Making the world a better place is the one thing Buti Mnyakeni believes in. Besides being a leadership practitioner and owning a company, he is an author and a motivational speaker with a passion in human capital development.
Mr Mnyakeni is a leadership practitioner at the Tshwane University of Technology and he owns a company called B.U.T.I, short for Beyond Ultimate Training and Inspiration. He was born and raised in KwaThema, east of Johannesburg.
The first book he read was Jock of the bushveld and after that, he knew he would be able to write a book. He always thought he is a better writer than a speaker because of his stuttering.
Before writing books he wrote poems and later wrote essays. He said he writes because someone once said to him, “if you don’t want to be forgotten, write”.
On the 19th of May he will be hosting a motivational seminar themed “Courage to believe” at Encore Theatre in Hatfield. He has published two books, Work in progress and The art of starting afresh.
Mr Mnyakeni had a serious stutter when growing up, but that did not stop him from loving the stage. He loved poetry but he could not finish a sentence when reciting.
When asked how he came about motivational speaking, he said it was in KwaThema when he was in primary and a new library had just opened when he came across a book about speech. He went to the library every day to read the book and he practised how to speak properly. Through that he saw that a determined mind can achieve anything.
His first book Work in progress, which is about becoming a better person and beating yesterday’s record sold over 2000 copies.
“The book is inspired by my believe that whatever I do is work in progress and I can only improve, that is why you can never put a final bet on me because I am forever improving,” he said.
He said his second book, The art of starting afresh, is not about how to start afresh, “it is not a formula, it’s about the mind set of starting afresh”.
He said he refers to himself as a perception engineer. “if you can’t change your perception you can’t change your world.”
People who are interested in going to the motivational seminar can contact Mr Mnyakeni at 082 082 0400