If you are searching for your first career-type job, don’t let naysayers discourage you. It is always difficult to find the right first job. Or any first job. Fortunately, it is always difficult for employers to find outstanding workers.

Your first boss is more important than your first job. All else being equal, choose the job with the most admirable boss, not the one that pays a little more.

Making a bunch of money isn’t the best goal in the world, but it’s not the absolute worst, either. There are a lot of ways to make money, but the most lasting and fulfilling ways involve providing a high value product or service to others. And it is the others who get to define “high value,” not you.

Employers don’t pay people for credentials, intelligence, knowledge, effort, or personality. They pay people for output – that is, what they produce.  If you have a job and want to make more money, produce more than you are being paid to produce, either in quality or quantity. This doesn’t always guarantee that you’ll make more money, but it’s a lot more effective than complaining about your pay.

Gratitude is important, wherever you are in life. Years ago, a wise friend told me about his Moment of the Day Journal in which he records the best thing that happens in his life each day. It is a fantastic habit.

Your habits are fantastic predictors of your future. Be intentional about developing habits that will serve you, rather than letting random habits haphazardly creep up on you.

Also be intentional about the people with whom you spend your time. Jim Rohm is credited with saying that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That may not be algebraically accurate, but there is a lot of truth in the idea that our social circle plays a huge role in who we become.

Be careful about what you post on social media. If your outward face is a constant stream of complaints, don’t expect people to want to be around you – unless they are similarly miserable.

Focusing on long-term goals rather than short-term pleasure will put you in a minority of the people your age. Writing notes to people will place you in an even smaller minority.

Start saving money now, no matter how poor you are. The easiest time to begin saving is when you are just a step or two above poverty.

Take care of your body. It seems to take forever to get from kindergarten to college, but getting from college to 60-years-old happens in a flash.

David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. A version of this piece originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.