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Last week, I was speaking to a friend about missions as we were developing a program. We kept discussing back and forth: "What is the mission of our program?" It made me think: if I had to write in a sentence how I'd like to be of service to the world, what would I write? The word service is crucial. How would I like to be of service to the world? One sentence answer. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to eat ice cream every day. Do you know how you'd answer thi

“Nobody gets to assume anything about anybody else.” This was an immediate response from a friend of mine on a recent podcast episode, when I asked what favor he’d ask of the people of the world. I vividly remember the exact moment he said this, because I've always loved the idea that genuine curiosity is the single biggest way we can combat the polarization we see everywhere today. But in retrospect, it was actually one of his follow-up thoughts which really stood out

What does "pilgrimage" mean to you? When you hear the word “pilgrimage”, what comes to mind? What do you visualize? How do you feel? In what ways are you a pilgrim in your own life? Yesterday while recording an episode of my podcast, the concept of a pilgrimage came up when I asked a dear friend about his preferred method to re-energize. He mentioned his love of walking every single day, without one set purpose. Maybe to move the body. Maybe to avoid screens. Maybe to f

Today feels like a day of new beginnings. It's a new moon. And my family is also celebrating my mom's third "re-birthday" -- it's been three years since she went into remission from multiple myeloma. So today, I've launched my podcast: Wandering with Ravi Ram The idea for this podcast first came to me during the pandemic in 2020, when I felt a desire to get outside more and connect with people. I wasn't exactly sure how to do this given quarantine requirements. I decided that

I'm launching a podcast in just a couple of days that has been in the works for a long time. I want to help bring people together through shared, open, entertaining, wandering conversation. More on this soon. In the meantime, I wanted to write about a related topic: traveling with empathy . Anyone who knows me knows how much I love travel. I feel travel brings people together so we can learn from each other, create mutual understanding, and have fun. (Side note: I hope that i

"What if it all works out?" My close friend Axel and I kept texting each other this throughout 2025. We met in March for the first time in years. That first night I stayed with him in Singapore, we chatted on his couch until some absurd hour of the night, our eyes watering both from laughing at childish jokes and from crying as we shared our struggles (I dare you to watch this and not laugh). It was a microcosm of my year, waves of joy and waves of pain. It honestly feels RE

I remember being a little kid at school seeing other kids sitting alone at lunch. I can still picture the cafeteria, so many tables full of kids laughing together while eating, but other tables with just 1-2 kids sitting across from each other in silence. I always felt this urge to sit with the kids who seemed isolated and make them laugh. I'd wonder if they were maybe too scared to approach people they didn't know. Or felt different because of what they were eating, or where

In university, I had an incredible mentor. Michael Cochise Young. She was the director of the Flinn Scholars program, a program focused on who each of us could become and the impact we could have. We were meant to become an agents of discovery, creativity and leadership who will make a difference. Michael would meet with me often through my undergraduate years, and over and over she’d repeat a phrase that has always stuck with me: Disturbing the Equilibrium. The idea behind t

“Only the most broken people can be great leaders.” With this quote begins the trailer for the new Black Panther movie, Wakanda Forever ( epic trailer btw, put on some noise-cancelling headphones and watch if you want some inspiration..and goosebumps). I find the above quote particularly powerful because it offers a truly meaningful invitation, central to my journey over the past year: in order to develop as humans, we need to be willing to break ourselves down to our core,