I apologize to those of you I offended for coming out against the Ex-Im Bank. I'm not changing my mind on it, but I just wanted to let you know I apologize for that.

America's history is exemplified in the efforts of the men and women who died for our country. The one thing that they all have in common is their selfless love for our nation and their courage to stand up to protect and defend it. They raised their gaze in the face of conflict, believed in what America could be, and pushed forward.

As you get larger, it is harder to have focused discussions. Because one of the things I've learned about Congress over the past four years that I've been in is there's no shortage of opinions about how things should be done on any particular subject.

I have disagreements with leadership, I have disagreements with the speaker, but I have those one-on-one.

Here in Silicon Valley, I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs. All too often, innovators with good, safe, jobs are unwilling to put their family's access to health care at risk by walking away from company-backed medical insurance.

Speaking can be a lot like exercise: The more time you spend getting ready, the more you mentally build the task into something larger than it actually is.

It's going to take each of us coming together to muster the strength to look in the mirror and ask, 'How can I help create a sustainable health care system for the 21st century?'

When I was first diagnosed, I went out, as a book person, and got some books on cancer and looked up my version of the disease. It said that I had about a 5 percent chance of survival. I said, 'Gosh, well, it's been a good run.' What I didn't realize is that in the two years since those books were published, things had shifted dramatically.