Why You Need to Take a Huge Career Risk

Taking a major risk when you're just starting out is relatively easy. Taking on a major risk is much harder when you're already established, not because you've grown complacent, but because the downside is much bigger.

That's why most people don't take those kinds of career gambles -- even if, deep inside, they really, really want to.

Ryan Holiday is not most people. Ryan crafted a highly successful career as a marketer, consultant, and the author of bestselling books like The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy.

And then he decided to write the just released Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue. He took on that risk partly because he found himself with access to both Peter Thiel and Nick Denton, but also because it scared him.

As Ryan says, "I had many reasons to say no: It was outside my wheelhouse. It would be a ton of work. It would be the kind of project that would upset a lot of people. It was also personally risky... to be writing about a powerful gossip merchant and a right-wing billionaire who had just shut down a media outlet he didn’t like.

"Yet for some reason, I said yes. Because although I knew it would be hard, and I knew that it might not work, I could also see that it might be the most interesting thing I ever did. And if it did work, it would be a book unlike almost any other."

He's right about the last part. It is a book unlike any other. Conspiracy tells the inside story of a modern-day Count of Monte Cristo tale, but it also weaves in smart takes on history, philosophy, strategy, and tactics.

"With time," Ryan says, "I would find the angle I was looking for and make the decision to cut with precedent and create my own style. I wouldn’t simply write a work of journalism, which I found had generally failed in previous attempts to capture the events of the plot and trial, I would mix reporting with historical analysis and anecdotes.

"When I had first researched the story, it felt like something that should have happened centuries ago, so why not write it that way? And I would pull in examples and stories from other conspiracies to make this book bigger than simply what happened between Thiel and Denton, because it was bigger. In this story was the story of all conspiracies—something we don’t talk about enough."

In that way, Conspiracy is like Ryan's other books. He makes you think -- especially about yourself.

Check out Conspiracy. Even if you don't care at all about Gawker or Hulk Hogan or Thiel and Denton (although you will by the end), I promise it's worth your time.

And maybe it will help you decide to take whatever gamble you really want to take.

If you want to achieve huge professional or personal goals. check out my new book The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win. 

You'll learn ways to find all the motivation you need to keep pushing forward and become the person you really want to be -- as well as practical goal achievement strategies from some of the world's most successful people.