Don’t you love getting advice from grey beards like me? I bet you can’t wait to hear our war stories abut the good old days, right? I’m sure you just sit there and listen politely until our backs are turned and then your eyes just about roll out of your head. I know, I know, I’ve been there too. I was there when old folks complained about those four long hairs from Liverpool who were never going to be as good as Bing and Frank. I was there, when they complained about how privileged and lazy we all were, and that we would never possibly be able to make a living when the time came for us to get off our butts and go to work. Just like you, I’ve been there, I’ve heard those words and just like you, it drove me crazy too.

Over the past few years I have heard too many of my peers complaining about “Millennials” to the point of distraction. Some of them are self-proclaimed experts about Millennials, pontificating to the rest of us old cretons, about how this new and strange species thinks, acts, and believes; what’s important to them and how we should handle them. Others of my peers, insist on just plain complaining about Millennials, including whining about how privileged and lazy you all are and how you are never going to be able to make a living when it comes time to get off your butts and go to work. I think I’ve heard that song before.

Relax, this is not going to be one of those diatribes. Instead, I am just going to give you a few hopefully, helpful career tips, tips that frankly, I have found to be not only universal and helpful but also timeless. Things that helped me in my career and I think might help you as well.

Here are ten tips to help in your career:

1. Be outstanding and unique: If everyone in your age group is doing one thing, do another, stand out in any way you can, so you cannot be easily categorized.
2. Do the tough stuff: Take the hard jobs that no one else wants. Do research, take on that tough customer, volunteer for that difficult project. In the end you will stand out, you will be appreciated, and your career will thrive.
3. Communicate: Look people in the eye and communicate verbally. You get a bad rap for always being on your phone. In fact, I recently read that you look at your phone 237 times a day. That’s a lot! Try looking at your phone a little less, and looking at people a little more, and oh the places you’ll go!
4. Be interested: Show interest in your job and the company you work for. A little interest in the company is so valuable and so unique, at this time, that you will be noticed, and your interest will be noted and appreciated.
5. Value your pay check. Money might not be that important right now, but one day soon it will be. Your loft might be cool and cheap now, but eventually you are going to need that six- bedroom house, the three cars and that private school tuition, so, pay attention.
6. Appreciate the work: make the most of it and learn to love it. When someone tells you that you should do what you love, you should take that advice with a boulder-sized grain of salt. Sure, do that thing you love as long as you’re sure that the thing you love can make you money! Sorry but eventually that “M” word will mean something more to you than it does today. If you don’t that, go back and reread item 5.
7. Be innovative: You are the best-educated generation in the history of the world…so far. Don’t be afraid to think, to innovate, and come up with new ideas. This will not only make you a true standout, it could also make you rich and famous.
8. Be helpful: Don’t hesitate to help others: There is a great deal of satisfaction in helping people a. Try it, the rewards are priceless, and besides, selfishness is lonely, and confining, and limiting.
9. Dare to take chances: Never, accept things as they are, instead work hard at making them better. If something seems a little scary still do it and overcome your fears, be brave and dare to be great!
10. Be your own company: Be Becky or Beth of Bruce incorporated. Think of yourself as your own company and do what’s best for your own company. Jobs will come and go, but if you consider yourself, your own company you will develop a terrifically productive career path.

And one more, in the spirit of under promising, and over delivering: learn everything you can about everything. The minute we stop learning the minute we stop being curious is the minute we stop growing, keep on being curious enough to learn everything about everything.

I can promise you that if you follow this advice you will do well, in not only your career, but in life as well. You will be outstanding. But then again, if you don’t buy this advice today, then do yourself a favor and print this out and save it for tomorrow, because someday I promise, that you will be ready for it…It’s only common sense