Your Excellencies; Members of the Board; Odeefuo Oteng-Korankye II; Nananom; distinguished guest speaker, Sylvia Mbama; parents, family, and friends; colleagues; and dear Class of 2024, welcome to the 20th commencement ceremony of Ashesi University.

Class of 2024, congratulations! Let us take a moment to celebrate your accomplishments and thank all those whose contributions have helped bring you to this day: your families who have supported you; the faculty who guided your learning here; the administrators and support staff who made this a nurturing campus for you; and our donors and friends who have helped create and grow this institution.

Class of 2024, your four years here have been special in the history of our institution. You graduated from high school amid a global pandemic and joined this institution online. Overcoming the challenges of your class’s particular circumstance makes your accomplishments more remarkable and this day even more poignant.

This is a good day. Yet, the world you are about to step into is unsteady. The strife and the economic turmoil we see in many African countries represent a step back in the march towards Africa’s development. As you step forward to contribute towards a renewal, I would like to engage you in a conversation about how we might achieve success.

Michael Jordan once famously credited his success to all the failures he’d had throughout his career. As he put it, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Is Michael Jordan claiming that success comes merely from failing repeatedly, or is he talking about something more?

His words about failing over and over and over again, are truly about persistence – and continuously striving to be better. More importantly, they are about recognizing that each failure is an opportunity to learn.

Another basketball star, Steph Curry, who dazzled the world with his performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics, said this about his success: “I try to make it look easy, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is the challenge.” In a 2016 interview, Curry explained that he took 300 – 500 practice shots a day. That is what makes one of the world’s greatest basketball players who he is. He still misses half of his shots, but he is far ahead of others in success rate because of the intensity of his practice and his drive to improve. There is a lot to learn from these two generational high performers.

I recently missed a shot in my attempt to advance from third to fourth Dan black belt in Shotokan Karate, and that experience has reminded me of what it takes to succeed. I travelled to Johannesburg last month to study with a karate master who was visiting from Japan, and to test for my fourth Dan black belt. The training was exhilarating, but I failed the exam: a three-part test consisting of basic drills (kihon); performance of an advanced karate form (kata); and sparring with an opponent (kumite).

This was his feedback: “Kata was okay. Kumite was okay. Kihon (basics) was not okay. Your punches were not precise … and your arms were all over the place.”

I failed an advanced black belt exam not because of my performance in advanced kata or kumite, but because of errors in the most basic technique—punching.

Now, I have practiced karate for over 37 years. For the past five years, I have been training five to six days a week.  No doubt I have exceeded Malcom Gladwell’s famous formula of performing an action 10,000 times to achieve mastery. So, what happened?

As it turns out, I did not rise to a common challenge you will also inevitably face as you move into the world, Class of 2024. All too often, as we advance in whatever endeavor we are engaged in, it is easy to stop paying attention to the fundamentals – the basics. And in doing so, we end up compromising the overall effectiveness of our work.

To advance to the highest levels, I needed to focus on technique; and to do that, it would have helped to observe my form in a mirror and seek feedback. This is true for many things in life. We need to hold a figurative mirror to ourselves in order to gain a better understanding of how to improve. And we need to listen to what the people around us are telling us about our work, our leadership, and our service. I now practice in front of a mirror and will ask for feedback often from the people I train with.

The most important lesson I took away from my missed shot was the importance of not losing sight of the basics. All too often, as we advance in whatever endeavor we’re engaged in, it is easy to lose sight of the fundamentals of our enterprise. And in doing so, we compromise the effectiveness of our efforts.

I would argue that the difficulties we see in many African countries are a result of insufficient attention to the basics, and a lack of introspection on the part of people charged with important responsibilities.

As you venture forward into the world, do not forget the most basic lessons you learnt here. The values of hard work, integrity, and discipline. The skill of teamwork. The importance of persisting even when you get a low grade, and striving to be better. The strength of kindness, compassion, and service. Listen intently for patterns in feedback and determine where you need to make corrections. Hold a mirror up to yourself always.

With steady persistent action and introspection, I have no doubt that you will make your mark in whatever endeavor you set your mind to.

Congratulations, Class of 2024, and Godspeed in this next chapter of your lives.