I recently attended a conference which was populated with amazing, young social entrepreneurs and people ready to make significant change in their world.

Young people concerned with food security for the most vulnerable on the planet, those concerned with helping adolescents with HIV Aids to live a full life and others still who were just looking for a cause.

Here is what I know for sure…

They all need a mentor, a guide who can listen to their thoughts, their visions and their big dreams.

I know this because I so desperately needed mentors through the various stages of my life.

I had great and supportive teachers in high school, in college and graduate school. Then I was in the work world and had no one to turn to for help with my career.

I did not even know what my skills were.

I had no idea what questions to ask or who to turn to for guidance.

As I was wrapping up my presentation from the stage at this conference I said, “I am 61 and I know what it’s like to be working in the dark. I know what it’s like to have a vision that no one else can understand and how easy it is to begin the toxic process of self doubt.”

I offered to be a mentor to those who needed one.

A few young women came up during the course of the weekend and asked me to mentor them and with each request my heart grew wider and warmer and I know what an honor it is to be the attentive ears for these future leaders.

My ask for you is to offer yourself to mentor others.

It does not matter how old or young you are, someone needs what you have.

When I was that small and beaten child in Trinidad, what I would have given to someone to have seen my pain and acknowledged it and given me some soft ears to speak my pain.

I know that it would have made my pain sting less.

Speak up.

Listen well.

Share your strengths.

Love & light,

Indrani