What Somaly Mam experienced before her teenage years would cripple even the toughest spirits, which makes the path she has chosen much more improbable and inspiring. As a renowned leader in the battle against the $12 billion per year human sex trafficking industry, Somaly embodies both the horror of this silent epidemic and the triumph victims and activists hope to realize in the future. Raised in a country where women are statistics in the losing battle against sexual slavery, Cambodian-born Somaly has arisen as an invigorating force.

Born into destitution in the Mondulkiri province of Cambodia during the 1970s, Somaly struggled with the rest of her country under the merciless reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. She never knew her parents ─ they disappeared early in her life perhaps due to political strife ─ and her grandmother also abandoned her. Her first memories include working as a servant for numerous families. At the age of twelve, she was sold into prostitution by a man posing as her grandfather.

“I was dead. I had no affection for anyone,” states Somaly as she describes the decade of rape, abuse and torture she endured in a Phnom Penh brothel. Victims of sexual bondage can be as young as five-years old, sold by strangers or even family members for as little as $150. Terrorized to the point of numbness, captives eventually accept their plight in order to survive. Traffickers and pimps often keep prostitutes in cages, only allowing them freedom when customers arrive. In this business, degradation is key to submission, and there is no limit to the amount of force used to break these girls. Once broken, sex workers may see an average of fifteen clients a night for mere pennies for each act.

Somaly’s turning point came in the wake of tragedy when she watched a close friend brutally murdered by a pimp. Looking her in the eye as she died, Somaly understood the desperate conditions and vowed not only to escape but to return and save others. With the help of a French aid worker, Somaly fled Cambodia in 1993.

Three years after her liberation, Somaly created the nonprofit organization Acting for Women in Distressing Situations (or AFESIP, French acronym) that collaborates with local law enforcement to raid brothels and extract victims from hostile environments. Somaly utilizes a holistic approach to rehabilitate girls by providing emotional support and professional training to ensure successful reintegration into society. Lauded for her progress in the anti-trafficking struggle, Somaly launched The Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007 to create a funding source that supports other anti-trafficking groups.

But success has been bittersweet. Having saved nearly 6,000 girls, Somaly constantly faces death threats from traffickers and corrupt government officials. In 2006, brothel owners sought retaliation when they kidnapped and raped her then 14-year-old daughter. However, despite these dangers, Somaly perseveres. “I have a lot of people trying to destroy me everywhere. They are trying, trying, but I just want to say to them, no way.”

Check out more at www.somoly.org

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I’ll admit it, I’m a closet superhero freak and it was all too apparent when I bought the early bird tickets to the latest Wolverine movie and stood in line for almost two hours to get the best seats. I’d like to say it’s because I grew up with four older brothers; they’re the reason I’m obsessed with the Spiderman’s and Batman’s of the world…but regardless, in line with all the other X-Men groupies, stood a 5’10, long blond haired, smiling tomboy eager to be let into the theater.

But, honestly, what is it that we love about superheroes anyway? When you think about Michelle Pfeiffer as Cat Woman, old-school Wonder Woman played by Lynda Carter, Halle Berry as Storm, Jennifer Gardner as Elektra, Jessica Alba dressed up as Sue Storm in Fantastic Four and, the ultimate, Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, you can’t tell me you don’t think they’re rock stars. I’d give my left pinky to be any of them for a day, so what is it about them that makes them so incredible?

Honestly, I think we as humans know our limitations and love to fantasize about a world in which we can fly, read people’s minds, become invisible or beat up a guy who’s ten times our size in a perfectly choreographed fight scene. We want to be bad asses at heart, at least I do. For most people, our biggest fear is being ordinary, mediocre, or Simon Cowell’s biggest insult, “forgettable.”

However, my greatest epiphany recently was that we DO get to be superheroes and we DO get to have super powers, if we so choose. Now maybe they aren’t the cliché super human strength, the ability to move at the speed of light, or invisibility cloaks, but they are equally powerful. This lifetime is never about wishing for something you don’t have, but rather seeing what tools you can find to stick in your belt along the way.

For me, I realized that my life experiences have gifted me with incredible opportunities to pick up priceless tools: the work ethic I gained in grad school, the faith I gained when I lost a dear friend in car accident, the resilience I gained hiking Everest, the determination I gained on Survivor, the compassion I gained in working with underprivileged girls in Cambodia, and the appreciation I gained after witnessing poverty in Brazil. You see, in the real world, the intangibles we gain along our journey are where the real power hides.

I think with every experience we have, there is this opportunity to pick up another gift, another shade of color we can add to our pallet and another tool for our life’s tool belt. Regardless of the situation, whether happy or sad, terrifying of joyfully overflowing there is a kernel of truth that awaits you. In order to best navigate through the jungle of life, it’s in our best interest to gather as many things as possible to help  along the journey.

I may not be able to make things move with my mind, but I confidently know I have the work ethic to build a powerful company; I may never be able to fly, but I know I have the compassion to inspire a young girl to dream big; and Lord knows I’ll never read minds (though with the last guy I had a crush on it would have been uber helpful), but I know I have the resilience to pursue my passion in the face of adversity.

We all have the potential to be superheroes, to leave this world better than we found it, to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves and to be extraordinary, magnificent and truly unforgettable. Now, all we have to do is a get a costume, slap on a mask, and I have no doubt we’d give Cat Woman and the other hero babes a run for their money.

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Unfortunately God did not grant me a window seat on the four hour flight home, a travesty seeing as it was a 6:15am flight and I hadn’t slept in days. I had dressed in the dark, my punk sneakers reeked of “rebel” my thick red aviators and Emo beanie hid my blood shot eyes and the CK1 I sprayed on (to cover my lack of showering) made me smell of 1994. To an outsider I must have looked like a concert groupie, still up from the night before, experiencing the worst hangover of her life. The reality: I was experiencing the worst hangover of my life but it wasn’t the traditional, self-induced alcohol binge; it was so much more. I was experiencing the first ever, “post-activist, rally rebel, nine hours of sleep in three days, no-voice left” hang over of a true trailblazer.

The beauty of this kind of hangover is you’re not simply left with a migraine, nausea and vague snap shots of the night before (half of which you want desperately to forget), you’re also left with a better version of yourself because what you did. We rallied the nation. We inspired the world. Sure maybe we were tired and needed countless hours to recoup our exhausted bodies, but what we received in return was almost criminal.

If you read my blogs, you know that I was in DC rallying with the Invisible Children boys and that on April 25^th we had an impossible task looming before us. Our insecurities, our doubt and our fear flirted with our confidence, tempting us to join Café Resignation but we stayed strong, determined to pull off one of the most ambitious awareness campaigns taking place in 10 countries and 100 cities around the world to end a war in Uganda.

The night before, I couldn’t sleep. The anticipation was exponentially worse than any Christmas Eve I could remember. I wanted to know if all our work would be in vain, if we were going to be a success, or fall in the wasteland of mediocrity. I awoke before the alarm went off and we went to our designated location to wait. “If you build it, they will come,” echoed in my head. We would soon find out.

Then it happened, like a miracle, an answered prayer, as droves of people came streaming in. Part of me was in disbelief, the other part arrogantly waved the flag of, “I told you so.” Either way, I will never forget watching hundreds if not thousands of people marching in front of our country’s capital, demanding change. I have never been a part of something like this, witnessed the power of our voice, the influence of numbers and the strength of a passion induced cause.

Icing on the cake: I was asked to give a talk to the Passionistas who stood before me. Humbled, honored, I took the microphone and, to this day, I have no idea what I said. I remember bright lights, cameras flashing, the crowd roaring, and the most overwhelming sensation of pure, unbridled inspiration pouring from my heart, from my entire body and my voice. If there were ever a time I wish I could have stopped time, if I could have freeze framed or crystallized a moment in history, it was then for I have never felt so alive in my entire life.

I walked off stage and the rally raged on with music, camaraderie among strangers, and pride in ourselves. Then we proceeded to endure torrential rain that was all too familiar to my infamous Survivor days, yet none of us were discouraged. Another night of no sleep, but this one sweetly welcomed as I recognized the taste of success, the smell of accomplishment, and the feeling of gratitude. The sun came up sooner than I thought and our faces betrayed our tiredness as we gathered our belongings, thanked the hundreds of people who also chose to weather the storm, and we parted ways.

I returned to our luxurious apartment. I packed up my things and I hopped on an airplane to return to the real world. Just like that, I returned to feeling normal again, like a Superhero who changed back into civilian clothes.

So, yes, to the naked eye I was a party girl gone too far, paying the appropriate consequences for my reckless behavior the night before, brutally catching an early flight home. But to those who where there, I, along with them, was a warrior. I was a girl willing to fight for something bigger than myself and offering the most essential: sleep, food, and shelter as collateral. I was a hero; we all were.

We won that battle, but the war goes on and this is but the first of many. However, the taste of victory is contagious, it’s addictive and I’ve been left wanting, needing more. We will end a war in Uganda. We will rescue the child soldiers of Joseph Kony and we will make history. But for now, I am turning off my phone, I am checking out, and I will voluntarily lose a day of my life to the allure of my bed and my sleep-deprived body’s necessity for rest.

photo by jim girardi

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We leave in less than a week for Cambodia and so many people have been writing in asking what they can do to help and how they can donate if they don’t have the extra money this month. And trust me, I completely understand that wallets are tight these days and even when they aren’t, that not all people are in a position to pass off a few Benjamin’s. However, I think too often we assume that money is the only form of donation. For the record, it’s not.

That is why I’m asking that you donate one conversation a day while we’re gone. After all, ask any millionaire, success story, lottery winner…, there is nothing more precious than our time. Anyone can hop online and donate money, slip a few twenties in a birthday card and call it a day. What’s inspiring to me, are the people who are willing to be inconvenienced, people who take time for others and set their agenda and “to do’s” on a momentary hold for another. It’s one thing to drop a few bucks in a homeless man’s jar, it’s another thing to take five minutes from your day to invest in him with conversation. Not that I am discrediting monetary donations, but we need less computer clicking and more personal investment. I may not always have an extra dollar in my pocket, but I always have a few minutes in my day to validate a person, to acknowledge them and honor them by making them worth my time.

No one will argue that in today’s world, we are over-worked, over-stressed, over-scheduled; but don’t allow that to be an excuse to not contribute to this world. We also underestimate the power of conversation, of sharing and inspiring but one person. We don’t all need a celebrity platform, a presidential podium or a plane ticket half way across the world to make a difference. It can be as simple as a single conversation in Starbucks, an elevator ride with a coworker, or your regular check-in with your friends, family or significant other.

How often are our conversations diluted by inane gossip, rote office drama and “what should we eat for dinner” sighs? I offer you an adventure story to share with someone, a real life fairytale and perfume bottled inspiration that pervades your conversation. It’s about a man who went to a far off land and saw an injustice. The monsters of scarcity, poverty, and exploitation reared their ugly heads with his arrival. However, rather than cowardly run away, frightened, intimidated and hopeless, he stared them in the face, swearing his return. And he did return, with reinforcements, armor, swords and serious Hollywood money (always a perk in fairytales).

Our knight in shinning armor, against all odds, with the world screaming impossible, and can’t be done, fights for justice. He built a castle where no castle had stood and he provides a sanctuary for the innocent to live and thrive in a world that begs to strip them of all hope. He fights battles every day, puts out fires minute by minute. But despite the wobbly-kneed exhaustion he’s sure to feel, he along with the William Wallaces and Maximus Aurellius of the world, fight for something greater than themselves; they fight for the rights of others.

While I love me some good fairytales, and I can get swept away with the best of them, it’s time we started investing in the REAL heroes inundating our world. It’s time we stopped imagining heroism and started living it. We needn’t be great leaders, charismatic orators or masters of elocution. We needn’t fame or wealth, money or prestige; in order to be truly extraordinary, it’s not who we are intrinsically, but what we do that measures our worth.

So all I ask is for one conversation. Have one conversation that there are people who still believe their lives can make a significant difference in this world and they are fighting for good. I get to stand along side Scott; I get to devote the next two weeks of my life to working with a phenomenal group of Cambodian girls; and I get to share this fairytale with you, both an honor and a privilege. All I ask is you share our adventure with others and, in doing so, inspire the hero in someone else.

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