Your best mentor story

[Elsa Viramonted]

As I become more involved in real estate, I see the importance of a mentor. How have you found mentors and what is the best advice they have given you?

[Joseph Ziolkowski]

Hey Elsa,

The way I found my first mentor was pretty awesome. So my freshman year of college, I was reading the book The Millionaire Real Estate Investor. In the book the author interviewed many successful investors and he stated what city they were from. I went to the University of Wisconsin Madison and one of the successful people he author interviewed was @Chris Hake and who was based out of Madison, WI. So from there I did some research online found his email address and sent him an email about meeting him. Sure enough he replied and I biked 15 miles one way from my dorm to get to his business. (It was around 25 degrees out!) Anyway to keep this post shorter I met with him and he gave me some great information and at the time I was actually transferring to central Wisconsin and he had a friend from the area, Derek Dombeck, so from there I got his contact info and when I transferred the following semester I got ahold of Derek and during that first phone call of talking with him he offered if I wanted to attend a REIA that he was hosting 2 hours away. Once again to keep it short, from that we got know each other and I interned for him for about a year, and it was the best thing that I could have done! I learned a ton and it built my confidence