I know it’s a rather grandeur subject title with a somewhat mythical connotation and you’re probably wondering what’s this got to do with a 20 year plus successful recruitment career culminating with co-founding a business, Medlock Partners?
Well, let’s start at the beginning.
I was the Foolish Boy in the title, I mean in the historical sense of course, a joker, jester type of character. From a very young age I always wanted to make people laugh and smile and part of this was acting a bit of a fool and not taking things too seriously. I remember one day asking my primary school teacher what I should do with a scrap bit of paper, rather than just telling me to bin it, his sarcastic response was to go and put in a tree. Well to his surprise and the amusement of my fellow classmates, that’s what I did!
On another occasion whilst in sixth form, I had gotten so far behind with my art homework, I was told by my teacher one Friday, if I didn’t produce the goods on Monday then I would be in big trouble. Rather than spend the weekend doing said homework, I did what most teenagers did in the early nineties, I went out clubbing and lost myself with my mates. So, when Monday morning came along, I decided I would feign illness and persuaded my Mum to let me stay at home. I locked myself in my bedroom with the intention of furiously knocking out some drawings which would rival Picasso. Later that day my Mum knocked on my door to say that there was someone to see me?? I went downstairs and to my absolute horror my art teacher had decided to minibus my entire class to mine having realised what I was up to. Whilst my friends played pool and darts and drank pop and ate crisps (I was brought up in a village pub), I had to sit down with my Mum and listen to my teacher explain that if I didn’t change my ways, knuckle down and work hard then I would be destined for academic failure. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen (sorry Mr Jenkinson) and I continued to mess around and do as little as possible at school. It was no surprise that when it came to my A Levels, I was very, very underprepared. On results day, whilst my friends discovered their results and excitedly talked about which University they were going to go, I looked at my piece of paper which revealed I had received two N’s and a U. You’re probably wondering what these grades stand for? In fact, I don’t think they even exist anymore? A U stands for ‘Unmarked’. It was that bad they couldn’t even be bothered to grade it! An N means ‘Near Miss’. What even is a near miss? I’m not sure what’s worse a miss or a near miss?
As you can imagine, I didn’t have any universities contacting me, desperate to sign me up. In fact it was pointless even going through UCAS clearing. The stark reality was, I was going nowhere! I had to decide what I was going to do. I really didn’t feel ready for finding a job and forget about any plans to go to Uni so I made the difficult decision to go back to school! I vowed to myself that I had to change, I had a second chance and this time things would be different. I spent 12 months immersing myself in books and study. I spent every second of every day studying, I would study before school, I would study at lunchtime, in the evening and at weekends. I even arranged to have private tutorial lessons with my teachers at evenings and weekends. I lost contact with friends and I even lost my then girlfriend (Don’t worry I wooed her back and we’ve now been together for thirty years). I had no time for them apart from study. On my second time of receiving my A level results I looked down at the piece of paper and this time I saw an A, C and D. OK, not the best results ever but I was never ever going to be a straight A student. I was never that rather annoying student who just had to turn up to nail their exams. To me those results were like straight A’s! I came to realise that for me to succeed, I had to work hard, incredibly hard. This valuable and life changing lesson has stayed with me ever since my very first fall.
I look back and I’m so glad it happened this way. It taught me an incredibly important life lesson, you can achieve almost anything with hard work, tenacity and determination. This stayed with me throughout my university days and then into my career in recruitment.
With Medlock Partners, I now find myself in a place that was meant to be. I’m surrounded by some amazing people, people I’m proud to call my friends and partners. People with similar principles; work hard, don’t take yourself too seriously, have fun, make each other smile and be the best you can be. I hope and believe that this same philosophy will be the overriding impression of anyone we have the pleasure of working with now and in the future.
Now let’s soar!
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me for a confidential conversation. My email is mark.croston@medlockpartners.com.
