I decided to enter a competition to shadow（陪随……工作） Dave Mcclure（戴夫•麦卡卢，是硅谷一家名为“500创投”的孵化基金的创立合伙人）, who runs the accelerator 500 startups. being selected as one of the top six finalists gave me the kick I needed to quit my job, fly down to Silicon Valley, and begin what I call a “self-education program” on something they don’t teach you in school, but is arguably the most important thing of all: what I wanted to do with my life.

我决定参加一个竞赛，以跟随“500创投”孵化基金的创始人戴夫•麦卡卢观摩学习。我最终成为入围决赛的六名选手之一，这让我终于有动力辞掉工作，飞往硅谷，开始了我称之为“自我教育计划”的学习进程，学习学校里学不到但却无疑是至关重要的东西：我想怎样度过自己的一生。

Over the next few months, I began cold emailing（发送陌生邮件） anyone I could think of who I was interested in meeting and learning from. To my surprise, I had a shockingly high response rate. I got to meet with the founders of Airbnb, Square, Kiip, Mint, Color, and many more, and also various investors and professors in the Bay Area（旧金山湾区）. I asked them about their career path, how they’d come to where they were now, and what recommendations they had for figuring out my next move.

接下来的几个月里，我开始发送陌生邮件，发给我能想到的任何我有兴趣认识并且向其学习的人。令我惊讶的是，这些邮件有着极高的回复率。我得以见到诸多公司(包括房屋租赁网站airbnb、移动支付公司Square、移动广告公司Kiip、个人理财服务网站Mint、网络社交平台Color和其他一些公司)的创始人，还认识了旧金山湾区的一些投资人和教授。我询问他们的职业道路，请教他们如何一路走到现在，问他们对于如何确定我的下一步规划有怎样的建议。

And I didn’t stop there. I also volunteered at major conferences, such as Demo（Demo创业者大会）and Founder Showcase（创始人展示大会）, so I could meet more people and attend the talks for free. I checked out various events and talks in the region, and even sat in on（列席；旁听）classes at Stanford. finally, to get a full holistic（全面的，整体的，全盘的）experience, I lived in a co-op（合作商店，合作商场，合作社） in Palo Alto（帕洛阿尔托） and had an amazing time learning about cooking, co-operative living, and alternative lifestyles.

我并未就此止步。我还志愿参加了一些重要会议，如Demo创业者大会和创始人展示大会，这样我就能认识更多的人，还能免费参与讨论。我考察了这一地区的各种活动和讲座，甚至旁听了斯坦福大学的课程。最后，为了获得充分、全面的体验，我还在帕洛阿尔托的一家合作社里住了一段日子，在那里学习烹饪、合作式生活以及不同于以往的生活方式，度过了一段非常美好的时光。

One of the most important conversations I had was John Krumboltz, an international career expert who teaches career coaching at Stanford. He advocated an idea that stuck with me: testing out the different career experiences I was interested in, in the most low commitment way that I could for each option. I had just been introduced to the entrepreneurial concept of “minimum viable product（最简化可实行产品）”—an interesting parallel, I thought—so I decided to apply these same principles to deciding what to do next with my career.

在我进行的交流中，与约翰•克朗伯兹的交谈是最为重要的谈话之一。克朗伯兹是一名国际职业规划专家，在斯坦福大学教授职业培训课程。他倡导的一个观点我一直铭记在心：体验我感兴趣的不同职业经历，以最小的投入尝试每一种选择。这之前我刚刚了解到“最简化可实行产品”这一企业概念——我认为这是一个很有趣的类比。所以，我决定把这样的原则应用到我职业生涯的下一步决策当中去。