Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates once offered 10 pieces of advice to new professionals:
1. Life is unfair—learn to accept it.
2. The world doesn't care about your pride; it expects you to deliver results before asserting your feelings.
3. You won't land a six-figure salary right after graduation, nor become a vice president overnight—both require hard-earned achievement.
4. If you think your boss is harsh, just wait until you become one yourself.
5. Your first job is about learning, not about making money.
3. You won't walk out of school with a million-dollar salary or become a vice president overnight—both require hard work to earn.
4. If you think your boss is tough, just wait until you become one. Bosses have no job security.
5. Flipping burgers at a fast-food joint isn't degrading—your grandparents had a very different definition of flipping burgers.
6. If you achieve nothing, it's not your parents' fault. So stop complaining about your mistakes—learn from them instead.
7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they seem now. They became this way because they were busy paying for your expenses, washing your clothes, and listening to you brag about how great you are. So before you set out to save the rainforests destroyed by your parents' generation, start by cleaning your own room.
8. School may have winners and losers, but it's too early to tell in life. School might keep giving you chances to find the right answers, but real life doesn't work that way.
9. Life isn't divided into semesters. There's no winter break in life. No employer cares about helping you find yourself—do that in your spare time.
10. What you see on TV isn't real life. In real life, everyone leaves the coffee shop to go to work.