However, I'm willing pay my dues by putting in the necessary hard work, hours of learning & education, time, patience, and coaching to learn about REI the right way.

If you need to add costs to make sure you get your money's worth on concessions - your lender should be able to coach you on adding things like mortgage points, 2-1 buy downs, upfront mortgage insurance premiums and more to make sure concessions don't go to waste. 

He has a great coaching program that's comprehensive and affordable IMO.

I live in the okc area and the okcreia is good for some new students because they have some coaching.

Later our success coach told us to “go out there and find everything you need”.

Someone like a coach or teacher you had.  

Even more important, when you're looking for a mentor/coach?

Right now I'm in the primitive learning phase, and I'd really like to find a coach since this will likely be a rather large deal (for me, anyway). 

Self called Gurus and books might disagree with my approach, but to be honest, I have more hands on experience than the majority of them and the only reason they're coaching or writing is because they're not profitable being landlords and need to subsidize their income.  

He's a teacher, coach, and investor.