How can I identify and contact a mentor?

Think about somebody that you admire, who is further up the career ladder than you are. They might be in your industry, they might be in a different industry, but they will almost certainly be able to give you some valuable experience on how to navigate your way to where you want to be efficiently and in a way that you will enjoy doing it. A mentor could even be someone that you don't know, there is no harm in reaching out to someone that you admire and saying, "Hey, I love what you do. I would love to grab half an hour of your time. Do you think it would be possible to ask you a few questions on this, because this is my goal and I think you could help me."

We're all quite vain at the end of the day. If somebody reaches out to us with an email like that, the chances are it'll get a response. If you don't try, you don't get. I think that's probably the ethos of where I started from and how I'm doing what I do now, is just go and ask.