Welcome to Gratitude Driven, a weekly newsletter where I share practical ideas and insights across personal growth, professional development, and the world of AI and data science.

The most important decisions I’ve made in the last several years have all happened while I was hiking alone.

It wasn’t intentional at first—I just noticed that some of my clearest, most honest thinking came during these quiet moments in nature. Over time, I realized that combining a solo hike with intentional reflection was a powerful way to step back, check in with myself, and find clarity about what really matters.

The nerdy name I’ve given this practice the “Life Audit Hike.”

The process is simple: After settling into the hike, I ask myself questions about the key areas of my life. For me, this includes my career, relationships, fitness, and whatever else feels pressing at the time. Your most important topics will likely be different.

I break it down into three simple questions:

1. How do I feel about this area of my life overall? I dig deep here, exploring emotions I might not have had time to process during my day-to-day.

2. Am I happy with my current actions in this area? This is where I evaluate whether I’m putting in the effort or following a plan that aligns with my goals.

3. What would I like to do differently? I try to identify clear, actionable steps to improve or stay on track.

For example, during a recent hike, I reflected on my friendships. I’ve moved a lot, and while I’m lucky to have friends all over the world, I haven’t built a strong local friend group since relocating. I don’t feel lonely day-to-day, but when I really thought about it, I realized I’d been holding back. I was scared of rejection and hadn’t taken steps to deepen new connections. This gave me the kick in the pants to text someone I’d recently met at my new gym to see if she wanted to hang out.

I don’t always have major epiphanies on these hikes, but I almost always come away with at least one or two insights I wouldn’t have reached otherwise. These moments of clarity often lead to small but meaningful changes—things I wouldn’t have noticed or prioritized if I hadn’t carved out this time.

Even if you can’t do a long hike, you can adapt this idea to fit your schedule. A short walk in a quiet park, without your phone or music, can be just as effective. What matters is creating space for intentional reflection, away from the usual distractions.

Here’s my recent YouTube video on this. Check it out for pretty nature footage.

I work in machine learning at Twitch (Amazon) in the areas of forecasting, fraud detection, and content understanding using Gen AI. Here’s how I stay informed about new tools and trends:

I don’t!

Well, that’s not completely true. I am constantly learning.

But I don’t worry about staying on top of every single new tool or model release. The fact is, that’s not realistic, and not really necessary. There’s a lot of noise out there.

Instead, I spend my energy on identifying business problems, and then I work backwards to identify the best tool and approach for the problem at hand.

Once I have a business case, I spend a lot of time learning about the options to address all the functional and non-functional requirements before making a spec for the project. It might be that something new is the best tool for the job. But it also might be that I stick with traditional methods.

It’s not about jumping on every new trend or shiny tool. It’s about using the right approach to solve real-world problems. In the end, what matters is the  business impact and reliability of your solution, not the novelty of the approach.

I enjoyed this podcast from Mark Manson and Nir Eyal: How to Beat Distraction and Still Enjoy Life. I’ll be picking up Nir’s book, Indistractable, for sure!

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