It's often dismissed as cheesy, but it's the most important career advice there is: find your passion. Ninety nine people out of 100 never have a great answer to the question, "Where do you want to be in 10 years?" Instead, they treat their careers in ad hoc fashion, hopping opportunistically from job to job.

The best way to succeed is to have a very clear answer to that cheesy question. Such a clear answer that you're almost burned by its intensity. Such a clear answer that it guides your every move. This clarity of vision will allow you to weather temporary failures and setbacks, and it'll provide you a roadmap for the climb up the mountain.

This is what separates the brilliant-and-hard-working from the brilliant-and-hard-working-and-uber-successful. The world is full of brilliant, hard working people who never get a "lucky break." The secret is that the "lucky break" is often the result of many years of directed effort. So keep that in mind as you go along. If you want to achieve tremendous success in any field, there's a buildup period of at least 5 years, and often more than a decade. It really pays to pick your path early, and to stick to it.

Obviously, some folks have taken more circuitous paths to success, and that's totally cool. But ask most of the majorly successful people in any profession what got them there, and they will tell you they focused relentlessly on it. Ambition isn't enough; ambition needs direction.

Find the ladder you want to climb, and start climbing it -- because most ladders are pretty damned tall, and hopping between them gets tougher the older you get.

I say this having learned it the hard way. I traded what I want to do for what I "should" do for many years, and now I'm trying to catch back up to my vision. I still have time, but I wish I'd been honest with myself at 19.