As a homeless single father, Chris Gardner couldn’t have imagined that his life story would one day be made into a blockbuster Hollywood film.
In the early 1980s, when Mr Gardner was only 27 years old, he and his young son lived on the streets of San Francisco for a year.
He couldn’t afford to put down a security deposit on an apartment since he was working as a low-wage trainee at a stock brokerage.
Instead, Chris Jr. and Mr. Gardner, who had been alienated from one other, would spend the night wherever they could.
When work, they’d sleep in parks, a church shelter, or even beneath his desk at work after the rest of the staff had left.
Soup kitchens fed them and the little dollars he had were used to put his kid in daycare so he could work.
This difficulty didn’t stop Mr. Gardner from succeeding at work. DWR made him a full employee at the conclusion of his training term because he was a natural at selling stocks and shares.
After he was able to secure a rental property for himself and his son, his business took off, and he founded Gardner Rich Investments in 1987.
Hollywood Comes Calling
Now worth over $60 million (£48 million), Mr. Gardner is a motivational speaker who travels the globe raising money for charities that help homeless people and organizations that fight violence against women.
It’s easy to see why Hollywood was interested in Mr. Gardner as he was writing his best-selling book The Pursuit of Happiness, given his turbulent upbringing and recent stint in jail (the misspelling is deliberate).
Will Smith was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role as Mr. Gardner in the 2006 film of the same name.
According to Mr Gardner, “I wouldn’t alter a thing” about his life.
It’s his way of saying, “I went through agony as a youngster so that my children wouldn’t have to. The choice to tell my children who their father is was decided by me when I was five years old.It was because I made the proper decisions that the rest of my destiny came to fruition.”
Inspirational mother
Mr. Gardner, who was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, never met his biological father.
Bettye Jean and her drunken, violently abusive stepfather raised him in poverty.
During this time, he was also placed in a foster care when his mother attempted to murder her boyfriend in a fit of despair.
However difficult his upbringing was, Mr Gardner thinks his mother was an inspiration.
Son, you can do or be whatever you want to accomplish or be,” my mother instilled in me from a young age.
“And I was really convinced, I was completely sold on it.”
A few years ago while watching a college basketball game on TV, he said that one of the players was going to earn a million dollars in his lifetime.
A million bucks is what my mother told me one day. The concept hadn’t crossed my head until she stated it.”
Chance Encounter
After graduating from high school, he served four years in the United States Navy, where he earned a million dollars.
Mr. Gardner relocated to San Francisco in 1974, where he began marketing medical equipment.
He observed a guy parking his red Ferrari one day and inquired what he did for a job, and it was the turning point in his life.
Bob Bridges, the guy, was a stockbroker, and after conversing with him, Mr. Gardner indicated a desire to enter the field.
Bridges helped Gardner get an interview for an internship.
As it turned out, Mr. Gardner had been arrested and imprisoned for non-payment of parking charges only a few days before to the interview at DWR.
After all, he was only allowed to interview in the same shoes and vest he was wearing when he was detained.
Even though he was dressed in shabby apparel, his eagerness and ambition won him the job.
Re-evaluating Life
In 2012, six years after the film’s premiere, Mr. Gardner’s life was once again turned upside down when his 55-year-old wife passed away from cancer.
So, after 30 years in finance, he chose to do a full 180-degree turn because of that experience and what it taught him about himself and his goals in life.
Her final words to me were, ‘Now that we can realize how genuinely short life is, what do you plan to do with the remainder of your life?’
“Everything changes when you have that talk. You are sacrificing yourself every day if you aren’t doing something that you are really enthusiastic about,” I have previously said.
So after realizing that he no longer wanted to work in investment banking, he decided to become a motivational speaker and book.
‘Amazing Testament’
He now travels the globe for 200 days a year, speaking to crowds in more than 50 countries.
Managing director at Morningstar, Scott Burns, describes Mr. Gardner as “simply an unbelievable testimonial of tenacity.
As he says, “You may be down and out, but only if you allow yourself be depressed.”
We are all the product of our formative environment, according to Mr. Gardner.
I should have become an alcoholic, wife-beater, child abuser and illiterate loser according to that school of thinking.”
Instead, he claims that he made excellent decisions because of the love and support he received from his mother and other individuals.
“From my mother and those I don’t share a drop of blood with, I picked brightness and I accepted it.”
