Mihail Musat

I did not had (yet) the chance to meet Richard in person. But, I cannot wait for this moment to happen. Until then, I can tell you that it was a real pleasure to discover him through this interview as well as the book he wrote together with Shaa Wasmund. Thank you Richard!

“the idea of resigning a steady income to set up my own business was hard. Really hard. And that’s because a steady income in a job you don’t want is one of the most insidious traps life throws at you. ” – Richard Newton.

Let’s get acquainted! Richard, you’re an entrepreneur, consultant and co-writer of the upcoming book “Stop Talking Start Doing”. But besides these labels, you’re a man that walks the talk in a way that inspires people. Was it hard to walk the talk and how did it happen?

Thanks, Mihail. Like most people my career hasn’t followed a smooth trajectory. I began my working life as a researcher on a business magazine and that was just a way to pay the bills. Becoming a journalist was a natural progression but it wasn’t part of a life plan. It was simply the obvious thing to do given where I was and the fact that I enjoyed writing. So that part was simple. And of course, the years drifted by, I drifted by and the older I got, the more complicated it got. Who’d a thought?!

Having established a career as a journalist and having been inspired by all the successful people you get to meet as a business journalist I wanted to have a go at doing it myself. In other words I wanted to shift from talking about business to doing it!

But, funnily enough, even though I had gone as far as I wanted in business journalism the idea of resigning a steady income to set up my own business was hard. Really hard. And that’s because a steady income in a job you don’t want is one of the most insidious traps life throws at you.

For a long time I was waiting for the optimal moment to jump from one job (which I wanted to leave) to the next (which I couldn’t wait to start).

And it took a long time. Well, of course it did, because there is no optimal time. Or let me put it another way, the optimal time is always “now”(That’s a simplification but the broad thrust is right).

Once I started on my first business it was tough. We were always short of money. And we eventually went bust.

But the second time round it wasn’t so tough. Because I’d already started taking responsibility for my path by resigning the steady job. And to cut a long story short the second business was full of challenges – financial, strategic, difficult people, politics – but we got there in the end.

Since then I’ve worked with many businesses of many sizes and with many different challenges.

Co-author of a funny, straightforward and compelling book, in what context did the need to write such a message come along? How did it begin and what did it turn into?

Wow, these are good questions! Three things drove my thinking:

1/ Now is a really good time to start things. Principally because the Internet has empowered us to:

· connect with knowledge,

· start projects at low cost,

· see the possibilities (other people’s stories)

· be freed of convention (because now we see different ways of doing things every time we fire up our laptops)

So that was why it felt like the right time to do it.

2/ A different way of consuming knowledge and ideas

Again the Internet is critical here. Thanks to the web we are much more creative and sensitive to how ideas are transmitted and consumed. Almost everyone below the age of 30 knows what UX stands for. That’s pretty amazing. In this book I wanted to be much freer, looser, funnier in talking about a message which is important. The constraints of a traditional layout are historical and I don’t want to necessarily read a book like that or write a book like that. After all, no-one will enjoy reading a book that you don’t enjoy writing!

This was why I wanted it to look and feel like it does.

3/ The global economy is pretty screwed right now. You can’t rely on a job for life. Safe jobs are a thing of the past. We all need to be nimble, creative, energetic and brave. That’s a pretty scary thing for a lot of people. I wanted to present this mindset as a fun and logical way to think.

This fed into the style of the book and the urgent imperative of the message.

In describing your book, “Stop Talking, Start doing!”, you pointed out that it is not strictly destined for the “entrepreneurial business person but for the entrepreneurial in spirit”. How would you describe this entrepreneurial spirit?

It is bold, creative, self-trusting, scared, brave, curious, ambitious and full of love of life.

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Tags: book, English, entrepreneurship, interviul saptamanii, Richard Newton, Shaa Wasmund, Stop talking Start doing, weekly interview