Finds the I in Happyness

Is the title of the book and movie depicting Gardner's rags-to-riches life, which takes its name from the misspelled "happiness" he saw scrawled on a wall outside his son's daycare center years ago. "I made sure that the [book and movie's] title had happiness spelled with a "y" in a different color. I want people to think about what makes them happy and happiness varies from person to person.

I am happiest that I have fulfilled the commitment I made to myself to be there for my child, to break the cycle of men who are not there for their children."

By now you have probably at least seen previews of The Pursuit of Happyness based on the life of 53-year-old Chris Gardner that stars Will Smith and son Jaden. If you didn't see the movie, perhaps you read The New York Times Best Seller biography. You may be thinking you know all there is to know about this remarkable man. But as the saying goes, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

Gardner is an unbridled life force who is relentless in overcoming obstacles. He may be a multimillionaire with a bestselling book and blockbuster movie based on his life, but his proudest accomplishments are the two children, son Christopher and daughter Jacintha, he has raised as a single parent.

Spiritual Genetics

Sure, he enjoys the fruits of the multimillion-dollar financial empire he built from scratch, driving a Bentley and wearing impeccable custom-made suits and designer shoes. And yes, it's a far way off from the bathroom at the Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Oakland, Calif., where he was sometimes forced to spend the night with his son.

But Gardner's latest efforts go beyond collecting more material wealth. Today, it's all about "spiritual genetics," the focus of his second book.

"We all understand genetics; you get your mom's eyes or your dad's nose. Nothing you can do about it. But the spirit of who you are going to be as a person you can choose … you can make a conscience choice," he explained. "For instance, I could have embraced the spirit of my stepdad and become nothing more than another alcoholic, wife-beating, child-abusing, illiterate loser. Instead, I chose to embrace the spirit of my mom - who although she had too many of her own dreams denied, deferred, and destroyed - still instilled in me that I could have dreams. Not just dreams, but I had the power and the responsibility to make them come true."

His triumph is empowering. He is often approached by those his story has touched after he mesmerizes audiences across the country. Represented by Keppler Speakers, he was a high point in the New York Society of Association Executives (NYSAE) 2006 "We Love New York Day." After hearing his inspirational presentation as the morning plenary session speaker, attendees were still buzzing about him during lunch, when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump took their turns at the podium.

"We Love New York Day was cool," said Gardner. "The coolest thing happened the very next day. I was at my desk going through my mail and an envelope without a stamp caught my attention. The return address was Donald's office. In it was a note that said, 'I will never follow you again.' I was like, 'Yea, baby.'"

Making a Difference

Gardner's enthusiasm for life is contagious. He is particularly excited these days, for obvious reasons. He is also proud of the fact that he has lost 52 pounds over the last two years. But what excites him the most at the moment is another world away. "Next to raising my children, a project I have in the works in South Africa will be the most important thing I ever do in my life. Because of strict security laws, I can't talk about it until it's done but when I can, I will scream about it from every mountaintop. This project is about being part of what Nelson Mandela calls 'the great generation,' the generation that has the will and the means to help change the world. If that won't motivate you, I don't know what will."

He wishes today's leaders were making more of a difference in the world of the homeless. He quickly rattles off the following statistics: 45 to 50 million Americans do not have health insurance; 400,000 Americans will sleep on the street or in a shelter tonight; 200,000 Americans who served their country, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, are sleeping on the streets in America. "Is this all from the great leadership we have going on?" he asks.

Part of a trainee program at Dean Witter that paid $1,000 a month gross, Gardner could not afford both daycare for his son, whom he was raising alone, and a place to live. So for a year he and Chris Jr. slept where they could, in cheap motel rooms, at a church shelter, under his office desk, and even, on occasion, in the train station bathroom.

He was one of the "working homeless." Today, 12 percent of the homeless have jobs they go to every day, he said. In some cities that number is as high as 30 percent.

While shooting the movie, 250 homeless people were hired to be extras for two days and were paid $250 per day. "A couple came up to me and thanked me and said that they were $500 short for a down payment on a house. It was that $500 that got them off the street. Think about it. $70 million gets spent on the movie and $500 got a family off the street. We need some serious dialogue about how we value people."

The Rev. Cecil Williams of the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco has been feeding, housing, and "repairing souls," for 42 years. "Go forward." That became Gardner's mantra, inspired by the Rev. Williams who plays himself in the movie. He hopes the movie will make the world aware of "one of the most enlightened men to ever walk this earth" as Gardner refers to him, adding, "I got to tell you, I'm more excited about this than anything."

Unfortunately, enlightened is not how Gardner would describe any of today's leaders. "An effective leader is someone who is willing to do the work themselves. I am totally disappointed by many of the folks who are calling themselves leaders these days."

Being a Mentor

Gardner on the other hand, has inspired many. Take Niyokie, the youngest of 12 siblings who grew up on the West Side of Chicago in a drug-infested area with a high rate of teen pregnancy. She put all of her energies into school, and landed an internship with Gardner as a high school junior. After a two-year internship, Gardner surprised Niyokie with a college scholarship. She enrolled at the University of Chicago and was the first - and only - of her siblings to graduate from a four-year university.

"The most important thing that Christopher Gardner taught me: Education is a way out," she says today. Currently, Niyokie works at a global financial institution and surprised Gardner during his appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Gardner saw potential in Niyokie early on. He says one of the most important ways to create synergy within a team is to carefully select team members. "It is important to pick the right folks. Sandy Weil, the legendary CEO of Citibank, once told me not to be afraid to hire people who are smarter than you," Gardner explained. "Remember, just because they're smarter, doesn't mean they get to make more money," he said with a deep laugh.

The office décor at the Chicago office of Gardner Rich is as unique as the man who founded the company. Gardner's desk is a 12-foot-long gleaming metal tail wing of a DC-10. Gardner wears two watches, one on each wrist, to be sure he is always on time.

How does he feel about Will Smith portraying him? "When I first heard his name, I was a bit taken aback. When we think of Will Smith, we think of big science fiction extravaganzas about outer space with loads of special effects. This is about inner space, not outer space. To take his son with him on this journey, he had to grow in ways he never imagined."

Gardner appears as himself in a closing shot of the movie. "When I got over wanting to be Miles Davis, I wanted to be an actor," he recalled. "One day, I asked my mom for $5 to go out with friends. She looked up at me and said, 'Why don't you just act like you have $5?' I couldn't stop smiling as we shot that scene as I thought to myself, 'Here I am with one of the world's biggest movie stars and I'm acting like I have $5, mom.'"

Truth is, Gardner is one of the richest men in the world and it has nothing to do with money.

"You really need to take a look at what you want to do, what makes you really happy, what gets you so excited that you can't wait for the sun to come up in the morning, 'cause you want to go do your thing. Be bold enough to do the thing you would be willing to do for free and nobody has to dig it but you. And that's the key. You don't need anybody else to approve and that takes a boldness a lot of folks just don't have," said Gardner. "

Do you know how many good attorneys there are in the world who would much rather be painting? But they were raised to be a doctor or a lawyer or Indian chief or a general counsel and they make a lot of money doing it but it doesn't mean they are happy. I got one problem right now that some of the richest people in the world do not have and it is so cool," Gardner said. "Sometimes I can't sleep at night. I can't sleep because my face hurts from smiling so much. I need to get a facial just so I can go to sleep. I'm healthy, my children have developed into fabulous young people, I'm doing the work I want to be doing. That's a lot."

Gardner Dreams Big

Bitterness. Hatred. Anger. Chris Gardner could have easily harbored any of these feelings as a result of the childhood he endured. But that's not his style. Tenacity and an indomitable spirit have helped him rise above homelessness, foster homes, and abuse.

When we spoke, Gardner was flying high. The movie based on his life was No. 1 at the box office and his biography was No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

"To be alive and see all this, that's cool," said Gardner in the bellowing voice that is his trademark. "But the beauty of this whole thing is it is not about me. That's what I'm finally comfortable with. It's not about me. It's about every father who ever also had to be a mother, every mother who ever also had to be a father. It's about every person who ever had a dream and had people tell them no."

In the movie version of his life, Gardner's son is portrayed by eight-year-old Jaden Smith, so the dialogue between the two characters could flow more freely. In reality, his son was only a 19-month-old toddler, still in diapers, when Gardner fell on hard times.

"I was pushing my son in a rickety blue carriage, a suit slung over one shoulder, a bag with all of our belongings over another, along with what seemed to be the biggest box of diapers in the world." All this while he was trying to excel at a stock brokerage training program.

"No matter what, I was happy to have my child. I was raised in a different situation. I had a stepfather who was fond of reminding me, 'You ain't got no daddy' with a few words thrown in that no child should ever hear. I made a promise to myself when I was five that when I had children, no one would be able to talk to my children like that. So [that I succeeded] on that basis alone, I was very happy."

There weren't any picket fences in his childhood. He spent time in a foster home while his mother Bettye Jean served two prison terms, one for welfare fraud, the other for allegedly attempting to burn down his stepfather's house.

Although she had challenges, Gardner's mother instilled in him that it was OK to dream and dream big. He vividly recalls watching a college basketball game one afternoon on television and commenting that one of the players had the potential to make $1 million. "'If you want to make $1 million one day, you can too,' my mom told me. That never entered my mind as a possibility. That was an aha moment in my life. I knew I had to be world class at something."

His first ambition was to be Miles Davis. "One day, my mom sat me down and said, 'Son, as good as you are, you'll never be Miles Davis because there is only one Miles Davis and he already has that job. You have to be Chris.' That freaked me out because I did not know who Chris was."

Upon graduating from high school, Gardner joined the military. After serving in the Navy for four years, he landed a job in San Francisco as a medical supply salesman. Another aha moment took place in a hospital parking lot, when he saw a shiny red convertible Ferrari pull in. He told the driver he would give him his parking space if he answered two questions: "What do you do? And how do you do that?" The man was a stockbroker. "In that instant, the car symbolized all that I lacked while growing up … freedom, escape, options."

Despite the fact he had no experience and no contacts, he focused on getting his foot in the door of a stock brokerage firm. "The first day I walked into a Wall Street trading room I knew this was the place mom was telling me about," he said. He landed a spot in a trainee program at Dean Witter that paid $1,000 a month gross.

"If you do the math, you'll realize the difference between $1,000 a month gross and an unpaid position is not much," he explained.

One grand a month couldn't cover both his son's daycare and a place to live, so for a year, Gardner and his son slept wherever they could find a place to lay their heads. Gardner points out that 12 percent (in some cities, 30 percent) of the homeless have jobs they go to every day.

He was driven to succeed. "I made 200 calls a day to snag clients for Dean Witter. Every time I picked up the phone I knew I was getting closer to digging myself out of the hole."

He learned early on that on Wall Street, it isn't "a white thing or a black thing, it's a green thing." In 1983, he was lured to Bear, Stearns, and after becoming a top producer there, he left in 1987 to establish Gardner Rich & Company Inc., an institutional brokerage firm specializing in the execution of debt, equity, and derivative products transactions which - like its founder - is still thriving today.