Here’s to the next two years

Dear Family, Friends, and Strangers —

Today I turn 24 (a bit scary), and am in my first year being out of college in the ‘real world’. The past few years have been incredibly rewarding, I graduated with my masters, was featured on the White House Blog, spoke in front of hundreds of people (a few times), started a company, met some great mentors, built a 6-foot potato cannon, took lots of pictures, and made friends i’ll have for the rest of my life.

As I began thinking about my hopes and dreams for the next two years, I decided to take a page from AJ Leon’s book and share them with you:

Find my moonshot — I am not sure what industry (perhaps healthcare or something in emerging countries?) or technology will be involved and I know it won’t be done in 2 years, but working on a project that radically changes millions of people’s lives is naturally inspiring.
Spend more time with my family — I recently moved to Seattle and only see my family about every 6 months. They mean the world to me and I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I am today without them (Love you, Mom, Dad and Moose!)
Be more active — I want to snowboard down a double-black, run a marathon, win a tennis match, maybe go surfing?
Stay young at heart — Children have an incredible ability to come up with the craziest ideas that somehow might actually work, while learning something every minute of every day. It seems people are supposed to move from college into the ‘real world’ and think they have to have it all figured out, but that seems boring to me.
Eat a lot more pizza — and less vegetables.

These are just a few of the things I hope to do over the next 2 years, I’ll be back at least once every few months with updates on my progress! I encourage you to ask me how I’m doing, if you see me around!

Thanks — Ryan