Letter To New Graduates
It's graduation season again. The caps, the gowns, the family pictures. Somewhere in there is a 20 something-year-old walking off a stage with a diploma in one hand and a phone full of congratulations in the other, trying to figure out what comes next.
I remember being that person.
What I don't remember is anyone sitting me down and telling me the small things that would have made the next few decades much more fulfilling.
So here's 5 things that I'd say now to that younger version of me.
1. Commit to being a lifelong learner.
In college, learning has a finish line. You read what's on the syllabus, you pass the test, you close the book. After graduation, that mental model stops working. The people who keep growing are the ones who keep learning, not for a grade, but because they're curious about adding value.
Read the people who've done your work the best. Listen to their talks. Get the certifications that move you forward. Find a community where the standards are higher than yours, and let that pressure pull you up. Find a mentor, and (just as importantly) find someone to mentor. You learn best by teaching, and there's almost always a high schooler or a younger colleague who could use what you already know.
One more thing about being young: people want to pour into you. Success has many fathers. When someone sees ambition and humility in the same person, they tend to show up in ways you can't yet predict.
2. Build your cash reserve before you chase the 401(k).
This goes against most conventional advice, and I'm going to say it anyway.
The temptation when you start your first job is to crank up the 401(k) because someone told you about the company match. But if you do the math, the match in those first couple of years is a few thousand dollars. What's worth a lot more than a few thousand dollars is not carrying credit card debt the first time life happens. And life will happen.
Aim for about six months of reserves before you turn up the 401(k) dial. You've been living on a student budget. You're used to less. This is the cleanest window you'll ever have to build a real buffer. The point isn't to leave money on the table. The point is to stop money from owning your stress, and to actually feel like things are getting better, not heavier, as you start out.
The only thing I can promise you about life is that it's going to change. When it does, you want to be the version of yourself that is already prepared for it, not the one caught flat-footed.
3. Be good to people. All of them.
Six degrees of separation is real. The world is small, and it gets smaller every year you're in it.
Your reputation is the thing that walks into rooms before you do, and stays in rooms after you leave. Be known as the person who does what they say they're going to do. Be the person who treats the assistant the same as the executive. People talk about you when you're not in the room. Decide now what you want them to say.
Done consistently, that one habit will open doors you didn't apply to.
4. Build your healthy habits ASAP.
Pick the exercise routine. Pick the way you eat. Pick the time you go to bed. Pick them now, while nobody is making you, and stay with them. It’s much easier to maintain than it is to cut rapidly.
You're not doing this for the next year. You're doing it for the version of you who'll be 35, 45, 55, and beyond. The 50-year-old who shows up sharp, who recovers from setbacks, who still has energy for the things that matter, is almost always the 50-year-old who started in their twenties. That's just how it works.
There's a quieter benefit too. Life after graduation is harder than you think it'll be, because everything is new and almost everything is a challenge. A body that's been trained and a brain that's been rested handles all of that better. The gym isn't just about the gym.
5. Show up to the friend and family moments. All of them.
This one might feel like it contradicts what I said about saving. It doesn't as this is about setting the right priorities and intention with your spending.
Go to the birthdays. Go to the weddings. Go meet the new baby. Drive to the family reunion. Get on the group trip. Take the picture, and be in the picture.
I know careers are demanding, and I know flights are expensive, and I know there's always a reason to skip. But you don't get time back. Some of the people you love most won't be here in five years. You don't know which ones, and you won't know until it's too late to do anything about it.
Lock in the memories. Build a life around locking them in.
I've met a lot of people I'd call successfully miserable. They built the career, they hit the numbers, and then they spent the next decade quietly apologizing to the people they didn't show up for. They believed it was one or the other. It isn't. The moments with people are what make all the achievements worth anything in the first place.
If you're graduating this year, congratulations. Genuinely. Finishing what you started is its own kind of victory.
These five things won't make life easy. Life isn't trying to be easy. But they'll make every decade better than the one before it, which is the only direction worth aiming.
And if you know a new graduate who could use this, send it their way. The earlier somebody hears these, the more they tend to be worth.