Back in the days when I had my lack of experience as an excuse to explain my mistakes I was sometimes wondering: "Wouldn't it be nice to have a mentor?"

What I didn't realize until a couple months ago was that my mentors were all around me all the time.

• My cousin who introduced me to computers
• A coworker who pointed out the limitations of VB to me
• A coworker in California who tought me lots and lots of things about Oracle databases and how to have fun.
• My boss(es) nudging me more or less toward project management
• A coworker making it very clear to me that there are alternatives to project management
• Another coworker who taught me even more about databases
• Dozens, no hundreds of people writing blogs for me to read, questions to be answered or answered questions written by me in various forums.

Its just that I never realized they were my mentors (nor did they in many cases). By not realizing this I missed out on some greate opportunities to learn much much more, much much faster than I actually did.

So let me be your mentor for a second and give you a little task:

Think for a moment: Who in your vicinity is where you want to be in a couple of years? Who can help you getting there? Whom are you learning from? Whom could you learn from?

Now use my advice and just ask her to become your mentor.