Chris Gardner
Chris Gardner
Christopher Paul "Chris" Gardneris an American entrepreneur, investor, stockbroker, motivational speaker, author, and philanthropist who, during the early 1980s, struggled with homelessness while raising his toddler son, Christopher Gardner, Jr. Gardner's book of memoirs, The Pursuit of Happyness, was published in May 2006. As of 2012, he is CEO of his own stockbrokerage firm, Gardner Rich & Co, based in Chicago, Illinois, where he resides when he is not living in Toronto. Gardner credits his tenacity and success to the...
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth9 February 1954
CityMilwaukee, WI
The balance in your life is more important than the balance in your checking account.
Do something that you love. Whatever you're going to do is going to be tough enough. Find something that gets you so excited that the sun can't come up early enough in the morning because you want to go do your thing.
Claim ownership of your dreams
This part of my life, this little part, is called happiness.
Walk that walk and go forward all the time. Don't just talk that talk, walk it and go forward. Also, the walk didn't have to be long strides; baby steps counted too. Go forward.
As busy as I am wherever I am, I...
Still a dreamer, yet more of a realist than ever before, I knew this was my time to sail. On the horizon I saw the shining future, as before. The difference now was that I felt the wind at my back. I was ready.
It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?
You have to be bold because there will be folks who will say, "You can't" or "You shouldn't" or "Why?" There is a certain boldness to saying, "Well, I really don't want to be a high-powered corporate lawyer. I'm really passionate about painting.
If you want something, go get it. Period.
Baby steps count, as long as you are going forward. You add them all up, and one day you look back and you'll be surprised at where you might get to.
The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearls.
Find something that you love. Something that gets you so excited you can't wait to get out of bed in the morning. Forget about money. Be happy.
Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something.