As of September 2024, I am a lead research scientist at 84.51°. Before that, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, supervised by Prof. Negin Golrezaei. I received my Ph.D. from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Washington in December 2023, supervised by Prof. Maryam Fazel (you can find my dissertation here). Before that, I obtained my Master's degree in Mathematics (with a focus on mathematical optimization) also from UW. Before coming to UW, I earned my bachelor's at the Sharif University of Technology, where I obtained a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Math. Also, during my undergraduate studies, I spent the summer of 2015 as a junior research assistant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) under the supervision of Prof. Chandra Nair.
In my spare time, you can find me learning new languages (currently learning German and Spanish), going for a run, or playing soccer. I am also a certifiedHeroic Life Coach.
Research Interest
I specialize in applying convex optimization tools to tackle non-convex problems in Machine Learning under various additional limitations (e.g., limited resource/budget availability, privacy, incentive compatibility, and fairness) and in both online and offline settings. My research finds applications in online advertising and online resource allocation problems. Most of my works fall into one of the following categories:
Efficient Interactive Maximization of BP and Weakly Submodular Objectives, with Adhyyan Narang, Lillian J. Ratliff, Maryam Fazel, and Jeff Bilmes, UAI 2024. TL;DR: Creates algorithms for optimizing complex objective functions with human feedback, useful for machine learning applications where the goal isn't perfectly defined upfront.
No-Regret Online Prediction with Strategic Experts, with Maryam Fazel, NeurIPS 2023. TL;DR: Develops prediction algorithms that work even when experts can strategically manipulate their advice, ensuring robust performance in adversarial settings.
Improved Regret Bounds for Online Submodular Maximization, with Maryam Fazel, ICML 2021 Workshop on Subset Selection in Machine Learning: From Theory to Applications. TL;DR: Provides better theoretical guarantees for online learning algorithms that select diverse and representative subsets of data in real-time applications.
Online Algorithms for Budget-Constrained DR-Submodular Maximization
, with Reza Eghbali and Maryam Fazel, ICML 2020 Workshop on Negative Dependence and Submodularity for ML. TL;DR: Develops online optimization algorithms that maximize objective functions while staying within budget limits, with applications to advertising and resource allocation.
Notes and Surveys
Data-Dependent Regret Bounds for Bandits Problems, with Max Gray and Tanner Fiez. TL;DR: Survey of multi-armed bandit algorithms with performance guarantees that adapt to the actual difficulty of the problem instance, providing tighter theoretical bounds.
Online Adversarial Zero-Sum Games. TL;DR: Comprehensive notes on game theory algorithms for competitive scenarios where one player's gain equals another's loss, with applications to security and economics.
Introduction to Spectral Graph Theory, with Catherine Babecki and Kevin Liu. TL;DR: Tutorial on using linear algebra to analyze network structures, covering eigenvalues and eigenvectors of graphs with applications to clustering and network analysis.
Linear Regression and Sequential Experimental Design, with Johannes Linder, Felix Leeb, and Sumit Mukherjee. TL;DR: Guide to optimally designing experiments over time to learn linear relationships, balancing exploration of new conditions with exploitation of known information.
Analysis of Alternatives to Stochastic Gradient Descent. TL;DR: Comparative study of optimization algorithms for machine learning, analyzing when and why different methods like SDCA, SAG, and SVRG outperform standard stochastic gradient descent.
Select a book to see its 3 main ideas.
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Fragile systems are harmed by volatility and stress; robust systems withstand volatility without being harmed; antifragile systems not only withstand shocks but actually benefit and grow stronger from them.
Let's represent the response of a system to volatility and stress by a function. According to Jensen's inequality, if the function is convex (concave), the system grows stronger (becomes weaker) as a result of shocks.
Barbell strategy: To become antifragile, instead of taking a moderate-risk approach, be extremely risk averse on one side (85%-90%) and extremely risk loving on the other (10%-15%). This leads to limited (concave) downside risk while maintaining (convex) exposure to potential large gains from rare, unpredictable events and eliminates the risk of ruin.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
The word identity is derived from a Latin word that means repeated beingness. Your identity is not set in stone. You have a choice in every moment and can choose the identity you want to reinforce today with habits you select today. Habits are not about having something, they are about becoming someone. First, you need to know who you want to be. Then, The more you repeat a behavior aligned with the person you want to become, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. Every such action is a vote for your desired identity.
Plateau of latent potential: A concept that describes the period where consistent effort toward a goal does not yield immediate, visible results. This phase is often referred to as the valley of disappointment. Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.
Habit loop and the corresponding 4 laws of behavior change: (i) cue → make it obvious/invisible, (ii) craving → make it attractive/unattractive, (iii) response → make it easy/difficult, and (iv) reward → make it satisfying/unsatisfying. The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won’t experience enough motivation to act. Make the behavior difficult and you won’t be able to do it. If the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you’ll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated.
Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health--and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More by Christopher M. Palmer, M.D.
Metabolism is the process of turning food into energy or building blocks for growing and maintaining cells, as well as the appropriate and efficient management of waste products. Metabolism is how our cells work. The drivers of human cells, and human metabolism, are called, mitochondria. Mental disorders, all of them, are metabolic disorders of the brain.
Four Rs: a general rule of thumb for human health that says people must develop and maintain full lives. Such lives include the four Rs: (i) close relationships, (ii) meaningful roles in which they contribute to society in some way, (iii) adherence to responsibilities and obligations (not just to the people in one’s life, but to society as a whole, such as not breaking laws), and (iv) having adequate resources (money, food, shelter, etc.).
Having a sense of purpose is highly associated with metabolic and mental health. Purpose in life is multifaceted, but the big 3 factors are: (i) energy (taking care of yourself and staying healthy), (ii) work (having a job), and (iii) love (relationships).
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
Deep work: Professional activities performed in distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value and improve your skills, but they are hard to replicate. To cultivate deep work, we need to beware of two concepts: (i) principle of least resistance → the human tendency to default to the easiest and most convenient behaviors and taking busyness as a proxy for productivity (e.g., constant connectivity, frequent meetings, and multitasking), especially in the absence of clear feedback on how those behaviors impact outcomes, and (ii) attention residue → when you switch from some task A to another task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow — a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task leading to poor performance on that next task. To produce at your peak level, you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction.
We have limited supplies of willpower to draw from every day. The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration. There are 4 philosophies for scheduling deep work: (i) monastic → hermit mode, unplugged from the matrix and always focused, (ii) bimodal → alternate between the monastic approach (for at least a day in each stretch) and the normally engaged (i.e., shallow) mode, (iii) rhythmic → establish rhythmic habits to do deep work (e.g., one hour of deep work every morning before breakfast), and (iv) journalistic → switch to deep work whenever you can and have free time, grab chunks of time at random intervals like a journalist on a deadline who has to drop in and create something great on a tight deadline.
4 disciplines of execution (4DX) to help individuals engage in focused, high-value work: (i) focus on the wildly important goals → The more you try to do, the less you accomplish. So, identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with your deep work hours, (ii) act on the lead measures → instead of concentrating on lag measures (i.e., the ultimate goals you're trying to achieve), focus on lead measures (i.e., new behaviors that drive success on lag measures) because they are immediately measurable and allow for timely behavior adjustments, (iii) keep a compelling scoreboard → maintain a visible record of your progress to stay motivated and celebrate successes, and (iv) create a cadence of accountability → Whether you are working alone or with a team, establish a rhythm of regular review to analyze your deep work performance, plan for the upcoming period, and reflect on good and bad periods to identify areas for improvement.
Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
Ego is the unhealthy belief in our own importance; the need to be better than, more than, recognized for far beyond any reasonable utility. At any point in our life, we are at one of the following stages: (i) aspiring to something, (ii) achieving success, or (iii) failing. The ego is the enemy in each of these stages. Suppressing ego helps us be (i) humble in our aspirations, (ii) gracious in our success, and (iii) resilient in our failures.
Euthymia: A Greek word loosely translated to tranquility; the sense of our own path and how to stay on it without getting distracted by all the others that intersect it. To achieve Euthymia, we must answer the question why do we do what we do?. Only then will we understand what matters and what doesn't matter/we don't want/our choices preclude.
Stockdale Paradox: The importance of balancing two seemingly contradictory mindsets: (i) deep faith in ourselves and our ability to persevere no matter the difficulties we are facing, and (ii) being realistic about our situation and avoiding false hope. After experiencing failure, we need to remember that we are not failures, we’re just experiencing failure. We should not identify ourselves with our successes or failures; neither says something about us.
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Cross-sectional problem: At any given time, the most successful individuals in a field are likely to be those who are best suited to the most recent conditions or cycles, rather than those who are consistently skilled over time. Mild success can be explained by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance. That's why the quality of a choice cannot be judged just by the result but by the costs of the alternative (i.e., if history played out differently).
Social treadmill effect: You get rich, move to a better neighborhood, surround yourself with more successful people, and feel poor again. The hedonic adaptation/treadmill phenomenon describes how people quickly become accustomed to new positive (e.g., a new purchase) or negative stimuli, returning to a baseline level of happiness or satisfaction. That's why happiness is more influenced by relative improvements rather than absolute levels of wealth or possessions. Wealth does not make people happy, but positive increases in wealth may.
Satisficing: A combination of the words satisfy and suffice referring to the idea that one should stop searching for solutions when they find one that is satisfactory or good enough, rather than continuing to seek the optimal outcome. Otherwise, it may take an eternity to reach the smallest conclusion or perform the smallest act. Minor stalemates in life can often be solved by choosing randomly. In many cases, it doesn’t matter so long as you select something and move forward. A slight randomness prevents us from optimizing and being too efficient, particularly in the wrong things.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Grit: The combination of intense passion (aka direction) and intense perseverance (aka determination) toward a long-term goal that matters to you. Passion is not just that you have something you care about, it means that you care about the same ultimate goal in an abiding, loyal, and steady way. Your actions derive significance from their allegiance to your ultimate concern, your life philosophy. You have your priorities in order. Perseverance is being resilient and hardworking even when facing challenges and setbacks.
2 important formulas for the psychology of achievement (when comparing individuals in identical circumstances): (i) talent × effort = skill → talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort, and (ii) skill × effort = achievement → achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them, i.e., effort makes skill productive. Therefore, although talent (outside our control) matters, effort (within our control) factors into the calculations twice, not once.
To grow grit, one needs to cultivate 4 psychological assets: (i) interest (counters I'm bored) → enduring fascination and childlike curiosity one has for their work or pursuit, (ii) practice (counters the effort isn’t worth it) → deliberate and focused effort to improve one's skills and a commitment to daily improvement, (iii) purpose (counters this isn’t important to me) → the intention to contribute to the well-being of others, i.e., having a sense that one's efforts serve a larger purpose beyond themselves, and (iv) hope (counters I can’t do this, so I might as well give up) → the expectation that our efforts can improve our future, i.e., knowing that we have the ability to achieve what we set out to do.
Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection by Barbara Fredrickson
Love: The momentary surge of three tightly interwoven events: (i) shared positive emotions → a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you and another; (ii) biobehavioral synchrony → a synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry and behaviors; and (iii) mutual care → a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care. The shorthand for this trio is positivity resonance. Love is not limited to romantic or familial bonds, it blossoms virtually anytime two or more people (even strangers) connect over a shared positive emotion, mild or strong.
Prerequisites for love: (i) sense of safety (absence of threat) and (ii) sensory/temporal connection (e.g., eye contact, touch, or shared gestures).
To elevate health and well-being, seek out at least three opportunities for micro-moments of positivity resonance on a daily basis. Opportunities may come up at home, at work, in your neighborhood, or out in your community. Wherever you are, open toward others, freely offering your attention, creating a sense of safety, through eye contact, conversation, or, when appropriate, touch. Share your own lighthearted thoughts and feelings, and stay present as the other person shares theirs.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Logotherapy: A form of psychotherapy founded on the Will to Meaning concept that man's main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts. The three ways in which one could find meaning in life are: (i) through work, goals, and accomplishments, (ii) through love, relationships, and appreciating beauty, and (iii) through attitude towards unavoidable suffering.
We always think that we need to be in a tensionless state (and we use sedatives such as TV and pills to achieve that), however, that's not the point of life. We need to not discharge the tension at any cost, create a goal that is worthy of us, and strive and struggle toward that goal. As we struggle to meet these goals and wrestle with the inherent difficulty of life, we find the meaning we seek. Suffering ceases to be suffering when it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
No matter how dire our circumstances are, we always have the responsibility (= response + ability) to choose how we respond to the situation. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space, we have the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel J. Siegel
Mindsight: A kind of focused attention to look within, perceive the mind, and reflect on our experience. After the five primary senses and the sixth sense (our ability to perceive our internal bodily states), mindsight is our seventh sense. Directing our attention (via mindsight) has within it the power to shape our brain’s firing patterns, as well as the power to shape the architecture of the brain itself.
Integration: A process by which separate brain functions are linked together into a working and cohesive whole. Integration is the synergy of differentiation and linkage; it arises when differentiated parts are linked without losing their uniqueness. Integration enables us to be flexible and free; the lack of such connections promotes a life that is either rigid or chaotic, stuck and dull on the one hand or explosive and unpredictable on the other. Well-being emerges when we create connections in our lives—when we learn to use mindsight to help the brain achieve and maintain integration. The qualities of an integrated flow spell a universally memorable word: FACES, for Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized, and Stable. Rigidity and chaos are the two banks of the river of integration.
9 domains of integration: (i) Integration of consciousness → the ability to observe thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations without judgment, (ii) Horizontal integration → coordination between the left (logical, linguistic) and right (emotional, holistic) brain hemispheres, (iii) Vertical integration → alignment between the body (brainstem), emotions (limbic system), and cognition (neocortex), (iv) Memory integration → linking implicit memories (unconscious, emotional) with explicit memories (conscious, factual), (v) Narrative integration → constructing a cohesive life story by synthesizing memories, emotions, and experiences, (vi) State integration → harmonizing distinct mental states (e.g., joy, anger, curiosity) without becoming overwhelmed, (vii) Interpersonal integration → balancing autonomy and connection in relationships, (viii) Temporal integration → understanding the interplay of past, present, and future, and coping with uncertainty, and (ix) Identity integration → connecting to something larger than oneself (e.g., spirituality, nature, community).
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
Self-compassion consists of 3 core components: (i) self-kindness → stopping the constant self-judgment and disparaging internal commentary and actively comforting ourselves, responding just as we would to a dear friend in need, (ii) common humanity → recognizing that suffering and imperfection are part of the shared human experience and feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering, and (iii) mindfulness → the clear seeing and nonjudgmental acceptance of what’s occurring in the present moment, i.e., facing up to reality.
Suffering formula: suffering = pain × resistance (or suffering = pain resistance) → Pain (e.g., difficult emotions, physical discomfort) is inevitable in life. On the other hand, suffering, which is the mental anguish caused by fighting against the fact that life is sometimes painful, is optional. How we respond to that pain determines our levels of suffering. The correct way to relate to reality is via mindfulness.
Compassion literally means to suffer with, and hence, the importance of common humanity. This is what distinguishes self-compassion from self-acceptance, self-love, and self-pity (poor me). Self-compassion is also different from self-esteem because while we can’t always have high self-esteem and our lives will continue to be flawed and imperfect, self-compassion will always be there, helping us move to a better place.
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Via negativa approach: When dealing with complex systems with nonlinearities, it is often more effective to remove harmful elements than to add potentially beneficial ones. It is easier to know that something is wrong than to find the fix. Actions that remove are more robust than those that add because addition may have unseen and complicated consequences.
Minority rule: Existence of a small percentage (around 3-4%) of the population who are inflexible in their preferences or demands eventually dominate the preferences of the entire population. The rule works because the majority is typically flexible or indifferent to the minority's preferences. An example is Kosher or halal food becoming widely available despite small Jewish or Muslim populations.
Skin in the game: The principle that those who make decisions or take actions should bear some of the risk and potential negative consequences. Systems with skin in the game eliminate parts that don't work (i.e., they are self-stabilizing).
So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport
To be intrinsically motivated for your work, three basic psychological needs should be fulfilled: (i) Autonomy (the feeling of having control over your day and that your actions are important), (ii) Competence (the feeling of being good at what you do), and (iii) Relatedness (feeling of connection to other people at work). Notice that we do not need to match a pre-existing passion to our work if we want to find happiness in our work.
A job is the way to pay the bills, a career is a path toward increasingly better work, and a calling is a work that is an important part of your life and your identity.
Instead of the passion mindset (focusing on the question of who you really are, and connecting that to work that you truly love) that focuses on what the world can offer you, adopt the craftsman mindset which focuses on what value you are offering the world. Traits that define a great work (e.g., autonomy, mission that provides a unifying focus for your career) are rare and valuable and you need to master rare and valuable skills to offer in return for such traits that make great work great.
Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
In our lives, we face many problems and are pulled in countless directions by competing priorities and beliefs. In the way of everything we hope to accomplish, personally and professionally, sit obstacles and enemies. In those battles, in that war, stillness is the river and the railroad junction through which so much depends. It is the key.
To achieve stillness and peace, 3 domains must be in harmony: (i) mind, (ii) spirit, and (iii) body. For most people not only are these domains out of sync, but they are at war with each other. We will never have peace until that war is settled.
Virtue is the highest good and to achieve inner peace (i.e., stillness of spirit), virtue should be the principle behind all our actions. We must cultivate a moral code, a higher standard that we love almost more than life itself. Each of us must sit down and ask: What’s important to me? What would I rather die than betray? How am I going to live today? Then, these virtues are made real by taking actions that are in alignment with these values.
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
12 causes of our inability to sustain focus: (i) The increase in speed, switching, and filtering, (ii) the crippling of our flow states, (iii) the rise of physical and mental exhaustion, (iv) the collapse of sustained reading, (v) the disruption of mind-wandering, (vi) the rise of technology that can track and manipulate you, (vii) the rise of cruel optimism (i.e., the assumption that individuals can overcome vast societal challenges through personal effort alone), (viii) the surge In stress and how it triggers vigilance (aka fight-or-flight response), (ix)-(x) our deteriorating diets and rising pollution, (xi) the rise of ADHD and how we are responding to it, and (xii) the confinement of our children, both physically and psychologically.
3 core components of flow: (i) Choose a clearly defined goal, resolve to pursue it, and set aside other goals while you do so (no multitasking), (ii) do something that is meaningful to you to make it easier to sustain attention, and (iii) do something that is at the edge of your abilities, but not beyond them (too easy → auto-pilot; too hard → anxiety). One of the simplest and most common forms of flow is reading a book. To recover from our loss of attention, it is not enough to strip out our distractions. That will just create a void. We need to strip out our distractions and replace them with sources of flow.
Surveillance capitalism: A business model where tech companies monetize personal data by exploiting human psychology to maximize user engagement. Tech companies use algorithms to track every action, build detailed profiles, and sell this data to advertisers. Social media platforms are designed to keep users scrolling by exploiting psychological vulnerabilities which is a major contributor to the global attention crisis.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions. Success isn't being on top of a hierarchy, it is standing outside all hierarchies. The only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.
You have a real life if and only if (i) you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits, and (ii) you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification, and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else’s narrative.
Being wealthy is meaningless and has no robust absolute measure; use instead the subtractive measure unwealth, that is, the difference, at any point in time, between what you have and what you would like to have.
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday
Art of acquiescence: A Stoic concept referring to the idea of accepting what happens rather than fighting every little thing. Something happened that we wish had not. Which of these is easiest to change: our opinion or the past event? The answer is obvious. Accept what happened and change your wish that it had not happened. The most practiced Stoics take it a step further. Instead of simply accepting what happens, they urge us to enjoy what has happened, whatever it is. Nietzsche, many centuries later, coined the perfect expression to capture this idea: amor fati (a love of fate). It’s not just accepting, it’s loving everything that happens. To wish for what has happened to happen is a clever way to avoid disappointment because nothing is contrary to your desires. But to feel gratitude for what happens? To love it? That’s a recipe for happiness and joy.
How to live: You have two essential tasks in life: to be a good person and to pursue the occupation you love. Everything else is a waste of energy and a squandering of your potential. Say no to distractions, to destructive emotions, to outside pressure. Ask yourself: What is it that only I can do? What is the best use of my limited time on this planet? Try to do the right thing when the situation calls for it. Treat other people the way you would hope to be treated.
If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters, and don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself. Most of society seems to have taken it as a commandment that one must know about every single current event, watch every episode of every critically acclaimed television series, follow the news religiously, and present themselves to others as an informed and worldly individual. One of the most powerful things you can do as a human being in our hyperconnected, 24/7 media world is say: I don’t know. Or, more provocatively: I don’t care.
The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything by Neil Pasricha
The happiness equation STARTS with happiness. It’s happiness → great work → success, NOT great work → success → happiness. There are 7 ways to train your brain to be happy: (i) three walks → engage in three 30-minute brisk walks each week, (ii) the 20-minute replay → spend 20 minutes writing about a positive experience to relive and savor it, (iii) random acts of kindness → perform five acts of kindness in a week (e.g., buying coffee for someone, holding a door open) to foster generosity and connection, (iv) a complete unplug → take an hour away from technology daily to recharge and focus on meaningful activities like reading, spending time with loved ones, or pursuing hobbies, (v) hit flow → engage in activities that stretch us such that the challenges match our skills, (vi) 2-minute meditations → practice mindfulness meditation for 2 minutes every day to rewire your brain for happiness, and (vii) five gratitudes → write down five things you’re grateful for each day (if you can be happy with the simple things, then it will be simple to be happy).
Do circle: It’s easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting. Start with action (do). Using Newton's first law of physics (an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by a larger force), the initial action kick-starts the process and often brings about more action. This in turn builds confidence (can do) and ignites motivation (want to do). The do/can do/want to do process is a loop that can start anywhere but thrives on action as the entry point. Confidence and motivation are outcomes of doing, not prerequisites.
Ikigai: A Japanese concept loosely translated to the reason you wake up in the morning. We don't have a giant ikigai forever, it changes over time based on our current aim. If we want to feel great and live long, we need to have an ikigai. That's why in Okinawa, they don't even have a word for retirement because stopping work completely is the opposite of the ikigai concept.
The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky
50% of our happiness is determined by our genetics; 40% is a function of our daily activities, thought patterns, and behaviors; the remaining 10% is due to external life circumstances such as wealth, possessions, occupation, or living conditions. Thus, the key to happiness lies not in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and not in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities.
To maximize the 40% of happiness that we have the most control over, we can use any of the following activities: (i) Express gratitude, (ii) Cultivate optimism, (iii) Avoid overthinking and social comparison, (iv) Practice acts of kindness, (v) Nurture social relationships, (vi) Develop coping strategies in response to stress, hardship, or trauma, (vii) Learn to forgive, (viii) Increase flow experiences and engaging activities, (ix) Savor life’s joys, (x) Commit to goals, (xi) Practice religion and spirituality, and (xii) Take care of your body.
The combination of rumination and negative mood is toxic. Whenever you find yourself in this situation, distract yourself and immerse yourself in activities that divert your energies and attention away from dark or anxious ruminations.
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod
Our inner life consists of PIES: P for the Physical part (body, health, energy), I for the Intellectual part (mind, intelligence, thoughts), E for the Emotional part (emotions, feelings, attitudes), and S for the Spiritual part (spirit, soul, the unseen higher power that oversees it all). Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. To improve this, develop your PIES by starting every day with the life SAVERS (Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing).
To create your own affirmations: Ask yourself (i) what you really want and which areas you want to focus on improving the most, (ii) why you want it, (iii) who you are committed to being to create it, (iv) what you are committed to accomplishing to attain it, and (v) how you are going to accomplish it (be specific; include how often, how many, at what time).
To practice visualization: (i) Imagine exactly what you want to achieve or attain (major goals, deepest desires, exciting and life-changing dreams), and (ii) mentally rehearse who you will need to be and what you will need to do (see yourself engaged in the positive actions) to achieve or attain it.
The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life by Tal Ben-Shahar
Perfectionists reject everything that deviates from their flawless, faultless ideal vision, and as a result, they suffer whenever they do not meet their own unrealistic standards. Optimalists accept and make the best of everything that life has to offer. The main difference between an optimalist and a perfectionist is that the optimalist embraces the constraints of reality; however, a perfectionist rejects those constraints. Taking the constraints of reality into consideration, the optimalist then works toward creating not the perfect life but the best possible one. The optimalist believes that our nature is constrained, but our ability can improve by effort (growth mindset). On the other hand, the perfectionist believes that our nature is unconstrained, but our ability cannot improve by effort (fixed mindset). The optimalism ideal is not a distant shore to be reached but a distant star that guides us and can never be reached (i.e., don't be a perfectionist in your pursuit of optimalism).
An event leads to a thought (an interpretation of the event), and the thought in turn evokes an emotion. The basic premise of cognitive therapy is that we react to our interpretation of events rather than directly to the events themselves. The goal of cognitive therapy is to restore a sense of realism by getting rid of distorted thinking. To do so, one must follow the PRP process: (i) Permission: allow yourself to fully experience and accept your emotions, whatever they may be, without judgment, (ii) Reconstruction: reframe your interpretation of the event or setback; instead of viewing failure as a catastrophe, reconstruct the experience by looking for lessons and opportunities for growth, and (iii) Perspective: put the situation in a broader context to moderate the emotional impact; by zooming out, you can see the event as a small part of your larger life story that would not matter as much over time.
The Golden Rule (i.e., the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them) is based on the assumption that we love ourselves and practice self-compassion toward ourselves. Why the double standard, the generosity toward our neighbor, and the miserliness where we ourselves are concerned? So, we need to add a new platinum rule to our moral code: Do not do unto yourself what you would not do unto others. To say I love you, one must know first how to say the I.
The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks
Every once in a while, we meet a person who radiates joy. These are people who seem to glow with an inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They graduate from school, start a career, and begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view unsatisfying. They realize: This isn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain. And so they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment. The first mountain is the individualist worldview, which puts the desires of the ego at the center. The second mountain is what you might call the relationalist worldview, which puts relation, commitment, and the desires of the heart and soul at the center.
Happiness is the proper goal for people on the first mountain, and happiness is great. But we only get one life, so we might as well use it hunting for big game: to enjoy happiness, but to surpass happiness toward joy. Happiness tends to be individual; we measure it by asking, Are you happy? Joy tends to be self-transcending. Happiness is something you pursue; joy is something that rises unexpectedly and sweeps over you. Happiness comes from accomplishments; joy comes from offering gifts. Happiness fades; we get used to the things that used to make us happy. Joy doesn’t fade. To live with joy is to live with wonder, gratitude, and hope.
Commitments create purpose and lead us on the second mountain. Our commitments allow us to move to a higher level of freedom. In our culture, we think of freedom as the absence of restraint. That’s freedom from. But there is another and higher kind of freedom. That is freedom to. This is freedom as fullness of capacity, and it often involves restriction and restraint. You have to chain yourself to the piano to practice for year after year if you want to have the freedom to really play. You have to chain yourself to a certain set of virtuous habits so you don’t become a slave to your destructive desires. A life of commitment means saying a thousand noes for the sake of a few precious yeses. Real freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones. The best adult life is lived by making four commitments: commitments to (i) a vocation, (ii) a family, (iii) a philosophy or faith, and (iv) a community. Adult life is about making promises to others and being faithful to those promises.
The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal
Willpower consists of three distinct powers: (i) I will power → the ability to do what's necessary but uncomfortable, (ii) I won't power → the capacity to resist temptations and impulses, and (iii) I want power → the ability to remember and focus on long-term goals. The most effective stress-relief strategies are exercising or playing sports, praying or attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time with a creative hobby. The main difference between these strategies and the ones that don’t work (e.g., gambling, shopping, smoking, drinking, eating, playing video games, surfing the Internet, and watching TV or movies for more than two hours) is the following: Rather than releasing dopamine and relying on the promise of reward (note that dopamine is released when the brain recognizes an opportunity for reward, acting as a powerful neurochemical that drives us to seek things out), the real stress relievers boost mood-enhancing brain chemicals like serotonin and GABA, as well as the feel-good hormone oxytocin. They also help shut down the brain’s stress response, reduce stress hormones in the body, and induce the healing relaxation response.
Self-control has a biological signature. The need for self-control sets into motion a coordinated set of changes in the brain and body that help you resist temptation and override self-destructive urges; those changes are called the pause-and-plan response. The pause-and-plan response drives you in the opposite direction of the fight-or-flight response. Instead of speeding up, your heart slows down, and your blood pressure stays normal. Instead of hyperventilating like a madman, you take a deep breath. Instead of tensing muscles to prime them for action, your body relaxes a little. HRV (the variation in time between each heartbeat) is the best physiological measurement of the ability to activate the pause-and-plan response (instead of defaulting to fight-or-flight).
What-the-hell-effect: A psychological phenomenon where a small failure (initial slip) in self-control leads to a cycle of indulgence, regret (guilt and shame), and further indulgence. To break this cycle, instead of self-criticism (which drains both I will and I want powers), we need to practice self-compassion. We all have the tendency to believe in self-doubt and self-criticism, but listening to this voice never gets us closer to our goals. Instead, try the point of view of a mentor or good friend who believes in you, wants the best for you, and will encourage you when you feel discouraged.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
A fixed mindset is the belief that your qualities and talents are set in stone. With a fixed mindset, our self-worth is on the line with everything we do, and failure is something to avoid at all costs. This mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. The biggest issue with the fixed mindset is that if you're somebody only when you're successful, what are you when you're not successful? On the other hand, a growth mindset is the belief that the hand you’re dealt (your talents and qualities) is just the starting point for development. This mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every way, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
People with a fixed mindset hate effort and hard work because (i) it means you’re not smart or talented; if you were, you wouldn’t need effort, (ii) they need to be able to show results immediately and would interpret any potential failure to produce extraordinary results the first time out as proof that they’re an idiot, and (iii) if they try hard and fail, they have no excuses, and that's scary for fixed mindset people.
Praising effort without success isn't a growth mindset activity; we also need to figure out what's not working and work on it. Hard work, trying new strategies, and asking for help when necessary are the key tenets of the growth mindset. It is important to make concrete plans to grow in various aspects of our lives (something we need to do, something we want to learn, a problem we have to confront, etc.), and to do so, we need to specify when, where, and how we will follow through with the plan.
