The first three days of my career were spent in front of a copy machine.
I was fresh out of college, newly hired at Arthur Andersen in downtown Los Angeles, convinced I was about to dive headfirst into the high-stakes world of auditing and consulting.
On my first day, I arrived prepared to use every tool I’d just learned at school to impress my peers and superiors. Instead, I stood there for three days, copying stack after stack of audit and tax documents. Thousands of pages. One after another. “Is this what I worked so hard at school for?” I wondered.
I didn’t know it then, but that job set the tone for everything that came after.
Pushing through fear
Arthur Andersen was not a gentle entry into the professional landscape. Peak consulting season meant routine 100-hour work weeks. The environment was demanding, fast-paced, and intense. Though the copy machine days were humbling, what came next forced me to confront a major fear.
At 22, I was deeply shy. Public speaking was something I dreaded. Yet the job required it, again and again, in the form of regular client and team presentations.
I found myself at a fork in the road; push through the nerves, or fall behind. So I pushed through, again and again, regularly presenting to teams and clients. The more I presented, the more the nerves felt like something I could handle, until, over time, they stopped showing up completely.
Angela Duckworth, a psychologist and University of Pennsylvania professor, defines grit as perseverance and passion. I’d venture to say it’s not even a trait you’re born with. It’s a muscle you build when a situation gives you no other choice. Those early years at Arthur Andersen didn’t just teach me how to work hard—they rewired how I think about discomfort and fear, not as a barrier to my goals, but as a doorway to growth.
The transformation from shy kid to CEO didn’t happen overnight. It began at the copy machine, then evolved one uncomfortable presentation at a time, until confidence stopped being something I performed and started being something I’d earned.
A risky bet
I carried that grit forward for the next two decades. And when I decided to acquire Evite, I needed it more than ever.
On paper, Evite looked like a risky bet. It was a legacy brand—beloved and nostalgic, but stuck. The product hadn’t kept pace with how people actually communicate today. The business model needed a complete overhaul. A lot of people saw a company past its prime. I saw something different: a turnaround puzzle.
The challenge wasn’t just modernizing a product. It was rebuilding an entire operating model while keeping the heart of the brand intact.
That required both lessons from Arthur Andersen: the patience to start at the beginning and understand every detail, and the grit to keep going when the outcome wasn’t certain.
The people factor
The other thing Arthur Andersen gave me was people: talented, driven colleagues who made the 100-hour weeks bearable and the work better. I learned early that great things don’t get built by individuals. They get built by groups of people who trust each other enough to work together.
That’s stayed with me. At Evite, we’re not building a brand in isolation. We’re doing it together—with the team, with our hosts, with the people who’ve relied on us for decades.
If I could offer one piece of advice to someone starting out today, it’s this: Talk to everyone, even if it scares you. Get to know the people ahead of you, the people beside you, the people you think you have nothing in common with. Building something—a career, a company, a team—is not a solo sport. You never know who’s going to become your cofounder, your investor, or the colleague who makes you sharper every single day.
It turns out, the grit to face your fears only gets stronger when you don’t face them alone.
My First Job is a recurring series in which prominent business leaders share what their first job was and what they learned from it.
