“It can Be Done But You have To Make It Happen” ~Christopher Gardner~ January 14, 2010

~Chris Gardner~

It was in a Milwaukee neighbourhood in the 1950s that it all first began; his early years were a sign of what was to come. Although she had a beautiful smile and loved her children very much, Gardner’s mother would sometimes go missing for periods of time. “No one explained to me, well, why I am living with this relative, or what I am living with that relative,” he recalls. “And it was one of those things that no one ever talked about.”

During those times, his mother was in fact in jail – once, for receiving welfare while she was working, and once, for trying to burn down the house of her abusive husband. That was how his life all began – in a house filled with violence towards himself and his beloved mother. “My last Christmas at home, I was put out of the house, buck naked, at gun point,” he says. “I made a decision that I was going to be everything that this guy was not.”

With that, the Chris Gardner story would soon become one of faith and determination in overcoming the odds – and the odds were many. As a young boy, Chris Gardner was raped by a member of a local gang. As an adult, he found himself living on the streets with his young son, and forced to subsist on an intern’s salary while he went through a training program at a stock brokerage firm.

Here, this life tale could have easily turned into one of despair, depression and, ultimately, that of a man who had cashed out and given up on himself. However, Gardner was no such man, which is why his story has today become the stuff of Hollywood movies. He rose to the occasion and relentlessly pursued his career as a stock broker, until he could finally afford to rent his very own apartment. After that, there was no looking back.

Despite his amazing determination, this tale is not of just one man alone and his accomplishments. Indeed, it is a story that tells of the help one can get from often the most unexpected sources. One such source included local Oakland prostitutes, who would start their shifts around the same time Gardner and his son returned home at night to their shelter. Night after night, these women noticed the man and his baby, with no woman in tow, and began giving him $5 bills. “If it were not for those ladies of the evening giving that child $5, there would be times I could not have fed him,” he recalls.

Today, in addition to heading up his brokerage firm, Gardner is busy working on what he considers the biggest deal of his career. He is setting up an investment venture in South Africa, which will not only net him a large profit, but which will create hundreds of jobs and inject foreign currency into the nation. This man who was once homeless now has the choice of living in one of the three homes that he owns. He might not have become the next Miles Davis, but there are surely young people out there now wishing to be the next Chris Gardner.

How did he do it?

Passion: “Find something that you love,” says Gardner. “Something that gets you so excited you can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning. Forget about money. Be happy.” From the moment Gardner first heard about just what it was to become a stockbroker, he knew it was for him. It was the passion in his pursuit that carried him over the obstacles along the way. “The money thing will come,” he says. “I know so many people who have so much more money than I. They are miserable. It is so important to be happy.”

Commitment: “The cavalry ain’t coming,” says Gardner. “You’ve got to do this yourself.” Once his mother had convinced him that he truly could be anything that he set his heart and mind out to be, Gardner grew bent on becoming the best. After that point, it wasn’t about surviving or making a living; it was about developing his talent and mastering the competition.

Opportunity: “Stay in school,” Gardner now warns. “It’s what will give you options. You don’t want to try to do this thing the way that I did.” Despite not having much education and despite the numerous obstacles that stood in his way, Gardner pursued success relentlessly and refused to stand down in the way of discrimination and doubt.

Determination: During one of Gardner’s low points, he was forced to give his son a bath by candlelight since they had no electricity. “It was at a point in time, where honestly, I didn’t know whether I was going to quit, crack or cry,” recalls Gardner. “Some kind of way this child, this baby, picks up on it, and he stands up in the bathtub, and he says, ‘Papa, you know what? You’re a good papa.’ That was all I needed to go on.” No matter what the situation was or how difficult it appeared to be, Gardner always found the fortitude to stay the course.

Duty: “When I look back at the journey from homelessness to prosperity, I hold one thing dearer than all else – my commitment to my son,” says Gardner. “Doing a movie with the top movie star portraying me, doing a book with an editor who’s last book won the Pulitzer Prize – all that stuff is great, but the most important thing that I will have ever done in my life was break the cycle of men who were not there for their children.” From mentoring future leaders to making education more accessible, Gardner always felt a greater obligation to society that went beyond mere moneymaking.

“I just wanted to make a million dollars,” says Gardner. “But I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t play ball, so I said to my mother, ‘How am I going to make a million dollars?’ And she said to me, ‘Son, if you believe you can do it, you will.’” He couldn’t sing, he couldn’t play ball; he was also homeless and he was black – Gardner definitely had the odds stacked against him. However, he took his mother’s lesson to heart and was determined to succeed regardless.

“We were homeless, we were not hopeless,” says Gardner. “

Gardner is evidence of the success that can be achieved when everyone, no matter what his or her background or status is given a chance. No matter who you are, says Gardner, “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.”

Sumber : Evan Elite