Page 233 - Reliance Foundation School Koparkhairane - School Magazine - Zenith

MANNY KHOSHBIN: The Story of a Man who made it from Homeless
to a $250 Million Real Estate Mogul.

Manny Khoshbin was born on 17 January, 1971 in Iran. His father was a cost
accountant. His entire family consisted of 6 people. His father decided that

the family must immigrate to the U.S. not only because of the Iran War but
because Manny’s father wanted to protect Manny from getting recruited in
the army the age of 14. Manny’s father had 6 brothers who served in the

army, who were crippled or dead by that time. Keeping that in mind,
Manny’s father decided not to send Manny to the army and decided to flee
to the U.S. to give Manny and his other children a good future.

Weeks before Manny turned 14, his entire family flew to Los Angeles and they
lived at his father’s friend’s house. They hardly had any money left with them

and the very next day, the family was supposed to leave the house (because
the wife of the friend couldn’t handle them). They moved to a motel but then
after a week Manny’s father realized that they were falling short of finance.
Fortunately, Manny’s father’s friend sold them a car so that they could travel

around and have a place to stay. Technically speaking a family of six lived in
a car for about two months. Manny’s father was lucky enough to secure a job
in an accounting firm and the moment his father received his first pay-check,

they moved into an apartment.

During his initial years in America, Manny went through a lot of struggles

and emotions. He blames himself for putting his family into such a
condition. No one is his family could speak English except his father. Manny
had a deep desire to succeed in life and that too at the age of 14. He was
looking for ways of how he could make little money to help his parents. At

the age of 16 in 1986, Manny had the legal permission to work and his first
job was at a supermarket called ‘k-mart’ as a clerk which involved a lot of

cleaning work and pulling shopping carts. He was paid $3.15/hour and could
make 500-600 dollars a month. He managed to buy a car in an years’ time at
the age of 17. Then Manny left the job and went on to do a sales job which
wherein he sold nuts to people and made a small business out of it. But in less

than a year he had to stop the business because he did the business without
any permit which he wasn’t aware of. Over a span of 10 years (1989 – 1999)
Manny did various kinds of jobs that involved in working at a sales firm and

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