CEO & Partner of Goodnight Hospitality and Master Sommelier

I had many part-time jobs when I was in college. There was the hospitality route, and I also had a second part-time job for an attorney in Austin, and I really enjoyed it. A very detail-oriented, very operations-driven role, which is kind of how I became a CEO. While wine is my passion, I realized there were a lot of different career avenues that you can take with what you're really good at.

I started my love for wine when I started getting to taste wine pairings with food. That was just so magical to me. That's the special sauce, I think, when wine–or any beverage really–enhances food and food enhances wine. That's really the thing that sparked my interest. I just found that so intensely magical, and I keep looking for those perfect pairings. And now it's just such a minute part of my job, but it's still something that brings me such joy whenever I'm dining, whenever I'm working with a team.

I really needed to make money during college to pay for rent. I also needed to get out and socialize, so entering hospitality ended up being this great synergy of needs. I ended up falling in love with it throughout my college career. After I graduated, I finally made the leap. I became honest with myself and was like, “I really like it here. I really feel like myself here.” I took the leap and never looked back.

Trust yourself. Your gut is right.

Your job isn't your definition. Even though I feel like it's part of my personality because I have so many jobs that revolve around one industry, but it's different than just having the same job day to day. There's boredom in that for me, which is why I love the hospitality industry. It's so versatile. It's so nimble. You're moving constantly.

I have no regrets in terms of what industry I decided to truly pursue. I know that I would have been good, and I would have had a completely different and likely good life being, perhaps, a tax attorney, but it just wouldn't have been the life that I wanted.

I love partnerships and collaborations. I always thought I was going to open a restaurant with my best friend or something. I knew that I didn't want to just go out on my own. I think the best restaurants have collaborators.

When you open a restaurant, the definition of who you end up being is never just the first idea of what you're going to do. It's always going to be the collaboration of the concept, the people that work there, and the people that go there.

Sometimes I'm like, “I really need to be looking at these spreadsheets, answering these emails, doing outreach.” But when you're constantly reprioritizing, a lot of times the prioritization needs to be like, “I actually need to stay here and talk to my team and readjust or touch base on something.” It reignites that fire in some way. You lose that soul and that magic if you don't circle back around to your people.