The graduation season is upon us! Setting aside all of the reasons for joy and celebration, that can only mean one thing: so is the season of the platitude-laced graduation speeches. And while few of us enjoy platitudes, many of us would probably acknowledge that they contain nuggets of wisdom. Why else would wise people keep repeating them?

Thus, in the spirit of the season and in hopes of making life more negotiable, I thought it might be useful to investigate whether the most common platitudes contain any nuggets of wisdom about negotiation. So here are five common platitudes and their implications for negotiation—all of which are surprisingly informative and eerily consistent with negotiation research:

1. Dream big: With this omnipresent platitude, speakers advise graduates to set their sights high, shoot for the stars, aim for their most cherished objectives. And when the going gets tough, should they quit? No! Double down and try again. Well, that’s exactly what negotiation instructors have advised their students to do for decades: set aggressive targets reflective of ideal goals, then continue to doggedly pursue them—creatively if necessary—without ever giving up or giving in.
2. Don’t look back: Quickly on the heels of the first platitude, many speakers offer the second, suggesting that graduates should not only dream big and persist, but also resist the temptation to regret “what could’ve been.” In an eerily similar vein, negotiation research suggests that people should focus on their target while bargaining, but then evaluate the agreement against their bottom line, the goal being both a great outcome and a negotiator who doesn’t look back in regret.
3. Do what makes you happy: This common platitude advises graduates to look beyond the socially sanctioned markers of success (e.g., a big paycheck) in order to pursue their true motivations—the factors that will truly dictate their happiness or lack thereof. In very much the same spirit, Getting to Yes and nearly every negotiation course it inspired advises negotiators to “focus on interests rather than positions.” When negotiating, that is, try to satisfy your true, underlying motivations (your interests) by going beyond surface-level positions—many of which inevitably involve money.
4. Thank the people who got you here: Speakers often ask graduates to pause their aspirations and thank the people who got them this far. Similarly, I have argued that that life is only negotiable when we occasionally stop negotiating long enough to express gratitude for the people around us.
5. Always wear sunscreen: Perhaps this one hasn’t quite reached “platitude” status, but it sure got popular a few years back. We could dig pretty deep into the underlying meaning, but let’s just go one level deeper than the words: don’t forget to take simple steps that protect you from bad outcomes. There are lots of ways to go wrong in negotiations, but negotiation research has long shown that negotiators without alternatives almost always get burned.

So the platitudes in those graduation speeches actually turn out to capture numerous nuggets of negotiation wisdom. Something to ponder the third or fourth time you hear a speaker telling you to “dream big.”