Chris Gardner
American stockbroker (1954 - )
- || At The Bottom
1981 -- Chris Gardner had just watched his big break in life evaporate before him, and now he was sitting in a San Francisco jail, humiliated over unpaid parking tickets totaling $1200. Gardner had endured a difficult, impoverished Louisiana childhood that brought him abandonment by his biological father as well as physical abuse at the hands of his stepfather. To make matters worse, his mother was imprisoned when he was 8 years old for trying to murder his stepfather, and he and his three sisters spent much of their childhood being bounced around the foster care system. Gardner managed to escape the horror by joining the Navy, where he developed an interest in medicine and made plans to become a doctor after receiving his discharge. He abandoned these plans but remained within the medical industry, working as a lab assistant and medical equipment salesman. His earnings were meager -- the equivalent of about $30,000 a year in today's dollars -- and were not enough to support his girlfriend and newborn son. A chance encounter with a well-dressed stockbroker driving a Ferrari inspired Gardner to abruptly shift focus. Now, he suddenly believed, he was destined to be a millionaire. His girlfriend thought he was insane; the parking tickets he racked up while futilely seeking jobs at brokerages seemed to confirm her judgment. At last, it seemed he had landed a trainee position with E. F. Hutton, but the job disappeared when the man who hired him was fired. Gardner's girlfriend was furious, especially since he'd quit his sales job to accept the job that no longer existed. When a loud argument between the couple brought the police to their apartment one night, Gardner was taken into custody. Though he was not charged as a result of the domestic dispute, his outstanding parking tickets led to a ten-day jail sentence. When he was released, the unemployed Gardner came home to find his apartment empty and his girlfriend and son gone.
- || At The Top
2006 -- Chris Gardner's bestselling memoir, The Pursuit of Happyness, told the remarkable story of a rags to riches journey that led eventually brought him a life as a multimillionaire stockbroker. His book was also made into a major motion picture, starring Will Smith as Gardner. The founder of Gardner Rich LLC, Gardner sold his stake in the company in 2006, earning millions that he parlayed into the creation of another company, Christopher Gardner International Holdings, which operates offices out of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. In addition to his financial success, Gardner has become a powerful role model, earning a Father of the Year Award in 2002 from the National Fatherhood Initiative. He is also highly active in a variety of educational foundations and has sponsored numerous initiatives to improve the lives of the poor and homeless throughout the US.
- || The Comeback
Gardner was unemployed and abandoned, but he was not willing to give up on his dream of success. The road from the bottom was long for Gardner. He managed to earn a spot with Dean Witter Reynolds shortly after getting out of jail, but he was entering a highly competitive field with no experience or education that would be relevant to the industry. His monthly income was significantly less than what he had earned in medical sales , and he found it impossible to meet his living expenses. His responsibilities were compounded several months later when his girlfriend returned and handed Gardner full custody of their son. Even though he was employed in a white-collar job, Gardner and his son were homeless for an entire year, sometimes sleeping in a public transit rest room, before he could afford to rent an apartment of their own. Through it all, Gardner was fiercely committed to raising his son and offering him the love and stability he lacked himself as a child. He worked harder than ever, placing literally hundreds of calls a day to potential clients. "Every time I picked up the phone," he recalls, "I knew I was getting closer to digging myself out of the hole." He migrated to Bear Stearns and eventually became a top earner, successful and confident enough that by 1987, he could launch his own brokerage.
