I've Worn Hawaiian Shirts to Work Every Day For Decades. Here's Why. Even as I've founded and sold multiple businesses, it reminds me not to take things too seriously.
By Andy Kurtzig
This story appears in the April 2022 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
I own more than 300 Hawaiian shirts. It's enough to wear a different shirt nearly every day of the year — which I have done for most of my career, as I founded and sold multiple companies. Colleagues and mentors would sometimes ask me to tone it down or change it up, but I can't. The shirts evoke the Hawaiian island spirit for me, and that creates the tranquility, balance, and positive energy that I need in the midst of hard work and difficult decisions.
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It's a balance I learned in Hawaii, where I also discovered the value of hard work.
I partially grew up on the islands, and it's where I had my first real job. I was hired to wash every car at a Honda dealership; they thought it would take me all summer, but it took me one week. Then they gave me odd filing and administrative jobs until they promoted me to service representative and then finally let me try my hand at selling the next summer. I sold so many cars in a month that I broke all of their records.
That experience taught me something important about myself: I am an intense worker. But too much intensity is not good. Hawaii's warm air and island vibe helped bring me out of that intensity and into the presence of the moment — and that's where the real work gets done. Success isn't in the hustle; it's in connecting with the person in front of you. That requires a moment of pause.
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I eventually moved away but wanted to retain that sense of island calm. Once, the day after returning from a Hawaiian vacation, I wore a Hawaiian shirt to my job and had another record-breaking sales day. I decided to continue the tradition and have been doing it every day since. It's hard not to smile and feel just a little bit better when you see someone in a Hawaiian shirt, especially on the hard days. So with me, you'll always see one.
