37 Pieces of Career Advice I Wish I’d Known Earlier

Ryan Holiday
11 min readFeb 21, 2024
From my first desk job working at my college newspaper.

My first job was working at a small deli and grocery store in Lake Tahoe when I was 15. It was a job that came full circle some twenty years later when my wife and I bought a place called ​Tracy’s Drive-In Grocery​ in 2021, a little place that’s been in business since 1940.

I’ve had my fair share of gigs in between.

I worked in fast food. I was the director of marketing for a publicly traded company. I’ve been a lifeguard. I dropped out of college to be a research assistant to an author. I worked a desk at a talent agency in Beverly Hills. I’ve started multiple businesses. I’ve freelanced. I’ve been lucky enough to speak and consult with multi-billion dollar companies and Super Bowl winning sports franchises, family offices and law firms.

I wouldn’t say I’ve done it all because that’s one thing you learn–how much you have left to learn–but I have done a lot. I’ve had to think a lot about how to be a good employee as well as how to be a good boss. I’ve seen what makes good companies succeed and bad companies fail. I’ve seen how people get ahead…and how people get stuff.

I’ve also written a lot about this over the years, as I was figuring it out. In fact, many times I had to talk to bosses about this “little thing I do on the side” which was writing until eventually, the business…

--

--

Ryan Holiday

Bestselling author of ‘Conspiracy,’ ‘Ego is the Enemy’ & ‘The Obstacle Is The Way’ http://amzn.to/24qKRWR