Amidst a backdrop of political unrest and voter disillusionment, South Africa finds itself at a crossroads, challenging its resiliency like never before. Bruce Whitfield, leveraging his deep connection with the nation's most innovative minds, presents The One Thing: Small Ideas, Big Outcomes, A Brighter Future for South Africa. This book is a clarion call for focused action, inspired by the wisdom that when everything is a priority, nothing truly is.

Through exclusive insights from business leaders to pioneers in various fields, Whitfield orchestrates a compelling narrative on the transformative power of single, impactful ideas.

'The One Thing' is not just a book; it's a blueprint for individual and collective commitment to propelling South Africa towards a brighter, more potent future.

In Brandalism, the follow-up to his bestselling, award-winning debut book The Best Dick, Mike Sharman delves into the (start)ups and downs associated with brand building and the need for business to dismantle, and vandalise its perceived, public-facing, persona.

The future of PR and influence, when – or if – to launch a new business as opposed to a division, raising capital, the impact of presentations, start-up school fees, and emphasis on a manifesto rather than purpose, are the aspects Mike obsesses over in this insightful read, wrapped in his trademark, comedic, copy.

Mike Sharman, the co-founder of the creative, digital agency Retroviral that has made more brands ‘go viral’, globally, than any other agency in Africa, uses his unique storytelling proposition to provide insight into 12 years of building a business from scratch, while elevating his clients to emotional, (commercial) cult status.

Life is short. Play naked!

South Africa and its fraught political economy provide a fascinating case study into how it takes a particular brand of genius to thrive in a difficult domestic environment and to take the ideas and the businesses that deliver them from local to global. Genius tells the stories of some of the extraordinary individuals, companies and industries whose ideas, products and raw materials solve problems and add value across the globe. Greatness comes from acting on purpose, and there is a generation of South Africans solving problems for the future. Learn how Pratley beat Armstrong to the moon, how a former Eskom quantity surveyor capitalised on Britain’s obsession with meerkats to create the UK’s most visible price comparison website, how to take a Mediterranean-style food concept to the Mediterranean, and how a device designed to beat diamond smuggling made it from the set of a popular US hospital drama into emergency rooms and pathology labs across the US. Genius examines what it takes to thrive in an increasingly complex, fast-paced and divisive global environment. These are lessons for anyone looking to succeed anywhere against the odds.

Next time you go to a conference or hire a consultant to be told, ‘We live in a VUCA [Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous] world,’ leave the room.

You are wasting your time.

Fear of the future breeds inaction and leads to strategic paralysis. We put off decisions until we can have certainty. We look for signals. We wait. And while we do that, the world moves on around us. Problem-solvers thrive in chaotic and uncertain times because they act to change their future. Winners recognise that in a world of growing uncertainty, you need to resort to actions on things you can control. And the only things over which you have absolute control are your attitude and your mindset. These, in turn, determine the actions you will take and that will define your future.

A robust mindset is the one common characteristic Bruce Whitfield has identified in two decades of interrogating how South Africa’s billionaires and start-up mavericks think differently. They are not naive Pollyannas. They don’t ignore risk or hope that problems will go away. They constantly measure, manage, consider and weigh up opportunities in a tumultuous sea of uncertainty and find ways around obstacles. If, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller suggests, the stories we tell affect economic outcomes, then we need to tell different stories amidst the noise and haste of a rapidly evolving world.