Ina Garten's decision to leave a White House job and pursue a cooking career was a 'crazy risk' that ultimately made her a millionaire.

Despite not beginning her career in the kitchen, Ina Garten built a multimillion-dollar empire teaching people how to host intimate dinner parties and roast the perfect chicken.

In her 20s, Garten served as a White House staffer, crafting nuclear energy policies under Presidents Ford and Carter.

In her new memoir, "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," Garten, 76, discloses that her job was close to the president and that the projects she worked on were worth $50 billion.

Garten felt restless despite the prestige of her job. She writes that she was slowly withering each day due to the slow pace of government work and limited creative freedom.

Her future at the Office of Management and Budget was dependent on others, primarily men, selecting her for leadership positions.

"In 1978, she writes, "I needed to find an alternate track where my success was measured solely by my own business skills and no one could hinder my progress.""

Garten was unaware that her next chapter was located 300 miles away, in a small 400-square-foot food shop on Long Island, New York.

On a April morning in 1978, Garten, who was 30 at the time, was perusing the New York Times in her office when an advertisement grabbed her attention.

The Barefoot Contessa, a specialty food store in the Hamptons, was sold for $25,000 by its owner, who promised to bring in "over six figures in the summer alone."

Cooking was her passion, and Garten considered working in the food business rather than politics as a potential source of greater happiness.

On weekends, she hosted dinner parties at her apartment for friends while spending evenings testing out complex recipes from Julia Child's cookbooks.

Garten believed that the food business would provide more freedom and creativity compared to her stifling government job. Additionally, she remembered that her "low tolerance for monotony" made her willing to take "risky moves" to escape the "dreary" situation.

Garten and her husband Jeffrey purchased the shop in New York for $20,000 over the weekend.

""I was ecstatic, but uncertain if it was the right choice or a grave error," she writes."

The secret ingredient for a successful career change

Garten and Jeffrey earned only $87 on the first day of running the store, which they thought was a disaster. However, Garten quickly learned that flexibility is crucial for new entrepreneurs.

During weekends, she devoted 20 hours to restocking shelves, running errands, and testing new menu items based on customer feedback. Despite not selling well, she remained undeterred and collaborated with her teenage employees to understand local preferences, making continuous adjustments to her offerings.

The line was out the door by the end of that first summer.

In 1996, Garten sold her shop in the Hamptons, which she had been running for 18 years, to her chef and manager.

"Despite the success of Barefoot Contessa, I felt miserable and couldn't imagine any other path forward," she writes.

I knew the business would suffer if I continued running on autopilot, as I felt that I wasn't doing anything new or bringing any creativity to my work.

Garten decided to switch things up in her career by taking over an office above the store and writing a cookbook documenting the story of Barefoot Contessa and her popular recipes.

In 1999, Garten published her bestseller, "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook," which launched her career. By 2002, she had published two more cookbooks and started filming her Food Network show, Barefoot Contessa, solidifying her status as a celebrity chef.

The key to a successful career change, as Garten advised CNBC Make It, is to not delay or be hesitant; simply take action.

"She said that people stand on the side of the pond trying to figure out what the pond's going to be like, but you've just got to jump in and be brave and make a change."

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