Services / Public Speaking
Sixty plus stages. One message from a keynote speaker who lived it: what happens to you is not who you become.
Wesley speaks to rooms that have been through, are going through, or know they will go through, something they did not choose. Every talk is built around the same truth: circumstance is not destiny.
Because the message is drawn from lived experience rather than research, it lands differently. In 2012 two bullets left Wesley paralysed at twenty-four, and the years that followed became the material. Consequently, he does not open with a triumph; instead he opens with the part most speakers skip, which is the stretch where nothing improved yet. Afterward the room tends to lean in, since almost everyone present is somewhere in a stretch of their own.
Every booking starts with a short call about the room rather than the slides. First we talk through who is in the audience and what they are carrying into it. Next we agree on the one idea they should leave holding. Then the talk is shaped around that, so the same keynote speaker never gives quite the same keynote twice. Above all, the goal is a room that acts differently on Monday, not a room that claps on Friday.
For leaders, founders, and anyone responsible for keeping a team alive through circumstances they did not choose. Wesley does not get up at 4am because he is inspired. He gets up because he made a decision. The talk is about the decision, modeled.
A keynote on survival, choice, and the work of becoming someone your past would not have predicted. For any audience that has been through, is going through, or knows they will go through, something they did not choose.
A working philosophy of inclusion that goes beyond compliance, beyond accommodation, into the kind of culture that compounds. For senior leaders and executive teams building organizations meant to last.
A founder’s, leader’s, and architect’s reframe of accessibility as the design principle that makes everything you build better. Lived experience as the strategy, not the side note.
The signature keynote. For any audience that needs to hear it from someone who has lived it. Wesley was shot twice at 24. He chose to live. He has spent every day since proving what that choice can build.
Wesley has traveled the world from a wheelchair, on the trips that were supposed to be impossible. This keynote is for anyone who has talked themselves out of a life they wanted because the logistics looked too hard. The fear is real. It is also not the end of the story.
In-Person Keynote | Virtual Keynote | Workshop/Breakout Session | Fireside Chat/Panel | Multi-Day Engagement
’He had my mascara running for sure!’
VP of Meeting & Membership, American Public Transportation Association
’Wesley was GREAT. Everyone really enjoyed him. We all loved, ’Don’t give your energy to something that will not make you better.’’
LaDenta Smith, Student Support Coordinator, CalWORKs Association
’For me it was perfect. Wish we had more time for Q&A but that’s all. Wesley was GREAT.’
Merced College
’On behalf of the APA-IL 2020 Conference Committee, I just wanted to extend a big thank you to Wesley for an outstanding keynote address. We are already getting very positive feedback from our members.’
APA Illinois Conference Committee
“Wesley’s keynote was FANTASTIC!!! Many of the attendees met him around in advance and were excited to hear him speak. Afterwards, there was a line for handshakes, photos and exchanging cards! He was really great, and our members really enjoyed his story!”, Director of Programming, American Public Transportation Association
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