other words, we need to force us as a people to rethink our thinking. We need to force us as a country to rethink our thinking. Force us as a generation to rethink our thinking. To say, “What is the legacy that we as a generation want to leave behind?” There are Mandela’s of their generation that left us a free country. That’s their legacy. What’s yours and my legacy?
Advice to a Younger Self | What I would’ve said to a younger version of Vusi is: When it comes, take it. Don’t wait, don’t ask questions, don’t hesitate, don’t think, don’t rethink, take it. The time is now, don’t be too academic about it, just do it. Take it, and live your life.
Thinking About the Future | I’m taking a lot of personal pain, building some of those businesses out of my own personal money that I pump into the businesses to make sure they work and operate, and they are able to sustain themselves. And the only way we’re doing that, and the reason we’re doing that is so that we’re future ready. It’s very important to be future ready. So, I really talk to and try to surround myself with people who are future thinkers. Who understand where I want to go.
In Five Years | And the question I always, I always encourage any, any young person especially to ask themselves is… in the next five years, what do you want people to say about you that they wouldn’t have said about you now?
Conrad Koch is one of South Africa’s most in demand comedy talents. He combines hilarious comedy with world-class puppetry, and has done so for over fifteen years to local and international acclaim. Conrad was the winner of the 2010 Entertainer of the Year award, and of a 2012 Standard Bank Ovation Award from the National […]
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu is the Founder and CEO of iconic footwear brand soleRebels, the planets fastest growing footwear brand from Africa, and the founder & creator of Republic of Leather a super cool new company that is changing the way people around the world buy & love luxury leather goods. From the humblest of beginnings, […]
Taryn Lock is the Executive Director of Read to Rise, the NGO she co-founded with her husband Athol Williams. Having now interviewed them both on The Legacy Project I formally declare this couple as one of South Africa’s most special jewels. What hearts and passion they have for a better South Africa. In 2013, Taryn […]
Stefan Antoni is South Africa’s very own “Howard Roarke” – creatively brilliant, outlandishly bold and prolific. He is today, without doubt, one of the most formidable and most decorated architects that South Africa has produced in recent times. Together with his partners and colleagues at SAOTA, he has continued to stretch the boundaries of creative […]
Lauren Bush is the CEO, Creative Director, and Co-Founder of FEED Projects, as well as the Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder of the FEED Foundation. Lauren started her work as an Honorary Spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) in 2004, when she helped to launch their Universities Fighting Hunger initiative. In 2008, she […]
Garth Walker is the founder of design studio, Mr Walker. His interests lie in developing and encouraging a design language “rooted in the African experience” and it is this that he is best known for. Since 1995 and some 24 issues later, Walker has published Africa’s only experimental graphics magazine, i-jusi. He has been widely […]
Aspen Heights began with the vision to have the best product for students. We looked across a landscape of mostly aging apartment communities and wanted to “Revolutionize Student Living.” We actually listened to students and turned that feedback into communities they love. As we’ve grown, our neighborhoods continue to change and improve, but people have […]
Phil has more than 24 years’ experience in the fast-moving consumer goods industry in various senior positions. Phil has previously served as COO – Africa for Coca Cola SABCO and as an Executive Director at Tiger Brands. My Definition Of Success | Success is two-fold. My job is extremely important to me. That said, as […]
There are no results matching your search
These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.
Our Mission
© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME