A Wall Street Banker Turned to Comedy for Happiness and a Career Change
As an MBA student at Stanford in 1994, I was a Wall Street hot shot, a self-styled “superstar” who was destined to go to work for a giant Wall Street bank and change the way America does business. I had the looks, the charm, the business sense, the intellect and the looks on the side. What couldn’t I do as well as I did at Stanford?
My path to happiness ended abruptly after I quit at the top of my class after having only been a straight-A college student, and was accepted to the prestigious Wharton School in the fall of 1994. My financial aid package had a couple of “extras” – a small stipend for living expenses and the ability to live in a shared studio apartment on campus. My parents would help me out with anything I needed, but it wasn’t that much. I went to classes five days a week, went to a friend’s house for parties on weekends, and went to Stanford for sports events on weekdays.
I was the top student in every class, and as always was the most popular person in every group. I was “the go between” for other students, making sure that we both had the information about classes when they were not attending, and helping in all ways with our various problems (the biggest of which seemed to concern finding a roommate in a dorm that had no vacancies).
I learned to be independent and to “go with the flow” rather than against it, to be at my best when faced with adversity, and not to get too comfortable with the status quo. I went out of my way to make new friends who looked out for me to the extreme, and I went out of my way to find a job and a social life.
The biggest problem in my life was being in love. There were no two people in the world I wanted more than my current girlfriend, and there were two people in