Latest / Drive with John Perlman / A Song, A Book and A Dish Vusi Thembekwayo, South African entrepreneur, speaker, author and investor

Transcript

A Song, A Book and A Dish Vusi Thembekwayo, South African entrepreneur, speaker, author and investor · Drive with John Perlman

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A song, a book, and a dish on 702.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, we are going to meet someone who does a
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: huge range of things. He's an entrepreneur and an investor.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: He finds time to write books, and he often attends
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: gatherings where he shares what he's learned and tries to
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  Speaker 2: inspire other people to find out what they know and
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  Speaker 2: how they can do it better. Fusi Tembekwayo, welcome, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: thanks so much for giving us your time on 702 Drive. Okay,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: let's see if we have our guest. Vusi Tembekwayo is
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: joining us for a song, a book, and a dish.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, we had you for a second. Let's get
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: you back. Hi, Vusi, one more time.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, John. No problem. I don't know why I was
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: saying big, big fan, big fan.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I'm honored that you've got me here. I can add
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  Speaker 3: to my resume that I finally got to chat to
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  Speaker 3: the great John Perlman.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Vusi, introduce us to the 12-year-old man coming to the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: end of primary school. Are we seeing any kind of
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  Speaker 2: indication of what you would go on to do as
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: a young adult and then, you know, what you're doing now?
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  Speaker 3: Probably a glimmer, actually, because I went to primary school
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: in Wadville, and then I moved to Benoni West. And
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: while I was there, I came upon poetry and Art Steadford's.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: So when I was 12 years old, I got to
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  Speaker 3: compete at the Art Steadford in Benoni against the other schools,
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: and I won. So that might say a bit about
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: the fact that I'd get on stage and end up
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  Speaker 3: speaking to people.
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  Speaker 2: Can you remember, did you read a poem or whatever?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Because I did Art Steadford's as well. And I can
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  Speaker 2: remember my first poem I competed saying, which was called
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: The Little Piggywig.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I hope you had.
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  Speaker 2: Something a little bit more interesting than The Little Piggywig.
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  Speaker 1: What did you do?
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  Speaker 3: Mine was an Afrikaans poem. Okay. So I got up
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: and I recited this Afrikaans poem, yeah. Okay, so you're
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: in school. There's an opportunity to step up and I'll
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  Speaker 3: call it perform because that.
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  Speaker 1: Is part of What are you doing? Are there other
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  Speaker 1: things happening?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, for example, are you becoming interested in money
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  Speaker 2: and how money is made? Are there entrepreneurs in your
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: world who you kind of hanging on to their every word?
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  Speaker 3: Sure, John. You ask great questions. So around that time,
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  Speaker 3: my dad had started a business some years before that.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: The business went barely up. And this was around that
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  Speaker 3: time my dad was rebuilding himself. And one of the
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  Speaker 3: things my dad would do, because he was in sales,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: is he would travel to Limpopo. And on his way back,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: he would come back with these massive, vegetables and fruits
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: and stuff. Because in the townships, the quality and grade
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: of vegetables and fruits we would get is very different,
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  Speaker 3: for instance, if you get them in a place like Toyando.
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  Speaker 3: So my dad started buying them and he opened a
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  Speaker 3: small little store and then he would sell them from there.
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  Speaker 3: And so I would be there helping dad with this
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  Speaker 3: around that time. But of course, my father was then
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  Speaker 3: murdered a year later at 13. So those events kind
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  Speaker 3: of shaped my life, as it were.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: So you're having to grow up very fast. What's happening
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  Speaker 2: in your family circumstances? Are you stepping into roles that
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  Speaker 2: you've obviously observed your dad playing and you're saying, okay,
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  Speaker 2: I'm barely into my teens, but I can help here?
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  Speaker 1: Definitely.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it matured me beyond my age and it
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  Speaker 3: also matured me very, very quickly, very quickly. As I'm older,
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  Speaker 3: I'm sometimes sad about the fact that I didn't get
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  Speaker 3: to be a child as long as I should have been.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, definitely had to step up. And you've got
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  Speaker 3: to step up. You've got to be the man. Almost
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  Speaker 3: I was the oldest boy in the family. So that
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  Speaker 3: comes with its own fair share of responsibilities. And it
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  Speaker 3: also changed the financial picture in our family. So my dad,
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  Speaker 3: he wasn't the only breadwinner, but he was the one
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: who earned the largest share of earnings in the family.
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  Speaker 3: And so that put a financial strain, the consequence of
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  Speaker 3: which was You know, we just had to become very
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  Speaker 3: intentional and very driven. So, you know, my mom made
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  Speaker 3: clear to us that we had to perform academically so
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  Speaker 3: that she could, you know, work with the school to
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  Speaker 3: keep us in school throughout the like bursary programs or
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  Speaker 3: scholarship programs or this type of thing. So it did
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  Speaker 3: mature me, but I think I'm all the better for it. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And tell me this, I mean, you are an author
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  Speaker 2: and you've published a number of books. As you're moving
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  Speaker 2: through high school into matric and starting to make some
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  Speaker 2: choices about what you do next, was writing coming quite
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  Speaker 2: easily to you or was that something... you had to
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  Speaker 2: really put your head down and really graft at because,
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  Speaker 2: you know, writing is, is a discipline, but you know,
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  Speaker 2: you've got to get the message pretty accurately and precisely, right?
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  Speaker 1: Not too much, not too little. And above all, it's
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  Speaker 1: got to be substantial.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I, I, for me, it was
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  Speaker 3: a struggle. I, I, I was better at, my verbal
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  Speaker 3: IQ is 10 points higher than my non-verbal, so I
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  Speaker 3: went and had the test done. So I was better
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  Speaker 3: at communicating the message than I was at kind of
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  Speaker 3: sitting down and capturing it and synthesizing those thoughts. Even now,
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  Speaker 3: sometimes if I've got a complex idea to get out,
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  Speaker 3: I would rather vocalize the idea and then from that
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  Speaker 3: go through it into a written format. But in high school,
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  Speaker 3: it was here and there. I wasn't like the most
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  Speaker 3: amazing writer or something like this. My teachers would often
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  Speaker 3: say that I'm a bit too verbose because I take
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  Speaker 3: too long and go over and try to over-explain stuff.
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  Speaker 3: And I think it's writing like a muscle. The more
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  Speaker 3: you do it, as you know, the better you get
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  Speaker 3: at it and you find your own style and then
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  Speaker 3: you begin to execute against that style.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about books, so let's talk about your book,
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  Speaker 2: The Four Disciplines of Execution. Various people involved in creating
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: that work, Chris McChesney, and they called him McChesney as
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: if he was one of ours. But Chris McChesney, Sean Covey,
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  Speaker 2: and Jim Hewling. So very much around execution. business and
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  Speaker 2: excellence in that particular frame. Before we talk about that book,
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  Speaker 2: because I'm sure you've read many of them, have you
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  Speaker 2: at any point in your life just read for fun?
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  Speaker 2: Can I picture you lying on a beach lounger reading
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  Speaker 2: John Grisham or Dion Mayer?
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  Speaker 1: Clearly not.
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  Speaker 3: I think I answered you there.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, there we go.
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  Speaker 3: I think I answered you.
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  Speaker 1: No further questions, Your Honour.
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  Speaker 3: The defense rests.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed.
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  Speaker 2: So seriously though, always reading with purpose, focused around what
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  Speaker 2: you want to excel in and communicate yourself.
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  Speaker 3: Yes. I mean, at the moment, I'm busy reading an
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  Speaker 3: incredible book called The Color of Law, written by Richard Rothstein.
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  Speaker 3: I was on tour in the US speaking recently and
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  Speaker 3: I picked up this book. It's just the most fascinating
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  Speaker 3: read where you realize that some of the struggles we
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  Speaker 3: have in the world around how bias finds its way
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  Speaker 3: into law and then affects people's lives is actually not
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  Speaker 3: a uniquely South African thing. And so this book focuses
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  Speaker 3: on redlining in the US. It focuses on the Jim
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  Speaker 3: Crow laws. And as you study that over time, you
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  Speaker 3: see how that overlays and overlaps with some of the
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  Speaker 3: things that have been happening in South Africa, for instance.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, I try to have a fairly vast reading area.
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  Speaker 3: I love history. I love science fiction. And of course,
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  Speaker 3: I live in the world of business and trying to
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  Speaker 3: make things happen. But the more, you know, the more
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  Speaker 3: fiction stuff is not quite my thing now.
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  Speaker 2: So let's go to food. And obviously, from an early age,
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  Speaker 2: you're in a household under strain. You chose dishes that
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  Speaker 2: many people.
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  Speaker 1: Know and love.
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  Speaker 2: Kota on the one hand and mgosu on the other.
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  Speaker 2: Is this because it conjures up? Particular times at home and,
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  Speaker 2: you know, people gathered around for meals. I mean, was
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  Speaker 2: that an option in the household given how much all
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  Speaker 2: those other gaps that everybody was having to fill?
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  Speaker 3: Sure. I mean, that's exactly it, right? It should be
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  Speaker 3: said that as I've gotten older, I've also become very
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  Speaker 3: careful with my language. I think it's fine for us
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  Speaker 3: to say we grew up in difficult circumstances, but I
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  Speaker 3: don't think we ever really grew up poor because the
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  Speaker 3: community was just so strong and there were so many
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  Speaker 3: people around you. to help and assist and to play.
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  Speaker 3: And it's taken a long time for me to come
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  Speaker 3: to that, to recognize that actually by mislabeling it, we
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  Speaker 3: are dishonoring the people who did the best they could
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  Speaker 3: with the circumstances and the resources they had at the time.
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  Speaker 3: So Iguata for me is my absolute favorite. Even now
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  Speaker 3: when I'm in the country and I've got a bit
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  Speaker 3: of downtime, I love to find hidden Iguata spots and
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  Speaker 3: try and, you know, I sample and I test. I'm
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a Iguata connoisseur, if I am honest.
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  Speaker 3: And Dung Moshe just takes me back to the winters
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  Speaker 3: and to the family coming together, finding a way to
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  Speaker 3: fashion a warm, hearty meal that everybody can enjoy. And
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  Speaker 3: as was often the case, it wouldn't just be your family,
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  Speaker 3: it would be other families popping in too, typically if
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  Speaker 3: it's happening on a weekend or something like this. And,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in the township where most of us, or
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  Speaker 3: certainly where I grew up, you never needed an invitation
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  Speaker 3: to the party. All you heard was a bit of music.
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  Speaker 3: So Orlando Pirates beats Kaiser Chiefs after that is a
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  Speaker 3: bit of music. And then before you know it, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the whole kind of street of the neighborhood around the
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  Speaker 3: area and everybody's... is in concert together. So yeah, so
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  Speaker 3: very much those meals conjure up those warm memories, which
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  Speaker 3: are very different to the high-rise fences in the northern
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  Speaker 3: suburbs we live in today.
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  Speaker 2: So, I mean, let's stay with food, but not so
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  Speaker 2: much dishes, but meals, which is not just food on
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  Speaker 2: the table, but an occasion. And you've conjured up a
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  Speaker 2: vivid picture of that. Three kids of your own now,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, how do you keep meal times focused in
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: that around those things you know particularly when by the
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  Speaker 2: sound of it you travel a lot uh and and
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  Speaker 2: i would think on a number of evenings you you're
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  Speaker 2: actually busy how what what have you tried to create
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: in your own.
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  Speaker 3: Home Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, for context,
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  Speaker 3: last year I spent more nights in hotels and airports
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  Speaker 3: than I did in my own home. But I should
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  Speaker 3: be clear, I prayed for this life and I've worked
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  Speaker 3: 20 years for this life. So I also take that
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  Speaker 3: challenge with the grace that God has given me. So
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  Speaker 3: we have like traditions and stuff we do in the family.
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  Speaker 3: Sundays are completely, completely off the line. I don't take meetings.
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  Speaker 3: I don't do any work, nothing like this. We've got
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: great help in our home. My partner and I have
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: phenomenal help in our home. So the kids' homework gets done.
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  Speaker 3: We have tutors that come in. All of that stuff
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  Speaker 3: gets taken care of. They get served a warm meal.
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  Speaker 3: I work fairly late. I left the office, my office
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  Speaker 3: around the corner from your studio here in Santon. I
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: left the office at... quarter to midnight last night because
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  Speaker 3: I had something I needed to get out to the
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: team in the US. So sometimes that happens. But what
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  Speaker 3: I try to do is... When I am present, I
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: try not to have any distractions. So if dad is home,
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  Speaker 3: dad is home. If I'm with the kids, I'm with
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  Speaker 3: the kids. Whether we're running through a math lesson or
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  Speaker 3: my youngest was busy with a speech he had to
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  Speaker 3: deliver at St. Peter's the other day, so we were
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  Speaker 3: doing math, then I'm completely immersed in that world and
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  Speaker 3: in that life. My daughter's just come back from a
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: rowing competition and my son just left for a massive
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: basketball tournament because he's playing first team basketball. So when
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: I'm with the family, I'm with the family. I don't
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: want any distractions around me. That's the balance.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk music because we're coming to the point
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: where we're going to enjoy the song you've chosen and
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  Speaker 2: I'll introduce it in a moment. Does music, is it
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  Speaker 2: part of your creative process at all or is it
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  Speaker 2: something you use maybe just to get away from whatever's
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: buzzing around your head?
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  Speaker 3: Definitely part of the creative process. In fact, no judgment,
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  Speaker 3: but a part of the ways that I, part of
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  Speaker 3: the way I study history and people is through music.
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  Speaker 3: Cause I think music is a lens into a people
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  Speaker 3: and a time. So, uh, beginning of the year, I
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: was on tour in Jamaica and, And then I spent
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: an additional four days traveling Jamaica. I went to Bob
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Marley's house. I went to experience really the genesis of
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: the Rastafari community and the Rastafari community and the tradition
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: and the religion and the peoples, etc. And it's the
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: most fascinating stuff, John, when you realize that a lot
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: of the stuff happening in West Africa around the beat
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and the way that we do music actually translates over
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the Middle Passage into what is now the Caribbean and
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: the Caribbean Islands. Yes. So, yeah, I'm the guy who, like,
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  Speaker 3: when I delve into music, I was listening to Buffalo
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Springfield today. And that song, of course, as you know,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: it's about the end of the Vietnam War.
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  Speaker 1: And the world coming together.
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  Speaker 3: And if you listen to the lyrics of that song,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: it's exactly what's happening in the world today. You know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: it's what I still call and say, it's old men
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: sending young boys to go and die in wars that
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: they know nothing about.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I love that stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you clearly love this song, first sung by
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Labi Sifre. Lyra did a version, which is the one
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  Speaker 2: you've picked for us, Something Inside. So Strong, a brief
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  Speaker 2: thought as we enjoy the music. Why, out of all
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: the music you've heard and given your thoughts to, you
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: picked this one?
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  Speaker 3: First, I love Lyra. She's a dear friend. Second, I
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  Speaker 3: think everybody's going through a difficult time now. And I
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: think this song is just a re-emphasis that everything's going
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: to be okay.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Well, we certainly hope it will be, and this music
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: will certainly give us ease even as we try to
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: still our fears. But thank you so much, Wussi Tempukwaio,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: for sharing with us your song, your book, and your dish.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Have yourself a great weekend.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: It's been an honour and a privilege. Thanks, John.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: No matter cause there's something inside so strong I know
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: that I can make it though you're doing me wrong
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  Speaker 4: so wrong you thought that my pride was gone oh
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: no something inside so strong oh something inside so strong
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: the more you reflect And behind walls of Jericho.