The composer Charles Ives (1874–1954) worked professionally not as a musician but as a life insurance executive. He was once quoted in an interview:
My business experience revealed life to me in many aspects that I might otherwise have missed. In it one sees tragedy, nobility, meanness, high aims, low aims, brave hopes, faint hopes, great ideals, no ideals, and one is able to watch these work inevitable destiny. And it has seemed to me that the finer sides of these traits were not only in the majority but in the ascendancy. I have seen men fight honorably and to a finish, solely for a matter of conviction or of principle — and where expediency, probable loss of business, prestige or position had no part and threats no effect. It is my impression that there is more open-mindedness and willingness to examine carefully the premises underlying a new or unfamiliar thing, before condemning it, in the world of business than in the world of music. It is not even uncommon in business intercourse to sense a reflection of a philosophy — a depth of something fine — akin to a strong beauty in art. To assume that business is a material process, and only that, is to undervalue the average mind and heart. To an insurance man there is an 'average man' and he is humanity. I have experienced a great fullness of life in business. The fabric of existence weaves itself whole. You can not set an art off in the corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality and substance. There can be nothing 'exclusive' about a substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of experience of life and thinking about life and living life. My work in music helped my business and my work in business helped my music.
Charles Ives, quoted in Henry Bellamann, "Charles Ives: the man and his music" (1933). Reprinted in James Peter Burkholder, Charles Ives and his World, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp 374-5.