About Richard Dillon

Richard Dillon is a Melbourne-based writer who has spent much of his life exploring what it means to listen deeply. Shut Up, published by Good Uke Publishing in November 2025, is his first book.

From design to leadership

After years working in design and web development, Richard moved into leadership. There he discovered that true influence and trust are built not through what we say, but through how we listen.

Counselling and Aikido

Richard holds a diploma in counselling, which he pursued not to practise professionally but to better understand the psychology of relationships and communication. That study, combined with his personal experience, continues to shape his writing.

He is also a long-time practitioner of the martial art Aikido, where he has learned that discernment, humility and steady presence matter as much off the mat as they do within training. Those lessons run through his work, alongside reflections from family life and personal growth.

Why Richard wrote Shut Up

Richard didn’t set out to write about communication skills. He set out to understand why his relationships kept hitting the same walls. The answer came through unlikely teachers:

• A café conversation with a friend who needed silence, not solutions
• A son who went quiet when his father stopped trying to fix it
• A business customer whose fury transformed when someone truly stayed
• Two decades on the Aikido mat learning to listen with the whole body

Drawing on Aikido, Nonviolent Communication, counselling studies and the work of Carl Rogers, Marshall Rosenberg, John Gottman and Stephen Porges, Shut Upmaps a path back to the listening we’ve forgotten.

Richard lives in Melbourne with his partner Antoinette and his two sons. He writes regularly onthe blogabout listening, presence and relationships.

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