This is what happens when you're smart enough to know you've met the next Bethenny Frankel

Julie Plake

Julie Plake served as Bethenny Frankel's assistant for two and a half years before leaving New York City.

Julie Plake was 23 years old and fresh out of Penn State when she met soon-to-be reality TV personality and Skinnygirl Bethenny Frankel in 2005.

At the time, Frankel was a chef trying to build a celebrity clientele, and Plake was working for a luxury publishing company in New York City. The two crossed paths at a swanky event in the Hamptons and hit it off immediately.

“There was something about her,” Plake told me in a phone interview. “She was never going to stop until she achieved her goals.”

So she told Frankel: “Listen, you’re going to be famous. I know it.”

Frankel replied: "Well I’ll hire you when I am."

The Skinnygirl followed through.

The two stayed in touch, and in 2009, Frankel called Plake and offered her a position as her personal assistant.

She worked for Frankel for two and a half years while Frankel was developing the Skinny Girl line of low-cal cocktails, writing books and starring on reality and talk shows. They became good friends. Frankel even asked Plake to be her daughter's godmother.

After a few crazy years in the Big Apple (when stepping on Good Morning America’s set was just a day in the life), Plake decided it was time to move back to Pittsburgh to be closer to family and get married. She’s now working for an ad agency called Marc USA.

I talked with Plake about her hectic life in New York and the lessons she learned working with the reality star:

Don’t be annoying when looking for a mentor: Plake recommends finding a mentor in your workplace, but don’t be annoying about it. Instead, find someone you can watch with a close eye and emulate. “It doesn’t mean bothering them and setting up a bunch of meetings or lunches, but just watching them in the business place,” she said.