He Slept in His Car. Now He Runs 34 Offices | Manny Soto | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby Ep. 320

Like myself, you grew up poor, you came from nothing, and you built a company your family never thought was possible.

So at what point did you realize you weren't just working to survive, you were working to be a vessel for other people to thrive?

There's a book that a friend of mine, uh, recommend, one of my mentors, uh, Ed Mylett, he recommended to me, it was 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class.

It's by Sebold.

And in the book it talks about working just to get by, uh, being basic, like underperforming, and then someone that's just an elite performer.

So when I get into the industry of financial services, I was introduced, man, 23 years ago.

I just needed an opportunity.

The real opportunity is having an opportunity.

So imagine, uh, people in Gaza, they don't have an opportunity.

They can't go down the street and go, "Oh, hey, can I sell something to make more money?" They're worried about staying alive.

I mean, what, w- we have like almost one-third of m- of the world's GDP.

There's opportunity all over the place.

So when I was given that, uh, opportunity, I was like, "Psh, get out of my way." So coming from nothing, I mean, everything was, was good.

Every day is a holiday.

Every meal is a feast.

My, my mom is from nine brothers and sisters.

My dad is from 12 brothers and sisters.

I want, like, 12 kids.

There it is.

I only got four.

There it is.

You got four, right?

I have four.

So now when I got into that industry, you know, yeah, you're right, I didn't come from anything, but a- anything that was thrown at me, I wanted to give it an opportunity.

So even then, just to give you a gauge of how, um, financially great our family was, I was making close to $80,000 W-2, and I think I was the most successful cousin out of everybody.