Richard Dooner, CEO of Antser.

I liken Martin James Network’s vision of ‘Fearless Futures’ to my two all-time favourite quotes. Quotes that both inspire me and also sum up my journey leading Antser with a future-facing approach.

“We choose to go to the moon this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard…” – John F. Kennedy

I see this as extraordinary leadership because he pushed the boundaries and dared to do something that others hadn’t done before. Essentially, deliberately choosing to do something incredibly difficult, but incredibly brave and fearless at the same time.

He dared to look down the barrel of opportunity which equally could have been the barrel of failure. Instead of seeing the prospect of failure and fearing to do something, Kennedy proactively engaged his bravery and ultimately led his people and nation to achieve one of humankind’s most amazing achievements.

“If you can’t fly, then run, and if you can’t run, then walk, and if you can’t walk, crawl… but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” – Martin Luther King

This quote inspires me because to be fearless like JFK is simply not enough. To dream and to dare is one thing, but you have to turn that ambition into hard, relentless work. When the days are hard, you keep going, and on the days that are harder still, you push deeper. Persevering, doing whatever you need to do to keep moving forward and succeed.    

When the opportunity came to build and lead Antser I wanted to. Not because it would be easy but because it would be hard. It’s been one of the scariest and most challenging things that I have ever done.  

With the constant weight of fear and anxiety, questioning, are we making the right decisions? Are we going in the right direction? What do we do next?  

But each day I enjoy facing that fear, because knowing how many lives Antser could change, inspires me to keep going. And in doing so, every day, every week, every month, every meeting and every decision is another step forward to a future where Antser becomes the leading, most trusted partner in its sector.  

Thus further linking back to the Martin Luther King quote, in that some days I feel like we are flying, other days we are slowly trudging along. But in pursuit of our goal, we move forward, even if we are crawling.  

So for me, ‘Fearless Futures’ means a belief in opportunity, creating something better that hasn’t been done or achieved before. It might be hard, and others might shy away from it, but underpinned by hard work at Martin James Network we can turn these dreams into reality.