It is graduation season again.  Having just come from my 35^th reunion for business school, I feel inspired to offer some advice to recent graduates and some reminders to all of us (old and young) in the working world.

• Be Humble:  The biggest turn-off to other people is arrogance.  Arrogance shows up in thinking that we are better than everyone else and that we know all the answers.  One thing I have learned in these 35 years is that there are many many hard-working and talented people and that we can and need to learn from all of them.

• Keep Learning and Re-learning: Graduation is called commencement for a good reason.  Graduation from school is truly the commencement of learning that we will be doing for the rest of our careers and the rest of our lives.  We can never stop reading, listening and learning.  In the pursuit of learning new ideas, we cannot forget that much of what we learned in school will stay relevant throughout our careers.  We will just need to learn it and re-learn it and be reminded of it in different guises over the years.

• Keep Things Simple: Unfortunately, one thing that education often teaches us is that complexity is good.  In the business world and real life, simplicity is good and complexity (especially needless complexity) is bad.  Unfortunately, left alone all things become more complex and thus more difficult over time.  Every day, we need to fight the battle to keep things simple in our work and in our personal lives.

• Work With and For People You Like and Respect:  In the pursuit of money and career, this piece of advice is often forgotten.  As social animals, we humans become more similar to the people we send a great deal of time with.  If we don’t like and respect the people we work with, we ourselves will become more and more similar to someone we don’t like.  Work and life are a whole lot easier and more fun when we are around people that we like and respect.

“When you take a job take a long look at the people you’re going to be working with – because the odds are you’re going to become like them; they are not going to become like you. You can’t change them. If it doesn’t fit who you are, it’s not going to work.” Bob Sutton

None of this advice is rocket science.  But one thing 35 years has taught this old geezer is that following these four pieces of advice can lead to a successful and enjoyable working life where we stay true to ourselves.