Team

William Ryan

Change can happen quickly.

William is driven to understand and optimize complex systems, especially the human mind and how individuals cooperate in society. He was bit by the entrepreneurial bug at a young age: after graduating early from high school he worked as an independent construction contractor, during college he founded an online electronics retail company, and he currently holds a position as Chief Analytics Officer at the mobile health startup Azumio. He attended Dartmouth College to study economics and graduated with honors, cum laude. After college he worked as an economist in international research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, specializing in the international use of the dollar and the worldwide response to the global financial crisis. While living in New York he founded and organized the NYC rationality meetup, where dozens of people met twice weekly to talk about the mind and optimize their lives. In 2011 he served as a research fellow at the Singularity Institute, where he helped design and run several flagship rationality training seminars. Now he helps people identify what matters to them, restructure their lives, and become the best versions of themselves.

Divia Melwani

Introspection works.

Divia is a curiosity-driven polymath whose focus is on understanding the inner workings of the mind. She has particular expertise in creating growth through systematic, feedback-driven introspection. She started programming computers when she was five, and went on to graduate with a degree in computer science from Harvard University. More recently, she has been interacting more with humans and less with computers. She has applied her undestanding of the brain to her work as a private tutor for Advantage Testing, and her recent work as a rationality instructor for the Singularity Institute. Her regular practice of leading others to dissolve long-standing emotional blocks began with the scaffold of the Internal Family Systems model and it increasingly draws on a variety of techniques she has incorporated from her studies in an intuitively-guided practice.

Shannon Friedman

Set your passion free.

Shannon is known for her devotion to helping people live their passion. Since 2008 she has been a practicing coach, and now an Internal Family Systems counselor, helping people overcome the roadblocks to living their dreams.  Shannon is a certified life coach from the Coaches Training Institute. She is a lifelong learner, who has studied Non-Violent Communication, Big Mind Big Heart, Effective Influence, and has completed an extensive leadership program through the Coaches Training Institute. Her clients have become CEOs, found their dream jobs, improved their relationships, and found inner harmony and peace. She believes that living your dream is possible.  She is doing it for herself, and would like to connect you to your inspiration so that you can do it too.

Adam Widmer

Be fearless. Not brave.

Adam creates strategies to master the skills necessary to learn and communicate effectively. He is devoted to helping clients acquire an inspired life of effortless productivity. A lifelong autodidact, he has gained intimate knowledge of powerful self-education techniques to open inspiration and aid memory. While living in Manhattan he led a weekly science based self-improvement group that regularly attracted a wide audience. He has presented on nootropics, classical philosophies of life, meditation, memorization techniques and community development. Adam practices the Internal Family Systems therapeutic technique professionally and has helped clients with issues ranging from addiction to fear of abandonment. Participants at his outdoor workshops have faced and overcome social anxiety through structured exposure therapy. He is currently a researcher at the New York-based Leverage Research with a focus on analyzing the psychology literature in order to improve the efficacy of organizational outreach.