When Chris Gardner, then 27-year-old separated from his girlfriend, he found himself abandoned with a little son. He and his young son fall back on to napping on the floor of a public toilet because he could not afford rent and a proper meal. But his dedication made him an inspiration for thousands. From a homeless to a multi-millionaire, this is the inspiring story of Chris Gardner.
He raised his boy on the streets in San Francisco while working at a big brokerage firm. However, Gardner succeeded to keep his homelessness a secret from his peers and supervisors.
From Homeless to a Multi-Millionaire
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mr. Gardner never knew his real father. He was grown up in hardship and poverty by his mother Bettye Jean and a physically abusive and alcoholic stepfather.
Chris grew up in a dark neighborhood, where he’d learned to smoke marijuana, rob and got into fights. His stepfather reportedly threw him out of the house during one Christmas.
“I was put out of the house, butt naked, at gunpoint. To this day, I still have a problem with Christmas,” he said.
His mom was sent to jail after she allegedly attempted to burn the house when Freddie was napping inside and that descended Chris in a foster home. “But I made a decision that I was going to be everything that this guy was not. I am not going to drink, I am not going to beat women, I am not going to be ignorant.”
“One of the tactics that I developed as a young kid was I would read out aloud and I will be saying to the sky that you can beat me down, you can beat me, you can beat my mom, you can put us out of here, put a gun, but I can read. I am going places,” he said in an interview.
The single dad and his boy would lie down in parks, at a church shelter, or under his table at a job after everyone else had gone home. They ate in soup kitchens, and he used the small sum of money he had to put his son in day nursery so he could go to work.
Surprisingly, Gardner was capable to disguise normalcy for his son such that Christopher Jr. did not even know that they were abandoned and homeless. He did not realize this until he was grown. The now-36-year-old said in an interview, “I didn’t know we were homeless. I just remember that we were doing a whole lot of moving. I just know that when I looked up, he was there. I looked around, he was there.”
Real Life story of Chris Gardner
Mr. Gardner had an unsettled childhood and reportedly followed time in jail before he got an internship opportunity at Dean Witter Reynolds (DWR). During his internship days, Mr. Gardner worked diligently at selling stocks and shares at DWR until he was made a permanent employee.
Only then could he manage to rent a home for himself and his son. He made a career for himself and in 1987 he started his own investment firm, Gardner Rich.
He started his own brokerage firm with $10,000 behind a single desk and in 1988, Gardner, 34, at the time earned $1 million over a single year.
He later sold his share in Gardner Rich and established a new firm called Gardner International Holdings in 2006. They have offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
He had no clue that Hollywood will come calling when he was writing his best-selling autobiography The Pursuit of Happyness. A movie of the same name was released in 2006 and has been seen in theatres by millions of people.
Now his motivational life story is a bestseller Hollywood movie and Mr. Gardner now 62, is worth an estimated $60m (£48m), travels the world as a motivational speaker, and sponsors homeless foundations and groups that combat violence against women.
Despite the desperation of his childhood, Mr. Gardner attributes his success to the inspirations of his mum.
“I have one of those old-fashioned mothers who told me every single day, ‘Son, you can do or be anything that you want to do or be.’ “And I believed it, I bought into it 100%.”
He told the BBC that one day as a kid he was watching a college basketball game on TV when he said that one of the players would make a million dollars.
“My mum said, ‘Son, one day it will be you who’ll make a million dollars.’ Until she said those words the thought had never entered my mind,” he said.
Gardner spends 200 days a year touring the world speaking to packed conferences in more than 50 countries.
