The Virtuous Circle of Mentoring According to Onofaro

September 6, 2025 — Emmanuel Onofaro, founder of Obiettivo Riscatto Milionario, is building one of Italy’s most active mentoring networks, based on a controversial principle: “The best mentors are those who have failed, not those who have always won.”

With over 1,000 active mentoring relationships in his community, Onofaro is demonstrating that effective mentoring does not require decades of experience, but authenticity and the willingness to share both successes and failures.

From the wrong mentor to the right lesson
 “I paid three different mentors in my early years,” Onofaro recalls. “The first sold me knowledge I had already learned for free on YouTube. The second harshly criticized me when I tried to change strategy. The third disappeared after being paid.”

Instead of becoming cynical, Emmanuel transformed these negative experiences into a mentoring model based on three key principles:

• Total transparency about one’s own mistakes and losses
• Continuous accessibility
• No dependency (the goal is to make the mentee autonomous)

“My worst mentor taught me more than the best one”
 Onofaro insists it’s important to learn from every situation.
“The mentor who scolded me for changing strategy taught me the importance of communication. The one who disappeared taught me the value of presence. The one who sold me empty promises taught me always to verify skills.”

For him, the objective is not to create followers, but leaders.

A debt of gratitude that becomes an investment
 “Every time I help someone for free, I’m not wasting time,” he says. “I’m investing in a network that one day could teach me something crucial.”
“If you don’t invest time in people, you can’t expect them to invest trust in you.”

The future: reaching as many people as possible
 By 2026, Onofaro is developing more financial education programs, both beginner and advanced, using AI as a support tool.
“Technology can make mentoring more efficient, but the heart remains human connection. An algorithm cannot replace the empathy of someone who has lived through your same difficulties.”