I’d just graduated university and I was still deciding on the one thing I wanted to do with my life. I was looking for the one job that would fulfil all of my interests and allow me to do work that mattered.

I started an internship with small design and marketing agency in London. I hoped it would show me this kind of work could be really rewarding and give me a path to follow. But it didn’t. Instead it indirectly showed me it wasn’t for me. A great learning experience even if I couldn’t appreciate it at the time.

However, while I was there I did get the two most liberating pieces of career advice I’ve ever had…

So what do you do then? 

I’m a part time web developer. So I help out big projects when they don’t have enough people in house. 

Ah cool. So what do you do when you are not being a web developer.

I’m a stunt man 

I looked at him at if he’d said something rude or really out of context Like what did you just say?

He repeated it to help my brain send a message to my puzzled face to say it’s okay.

I’m a stunt man. I impersonate premiership footballers on TV adverts. Like doing overhead kicks for Nike adverts and things like that.

At first the penny didn’t drop. But as any footballing fan would in this situation I unleashed the can of worms to know more about this amazing gig!

I guess I knew these kind of jobs must exist and people must do them, but you don’t normally meet people that hang around the training pitch with Fernando Torres. As I write this Torres has peaked in the Premiership and now back in Spain. But still, a really cool job!

The two messages I was supposed to get from this was:

1) You don’t just have to do one thing.

You can have multiple passions and get paid for all of it providing you can balance your life and make it work.

2) You can get paid to do things you totally love doing.

The work job as mixed connotation and doesn’t often conjure up images of people being stunt men. Whilst we can’t all be stunt men, we can all find work that excites us – and get paid for it.

In one conversation all of my pervious beliefs about having one job were gone. I knew the days of one job for life were long gone and people will change jobs or careers throughout their life. But I did not know I could do two at once! Or that work could be that much fun!

It didn’t really sink in at the time. I think I was just really impressed that I met a stunt man.