This transcript has been edited for clarity and checked against the available source transcript and recording. Filler, false starts, and obvious transcription errors have been corrected without changing the speaker’s meaning.
Warwick Donaldson#
James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. On today’s episode, you’ll hear about what it means to take an asymmetric risk and certain things you can do in your career that have unlimited upside. We’ll talk about networking hacks from Chinese culture, and we’ll also talk about what it means to challenge yourself appropriately.
If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter. You’ll get takeaways and my insights from this episode directly in your inbox every single week. Without further ado, please enjoy.
Intro#
James: Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory. My guest today is a serial entrepreneur, problem solver and country man. He’s an active member of the Australian startup community, has been part of several capital raises and writes about startup funding on his site, Aussie Startup Capital Nerd. He’s passionate about helping young people and growing the Australian startup ecosystem. Please welcome to the show Warwick Donaldson.
Warwick: Hey, James. Thanks for having me. I’m very excited.
James: Great, man. I’m really excited.
Warwick’s First Job#
James: I’m excited to chat as well. Before the podcast, we were speaking about your first job and how it came about. I’m curious: what was your very first job, and how did you get it?
Warwick: Well, I’ve actually had a few first jobs, so it depends which first job we’re talking about. I’ll tell all three; all three are kind of fun. My first job was when I was about six years old. I used to get, I think, one or two dollars a week in pocket money from my parents, and it wasn’t enough. I always wanted to buy things and my parents wouldn’t give me any money, so I devised a way to make some more. My first-ever job—my first-ever business—was collecting sheep poo. I used to walk around picking it up, put it in bags and sell it to people in town, because I grew up on a farm.
That was my very first job, although I suppose I created it. My first job working for someone else was on the farm for my dad, when I was about 10 years old. He used to get me doing proper full days because I really wanted to do it, so he paid me reasonably well. He was like, “Well, you do a full day’s work, then you get paid like a normal person.”
But for the first job I think you’re referring to, maybe I’ll tell the backstory. Ever since I was about 14, I was fascinated by finance and really wanted to be in banking. My idea was that banking was the pinnacle of, I think, capitalism and sophistication. I thought I was going to be exposed to the most amazing things in the world there, be challenged and get to see billions of dollars and all this sort of stuff. That absolutely fascinated me, so ever since I was 14 I wanted to go into banking.
I went to uni and studied banking, finance and accounting. When I graduated, I had pretty average grades. I didn’t fail anything—that’s probably my claim to fame from my uni degree—but my grades weren’t good enough to get into a grad position. I tried and didn’t get in anywhere, but I wanted to be in banking. I said, “Okay, well, I’m just going to get a job in banking doing anything and figure it out once I get there.” I got a job in an outbound credit card collections call centre and spent about nine months there.
While I was there, every day I would get on the GAL—the global address list—and research people at ANZ who I thought were working in interesting departments. I’d send them emails and say, “Hey, I’m really interested in what you do. I want to learn more. Do you have time to go and get a coffee?” Slowly, I worked my way through credit risk, market risk, the traders and all different parts of ANZ. Everybody said yes. They were really pleased that someone would reach out to ask them questions and learn about them and what they did.
I did that for about eight or nine months, and each of those people would refer me to someone else they thought was working in an interesting department, based on what I told them I wanted to do. I ended up working my way through ANZ and eventually made my way to ANZ Treasury. For those who are not familiar, Treasury is basically the bank’s bank. They’re the ones who ensure the bank is funded, dish the funds out to the various business units and manage liquidity.
I found someone in ANZ Treasury, and he said, “Well, we’ve never had anyone find us. This is actually really cool. We’re hiring a grad role as an analyst. Are you interested?” I said, “Hell yeah,” did the interviews and got my first quite real grad job, I suppose, which was an amazing opportunity.
The Power of Asking#
James: That’s really cool. I think it’s such a good story. It speaks to this idea that, when you reach out, people are almost surprised to have someone contact them. It’s such a valuable thing to do for yourself and for them. Reaching out cold like that is a great example of how valuable it can be, because too many of us don’t do it. You’re worried: what if they say no, or what if this or that happens? But what if they say yes? It’s a great example of how it can work out if you persist with that kind of thing.
Warwick: Well, that’s the best bit, right? The worst they can do is say no. The best they can do is say yes, and you end up getting a job. There’s no downside and there’s only upside, so it’s a pretty good risk to take, if you want to call it a risk at all.
James: Absolutely. I was reflecting on this idea over the last week: so many people I’ve met have this commonality. The opportunity that really changed their life was something they wanted, and they asked for it. Then suddenly they were off doing something incredible. It’s really common and underappreciated. People don’t do it enough, and perhaps don’t even realise what they can achieve just by asking.
Warwick: Never underestimate someone’s willingness to talk about themselves. People love talking about themselves. We gather a lot of experience in our lives, and a lot of people love to share that experience. That’s why I’m doing this interview, right? That’s why I take nearly every cold outreach people make to me. I love sharing my experiences, and hopefully someone can learn from me because I’ve done all this stuff. Hopefully I can short-circuit some learning for the next person. That’s what it’s all about.
James: Absolutely. It’s so powerful, and having people like yourself who are open to people reaching out is what makes this work. I appreciate it, and I’m sure other people who have reached out to you appreciate it as well. I want to move on.
Warwick working Overseas#
James: Now, with your career and move overseas, talk us through that process. What led to you deciding to go over there?
Warwick: I was working at ANZ and had spent about two years in Treasury, in wholesale funding. We were managing a bond portfolio of a bit over $100 billion, and we were doing $25 billion of new issuance per year. It was absolutely insane, right? I loved the work and the markets and all that sort of stuff, but there was really something missing. I think I saw my life flash before my eyes. I saw where I was going to be when I was 40 and 50 because the progression seemed quite linear, or it did when I was there anyway. I think that scared me. I was like, “Oh my God, what happens if I spend the next 30 years at ANZ or in banking? Would I be happy? Would I say that I’ve lived a full life?”
Up until that point, my life had always been about risk management. I grew up on a farm; farming is about extreme risk management. Then I studied banking, finance and accounting, which is also risk management. I felt that I wasn’t really taking risks with my life. Part of that is to do with my privilege, and part of it is to do with the way I grew up, Australia and all that sort of stuff. Australia is a pretty safe place to be, and I wanted to experience more of the world. I didn’t take a gap year or anything like that, so I said, “Okay, it’s time for me to challenge myself—really challenge myself. What’s the most extreme thing I can do to challenge myself without taking too much risk?” I’m still a person who likes to manage risk.
I came up with this idea of moving to China. I’d been there twice on holiday, really enjoyed it and felt like it was a second home. But I didn’t speak Chinese and didn’t know a whole lot about Chinese society. All I knew was that, for some reason, I was drawn to it. I said, “Okay, well, it’s probably the biggest risk that I could take.” I talked to this guy who had moved there a couple of years before. He said, “Just do it, man. What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen?” I was like, “All right, I don’t know about this,” and everyone else was saying, “I don’t know why you would do that. You literally have one of the best jobs in the world right now.”
So I did. I quit and got a job teaching English in a primary school in suburban Nanjing. A comparator for Nanjing is probably Geelong, right? It has 10 million people, but it’s still like a big country town. I was right on the outskirts, in the suburbs, and went and taught English. That started my journey in China. I ended up spending three years there.
It was a crazy time that really challenged me, in really good ways. It helped me understand that there is a completely different world out there. We don’t quite understand the parameters that guide us in, say, Australia and the West. We take certain things that exist in Australia for granted as, “This is just the way it is,” and don’t really challenge them. When you go to a place like China, it’s built on a completely different set of rules, technology and culture. Suddenly, you realise all these things you thought simply had to exist no longer had to exist.
For example, I moved there in 2016 and everybody was on WeChat. Literally every payment was instant. The Chinese banking system was built on a completely different set of rules because that’s what society demanded. They skipped the PC age and went straight to the smartphone age. They’re basic things that really challenge what we accept here in Australia as normal, or as slow progression.
Warwick’s Decision to Move#
James: That’s really interesting. Your decision to move is something that interests me because, as you said, you were in what people considered a great job and doing well in the corporate sphere. Then you gave that up to do something people might say wasn’t as good a job: teaching in a remote place in China. How did you deal with that? Did you feel social expectations? Did you doubt yourself at any point through that process, or were you simply thinking, “This is what I want to do, so I’m going straight for it”?
Warwick: It took me six months to make the decision and figure out how to do it with the least amount of risk possible. I doubted myself a lot, but I think the fact that I was doubting myself meant I was probably taking the right level of risk and challenge. If you’re not doubting yourself, you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough, right? You’re feeling too safe, so you need to fight through it.
Really, the risk was pretty low. Worst-case scenario, I leave China after six months or a year and go back into banking in Australia. Best-case scenario, I discover, evolve and learn, become this amazing person and have all these experiences that make me a better person. I could get a job teaching English in China; it was really easy. The risk was relatively low, but I did doubt myself a lot. I was quite conscious of the fact that people were judging me. My dad was like, “Oh, this is a really good idea.” He doesn’t know much about China.
One reason I was going was that China was in the paper every day and was this massive influence on our society, but I didn’t know anything about it. All I knew was how it was portrayed in the papers. Anyone who has ever travelled knows that how a place, culture or country is portrayed on paper is extraordinarily different to how it is in real life. That’s why we travel, right? To challenge the perceptions we have and put some substance behind them.
Now I’m this white dude who can speak Chinese, cruising around Australia. I pull it out all the time, speaking to Chinese people, and people say, “Oh my God, you can speak Chinese.” It’s really nice. You can bond over it and understand a different culture and society. I really appreciate that, and it has propelled me as a person and in my career.
Lessons that Warwick Took from Living in China#
James: You mentioned those cultural differences. Going to a different country lets you see those differences, but I’m interested in how you ended up coming back to Australia and what lessons you took back from your experience in China.
Warwick: I came back twice. The first time, I’d spent two years there and wasn’t progressing as fast as I wanted to. I was a little frustrated and thought, “Oh, I’m going to be a teacher forever. This is really annoying. I want to get back into doing some of the work I love in finance.” So I came back to Australia.
I came back not really knowing much Chinese because I’d fallen into what perhaps a lot of people do when they move overseas. Unless you really want to challenge yourself, you fall into the crowd that speaks a common language. I ended up spending a lot of time with people who spoke English, both locals and expats. I tried to make it work in Australia and got a couple of really good jobs, but I just wasn’t settled. It was really hard coming back because I’d had this crazy, phenomenal experience. The way I lived and everything had changed forever, nobody could understand that, and everything was the same here. It was really difficult coming back.
I got a really good job in venture capital. After about five months, they asked, “Are you enjoying yourself? Do you see yourself here for a while?” I said, “Honestly, no, I don’t.” They were like, “Oh.” I couldn’t believe I was saying it because I’d really wanted to work in venture capital. I was working with startups, I was working in finance and I got to talk to founders all day. It was great; it was amazing. But I wasn’t excited about it. All I could think about was China.
I ended up leaving and going back to China. I said, “All right, if I’m going back to China, this time I’m going to learn Chinese properly. I’m going to take the time and put the effort in.” I enrolled at university full-time to study Chinese. We had five hours of class five days a week, then probably another four to five hours of homework a day, rote-learning Chinese: literally writing Chinese characters, pronouncing tones, having conversations and reading. It was really intense, and I loved it. I felt I was going back to finish something I’d started but hadn’t done properly. It was amazing.
About 12 months into studying, I realised how long I would have to study to get my Chinese to a level where I could work in the fields I really enjoy. It was probably another three to four years, and I really wanted to get back into that type of work. It also dawned on me that, once I got my Chinese to that level, I’d have to rebuild my career in a different country with different rules. Chinese culture is very old and complex, like any culture in the world. You’re not only learning the language; you’re learning the culture, and you need to understand that sort of stuff.
After 12 months, I came to the realisation that it was probably a little too long and I’d already got a lot out of the experience. It was time to come home. I flew back into Australia two weeks before COVID was officially announced in China. I flew back on 15 December, and 31 December was when it was announced or discovered. There were people with COVID one week later where I had been working, so I could have been patient zero. What an insane thing, right?
James: Absolutely. People often talk about Chinese being quite hard to learn—probably one of the hardest languages—and then, on top of that, you’re learning the culture and doing all these other things. It certainly sounds like a great experience.
Using your Network | Guanxi#
James: When you came back to Australia at the end of 2019, did anything stick from your time in China? Sometimes it’s certain cooking techniques, ways of getting ready or other cultural things that we do differently in Australia. Is there anything you brought back that you still do today?
Warwick: A lot. It influenced my life so much, including my choice of breakfast. I like to have noodle soup for breakfast—a hot bowl of noodle soup on a hot day. I like to drink warm and hot water. I picked up a lot of cultural things, as well as things on the networking side.
In China, they have something called guanxi. Guanxi is the concept of relationships and the power of relationships. In China it’s extremely important, and I think throughout a lot of Asia it basically rules society in a way, as I understand it. You build your relationships and your network, but you should also use those relationships and networks. They say guanxi is like an arm: the more you use it, the more powerful it gets.
This is a really important idea that underpins how I conduct myself these days. I grew up in Australia, where we build networks but use them as a last resort. We don’t like to draw on our networks too much because we feel a little embarrassed that we’re asking for help. In China, it’s the complete opposite: you should use your network as one of your first ports of call.
I’ve really picked up on this and have been trying my best to apply it in my daily life. I’m seeing the benefits already. I talk a lot with the same people, or try to build a good network of people, and we help each other. I feel that bond and relationship evolve and become more meaningful over time. It’s really enjoyable because you’re building relationships, which is a basic human thing and really nice, but you’re also helping each other. That’s nice in a professional sense as well as a personal one.
James: Definitely. When you said that we often turn to our network as a last resort, I realised I’m guilty of that. Taking it back to what we discussed at the start, you can achieve so much just by asking. You can save yourself a lot of time trying to work something out when asking someone could solve your problem quickly. I absolutely agree. I could do better at not being so worried about reaching out to people, asking for things and asking for help. As you said, it could be beneficial for both parties.
Warwick: The part of Australia where I grew up is definitely a more individualistic society. We pride ourselves on doing everything ourselves, right? It’s like: move out of home as soon as you’re 18 and fight for your survival. Not really fight for your survival—it wasn’t that bad—but we really drive home this idea of the individual.
I rejected my family for a long time. Another thing I came back with was the importance of family and friends. Chinese society is very much centred around the family unit, and friends come within that. That’s really important. I came back from China drawing in my family, embracing it and really enjoying it, which has been nice and refreshing. I don’t think I have to do everything myself just to prove that I’m a big, tough person who can make it in Australia by himself.
James: Absolutely. That’s something we can all do better. Even with the podcast, people will say, “You should reach out to this person. They’ll be able to help you in this area.” Part of me thinks, “That’s a good idea,” but, for some reason, I almost want to do it myself. It’s clearly not the best way. I’m like, “I can do it all myself. I don’t need to speak with this person who has a newsletter they can share with heaps of people.” The number of opportunities that all of us have—not just me—that are only one ask away, but that you completely ignore because you want to do it yourself, is phenomenal.
Warwick: It’s fun doing things by yourself and making your own mistakes, and that’s okay, but make sure you find a balance, especially in seizing opportunities that are really juicy. Also acknowledge that you don’t know where an opportunity is going to lead. On the face of it, an opportunity may not look that appealing or juicy, but it may end up leading to, for example, a grad job like I got. That wasn’t what I was expecting, but it happened.
If I’d tried to judge that immediate opportunity from the outset, I would have been completely wrong. Most of the time, I’m completely wrong when I try to judge the outcomes of meeting people. People are very complex and are much more than their LinkedIn or Instagram profile. They have amazing networks and knowledge. You can’t predict where something will go, what you’ll learn or what their background is, and that’s the most beautiful thing. It’s really daunting, though, because you have to be prepared for anything: to learn anything and be exposed to anything. But that’s what makes it so beautiful, especially if you have a love of learning.
James: Right. That’s very wise and so true. A love of learning is so important. I want to talk about your experience in the startup world now.
How did Warwick end up in Startups#
James: You worked in VC for a little while between your trips to China, and you’re really involved in startups today. How did you stumble into that area? Continuing the theme of life lessons, what has being in this space taught you?
Warwick: As I said before, I started my first business when I was six and have had a few businesses since. I started my first startup when I was 21, I think, just after coming out of uni. I was working at ANZ in Treasury and had an idea for a fitness marketplace. I thought, “Whatever, let’s try to build it and see what happens.” I convinced my dad to give me a little money, which he never saw again. He still teases me about it today and asks when I’m going to repay that. I had better get onto that, actually. It’s a good reminder.
I started the fitness marketplace and went through the whole process of finding developers. After a year, it was built. I had grand plans for it to be the biggest and best thing from day one. I launched it, and nothing—crickets. I had no idea what I was doing. After a couple of months, I realised I was going to have to pound the pavement, talk to people and do all this other stuff.
I actually didn’t care about a fitness marketplace. I’m sorry; I did not and do not care about fitness or marketplaces. It’s just not me, right? I started it thinking I’d found this niche and, because I’m a businessperson, I could execute anything. I thought it was irrelevant whether I cared about it, which is just not true for me. I ended up shutting it down because I didn’t want to do the work. That’s the funny realisation that came out of it.
About a year later, I started another startup called Godber&Warwick. It was a custom men’s shoe business where you could design your own shoes in 3D. It was modelled after Shoes of Prey, which I saw some people at work using, and I thought, “Oh my God, this is amazing.” At the time, I was playing around with custom-designed shoes, going to Vietnam on holiday and getting them made. It was really fun, so I had to do it.
I spent about three years building this custom-shoe business. When I was in China, I was still working on it and met my really good friend Godber Olav Godbersen. We joined up, and he’s a designer, so we had a lot of fun building the tech. Then we found a custom-shoe factory in China. We used to go there on weekends and play around with designs, and they thought we were absolutely crazy. We tried to get them to make the craziest designs. We found they had a laser in the factory, so we started getting leather and lasering things onto it. We got friends who were tattoo artists to tattoo leather. We were doing all sorts of crazy stuff and dyeing shoes hot pink. It was so much fun.
I tried that for about three years and it didn’t really come off. By that point, I knew I loved change, innovation and startups. I went into the space and decided to work for anyone in startups because I wanted to learn. That started my startup career as an employee.
Now I work at Tractor Ventures, and it’s an amazing place to work. I meet founders all day, every day, and see all these innovations. We’re also a startup ourselves. We’re actually a fintech; the name Tractor Ventures is a bit deceptive. We deal with startups that are innovating themselves, so it’s the perfect job because it’s also finance. Before that, I worked in finance at a medical-device startup, and before that I worked in growth at an agtech SaaS startup called Mobble.
While I was in China, I did a lot of community work, building the expat community, and then started doing startup-community work through Startup Grind. I came back to Australia, continued with Startup Grind and really enjoyed community building. I don’t know what it is about it, but I get excited when I see two people meet for the first time and start sharing stories. They discuss the problems they’re trying to solve, and one person says, “I did that six months ago. Don’t do this, this and this; go and do this, this and this.” Suddenly, six months’ worth of learning has been shortcut over to the other person, and they don’t have to spend six months making mistakes.
There’s something really beautiful about that. All you have to do is create an environment for these learnings to be shared, and you’ve hopefully saved someone six months of trying to figure out some stupid problem. There’s something really electrifying about that and about seeing relationships being built.
I’ve been doing community work on the side ever since. These days, it has morphed into finance-community work through my website, Aussie Startup Capital Nerd. I publish investors and lenders for startups there. It has been great for me to learn about the early-stage capital-markets industry. But I thought, “It’s one thing to have an investor list; it’s another to know what to do with it or how to raise the money.”
So I started doing analysis and writing reports for founders on capital-raising metrics: what’s the median seed raise in Australia? How long is it between rounds? How much capital should I be raising? Should it be enough for 12, 18 or 24 months? I’m still doing that today. I find myself at Tractor, then writing articles on weekends and doing a little community work here and there. I’ve forgotten what the question was.
James: That’s all right. It’s really cool how you’ve managed to cover so many different areas across the VC and startup ecosystem in Australia. As you said, you’re contributing to startup funding, doing community events and helping founders with all this kind of stuff. It’s really great to see.
Warwick: It all comes back to seeing a problem that’s not being solved, or information that’s not being shared, and thinking, “Okay, I might as well do this and see what happens.” If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Everyone has a pretty short attention span these days; they’ll forget.
James: True. That’s such a good idea. I want to ask you about failure.
A failure that turned out to be a success#
James: You touched on the custom-shoe business not quite working out. I’m sure you’ve seen many startups begin by saying, “We’re going to be amazing,” and then things don’t work out so well. Has there been a failure in your life that turned out to be beneficial—a failure that became a success in some way?
Warwick: Good question. First, it’s important to define what I think a failure is. I think failure is when you try something but don’t learn from it. I’ve only realised this after working in experimental environments like startups. Startups, by definition, are experiments. Only after being in an environment that encourages failure have I been able to embrace and enjoy it.
If you’re trying something or experimenting and it doesn’t go the way you hoped, but you learn from it, then it’s not a failure. If you didn’t learn anything, then it is a failure and you’ve wasted some time. That’s how I define failure. With that in mind, all these things I’ve done in my life have been successes because I’ve learnt a whole heap of things. They’ve contributed to my career, where I am today, who I am as a person and where I’ll go in the future.
However, there are some failures I’ve had, as I define them. I was reflecting last night and digging really deep to discover my favourite failure—you heard it here first. My favourite failure is not actively listening. It’s painful to say, but I’ve been quite guilty of not actively listening in the past. I don’t think I’m very good at it, and I’ve been learning how to do it better.
The result is that some really valuable information has been shared with me that I haven’t retained. I’ve subsequently done things that I should have known wouldn’t work out. I’ve wasted time and failed an experiment, as such. By not actively listening, I’ve also failed to have deeper conversations and uncover more opportunities that could benefit both me and the other person in that conversation or situation. For me, not actively listening is my greatest failure.
James: Deep indeed. It’s a tricky thing to solve. Listening, and active listening in particular, can seem from the outside like something that’s quite hard to improve on or really work at. Is there anything you now try to do to combat that listening process?
Warwick: I try to slow down. I like to move fast, think fast, break things and all that sort of stuff, and I love change. It means I’m primed to be a poor listener. I try to make eye contact more often. I try to wait in a conversation, not interject and not get too excited. I’ve also learnt techniques to avoid annoying people when making assertions in conversations.
One of my bosses once got a little angry at me because I was making assertions. He said, “I don’t know if you know that, Warwick. It may be based on your experience, but it may not be true for the whole world. You’re asserting that it is.” He said a better way to make an assertion is to say, “In my experience, this is…”
Rather than saying something is true for the whole world, I’m saying, “Based on everything I’ve done to date, this is what I’ve learnt and what I think the answer is.” You come across as far less overconfident and more like you’re sharing something. It’s a shared-learning approach, which is also part of relationship building. That has helped me reduce confrontation in conversations, allowed people to open up more and allowed us to go deeper.
James: That’s a great technique: say what you’re thinking and open up space for discussion, rather than simply saying what you think and leaving it there.
Warwick: I’m an extrovert, so I have to be mindful that not everybody is. Everybody has important information and experiences, and you need to give them the space to share them.
Warwick’s Advice for Graduates#
James: We’re coming close to the end of this interview, Warwick. Time has absolutely flown, but I’ve got one more question that I ask all the guests: what advice would you give someone starting their career in 2022?
Warwick: Build your network. It may seem hard and daunting at the start—and it is—but it’s a marathon, not a race. There are plenty of beautiful, amazing people out there who want to talk to you and share their experiences with you. Don’t be afraid to ask them. The worst they can say is no. Literally, that’s the worst they can say. The best they can say is, “Hell yeah, let’s go and have a coffee,” and then who knows what will happen? It’s an asymmetric risk, and it’s an amazing thing. You really should be doing that.
I understand that not everyone is an extrovert, so it’s more difficult for some than it is for others, but try to fight it or find ways that work for you. Maybe it’s online; maybe it’s pinging someone and asking questions. It doesn’t always have to be face-to-face. Face-to-face is great for building relationships, but there are other ways. There’s always another way to solve a problem, so try to innovate, do some reading and figure it out.
Those networks and relationships are what will hold you strong throughout your career and your life. They’re something your job doesn’t own. When you leave, you take them with you. They become some of your capital that you can use to improve your life, improve your performance in your role and simply have a nicer life. It’s really good.
I encourage everyone to go out and build their network, and set yourself some goals. Say, “Each week, I’m going to meet one or two new people in a certain area.” If you want to learn about a new industry, job or topic, set yourself a goal: “I want to meet one person every week for the next eight weeks.” Go and reach out to people and do it.
James: It’s great advice and something everyone can do that can be really beneficial. I think you have something on your LinkedIn like, “Worst case, I won’t reply; best case is up to your imagination.” That’s a great way of putting it.
Warwick: I put that on my LinkedIn. If you’re thinking of reaching out to me, the worst case is that I won’t reply, and the best case is up to your imagination.
Contact Warwick#
Warwick: Congratulations.
James: Thanks so much for the chat today, Warwick. I’ve learnt so much about you, and we’ve spoken about so many lessons that I think are really great for young people. If people want to find out more about you and connect with you, where’s the best place for them to do that?
Warwick: Jump on my LinkedIn. I’m pretty active there. I know some of you may be rolling your eyes, but it’s where I’m active. Have a look through it. I do a lot of posts there, and they’ll give you a flavour of what I’m interested in and whether I might be helpful for you. Read through my profile and make a decision from there.
James: Fantastic. Thanks so much for chatting with me today, Warwick.
Outro#
James: Thanks so much for listening to this episode with Warwick Donaldson. I hope you got something out of it; I certainly did. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter. You’ll get the episode and my takeaways straight in your inbox every single week. Thanks so much for listening today, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.