A sketch of topics I'd cover in a graduation speech

I haven't had quite enough opportunities to be self-aggrandising in front of large crowds. In preparation for a hypothetical session at the podium, I'd give the following advice, informed by a few books I've read (How to Fail at almost everything by Scott Adams, Algebra of Wealth by Scott Galloway, Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb).

Passion sucks because of survivorship bias: passion was never a reason why successful people succeeded. Postdocs are typically passionate - not all of them become a tenured academic. Interns in investment banking are typically passionate - not all of them will obtain a return offer. Most entrepreneurs are passionate - most of them will fail their first few startups too. People who tell us that passion matters are survivors who do not know the non-survivors. Look at the entire population to see what matters.

Figure out your talent, and talk to many people: If passion doesn't matter, we should figure out what we're good at (our talent) by trying many different things. This exposes us to rejection (good practice) and gives us novel information on what we're good at. On that theme, we should talk to many people to ask for guidance on what we'd like to do. I reached out to so many people to talk about graduate school, which was incredibly helpful since all the information I obtained told me to do anything else. There's a fear of rejection associated with talking to new people - we welcome rejection in search of useful connections and conversations.

Protect your attention and energy: we exist as finite and cranky human beings. However, a legion of Silicon Valley tech prophets is hiring psychologists and conducting endless A/B tests to figure out how to hack your attention - emotionally charged and depressing news, infinite updates from people you barely know, and short-form videos supercharged by algorithmic selection. Your attention and energy are the most important things you have, and the only person who can take care of yourself is you - billion-dollar companies are uniquely unsuited for that task. To that end, reduce the clutter in your digital life (Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport). Stay healthy, exercise, and go on walks. Manage the amount of energy you have to live the life you want.

These main beats should be appropriate in an advice-giving setting. That being said, I think there's so much more to talk about for survivorship bias - it represents a sort of anti-knowledge in forcing us to pay attention to what we cannot see and what we cannot know.