[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> So today I want to talk about bathrobes, which, perhaps,
you could have guessed that a little bit.
But for the next couple of minutes,
I want to focus on those pivotal conversations
that shape each and every one of us,
and I want to show you how those moments directly tie
to your bathroom attire.
So I want everybody here
to imagine the most important conversation you've ever had.
You know, this is the kind of conversation
that dramatically changes your career path
or defines your life purpose in some way.
And I want you to think about where you were
when that conversation took place.
Now if I had to guess, you're probably not imaging a space
that looks like the one we're in today.
You know, the thing is these conversations,
they rarely happen in auditoriums, in board rooms,
or even in classrooms,
but rather they happen around a bonfire
or early in the morning, you know,
having breakfast with a close mentor.
You know, they, they take place when we're traveling
and we meet a stranger sitting behind us on a train
or late at night out at the bar with friends,
and they always seem to be organic and spontaneous
and seemingly unplanned.
And the ironic thing is
that the most important conversations in our life happen
in the most random of places.
You know, they happen in your bathrobe.
So a few years ago I had one of my own pivot conversations,
which is what I've come to know them as,
and I was actually standing in a bathrobe,
much like this one, and I'll never forget my wear.
So I was a, a junior in college at the time,
and I was in my, my college apartment,
and I was sitting on the ground working on a Sudoku,
and my friends were over in the corner working
on Mechanical Engineering homework, which is most definitely
where I should have been spending my time,
and it was getting late into the night and I received a text
from a really close friend.
And the text simply said, give me one reason you choose
to wake up every morning.
And I'll never forget the shiver that passed
through my spine when I read those words.
You see that friend had been struggling
with severe depression and anxiety, and in a single text,
was essentially was asking,
give me one reason I shouldn't take my life right now.
And I just remember, you know, this stress and urgency
that rushed through me, and everything seemed to fade away,
and today, I don't even remember what I wrote back.
But as everything seemed to fade away,
I found myself consumed in the couple hundred characters
on a tiny screen on my flip phone,
and I found myself wrestling
with this incredibly important conversation, in a bathrobe,
and on my cell phone.
And something felt really strange.
You know, the first thing
that got me thinking was the cell phone, you know,
why was it that this conversation was happening in a text?
See I grew up on the brink
of the online social network boom.
You know, and today our lives are completely integrated
into these platforms and, you know,
we often take it for granted, and it often becomes the space
where we sometimes have these conversations.
You know, but as we gain more and more digital connections,
you know, I wonder if we're beginning
to devalue the in-person relationships in our life.
You know, we obsessively count over things
like how many Twitter followers
and Facebook friends we have,
but when's the last time you counted how many in-person
confidants you have?
In 1985, which was 2 years before I was born,
25 percent of the American public had 0 to 1 person
in their life whom they could confide in,
who they could have a pivot conversation with.
Fast forward to 2011, and that number rose to 53 percent.
So let that sink in.
Over half of our country has hardly anyone with which
to confide in on the most important issues in life.
You know, sure, living in this digital world has allowed us
to grow in breadth, but I'm wondering,
have we begun to sacrifice depth?
Which started to get me thinking about this bathrobe.
You know, what technology has allowed us
to do is create these refined and polished versions
of who we want the world to know us as, but the thing is,
pivot conversations never happen refined.
They always happen when we're our most raw, authentic,
and transparent self.
You know, they happen
when we're wearing nothing but a bathrobe.
And I call this having a bathrobe mindset,
being authentically and transparently completely our self
at the core.
See, for me, my pivot conversation was actually sparked
in a text, but it was over the coming years of going
out to lunch at random burger joints or driving
down highways together, or playing way too many games
of Settlers of Catan that really allowed that conversation
to grow in immense depth.
And if it wasn't for the fact that we were face-to-face
and vulnerably honest with one another,
we couldn't have reached that point.
And so as our conversation began to spiral
into these random places in my life,
I began asking the question, is it actually possible
to design spaces that increase the likeliness
of a pivot conversation happening?
And I found that it is, and I want to share a little bit
of what that looks like with you here today.
So, I run a group called the co.space, which on the outside,
looks like nothing more than any other home.
But, on the inside, what we're attempting
to do is redefine what home is.
So, we take driven college students
and experienced professionals who all share a deep passion
in doing good in the world in some capacity.
And we invite them to live under one roof
for at least a year and see what happens.
So 20 of us currently live here
in the State College property,
which is the flagship of a much broader global network
of homes that we're working on creating,
and what we found is it's actually this amazing hub
for pivot conversations.
And there's three critical ingredients to make this happen.
So there's the space, the tribe, and the intention.
And space is actually the easiest of the three.
So space has this amazing effect on us
that we're typically completely unaware of.
And it's the little things in our lives that we pass
by that spark curiosity and creativity and inspiration.
In our house we try to do this pretty tangibly,
so we have a water place rather than a fireplace.
Or rather than your traditional tile shower,
we've got a cave shower with stalactites
and a waterfall down the back.
You know, but at the end of the day, a space is nothing more
than a shell, and it's a shell in which people congregate,
and the real magic happens within that group
of people, within that tribe.
You know, so often when we talk about changing the world,
you know, we think that the first step to make positive,
radical change is actually about gaining experience
or gaining a reputation or gaining money or resources
or all of these things, but, at the end of the day,
the first step is always about finding your tribe.
You know, it's pretty simple,
if you want to have conversations that matter,
surround yourself by others who want to as well,
which ties to the third part which is intention.
So we're creatures of habit.
So we resort to having conversations that are safe
and the norm and expected,
and we talk about the latest season of the Bachelor
or the Voice because we think that's what's expected of us,
especially in our home.
But take a second and think about the last time
that you were on a retreat,
and think of the type of conversation
and experience you had at that retreat.
The difference is largely your intention, you know,
you enter a retreat expecting to have a different kind
of experience, and we can do the same thing in our home,
and it often comes down to just being clear
about what our intent is.
You know, we can do this by plastering
that intention literally on the walls of the home itself.
You know, I found that people are so hungry and are yearning
to have conversations that matter, but they're often afraid
to initiate or host them,
and what all of us here can do is have the courage
and be intentional about hosting those conversations,
which gives people permission to join in.
You know, by far one of my favorite parts
in my job is the interview process, you know,
we get to grill people that want to live in this home.
And one of my favorite questions
that we ask is "what's your deepest fear?"
And, hands down, the most common response is loneliness.
You know, people fear being alone.
And I found that this fear actually stems
from a much deeper place, it's a fear of not having a tribe
who we can engage with as our authentic self,
on a regular basis around things
that actually matter in the world.
And when you talk about changing the world,
it's so easy to conjure up this idea
that only superheroes are capable of tackling such things,
but my challenge to all
of you here is the next time you start thinking that way,
to drop this mental superman cape that you think you need
to be wearing, and to rather put on the authenticity
and vulnerability of a simple bathrobe
and you'd be surprised what can change the world.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]