My calendar is as full as anyone’s. I still block time to mentor people who are just starting. People ask me why, especially when there is no obvious return on it. The honest answer is that it is one of the few things I do that I am certain matters.
I did not start at the top. I started with far more determination than experience, doing the unglamorous work and learning by getting things wrong. Somewhere along the way, people who had no obligation to help me chose to anyway. They told me the truth when it would have been easier to be polite. They pointed at doors I did not know existed. I would not be where I am without them, and I have never forgotten it.
Mentoring is how I pay that back, not to the people who helped me, since debts like that can rarely be repaid directly, but forward, to someone who reminds me of who I used to be.
Here is what I have come to believe: talent is spread fairly evenly across people. Opportunity is not. For every young professional who has a network, a mentor, and someone willing to make an introduction, there are several who are just as capable and have none of it. That gap has almost nothing to do with ability. Closing even a little of it is some of the highest-leverage time I can spend.
Mentoring is not about handing someone the answers
Most of the time they do not need my answers; they need to know the road exists and that someone has already walked it. They need permission to keep going when the early rejection makes them wonder whether they are cut out for this at all. A little perspective from someone a few steps ahead can save a person a year of doubt.
I will be honest about the other side of it too: I get as much as I give. Mentoring keeps me sharp. It forces me to say out loud what I actually believe instead of running on autopilot. The people I work with challenge my assumptions and remind me why I started in the first place. It is not charity. It is a trade I would make every time.
If you have climbed even a little, someone below you is looking up and wondering whether it is possible. Reach back. It costs less than you think, and it matters more than you know.