Multi-Talented?

You here this phrase all the time, but it's a rare thing for an individual to be truly multi-talented.

1998 was a great year for many reasons. It was the year I joined Mane and I'm still here, but for the French football team it was the year that they had their first, and only, World Cup win. Now anybody who read my post last week "I'm Angry" might be thinking this article is a little hypocritical considering I was having a right old moan about people posting football articles on here, but stay with me, this isn't about football.

In that team was a chap by the name of Frank Leboeuf and any Chelsea fans will recognise his name as he also played for the club for 5 years between 1996 and 2001. During his career and in addition to lifting the World Cup in 1998 and The European Championship 2 years later, he was also part of the side that landed Chelsea The FA Cup in 1997 & 2000, The League Cup in 1998, The FA Charity Shield in 2000, The EUFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1998 and The EUFA Super Cup in 1998. Now, I don't care who you team of choice is, you cannot deny that that is some record of achievement.

Most footballers tend to disappear into insignificance when they hang their up boots with the odd few making it to football management and even fewer making it to commentary slots on our TV screens. But not Leboeuf!

Unknown to me, and probably most of his supporters, his first passion was acting. from the age of 4 he wanted to be on the stage but it didn't happen for him so he had to slum it as a Premier League footballer for the first half of his working life. But once those boots were hung, he got back on the pursuit of his passion. So now he's playing a doctor in the Oscar nominated film, The Theory of Everything, as well as multiple stage performances in the theaters of Paris. I haven't seen all of his performances but what I have seen is a very talented actor. I'm not even sure if Vinny Jones or Eric Cantona were at that level.

I've spent 17 years in the recruitment sector, so far, and prior to that 5 years as an engineer. I'm certainly not categorising myself as multi-talented as I wasn't a very good engineer (in fact, I was rubbish!). I'd like to think I'm slightly better at recruitment but my colleagues and clients might beg to differ! What I have managed to find during those 17 years is a small number of truly multi-talented people. Not only are they very good at their jobs, they're fantastic people to be around. Finding them was very difficult but I know there are more of them out there.

So this is a short piece to show my recognition and respect for the true multi-talented people that I have the pleasure of working with everyday. I take my hat off to you. Hopefully others will see this and want to join them.