There were a couple of things that led me to it. 最直接的原因是我在大学的时候对有意识的生活社区很感兴趣. 我当时住在合作公寓里，那是我第一次和很多不同的人一起拥有自主的生活环境，我们几乎必须自己管理自己. That was just a fascinating concept to me. 谁会把一群十几岁或二十岁出头的年轻人单独留在家里，并告诉他们要管理自己的财务? 我对这种群居现象非常感兴趣，所以我决定环游美国.S. 并制作一部纪录片，因为我想知道大学毕业后会发生什么. Where do people go to keep living in those situations?

当我在旅行的时候, 我遇到了一些人，他们向我介绍了真正的关系，这似乎是一种处理我在住房合作公寓中看到的许多问题的做法. Living together effectively comes down to a couple of things. 一个是结构. What rules and responsibilities do you have? How do you structure the organization of your house? But the main one is interpersonal relationships. How do you navigate conflict when it comes up? How do you talk about things that are difficult? How do you deal when you’re not at your best or when others aren’t? That’s a really, really hard thing to learn.

当我回来的时候，我对这个想法很着迷，那就是制作带有互动规则的交流游戏，而不是在这个不确定的雷区里，试图根据上下文线索找出你应该做什么或说什么, which is something I know I didn’t always pick up on. 交流游戏是结构化的互动，告诉你谁将发言, 他们会说什么, 以及格式是什么. 它们只是让你专注于特定的交流，而不用担心社会耻辱. It turned out to be a fantastic way to build community. We’d create these events that would have a sequence of games with a theme, 比如探索吸引力, 或同情, 或好奇心, 或极化, 我们会邀请大家. We eventually made it a public group. 随着时间的推移，它不断发展，人们从中学到的交流方式使与他们建立联系变得容易得多. 当我即将毕业的时候, there were two entrepreneurs who sat down with me and said, "If you want to turn this into a business, 我们会帮助你.” That’s what really kicked it off. It’s really hard to form something without help, and so to have their trust was really essential for this to happen.

There are a couple reasons, I’d say. 对我来说，真实是自我意识和外在诚实的结合. People are really intuitive beings, right? If you lie to somebody, then in some sense they can tell that something is off. When that happens over and over, we lose trust for that person over time. For trustability it’s important to know who you are, which is a lifelong process that involves constant questioning like, “Why am I doing the things I’m doing?“我有什么感觉??,” “What parts of me are comfortable showing that and what aren’t?” I think it’s important to talk about our authenticity with our values, 想想什么东西对你如此重要，如果它被夺走，你会很挣扎. Knowing those things as you come in contact with the world is important. 掩蔽需要很多能量. 如果你花了那么多精力试图维持一个与你接近的角色, then you don’t have a lot of energy left over to do other things in your life. 

It’s also a lot harder to hide today than it used to be. Our lives are public on the internet all the time, and people can track back your history and hold that up in front of you. 我认为在某些方面，这实际上是一个非常可怕的发展，因为我们确实会随着时间的推移而改变. Your authenticity can change with you; it’s expected. Because someone can hold up something you did 20 years ago and call it out, 你必须小心了解你自己，因为它有时会回到你身上.

To me, authenticity and relating are two sides of the same coin. 如果你不知道你为什么持有你的观点那么你更有可能在持有它的时候变得激进. If you can explain the reasons you think that way, then you have a place to talk with other people about it. You can explain your values and you can explain your views. If instead you’re following something because it’s what you’ve been told, there’s no space for learning or negotiation or growth there. 这个不断探索和意识的过程给了你空间与他人进行真正有趣的对话. It takes a lot of energy to do that self-questioning.

我最喜欢澳门新葡新京官方的一点是，它教会了我如何打破生活的规则, and by that I mean how to be myself in a way that I wouldn’t get shot down for. With [my English teacher], I would write my essays in iambic pentameter. I was in a club where we’d go around town and post poems on street poles. There was a lot of room to explore and do new things, and also be in situations that were a little over my edge or uncomfortable. 有些时候，你的老师会相信你能解决问题, and that was really special to me. 这不是一个一切都被保护起来，我们被赋予所有规则的环境. It felt like an environment where we were given the space to figure things out. 当我现在教书时, that has really influenced me; that way of giving students the tools and then giving them a lot of space to figure out their own way of making it happen.

Definitely a love for research and academia. 有一件事让我在这个领域脱颖而出，那就是我非常擅长研究和综合数据. With things like having to write a thesis in our senior year, 澳门新葡新京官方无疑为我对研究、学习和写作感兴趣奠定了基础, and that ended up being one of the main things that set me apart.

Another real super power of Ellis is that it taught us to think about thinking. We learned how to think kind of meta and ask, “What am I doing?和“我为什么要这么做??,” “What is that going to mean in the future?“这真的是一个超级大国.

I feel like Ellis was also really good at teaching you how to ask for help, 这最终成为一项巨大的技能. 我不能夸大，作为一个企业家，你必须向别人寻求帮助的次数是不真实的. 我记得在澳门新葡新京官方, 甚至在大一的时候, 我还是会回去找中学老师，跟他们打招呼，问他们问题. There was very much an “if you ask for it, 这是一种心态, and I haven’t discovered that in many places.

We have a norm in my company: experiment and make mistakes. 世界上最可怕的事情就是你的错误会被抓住不放, or they will get recorded; however, 你不能真正了解你是谁，除非你测试了很多不同的东西. When you’re trying something new, you’re going to do it badly. 在你弄清楚你想要如何设定界限和你的真实性之前，你需要花一段时间把它做得很糟糕. Don’t expect yourself to do things well at first. 要明白，把事情做得不好实际上是一个学习的过程，只要你睁大眼睛，不断地问别人，他们是如何受到你正在努力学习的东西的影响的. 实践. 沟通你的过程. Let yourself do things badly before you do them well, and let yourself experiment.