I have had an office in the center of Dover, New Jersey for many years, and I am not great at cleaning, hence the dust. More positively, during that time, without any planning, I have randomly scotch-taped certain sayings to my desk.

Below are some gems of good advice. The taped material is in 14-point bold.    Succinct comments are added; whole essays could be written, but not here.

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Circumstances and networking: put yourself in situations where the people you meet can be relevant to your future career aspirations.

Talent, perseverance, self-reflection: three of the ingredients of success.

Right message, right messenger: students want to see and hear people like them.

Going to or Going from: the former is more likely to be correlated with positive analysis; applies to colleges, majors, jobs, relationships.

Ask questions, do research, analyze: three more success ingredients.

Be yourself: seems obvious, but often lack of confidence can obscure this advice.

Decide, dedicate, succeed: not surprising that success has multiple ingredients.

To get the real answer, ask why seven times: Japanese proverb about how to learn the “truth” about a situation.

Bring the bad news first, the good news can wait: expeditious action is required for the former; the party for the latter can take place whenever.

The real debate is whether to have data-infused conversations or data-free pontification: good to remember in the age of unfiltered, unedited social media. Mark Twain had it right a long time ago: a lie travels around the world before the truth gets out of bed.

You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. And simply because somebody has the right to do something does not necessarily make it the right thing to do.