27 highly successful people share the best career advice for new grads

Brian Snyder/Reuters

If clichés like "follow your passion," "give 110%," and "be true to yourself" just aren't cutting it for you, we've got some fresh takes on how to get a head start on your career.

From "don't work too hard" to "relax," here's some of the best — and oftentimes unconventional — advice for your people from some really successful people:

Richard Branson: Never look back in regret — move on to the next thing

Richard Branson's mother taught him that.

"The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures, rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me," The Virgin Group founder and chairman told The Good Entrepreneur. "I have fun running ALL the Virgin businesses — so a setback is never a bad experience, just a learning curve."

Sheryl Sandberg: There is no straight path to where you are going

"As Pattie Sellers of Fortune Magazine says, careers are not ladders but jungle gyms," the Facebook COO wrote on Quora. "You don't have to have it all figured out."

Sheryl Sandberg recommends having a long-term, abstract dream to work towards in addition to a more concrete 18-month plan. The long-term plan allows you to dream big while the short-term plan forces you to push yourself and think about how you want to get better over the next year and a half.

"Ask yourself how you can improve and what you're afraid to do," she said, adding "that's usually the thing you should try."

Warren Buffett: Exercise humility and restraint

In a 2010 interview with Yahoo, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said the best advice he ever received was from Berkshire Hathaway board-of-directors member Thomas Murphy. He told Buffett: