Who am I? My name is Joe Krieg and I am an actor, martial artist, traveler, and more. I have seen the world and I love to explore every inch of my limits (physical and mental) and to see all this world has in store. In a quarter of a century I have experienced a great deal of life and in this life I have had to make a lot of choices. One of the most important choices I ever made was to get back into acting. I started acting as a child and stopped for a period of time when I was in college to finish getting my degree in Finance with a minor in Economics from Stevens Institute of Technology. I learned a great deal at college both about myself and what I wanted from the world.
When I was a child the question of what I wanted to do was always easy for me, once I was on a path I kept on it for as far as it would take me. The best example of this is my training as a martial artist. I trained for nearly 15 years and rose to the rank of 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Spending so much time and energy focusing on one thing taught me perseverance, self control, discipline and more. Learning how to fight taught me how to get in my body and to be aware of the world around me. It didn’t only teach me how to fight outside forces but it taught me how to fight the demons inside of me, how to find myself and stay true to myself in a world that is constantly trying to push me to be a version of myself I may not like. That includes the me I was in this phase of my life. The me who still had a lot of growing up to do, which is what I spent most of college doing.
During the next phase of my life I learned hard work. College was a time when I grew up. During my Junior and Senior years I took 21 credits a semester and pushed myself as hard as I could to graduate with a great GPA. I was able find the parts of myself that were willing to put in the work and put aside the part of me that would just go with the flow and hope things would work out. It was during this time I stepped away from acting and also from most of the things that brought me joy because at that point in time I thought growing up meant becoming focused on responsibility and nothing else. I did learn that was not the case but it took me about three years to learn that lesson, three years where I didn’t step foot on stage or look at a script once.
Coming back to acting was both the easiest and most difficult decision of my life. That was because I took a bit of time to have the typical 9 to 5 job and while I could do it and it was easy and truthfully there was very little stress in my life there was also no enjoyment. Going back to acting school and getting back into show business has given me more sleepless nights and probably added a few gray hairs to my head but it has also given me more joy than anything else I have ever done. Actually making that decision, knowingly deciding to choose a life where nothing is certain in all honestly was the best decision I ever made because the happiness, fulfillment and incredible people that I have found on this journey have enriched my life far more than I have ever deserved.
There is far more that I could say about myself but honestly I hate talking about myself. The best way to learn about me is to watch me act or just talk to me. Thank you for reading.