Meet Motivational Marcus Buckingham, Master of Strengths

British best-selling book-writer and arguably “the world’s most prominent researcher on strengths, leadership and high-performance at work,” Marcus Wilfrid Buckingham, is a remarkable individual. If you’ve ever heard of Strengthsfinder, or better still, taken the phenomenal assessment, behold the co-genius behind it! Renowned for his outstanding contributions to the world of work and the fields of technology, innovation, and philanthropy, Buckingham is a global researcher and New York Times best-selling author focused on unlocking strengths, increasing performance, and pioneering the future of how people work. He is the author of two of the best-selling business books of all time, First, Break All the Rules (1999), and Now, Discover Your Strengths (2001), and his tenth book, Love + Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and has been heralded by Forbes as one of the ten must-reads for career and leadership. Marcus’ 2019 Harvard Business Review (HBR) cover article, “The Feedback Fallacy,” was selected by HBR as one of the most influential articles of the last 100 years, and Marcus’ strengths assessments have been taken by over 10 million people worldwide.

Born 1966 in Buckinghamshire in Britain, Marcus displayed an innate curiosity and passion for technology from a young age. After completing his formal education at Cambridge in computer science, Marcus co-founded a startup in the late 1990s that revolutionized the way people interacted with online content. The company’s groundbreaking platform garnered widespread attention and accolades, propelling Marcus into the limelight as a visionary tech entrepreneur. Throughout his career, Marcus remained at the forefront of technological advancements, leading numerous successful ventures and launching groundbreaking products that transformed industries. His dedication to innovation and his ability to anticipate market trends earned him a reputation as one of the foremost technology pioneers of his time.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Marcus Buckingham has always been deeply committed to making a positive impact on society. He is renowned for his philanthropic efforts, actively supporting various causes related to education, healthcare, and environmental sustainability. Marcus firmly believes in using his wealth and influence to drive positive change and has donated generously to charities and initiatives around the globe. In addition to his philanthropy, Marcus has been an advocate for promoting diversity and inclusivity within the tech industry.

In addition to the self-published short film series Trombone Player Wanted, Buckingham has made numerous television appearances on US television networks and cable channels including The View on ABC, I Want to Work for Diddy on VH1, The Oprah Winfrey Show on syndication, Good Morning America on ABC and The Jane Pauley Show. Marcus Wilfrid Buckingham the English research-based motivational speaker and business consultant is based in California, USA.

 

BUCKINGHAM LIVE AT MAXWELL’S LIVE2LEAD ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2023

Marcus Buckingham speaks at this year’s annual Live2Lead Ghana, a brainchild of Dr. John C. Maxwell. As Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELE), we have been privileged to host Live2Lead on both sides of the Atlantic, in Montreal, Canada as well as in Accra, Ghana. We are absolutely convinced that leadership is taught; not just caught. Join John and the stellar faculty he’s put together for this year’s Live2Lead conference and up your leadership game.

This year, together with our partners in Ghana, we’ve chosen the theme, “Leading for Legacy.” Here’s a taste of Marcus Buckingham’s take on legacy: “Your strongest life is built through a continuous practice of designing moment by moment.” Legacy doesn’t just happen; it’s by intentional, intelligent design. Come and find out how, in-person at the Ecobank Ghana Headquarters in Accra, or online, wherever in the world you might be!

October 6 is Leader Day this year. Register now through this link. Impress upon your organization to join the Leadership Emphasis Day/Leader Day movement that will transform society by becoming a Patron of Live2Lead. A Patron company or individual is one that sends at least 10 leaders to Live2Lead. Together we can change our world for the better! Yes, we can!

Behold Kendra Scott–Builder of a Billion Dollar Legacy from a $500 Budget!

Kendra Scott (born March 27, 1974) is an American fashion designer, founder,former CEO, executive chairwoman, and philanthropist. Kendra Scott, née Baumgartner, started her company (named after her) in 2002, just three months after her first son was born, with only $500. Going door-to-door to Austin, Texas, boutiques armed only with a tea box full of her jewelry, Kendra captivated businesses and customers with her vibrant personality and unique eye for design. Known for her dynamic use of color and genuine materials, Kendra’s commitment to innovation, quality and detail has brought her from a small start-up to a billion-dollar business and has won over loyal fans, media and celebrities alike.

With over 2,000 employees, Kendra Scott boasts of a thriving web business and over 100 standalone stores and has expanded beyond fashion jewelry into the categories of fine jewelry, home decor, and beauty. Today, her company continues to operate out of Austin, TX, with their state-of-the-art corporate office complete with design lab and an industry-leading distribution center both catering to her employees’ career goals and family-life balance.

With Family and Fashion as two core pillars of her business, Kendra maintains a focus on her other core pillar of Philanthropy in all she does. Since 2010, the company has given back over $40 million to local, national and international causes. In 2018 alone, the company gave over $5 million in monetary donations, almost $10 million in in-kind donations, over 2,000 volunteer hours to philanthropic organizations, and partnered with more than 8,000 philanthropic organizations nationwide.

Kendra has been awarded with the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 National Award; the Breakthrough Award from the Accessories Council Excellence Awards; named Outstanding Mother of the Year by the Mother’s Day Council; awarded Texas Businesswoman of the Year by the Women’s Chamber of Commerce; listed by Forbes as one of America’s Richest Self-Made Women; Top 100 Entrepreneurs of the Year by Upstart Business Journal; Best CEO by Austin Business Journal; and Honorary Celebrity Chair for the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas. She is a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and maintains her position as Executive Chairwoman of the Board of Kendra Scott, LLC, the 1-billion-dollar company she founded and was CEO of until she passed on the baton. In 2019, Madam Scott became only the 12th woman in her state to be inducted into the 40-year old Texas Business Hall of Fame. Kendra has a 2022 book entitled, “Born to Shine: do good, find your joy, and build a life you love.”

KENDRA SCOTT AT JOHN MAXWELL’S LIVE2LEAD ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2023

Kendra Scott speaks at this year’s annual live2lead Ghana, a brainchild of Dr. John C. Maxwell. As Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELE), we have been privileged to host it on both sides of the Atlantic, in Montreal, Canada as well as in Accra, Ghana. We are absolutely convinced that leadership is taught; not just caught. Join John and the stellar faculty he’s put together for this year’s Live2Lead conference and up your leadership game.

This year, together with our partners in Ghana, we’ve chosen the theme, “Leading for Legacy.” Here’s Kendra’s take: “Focus on what lights a fire inside of you and use that passion to fill a white space. Don’t be afraid of the challenges, the missteps, and the setbacks along the way. What matters is that you keep going.” Come and find out how, in-person at the Ecobank Ghana Headquarters in Accra or online, wherever in the world you might be!

October 6 is Leader Day this year. Register now through this link. Impress upon your organization to join the Leadership Emphasis Day/Leader Day movement that will transform society by becoming a Patron of Live2Lead. A Patron company or individual is one that sends at least 10 leaders to Live2Lead. Together we can change our world for the better! Yes we can!

Register HERE, NOW.

Live2Lead 2023: Leader Day Comes Again This Year.

There was recently a humorous corporate piece where the smart CFO said to the CEO, “We can’t afford to invest all this money developing our leaders. What if they leave?”

To which the wiser CEO replied, rather curtly, “What if we don’t invest in our leaders and they stay?”

You would think that “because the economy is tough let’s hold off the ‘luxury’ of leadership development” yet the irony is that precisely because the economy is tough you cannot afford not to grow your leadership to overcome the challenge and soar to new heights. What if the economy isn’t going to get better anytime soon. Will you survive? How will you survive, let alone thrive, if you don’t get better than you are now and better than the economy you live in?

 

THE FRUSTRATION LIVES ON, BUT SO DOES THE DREAM 

Last year, my frustration was that “there is a day dedicated to almost every cause under the sun and pretty much each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—women’s day, water day, literacy day, friendship day, founders’ day …  even toilet day. Yet the one thing that causes each of these matters to rise or fall has no such day dedicated to it to elevate and emphasize it. Even then, is a day enough? Surely not; but it is a good catalyst for the remaining three hundred and sixty four (or five) days,” I said.

Last year, I shared a dream that  “the first Friday of October each year will become universally known as LEADER DAY.” It bears repeating that, “There is nothing special about the first Friday in October per se except that consistently for about a decade now, our mentor and leadership expert, John C. Maxwell, has been gathering some of the best leadership minds and hearts on the planet to speak to the issue, and we might as well leverage the opportunity rather than reinvent the wheel. Live2Lead is the name of that event. The name says it all, that’s our purpose on earth: We live to lead.”

We held a successful event last year, only online, looking at the theme “Leading with Integrity & Inspiring Hope, for the Common Good.” To say Patrick Awuah (Founder & CEO, Ashesi University), Patricia Obo-Nai (CEO, Vodafone), James Ebo Whyte (CEO, Roverman Productions), Gwen Gyimah Addo (CEO, The Hair Senta), and Kathleen Addo (Chairperson, National Council for Civic Education) were phenomenal resource persons is an understatement. We will bring you snippets, in text and video, of what they shared to remind and stimulate you towards integrity and hope for your leadership.

 

LEGACY THIS TIME

This year, two more John C. Maxwell-trained and certified colleagues in Ghana have joined our trio of 2022 to pour more fire into the dream that ultimately the first Friday of October each year will become universally known as LEADER DAY. We have settled on ‘Leadership Legacy’ as the theme and will soon be outdooring the slate of speakers, including my celebrated German-trained professor of Cardiosurgery when I was a medical student at the University of Ghana Medical School. We’ve got to live to lead today, for the sake of lives tomorrow. That’s legacy.

You and I know too well the dearth of leadership in our country and around the world, whose ripple effect is the tough economic situation we find ourselves in, and more. We hope to double last year’s number of attendees–this time both online and in-person at the Ecobank Ghana headquarters auditorium–to benefit from the LIVE simulcast from Atlanta and the local content for our context, sandwiching the global feed.

 

CONCLUSION

When leaders get better, everything and everyone gets better too. There is no benefit of not investing in your leadership to get better because the economy is tough. Ironically, the only way out is for you and everyone else to invest in our leadership development to get better. That is the tide the raises all the boats with it, including the economy. In the words of the charming African-American poet Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Mark down Leader Day 2023, October 6, to know better, get better and do better.

Big Events are Overrated, Trust Process.

“Trust the process” has become cliché. Yet many don’t understand it, let alone mean it. In fact, most people are more attracted to big events and striking occasions but the aim of this article is to show that these are overrated. We are attracted to the big bang, amazing testimonies, the one time lottery win, that miracle… all of which are good but in the long term, those are not the things that sustain societies, grow businesses or deeply transform us long term. It is process, process, process.

 

MENTORING AND THE LAW OF PROCESS THEN

These thoughts have been coming to mind over the last couple of weeks because of two recent incidents, one in the church and one in the corporate setting. Regarding the former, l led part of an annual discipleship capacity building workshop for my local church at the University of Ghana. Discipleship is the word Christians use for spiritual mentorship. I inquired what they would do if they were God and came on Earth in the person of Jesus Christ (as Christians believe) to do an effectual job of changing the world. What would they do?

Well, many would go head-on and prioritize filling stadia with people (and there were stadia  in the time of Jesus) or fill the plains like where he fed 5,000 then 4,000 (not counting women and children) day after day, as the rule not the exception. Some would constantly go to the royal palace and do some leadership workshops for Herod and his ilk etc. But the Rabbi did none of that routinely. First of all, He took 30 years to prepare Himself from conception through childhood to turbulent youth years to adulthood. He came as a foetus, endured nine months of pregnancy and went through a 30-year process of learning–of obeying His parents, of apprenticing to be a carpenter like His earthly dad, of learning the Torah like other children of His day etc. Yes, all of that. Process.

Eventually when it was time to launch His ministry at 30 (phew! finally!) what does He do? Nothing prime-time TV worthy (oh, of course apart from His spectacular baptism). The baptism in the Jordan by Cousin John was a big event. But the rest, again, process. After all-night prayer, He goes around town and handpicks 12 people, just a dozen, and decides to walk with them, life-on-life, for three-and-a-half years. As Professor Robert Coleman points out in his magnum opus, His method of training was His life itself, it wasn’t just “read this book.” No! Process, day by day by day by day by day for nearly as long as we have to wait for the next Olympics or World Cup tournament.

Only a few years down the line these ordinary fisherfolk so got Him that each was martyred for what they had come to see and taste and know. In a few years, it was reported of His followers, “the people that have turned the world upside down.” Two thousand years later, what do we see? There are 2. 3 billion Christ followers on every continent and in every country and geopolitical space today. Yet the original leader Himself never travelled beyond 50-100 km radius of where he was born. The farthest he went to was Egypt, in His childhood, when his family temporarily migrated to Africa as refugees. Why this impact? How? The law of process.

He knew if he took 12, focused on the few and worked on them life-on-life for years, that the few would bring another few who would bring a few more, who would mentor a few, who would bring a few and over years this kind of impact would happen. Deep transformation doesn’t happen in rows, like we sit in events, but in circles. It happens in circles, small groups, day by day, week after week, month after month.

 

MENTORING AND THE LAW OF PROCESS NOW

At the said workshop at the University of Ghana, I showed the attendees a simulation: if one person who comes has a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ decides to disciple another person, just one person per year, life on life, week by week, studying scriptures, eating together, praying together, travelling to places together etc. Just a person a year. At the end of the first year, there would be only two disciples of Jesus. The original then instructs the ‘graduating’ disciple to do same for another, just as Paul admonished Timothy: “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2 , NKJV).

At the end of the second year what happens? You still mentor a second person so there are two of you. But the original person you discipled in the first year has now also discipled somebody else, thus there are four of you. First year it was just addition, the second year there was multiplication. By the third year and onwards, there isn’t just multiplication but exponential multiplication. And if it continues like that, just one person each annually, by the end of the tenth year, you would be over a 1000 people (quantitatively impressive) deeply transformed (qualitatively impactful). You’ve gotten the mass that you wanted, yes, a thousand people you would have wanted to fill an auditorium with to impact all at once (but would leave the program and achieve nothing). Now you’ve gotten that same 1,000 people after a decade but they would be solid movers and shaker.. It may seem inefficient at first but it is deeply effective and with time it becomes powerfully efficient as well. Within 10 years, you would have a 1000 people who are deeply transformed and now you also have the numbers. That’s the law of process.

 

MONEY AND THE LAW OF PROCESS NOW & THEN

Then, about the training for the core leadership team at Perbi Cubs we talked about how leadership is built day in and day out and not in a day.  John Maxwell talks about that as the fourth ‘irrefutable law’ in his New York bestselling book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. I have been teaching this book for over 20 years now. “Leadership is built daily and not in a day,” Dr. Maxwell says. So is anything else of enduring value. Daily; not in a day.

To illustrate, I actually showed the EdTech leaders an investment chart I created a couple of decades ago in my book Financial Whizzdom, comparing a youth who starts investing at 20 and his uncle who starts investing at 30.  Both invest the same amount (say GHS 2,000) at the same annual interest rate of 10% p.a. The lad invests for 10 years, stops investing but leaves the money to keep growing. The uncle who started at 30 doesn’t stop and continues putting in GHS, 2,000 every year till the age of 65. At the age of 65, this boy who started and stopped and just let his money keep growing would have more money, about GHS 200,000 more, than his uncle. All because the young man started earlier and got the Law of Process working for him a whole decade prior.

 

CONCLUSION

Process works. It gives sure and deep and lasting results. Don’t skip processes. Build your leadership daily. Build your spiritual life daily. Build your health daily. Build your intellectual capacity with a little reading everyday rather than just binging once or twice a year. Something you are doing everyday is determining your future. Or as Tag Short put it, “the secret of success is found in your daily agenda.” A related Chinese proverb really intrigues me. Here’s my paraphrase: “Do not fear growing slowly, what you should fear is standing still, not growing at all.” Trust the process. Truly, trust process. Process would beat big events and one-time shiny experiences any day, all day, long-term. It’s a timeless, universal truth. Trust it.

The Inadvertent Lid of Political Leadership: My One Regret and Heartache.

It’s been a very busy few weeks. The last one in particular was the kind that Nelson Mandela would call “‘impossible’ until it’s done.” The very morn of the dawn I arrived back in Accra from Kenya, the first day of the work week, I had to be speaking at about 10am at an African Young Professionals Conference. That same week my team at PELÉ and the Ghanaian contingent of the African-wide BCA Leadership hosted the power-packed, two-day Made in Africa Leadership Conference (MLC) from June 13 to 15. Then there was a Youth Rally in the vicinity of the University of Professional Studies (June 15 evening) where l was  billed to speak as well. And then to crown that week, The HuD Group, which I founded with eight of my friends in 2003, held a press launch of our twentieth anniversary and simultaneous launch of three legacy projects.

In all of this business and busyness, one thing that has come through very clearly is that leadership is absolutely important–that everything does rises and falls on leadership. I tried to make that point in my opening remarks to the distinguished ladies and gentlemen convened at the Marriot for the aforementioned MLC 2023. Even this morning, as I was training the executive team of one of our PELÉ clients, a tech start-up, Maxwell’s Law of the Lid came to the fore: leadership is the lid on their personal level of  effectiveness as well as the organization’s impact that it would ever make.

Leadership is so important that every professional must have it, everyone in every sector of the economy must possess it, and everyone at every level of society must have it but especially leadership is too important to leave it to politicians alone. “Leadership is cause,” as one other leadership expert puts it, “everything else is effect.”

As we celebrate 20 years of The HuD Group, we can testify that God has done amazing things in, on, with and through The HuD Group. We started in Ghana, moved to Cote D’Ivoire, then to Nigeria and Canada and now have a presence in 24-25 countries on all continents, having incredible impact on people in every sphere. In fact, at the anniversary launch last week Friday, several VIPs like celebrated, young, award-winning journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, shared how The HuD Group had impacted them. But I shared with the audience my one regret: that in all this 20 years of The HuD Group we did not give enough attention to the political space in particular. Of course, it is not that we did nothing at all but knowing what l know now and seeing how successes in all these other areas of life have literally been eroded by what has happened in the political space, especially in Ghana, that really breaks my heart.

 

 

THE SKY ISN’T THE LIMIT; POLITICIANS ARE

This has been a season of lots of graduations. I’ve seen flashy photos from Harvard to Fuller, and been physically present at inspiring commencements like Ashesi’s about three weeks ago. First, I’ve been excited about all these amazing graduates bustling with energy and vision and drive, some having done some earthshaking capstone projects and all. Yet all these amazing people formally graduated by our best academic establishments and semi-formally by The HuD Group in the last 20 years—and yes, some of us have been though all kinds of fellowships from Aspen and Eisenhower to Tutu—are restricted by what happens in the political space because everything rises and falls on that leadership. Political leadership is the lid over all our collective effectiveness and greatness.

If anyone told these graduands that the sky is the limit, that isn’t wholly true; our political leaders are. No I’m not a whiner; I am precisely the opposite of that, which is why I’m a serial entrepreneur. So I believe in creative ways around ‘the system’ but as the august chairperson of the HuD anniversary launch, Madam Yawa Hanson-Quao, had earlier said at the MLC, “We cannot entrepreneur our way out of bad governance.” Political leadership is the lid over all our other attempts at leadership.

Political leadership is the lid over all of our collective effectiveness and greatness in all of our fields of work and spheres of influence. We’ve got to get up and take the political space seriously and not let anyone who is not a selfless, authentic, transformational leader make their way there! Because then, it doesn’t matter how the collective brilliance of all of us is, there would be a lid over the rest of us. A good illustration is the proverbial army of sheep led by a lion versus or an army of lions led by a sheep.

At the end of the day, every sector, and every level of our society needs at least good leaders, even better, great leaders! Otherwise like John Gardener aptly puts it, “The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy [or politics for that matter] because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ) Gets New Chief of Staff: Introducing Patrick Kojo Amissah.

Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ) and allied Perbi establishments heartily welcome Mr. Patrick Kojo Amissah as our new Chief of Staff. Kojo Amissah is a versatile professional with experience in organisational leadership, team and operations management. He believes in striving for excellence and critically analysing problems with the goal of coming up with practicable, innovative solutions. He has worked in the educational, publishing and financial sectors.

Kojo’s previous work experience includes co-managing a start-up (Catalyst Learning Limited) and growing it into a sustainable firm. His responsibilities included structuring and establishing different roles and tasks, recruiting and training staff, establishing systems, managing finances, and planning and executing projects. For over three years he led in the development, printing and distribution of over five million copies of textbooks and workbooks to various schools across Ghana. He managed communications and relations with foreign printing firms including negotiating prices and planning the delivery of printed books.

We are convinced that the skills and knowledge gained from these experiences will enable him to quickly adapt to the demands of the Chief of Staff role at PELÉ and to exceptionally perform the outlined responsibilities. Mr. Amissah possesses good leadership and team management skills which he honed while serving as Team Leader, Curriculum Development and as Chief Operations Officer. Watch out for PELÉ’s online leadership courses to be launched by mid 2023.

Mr. Amissah developed important team building and conflict management strategies as he directly and indirectly managed over thirty individuals performing different roles. He also possesses good negotiation skills and valuable stakeholder management experience. At PELÉ, we believe these are important transferable skills that will aid his interactions with staff of Perbi Executive Leadership Education and affiliated organisations like Perbi Cubs, Kwiverr, The HuD Group, Send Africa, Adeshe Real Estate, ISMCanada, PAIS, Africa to the Rest, BCA Leadership, the Lausanne Movement etc. Kojo takes the baton from Ashesi cum University of Warwick alumna Araba Andoh who laid pioneering tracks for the role.

According to Kojo, “I am highly motivated to serve in the role because it provides the opportunity for me to put my unique mix of experience in leadership, operations management and publishing to use in the worthy cause of growing executives to make significant impact in society. I also believe that working directly with an accomplished leader and entrepreneur like Dr. Yaw Perbi is an unmissable opportunity to grow professionally.” Among Kojo’s first tasks will be helping to host the incoming BCA Leadership Made in Africa Leadership Conference, launching PELÉ’s avant-garde DeepLEAD online leadership course and providing operational support for both The HuD Group’s 20th anniversary activities and Kanéval by PerbiCubs/UNESCO Accra World Book Capital. In commemoration of the latter, Dr. Yaw Perbi seeks to (re)publish all his two dozen books.

We welcome Mr. Kojo Amissah at this inflexion point where YAW PERBI is transitioning to PELÉ (Perbi Executive Leadership Education) to maximize team potentials beyond the availability and capability of Dr. Yaw Perbi as an individual. PELÉ by YAW PERBI is an Executive Education firm that offers authentic and customized relationships and resources to C-Level executives to grow personally, succeed professionally and become significant societally. PELÉ’s vision is to see a flourishing global ecosystem of authentic leaders characterized by growth, success and significance.

Kojo wields a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Ghana and an MBA from Coventry University. He is a practising catholic. Akwaaba, Kojo. Bienvenue, Monsieur Amissah. Here’s to your own growth, success and significance. Together, let’s carpe diem and make a dent in the universe!

Introducing PELÉ (Perbi Executive Leadership Education).

Imagine a flourishing global ecosystem of authentic leaders characterized by healthy growth, holistic success and lasting significance. That’s the big dream and eternal hope fuelling our daily tasks at the Executive Education firm that bears my name, YAW PERBI. A couple of years ago, after eight years as President & CEO of a Canadian non-profit in the international education space and having garnered several years of executive leadership experience in the Ghanaian military and medical fraternity, global media, the United Nations in Cote d’Ivoire etc. I decided it was time to serve all of that to leaders of leaders: the C-suite. So I came out of sabbatical and stepped down as President of ISMCanada to do this.

Since according to my mentor of a quarter of a century, John C. Maxwell, by whom I’m officially a certified coach, speaker and trainer,  that “one is too small a number to achieve greatness,” I have been steadily growing a global team of competent, caring, confident and character-based co-leaders on/from every continent in the world beyond myself to make our faith, sight. That journey has culminated in the birth of PELÉ.

 

A Play on Words

In keeping our focus on growing and coaching executive leadership to succeed, ever broadening the authentic relationships and resources we bring to bear on our task, we decided to move away from YAW PERBI specifically and to build Perbi Executive Leadership Education, PELÉ for short. PELÉ is not exactly just a happy coincidence, for as a once-upon-a-time football fanatic and soccer player for my elementary school, I recently engaged in my fair share of arguments about who the greatest soccer player of all time is between the shouts in favour of Lionel Messi after lifting the Qatar World Cup trophy on December 18, 2022 and the incessant calls to hallow the legendary Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known by his nickname Pelé, who died eleven days later on December 29. As a double childhood hero—both of my dad and myself—I had been pondering a way to honour a Black man who gave everyone so much delight and so many people of his skin hue so much pride.

As I’ve stated before, “I am eager to particularly provide C-level executives of African descent with the paradigms, processes and tools necessary to maximize their potential, to be world class, take the world stage and make their dent in the universe.”

 

A Word In Play

Then came April 2023 when the Pelé Foundation and Sportv launched the “Pelé in the dictionary” campaign to pay tribute and recognise his legacy in other fields beyond sport. Of course his name has long been a synonymous with success and excellence, both of which are values of our Executive Education company, but now the great Brazilian forward and only human to have lifted three World Cup trophies officially had his name in the Portuguese dictionary. The adjective “Pelé” has been added to the Portuguese edition of the Michaelis dictionary to describe “someone out of the ordinary.”

Pelé, the nickname of the late football legend, has officially become tantamount to “extraordinary, exceptional, incomparable, unique.” Pelé is an adjective for something or someone that is out of the ordinary, one who by virtue of their quality, value or superiority cannot be equalled to anything or anyone, just like Pelé. For example, he is the Pelé of basketball, she is the Pelé of paediatrics.

 

 

What’s in a Name?

According to Emily Olson of NPR, “It was in the small, impoverished town of Bauru where he first got his nickname playing in youth leagues.” Apparently, even Pelé himself wasn’t sure where it came from, he wrote in a 2006 piece for The Guardian, but it may have been a play on Bilé, the nickname of a goalkeeper for the team Pelé’s father played on. “I can remember the name really bugged me at first. I was really proud that I was named after Thomas Edison and wanted to be called Edson,” he said. “I thought Pelé sounded horrible. It was a rubbish name. Edson sounded so much more serious and important.”

PELÉ by YAW PERBI is an Executive Education firm that offers authentic and customized relationships and resources to C-Level executives to grow personally, succeed professionally and become significant societally. To this end, the company provides Pelé services in leadership development, management training, executive coaching and publishing. Our Pelé coaching, authoring, speaking, and training are centred on LIFE—Leadership, Integrity, Family, Entrepreneurship.

 

Conclusion

We are PELÉ–extraordinary, exceptional, incomparable, unique–but more importantly, we form PELÉs, who are authentic, out of the ordinary executive leaders in every sector of life and all society’s centres of influence. As a forward-looking, authentic leader, if you want to dextrously dribble through LIFE and exceptionally hit goals like the legendary Pelé, you know where to look for the kind of coaching and training it will take: Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ). Like begets like.

Of Kanévals, Kanébals & Kanévores.

Co-founders of Perbi Cubs sandwiching Kanéval partner-influencer, Nana Aba Anamoah, media personality & General Manager of GHOne TV/Starr FM.

 

This year, the capital city of Ghana where my wife hails from and where I was born has been named by UNESCO as its twenty-third World Book Capital. Accra takes over from Guadalajara, Mexico (2022) and will be handing the baton to Strasbourg, France come April 2024.  Since ‘kané’ is the Ga word for read—and Ga being the language of the Accra people—Perbi Cubs Library services creatively replaced the near-homophonic ‘carni’ in ‘carnival’ with ‘kané’ and coined the word ‘Kanéval’ to bring fun to reading, which is otherwise unfortunately perceived widely as a bore and a chore.

As official partners of UNESCO Accra World Book Capital 2023 (AWBC ‘23), Perbi Cubs will be organizing Kanéval as a fantastic year-long program, a traveling fun fair transitioning from place to place with lots of amusements intertwined with lots of reading. You will find a fuller history of the UNESCO AWBC’23 partnership and details of the year-long fiesta here.

 

RESCUE FROM KANÉBALS

We are of the conviction that this Kanéval social service campaign needs to involve key influencers from all walks of life, from CEOs to Black Stars players to musicians, to consistently show that reading is fun and leads to success. The campaign will consist of various events in-person and online, including book fairs, storytelling sessions, and community outreach programs. By making reading fun and accessible, we can encourage more people to read and ultimately improve literacy rates in the community.

When we began approaching various influencers to join us on this reading revolution campaign, a massive behavioural change intervention, some of the stories we heard about the generally poor reading attitudes and habits of Ghanaian society were stupefying. We found kindred spirit in Nana Aba Anamoah (photo above), media personality and General Manager of GHOne and Starr FM, who unbeknownst to us had years back initiated a reading campaign known as ‘Raising Readers.’ She too had involved several influencers, including former Ghanaian president Jerry John Rawlings, to read with the children in a certain deprived area of Accra. Book donations in their thousands to the cause were a shot in the arm.

At some point it was clear parental involvement would bolster this behavioural change campaign. Some parent did accompany their children and wards to the reading sessions. Mostly reluctantly. In spite of these mostly illiterate parents sucking their teeth after only a little while, thinking of all the other more ‘productive’ ways they could be spending their time, Nana Aba and team pressed on. In fact, at the height of her intervention they had decided that once a week was not enough for the pace and profundity of the transformation they sought so they decided to leave books with the families and replace them when they returned the week after.

 

 

All seemed well and good until the following week when some medical doctors on the Raising Readers campaign team who had gone down the road to grab some snacks returned with horror on their faces. When Nana Aba relates this story, she might not be aware but her face betrays the pain of the let-down she felt. The snacks that the team mates purchased in the catchment area had been nicely wrapped in freshly torn out pages of last week’s books! Kanébals (do you see what I’ve done with ‘cannibal’ and ‘kané’?) had dismembered the hitherto living literary friends, ripping them from their saddle-stitched and perfect-bound spines and repurposing the cadavers as food packaging. Ah!

When we related this story to another influencer on our bill, Kafui Dey (photo above), author and Breakfast host on GTV, he told us worse. Sometimes it’s pages of even the Bible that are Kanébalized for wrapping food!

 

WANTED: KANÉVORES IN THE KAPITAL

Perbi Cubs, convinced that readers are leaders and leaders are readers, has from inception sought to raise lion-leaders, hence the referral to our 10,000 young patrons as cubs (the young of lions) rather than the typical ‘kids’ (the young of goats).

By the end of the year-long Accra World Book Kapital, we seek to have enrolled an army of at least 100,000 cubs who are voracious readers, Kanévores. If carnivorous lions are the king of the jungle, we imagine that Kanévores rule the world.

 

KALL TO ACTION

According to UNESCO, as of 2021 only 6% of children in classes two and three in public basic schools could read and understand anything they read. Lack of sufficient reading resources and very large class sizes are among the root causes of the problem, but the overarching root cause is that society does not value reading. Reading is seen as a chore, a punishment or even a necessary evil! Yet per credible research, the love for reading is a stronger indicator of a child’s success in school and their future career than even their parents’ level of education and their socioeconomic status.

 

 

Join us in promoting the joy of reading and improving literacy rates in the community, particularly among children in public basic schools, by becoming a partner for Kanéval. Together, we can make a real difference in the lives of our community members and future generations. Let’s celebrate and make the most of Accra’s selection as UNESCO World Book Capital 2023.

 

KONCLUSION

Accra has been selected as UNESCO World Book Capital 2023 and Kanéval is a one-year social service campaign organized by Perbi Cubs, as official partners of UNESCO AWBC 2023, to celebrate this achievement and promote the joy of reading and improving literacy rates in the community.

The success of the campaign depends on a coalition of all stakeholders in the book industry, influencers, and strong partnership with the media. Together, through massive Kanévals all year, we can raise Kanévores and end apathy towards the written word that results in Kanébalism and the like. May readers rise and leaders come to light to transform society and impact the world—from Africa to the Rest.

Confluence for Influence: Kanéval by Perbi Cubs Leverages UNESCO’s Accra World Book Capital 2023.

Exciting news! Perbi Cubs Library Services is teaming up with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Ghana Book Development Council, among others, to celebrate Accra World Book Capital (AWBC ’23) as official partners. Accra, the capital city of Ghana, in West Africa, is the 23rd city in the world, and only the fourth in Africa, to have the honour of this title which UNESCO initiated in 2001 to promote literacy globally. This is akin to a literacy World Cup title, only it is bestowed annually.

The World Book Capital is an initiative of UNESCO which recognizes cities for promoting books and fostering reading for a year, starting on April 23, World Book and Copyright Day. UNESCO adopted the 31 C/Resolution 29, in 2001, establishing the World Book Capital (WBC) programme. Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital pledge to carry out activities with the aim of encouraging a culture of reading and diffusing the values of literacy, lifelong learning, copyright, and freedom of expression in all ages and population groups, both within and beyond national borders. The first city to be awarded was Spain in 2001 and Accra’s turn is sandwiched between Guadalajara, Mexico (2022) and Strasbourg, France (2024).

The UNESCO World Book Capital Advisory Committee, which evaluates bids to win the title, comprises representatives of the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), the International Authors Forum (IAF) and UNESCO. Past capitals include Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Anvers (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogota (2007), Amsterdam (2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Erevan (2012), Bangkok (2013), Port Harcourt (2014), Incheon (2015), Wroclaw (2016), Conakry (2017), Athens (2018), Sharjah, (2019), Kuala Lumpur (2020) and Tbilisi (2021).

 

 

THE GHANA JOURNEY

Accra’s first attempt to win the 2019 World Book Capital title, after the idea was mooted in 2016 and working towards that, failed. Accra relaunched the bid in April 2021 and won it. The executive board of UNESCO, at its 215th session in Paris, France, on September 22, 2021, named Accra the World Book Capital 2023, following evaluation by the World Book Capital Advisory Committee. This was no mean achievement for the ten-member bidding team representing the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana Commission for UNESCO, Ghana Library Association, Ghana Publishers Association, Complementary Education Agency (formerly Non-Formal Education Division), Ghana Association of Writers, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and chaired by Mrs Ernesticia Lartey Asuinura, the Executive Director of the Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC). Several internal staff of GBDC were behind this successful bid and must be applauded.

According to UNESCO, “the city of Accra was selected for its strong focus on young people and their potential to contribute to the culture and wealth of Ghana. Accra’s proposed programme seeks to use the power of books to engage these young people, as an effective way of skilling up the next generation.” Earlier this year, on April 11, the Minister of Education of Ghana, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, held a press launch of AWBC’23 at which Perbi Cubs was represented by the Founder and CEO, Mrs. Anyele Perbi. He explained that Accra was selected ahead of other cities because the Education Ministry’s programmatic focus was on young people and their ability to contribute to the culture and wealth of Ghana through the power of reading. “Research shows that reading improves the learning outcomes of students in schools,’ said the Minister. “That’s why in certain schools around the world, they’ve implemented and employed the ‘Drop Everything And Read’ – ‘DEAR’.  So if it’s 15 minutes, 20 minutes a day, children are made to stop everything and read,” he illustrated.

 

 

Dr. Yaw Perbi, Global CEO of The HuD Group and Co-Founder of Perbi Cubs, and Mrs. Anyele Perbi , Founder and CEO of Perbi Cubs, were invited and did attend the grand opening of AWBC ’23 by the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the Director-General of UNESCO, Madam Audrey Azoulay Ayoub, at the Accra International Conference Centre. The theme for the occasion was ‘Reading to connect minds for Social Transformation’. It was encouraging interacting with school children as well as top academics at the Perbi Cubs booth, including members of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. Visiting the exhibition booths of other players in the literacy space was also invigorating but nothing beat the joy of seeing the attending school children flock to the Perbi Cubs stand to sample for a few minutes the thousands of books on their online platform.

 

 

Under the theme ‘Reading to connect minds for social transformation’ the programmes planned for the title year will focus on particularly the youth and vulnerable groups in Accra (and Ghana at large) such as children, underemployed women, head-porters (kayayei) and persons living with disability, to equip them with literacy and employable skills, while promoting the rich Ghanaian cultural heritage and the book industry in Ghana.

 

THE PERBI JOURNEY

Both Yaw and Anyele Perbi (née Ampa-Sowa) come from homes full of books. In fact, they got to know each other as children of professors at the University of Ghana campus. Anyele’s dad was an Economics lecturer and Yaw’s mum, a history lecturer. In their growing up years Yaw’s own dad, being a long-time member of the board of Challenge Bookshop, would receive loads of books every year, feeding their home library fat.

Tracing the history of books even further, Yaw’s maternal grandfather was not only an author and professor of African Studies and Ethnomusicology at the same university, but also  together with writer and educator Dr. Efua Sutherland organized the first international book fair in Ghana in the early 1970s and proceeded to come together to found Afram Publications a couple of years later, incorporating it in February 1973. Emeritus Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia was his name.

The Perbi household buzzed with books and moments like when the floating bookshops, the MV Doulos or Logos ships, would berth at the Tema Harbour were fun galore. Meanwhile, Yaw did not like reading as much as Anyele in their early years on the Legon campus. Anyele LOVED reading to the point that the rate of buying books for her and her two brothers was threatening to bankrupt her parents. When she was missing from the house you could be sure she was immersed in a book somewhere!

 

 

Two jerking statements changed Yaw’s attitude towards books. The first was, “If you want to hide something from a Black people, put it in the book.” You may read the full story here. Fascinatingly, by the age of twenty-three, Yaw would write and publish his first book, What Every Fresher Should Know about University, and as an internationally-recognized author of some twenty books and several book chapters, journal articles etc. now, as they say, the rest is history. Today, one of his punchy books called Read! is subtitled: “You are ‘illiterate’ if you can read but don’t.” Dr. Perbi’s 2015 Thinking Outside the Window was even an Amazon bestseller in its category. His latest book, co-authored with a Kenyan and published in March 2023, is entitled Africa to the Rest. In it, Yaw stresses the need for Africans not only to read but also to write. “Until the lion learns to write,” he reminds us, quoting an old African wise saying,  “every tale of the hunt will glorify the hunter.”

When Yaw founded The HuD Group in 2003, one of its first divisions was a library called The Mine (it still runs at the Staff Village of the University of Ghana). So for at least two decades now, Dr. Perbi has been a fierce reading campaigner. And now in tandem with the erudite Anyele, he likes to say “my wife and I have stepped up by stepping down.” What he means by that is, they’ve enhanced their reading campaign (stepped up) but decided to go further down to the age where humans are most pliable: childhood (stepping down). And they began with their our own seven children in the French city of Montreal, Canada which happens to have been the UNESCO World Book Capital in 2005, four years before they would dwell there as a family for the next dozen years. Their own children’s love for reading, the generous 40 books per person supply of the Pierrefonds municipal library across the street from their West Island home and an imminent eight-month visit to Ghana that threatened to stifle this Perbi reading culture combined to birth the Perbi Cubs Library Services. You may find the story and philosophy behind Perbi Cubs here.

 

 

AND NOW, KANÉVAL

According to Perbi Cubs CEO, “We are excited to inform you that Perbi Cubs, in partnership with UNESCO Accra World Book Capital 2023, will be organizing a fantastic year-long program. Watch out for Kanéval as it moves round throughout the year, to your school or community. Stay tuned on the various Perbi Cubs social media handles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram for more updates.” Kanéval by Perbi Cubs, a season of fun, inspiration, and BOOKS, is launching in Accra on May 11, 2023.

As long as reading remains a chore, we’ll have a problem promoting it. But who doesn’t love a good festival, a carnival? What if we could think outside the box and bring together the idea of a traveling amusement show with merrymaking sideshows, rides, etc. with reading? What if face-painting or getting on a swing was a reward for reading a book? These are some of the disruptive ideas that incubated and eventually hatched Kanéval. The idea of Perbi Cubs in general and KANÉVAL in particular, is to bring FUN to reading while strongly brandishing the connection between reading and success in life.

In the spirit of innovation and creativity, Perbi Cubs values, the coined word Kanéval was inspired by the word for read in Ga, the language of the Accra people, Kané. So combining ‘Kané’ with the English word ‘carnival,’ here we are! There will be lots of fun, reading and other educational activities. Perbi Cubs is grateful to several Ghanaian influencers like Nana Aba Anamoah (media personality and General Manager of GHOne TV and Starr FM), Bernard Avle (Citi Breakfast Show host and General Manager of Citi FM), Kafui Dei (author, speaker and GTV Breakfast host), Portia Gabor (TV3 hostess and Ghana Journalist Association’s reigning Journalist of the Year), Gwen Addo (entrepreneur, author and CEO, The Hair Senta), Giovani Caleb (media personality, radio and TV), Gifty Anti (author, media personality, celebrated journalist) and others who are synergizing with them to take the culture of reading to the next level to transform the fortunes of Ghana and Africa.

Perbi Cubs’ Kanéval is scheduled to take off on 11th May, 2023 at Alpha Beta Education Centres and then to all their partner schools and other communities, particularly deprived ones badly needing a literacy intervention. Kanéval is not just for our Cubs but all our stakeholders including you. There are many activities you can join in with exciting prizes. Kanéval awaits you for a Kanévalistic experience. Kanéval – Reading is fun!!! The amazing part is that in collaboration with various partners, Perbi Cubs is offering huge discounts on their subscriptions so that every Cub in their partner schools can read this year!

 

 

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Kanéval is fun about something serious. And Ghana in particular has a problem that isn’t funny. As a society we do not value reading enough. If research has proven that the love for reading is a stronger indicator of a child’s success in school and prosperity in life than even their parents’ socioeconomic status or level of education, then we should be worried that only 6% of Ghanaian children at classes two and three can read and understand what they read (UNESCO 2021). Meanwhile the World Book Capital Network (WBCN) acknowledges and reminds us of the power of books and reading as cornerstones to more inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies. Thus as they rightly put it at Perbi Cubs, “Success is just a book away,” be it personal or national.

Let this be the year we all got dead serious about raising the tide (the general level of literacy) that lifts all the other boats, all sectors and subjects, including STEM. O that the confluence for influence between Kanéval by Perbi Cubs, influencers like those cited above and all other players in the UNESCO’s Accra World Book Capital 2023 space will do the trick. Let’s get on with this serious business, having fun along the way. Kanéval it is!

The Ghanaian Dream is Not What You Think

Just before one of my recent trips out of Ghana, I asked the driver who usually takes me to the Accra airport if he would like to go with me for the experience (he’s never been airborne). His response wasn’t what I expected. I admired him for his brutal honesty and was deeply saddened at the same time. He said, “Dr. P, I won’t lie to you. If I go with you, I’m not coming back.” And he is not alone.

As I’ve been interacting with young people in Accra mainly, but in Ghana generally, it seems the Ghanaian dream is: to get out! i.e. to get out of the country to seek greener pastures. The Ghanaian dream is to exit the nation and l find that so sad on many levels. At the same time that excites me. Let me explain.

 

THE BAD, SAD & MAD

l find it sad in the sense that whatever the push factors are, they are potent enough to drive a collectivist society that is really keen on kith and kin, in other words one in which friends and family mean so much, to want to leave spouse and children, or parents, to go and struggle in another land just to keep body and soul together. What would make many of our people expire in the wilderness, literally die in the deserts of the Sahara en route to Libya and such, or be buried alive in the Mediterranean Sea between Africa and Europe in desperate attempts to get a better life?

Shame on the fathers and mothers who are making life impossible for our young people. I can totally understand why five hundred (500) years, or even two hundred (200) years ago, we would be forced to get into ships to sail to the Americas but today if anybody brought that same ship people will voluntarily fill it en mass and say, “Take me to the Americas, take me to the Caribbean, take me to Europe, take me to wherever. l want to work for whoever, for whatever; just to get out of here.”

I remember being in a conference last year at Cape Town, South Africa when someone did an incredible presentation on what Ghanaians and other Sub-Saharans go through in wanting to reach Europe by all means, literally. It was revealing how a revived craze is trying to go around the Senegambia coast to the Canary Islands, an Atlantic maritime route largely considered “the most dangerous sea passage for Africans trying to reach Europe.” Regarding the Sahara route, one of the funny but sad question was: “How many Africans can fit into the bucket of a Toyota Hilux pickup truck?” They say, “One more!” One more!! They keep filling and filling and filling these truck buckets with human beings and carry very little fuel and food supplies so they can travel light and transport more people. Whenever there is a breakdown or some delay, people die like flies. The dream becomes a nightmare. O WHY?

 

THE GOOD

On the other hand, what good can there be in all of this, legitimate and illegitimate attempts at migration alike? Why is there some excitement in my heart? There is titillation because God is a global God and he calls people whenever He wants wherever He wants them to accomplish His eternal purposes. Yes!

One day Paul of Tarsus, the lawyer-turned-preacher, was in Athens, Greece and delivered a ‘TED Talk’ at the Areopagus. Luke the doctor-turned-investigative writer records in parenthesis how “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21). “Ideas worth spreading,” TED would say. But I digress.

One of the things Paul shared was that God who made us all from one original man, Adam, is the one who determines our boundaries, where we live, and in what period or era in history (Acts 17:26-27). People movements are actually God movements. You see that throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. A personal attestation to this scriptural reality is how I never wanted to leave the land of my birth, Ghana, to be domiciled in another land, especially outside of Africa. I had no such plans. And I married a woman with a similar mindset. We were doubly resolved. Ironically, my wife, Anyele, was born in Canada and moved to Ghana when she was barely two years old but had no desire to return to the land of her birth. In fact, she had never used that Canadian passport to get back to Canada. Two dozen years later.

One evening in August 2006, God spoke to me so clearly. This was barely three weeks after we were married. I was in a Lausanne Younger Leaders conference near Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia when I heard this in my spirit: ‘It’s my world and l send you where I want you.” Huh! Then in January 2008, the LORD spoke very clearly to us both from Genesis 12. It was just our ‘usual’ morning devotion on an ‘ordinary day’ when these words literally jumped off the pages of scripture: “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household. And go to a land I will show you.” With no such prior plans of ever leaving Ghana to school or work, in a dramatic fashion our lives were turned upside down. By June I was serving with the United Nations Operation in Cote d’Ivoire (peacekeeping soldier) as a military captain and medical doctor to the U.N. staff and troops mainly, and some local Ivorians. By July, Anyele had been ‘kicked out’ of Ghana too to Montreal, Canada, going to pursue her master’s in economics at McGill University. The first time she was back in two-and-a-half decades.

So that’s the exciting part, that God may be calling people to fulfill His grand purposes in the Arab States, Europe, in another Africa country, the Americas, Australasia… wherever. But l pray that we would be able to help those who are going to go well. And also let our contacts in their destinations receive them well. It behoves on the Church in Ghana, in particular (which accounts for over 70% of the population), to find a way to prepare people well, including blessing them with a healthy diaspora missiology,  so they may go well and thrive. It cannot be overemphasized that merely getting to America, Europe or China, is no guarantee one will be successful. We give money to poor people in Canada. There are homeless beggars who have come to squat on our property in America. And the poor in the West are not of only one colour of skin.

Having said that, surely we can do more, much more, to help whoever longs to, or is called to, stay in the land of their birth and make it in Ghana, Nigeria or anywhere in Africa, to be able to make it well also, and very well for that matter.

 

WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU

Find out what God’s great purpose and plan, position and place (including geographical location) is for your life, for the One who made and redeemed you is a global God. It might not be what you thought. Bottomline: You are only going to prosper where God has purposed and planned you to be planted. Make sure you are planted by God in that place–whether it is in Africa or elsewhere–and in that particular period, where and when you will prosper. Think on these things.

 

Post Script

Here’s a PEP Talk on ‘The Bad & Good about the Ghanaian dream.’