
Every day I hear the same sentence from young people in Accra, Kumasi, and across our diaspora in the UK, USA, Canada, and Germany: "When the right time comes, I will start." The right time never comes. It never did for anyone who became great.
Consider the story of Katt Williams. In a recent long-form interview, the comedian explains how he went from a childhood of severe abuse to comedy stardom. His new memoir, Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines, is his debut as an author, runs 336 pages, and has a foreword by Shaquille O'Neal. At thirteen, he told his devout Jehovah's Witness parents he was done with knocking on doors, and that knocking out audiences would be his calling. He hitchhiked to Florida and hustled odd jobs. The book follows his path from homelessness to comedy stardom. Along the way he became a comedian his publisher describes as an Emmy winner.
I am not telling you to run away from home. I am telling you to look at the mindset, because it is the part we can copy.
1. Hardship is not a verdict. Williams says that reading classic literature convinced him that great people usually have to pass through suffering first. So he never saw himself as a victim, only as a hero in the early chapters. Many of us are doing the opposite. We use our background, our school, our family, or the economy as a permanent excuse. Your past explains where you started. It does not decide where you finish.
2. Rejection is arithmetic, not an insult. He treats rejection as a numbers game. If you send ten applications, pitch twenty clients, or submit five articles, some will say no. That is not a judgement on your worth. It is the cost of doing business. As a columnist, I have learned the same thing. Not every piece lands, and the next one still has to be written.
3. "Overnight success" takes years. He says he treated comedy like a 9-to-5 job for fifteen years, before anyone knew his name. Our generation sees the polished result on social media and forgets the long, boring, unrecognised work behind it. Nobody posts the 15 years.
4. Bet on yourself. He says he funded his early comedy specials himself, which removed the risk of waiting for gatekeepers to give him permission. Here in Ghana, we wait too long for someone to "give us a chance." Today a phone, a laptop, and discipline can publish a column, release a film, or launch a brand. Waiting for approval is the real gamble.
I will add one honest caution. A memoir is one person's account of his own life, and some details in it have already been disputed in the press. So take the mindset from his story, not every detail. And please do not copy the risky choices of any celebrity. Copy the work ethic.
So here is my message to every young Ghanaian reading this: stop waiting for perfect circumstances. Start small, start today, and keep going when nobody is clapping. That is how greatness is built, one unseen day at a time.
Chief Tutu Baffour Asare Brownsy Williams is an author, columnist, and filmmaker, and the founder of Brownsy Silva Company.



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