Hello, I hope that 2025 is off to a great start for you and yours!

This should be a big year. I turn 50 next week, which I suppose is a natural time to be a little reflective.

Some people express surprise when they hear that I’m turning 50 – I guess the moisturizer works. Apparently I seem much younger? Occasionally an older friend says, “You’re still a baby, welcome to the club!” I guess both can be true.

I’ve been young my whole life. I skipped kindergarten as a kid – I never learned to share – and was the small, young, scrawny kid every year. I was 11 in 7th grade for example. It did not help in sports.

Incidentally, I now think it’s a good idea for boys in particular to start later as they mature a bit more slowly. One of our boys is repeating a grade right now. Also a good idea? Gap years. I don’t think there’s a rush.

But back then, I kind of did. I started a company that flopped when I was 25, sold a company when I was 34, started Venture for America at 36 and started running for President at 43. I was convinced that AI was around the corner that was going to make life even more tenuous for the average American.

I was 45 in 2020, which definitely made me one of the youngest candidates in the field. Politics will make you seem young by comparison.

I’m grateful that I ran when my kids were too young to understand what the heck was going on. They still think of Iowa as a fun, chilly place with a children’s museum that allowed you to actually saw objects in half.

A mentor said to me, “You’re going to be more productive in the next 10 years than you ever were.” His argument was that I now know gajillions of people, I know how things work, I’ve been inside the machine. Not coincidentally, he’s 10 years older than I am. He also said, “A lot of people are looking to you to make sense of what’s happening.”

One thing that has given me a positive attitude about turning 50 is that I’ve tried to maximize my time in terms of making a difference. I haven’t been slacking, you know what I mean? I’ve taken big swings and have had a journey I’m proud of.

Thank you helping to make that so.

My friend is right that I know things now that I didn’t know before. I’d like to take advantage of them.

Can we accomplish big things? Let’s do our best in 2025. We have the time that’s given to us and nothing more. It’s up to us to make the most of it.

Thank you for keeping up with me. If you’d like to help celebrate my birthday, please consider making a donation to Forward – we have some new gear that I’m enjoying. To hear my 2025 predictions on this week's podcast, click here.

Here’s to thriving in ’25!