When I graduated I began working because I didn't want to move to New York without any connection. I ended up coming to New York on vacation and I absolutely loved it and I made the decision to move there. So while I was here on vacation I found a job as a manager of Warner Brothers Studio stores. So I said, "Okay, this is my 'get me to New York' job. I can appease my parents by letting them know that I have a job and I'm not just being crazy." I came here and started working, but it wasn't happy because I've always been interested in music. At one time I wanted to perform, but I studied business because I thought that was a better path for me.

While I was here I just started sending out applications and I saw that Carnegie Hall was looking for someone in ticket operations. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but I thought if I can get my foot in the door, then maybe I can get known there. I sent in my application and as luck would have it, the human resources director called and mentioned that they had a position open in their event sales department and would I be interested in that? I said absolutely because my other previous work had been in sales. So I went and met with her and we clicked right away. So that's how I got to Carnegie Hall.

I was living in New York for about a year and a half before I found my job at Carnegie Hall. I consider it ideal for me because I love the fact that during the middle of the day I can duck into the hall and hear like an orchestra from Berlin playing. Where else can you do that? I'm just amazed. When I was a little kid studying piano, I never dreamed at working at Carnegie Hall. I never even considered it. I'm just happy that I can work in an environment that combines so many of the things that I love to do.

It's not my ideal job, but for this time in my life it is. It's a good learning opportunity for me. I love going to work and that's the main thing. I've had other jobs where I've managed a car rental company and had a company car and good money, but I hated going there. Everything I was doing for that job was for a goal that I didn't even want. I mean I didn't want the next higher position. I had no personal joy in renting cars to people. Now at least I'm in an environment where I feel like I'm learning a lot, because I realize I don't know a lot about classical music. So when a new conductor comes or a new orchestra comes, I'll listen to the pieces and try to find out. It's just a whole interesting process for me and it's exciting. Sometimes I wake up and can't believe I'm living in New York and working at Carnegie Hall while two years ago I was working in a car dealership in Iowa. How did this happen to me? It just blows me away.

I have some young friends. One is 20 years old and he moved to the city wanting to be an actor, like almost everyone else, unless they're trying to be musicians [laughs], and he's going through a dilemma. He was going to college and left college to pursue acting in New York. Meanwhile he had taken a temp job at a company that makes bath and beauty products and he did very well and was very successful. They hired him full time. They made him manager of the division. So he's like, "Joe, I want to be an actor, but now I'm worried about soap products. The problem is I'm making such good money that I can't leave work to audition." I tried to tell him to go on an audition, but you need money and need to do what's right for you. It's strange because he's at the stage that I was at a few years ago. I gave up the job and took jobs for lower pay because the long term benefit would be better for me.

Another friend who works at Carnegie Hall as a temp wants to be an actor and he's very focused in that. Carnegie would offer him a full time job, but he wouldn't take it. He wants the flexibility of saying, "I can work on Tuesday or Friday, but I have to audition on other days." His main goal of living in New York is to go to auditions and he goes on tour every so often. He's more my age, around 28.

I'm in a state of reevaluation now. All my life I've set goals for myself. They started off real small, like to get a department store credit card to establish credit. Then my goal was to go to college. And I did that. Then I had some issues with my own life and I realized that I didn't want the things like getting married and having kids that everybody else did and I had to come to terms with that. When I did come to terms with that it opened my eyes. It made me realize that whatever I wanted to do I could do, but I'd just have to take charge and do it myself.

That's when I decided I wanted to move. I had friends who had moved to Oklahoma or Dallas but nothing really fit right for me until I got to New York. When I moved to New York I also wanted to be an actor, but I really didn't want to put the effort into it. I didn't really know at the time what I wanted to do, I just knew that I had to move somewhere else.

Now that I've been here for two years and I've made it to Carnegie Hall, I've sort of become complacent. I've gone to all the shows and seen all the museums and all that and now I need to take myself up to the next level. I'm not sure exactly what that is. The more I learn about music, the less I know about it. I thought I knew a lot about it until I started working more with it.

Now five years down the road I don't know what I want to be doing, but I'm sure it'll be something fabulous. I'm comfortable in the ambiguity of it all. I have a certain comfortable level. I wouldn't just give up my job and health insurance, but I want to continue. Looking back at acting I realize now that that is something I'll do on the side for fun, but I don't want to put in the work to make it my profession, and I've accepted that.

At one point, and this has happened at a number of times during my life, I thought what I was doing would have been the most fabulous, ideal thing. I've reached that at several times in my life. When it first happens, it's the most fabulous thing for the first six months. Then I'm like, "Okay, this is great, but where I was in the previous position I never even thought about this. I never knew about that. My life has changed this way..." and it keeps evolving to the next level. Right now I'm at that point. I've been here two years. I've done this. I'm happy with my job and I'm doing well there. Now what am I going to do. I'm kind of at that state.

Success is an evolving thing. Success is being able to say that if I died today, if I went out there and got hit by a car, I wouldn't have any regrets. All the people that are important to me know that they are important to me and I have that secure. I know that what I want to be doing at this point in my life is having this conversation with you. Success is being able to say that if it all ended today where you are as a person is the best person that you can be at that point. I don't necessarily define success with anything like money or false security or anything like that.

There were a couple of things that have helped me become successful. I read two books. One is called "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," by Steven Covey. The other one was an autobiography by Paul Monet called "My Life as a Man" or something like that. These two books for myself were sort of the light bulb that went off over my head. I think it's hard to tell people what will make them successful. I think it has to be an inner light bulb that goes off in their head. Maybe reading your site will be that for people.

First I think people have to be able to define what they want or what they think will make them feel successful. From the different people I've seen in my life, those that could define what they want can usually find the path to get them there, as opposed to people who don't really know what they want. I think they may need to realize that at this time in their lives, they don't need to be successful. I don't know.

For me, it was an extremely personal thing. There comes a point when you have to realize that it's not going to be given to you. If you want something, you'll have to go out and take it or go for it. Read a lot. Read a lot of different things from different sources. To see what others have gone through is interesting.

What it boils down to is when you get to the end of your life if you're happy with what you've done and accomplished what you could then I think you end up being successful.