Pursuit of happyness...the Real life version. You can definitely search the net for all about him, but what struck me the most is the following:
-Christopher Gardner was raped by a man who was a member of a gang of thieves in his neighborhood. Years later, when he met the man again, he struck the man with a cinder block and walked away.
-He was abused throughout his childhood by his step father. When he was about 6, he says, his mother tried to burn down the house with his stepfather in it. She went to state prison for four years, and he was shuffled among relatives and foster homes. He saw his real father only twice: when he was a father himself, at age 28, and at his father's funeral.
-He then decided he will never be like his step father, or his real father. Thats the reason he didn't leave his son when his girlfriend dumped him altogether.
-In 1983, at 28-29 years old, he spent nights crashed at a homeless shelter with his son -- and that was on the good nights during his internship with Dean Witter Reynolds. On others, he says, he and his son would crash at flophouses or hole up in a far corner of Union Square. Bathing was often done in the sinks of public bathrooms. For meals, Gardner brought his son, then a toddler, to the soup kitchen at Glide Memorial Church.
-At one point, he was saved by prostitute who gave him 5 dollar bills after seeing him and his son wander at night for places to stay.
-The most important thing Chris ever heard from his son in his life when he says, ‘Papa, you're a good papa,’ when the son was still only 2 years old.
-To him, place-ism is more challenging than racism. "I'm not from a politically connected family. I hadn't gone to college. I had no money of my own. Who's going to do business with you? That's place-ism, that's not racism. That's the biggest ‘ism’ I had to deal with and that's an ‘ism’ that can affect anybody in this room. The racism thing was secondary. My love for what I had an opportunity to do, and my love for my child, and my commitment minimized everything else."
-Now, in 2006, he is marrying the woman of his dreams, whom he first met on a BART train 23 years ago.
-He finally found his "father", Nelson Mandela, when the man said "Welcome home, son." and shook his hand. For the first time in my life, for a man ever to say the words to me, ‘Welcome home, son,’ and for it to be Nelson Mandela, he cried.
-Christopher Gardner has started an international mission designed to create economic opportunities in South Africa, with asset under management close to 1 billion US.
-Christopher Gardner doesn't see his as a rags-to-riches story. What he hopes people come away with is that life is full of possibility if you put your heart into it and don't give up
