Homelessness beget ‘happyness’ for Christopher Gardner

Christopher Gardner has had a life of extremes, working for some of the top brokerage firms in the country while sleeping under his desk because he was homeless. He also was the subject of the Will Smith film, “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

In the Opening General Session of Optometry’s Meeting^®, Gardner pulled back the curtains on both periods of his life. His appearance was sponsored by Essilor of America and he was introduced by Rod Tahran, O.D., the company’s vice president of professional relations/clinical affairs.

“When the biggest movie star in the world does a movie about you, it gets strange. I was taking time off recently. No Blackberry, no cell phone. My office didn’t know where I was going. I asked the flight attendant, ‘Hey, what’s the movie,’” Gardner said, pausing to let the audience fill in the blanks. “Is that strange? Every time I see that movie I think, ‘It took them $70 million to recreate what I did with nothing.’”

Gardner entered the public eye with a Barbara Walters interview that aired on a Friday night. By Monday morning, his phone was ringing. Every talk show in the country wanted him as a guest; he declined those offers. And “Hollyweird,” as he calls Tinsel Town, had some bizarre ideas of what to do with his story. One offer was a reality show in which homeless people were taken off the streets, cleaned up and given a job. Gardner would be the judge of which person had made the most of their lives and they’d win a $500,000 home and $500,000 in cash.

“I cannot repeat in public what I told that man, but essentially, I said, ‘Homelessness is not a game. But if you think it is, I’ve already won, so just send me the money.’”

Wall Street beckons

Homelessness was a way of survival and of breaking a cycle. Gardner grew up without a father and a stepfather who told him every day, “I’m not your daddy. You don’t have a daddy.” He vowed at a young age that his children would know him, no matter what it took.

And it took a lot. Sleeping in train stations, in homeless shelters, in public parks, in $10-a-night hotels. It meant feeding his son while going hungry himself, or selling his blood to pay for meals. All with his 14-month-old son in tow. (In the movie, Chris Jr. was portrayed as older, so there could be interaction between the father and son.)

Gardner’s early career looked bright, before “life happened.” After a stint in the Navy, he worked with Dr. Robert Ellis, a noted surgeon. He co-wrote papers for scientific journals and climbed the career ladder. He fell in love and became a father, “the most important, precious, loving thing in my life.”

Then the trouble started. He left science to go into sales. One day, visiting a client, he saw a man in a Ferrari looking for a parking place. “I said, ‘I’m pulling out and you can have this one. But two questions: What do you do and how do you do it?’”

Gardner began visiting the stockbroker, picking his brain and racking up a series of parking tickets in San Francisco’s financial district. For a year, he interviewed with the region’s brokerages, looking for an entry into a training program. “I heard, ‘No. No. No.’ Everywhere I went. People say, ‘Do you think it was racism?’ No. It was another ‘ism.’ Place-ism. I didn’t have a college degree and I wasn’t well connected.”

After a year of interviewing, he finally landed a training position. He quit his job selling medical equipment and turned in his box of supplies. “If my old branch manager were here, he’d tell you I threw it at him. I’ll compromise and say it fell abruptly.”

Gardner showed up for the training position on a Monday morning, only to find that the man who had given him the shot had been fired the previous Friday. With no job, tensions escalated at home.

The fighting began and, after one loud argument, neighbors called police. They ran the license plates, finding $1,200 in unpaid parking tickets accumulated on his trips to visit the Ferrrari-driving broker. He was locked up with a murderer, rapist and arsonist. “I told them, ‘I’m here for attempted murder and I will try it again.’”

He spent 10 days in jail and, from a pay phone there, rescheduled an interview with a broker for 6:30 a.m. the day after he was due to be released. He knew in his gut what he’d find when he was released. His partner and baby were gone, the house empty “except for the dust.” Anything resembling business attire was gone, too. He showed up for his interview in jeans “and a Members Only jacket.

“I couldn’t think of anything bizarre enough, so I told the truth. Turns out Mr. Costello had been married three times and started telling me stories about his exes.”

Gardner got the job, with its $1,000 a month pay—enough to rent a room in a boarding house. By day, he’d dial the phone, cold-calling 200 potential clients a day. At night, he’d study. One night, his ex showed up with the baby in tow. “She said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s your turn.’”

Out on the streets

The boarding house didn’t allow children and Gardner found himself and his son immediately homeless.

He and his son began moving around, from homeless shelter to hotel to the streets. Each morning, he’d pack his son, stroller, clothes and a briefcase. He’d wear one suit and carry the other over his shoulder.

Leaving his son at a daycare was the hardest part of his day. Working a job he loved created the second hardest. “The second the market closed, it was, ‘Do I have enough to eat and get a hotel?’ I worked on commission and I knew if I stayed on the phone another five minutes, I’d get this sale. But I’d miss the bus, be late to the center and then late to the shelter and there would be no room. But sometimes, I’d stay on that phone for those five minutes.”

After a year of living on the streets, Gardner scraped together enough to rent a home. After sleeping on the floor the first night, his son was confused. Why didn’t they gather up all their belongings and take them along as they had for the past year? “I can’t tell you what it felt like to say, ‘we’ve got a key now.’ ”

Finding happyness

He was recruited by Bear Sterns, and things finally began to turn around. “He asked about my salary. I said the biggest, most obscene figure that would come out of my mouth: $5,000. He said, ‘Here’s an advance. Go buy some new clothes.’ I went out and bought my first two pinstripe suits—one blue, one gray.”

Because it was the ‘80s and Texas was making millionaires with each barrel of oil pumped, he began cold calling oil barons. He hit it off with one who would launch into a series of racist jokes before saying, “Buy me 50,000 shares of whatever you called me about.”

When the Texan flew to San Francisco to meet Gardner face to face, Gardner reached out his hand. “You could see all the blood drain from his face. But I kept the focus on the work and how we’d grown his portfolio. I said, ‘It’s not a black thing or a white thing. It’s a green thing.’ From then on, whenever I called, he’d tell me knock-knock jokes.”

Keeping his eye on the main goal allowed Gardner to endure no matter what came his way. While he’s clearly pleased that the movie earned Will Smith an Academy Award nomination and was seen by 1 billion people and that his book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list, his proudest accomplishment is the legacy he left his family.

“I probably won’t be here to see my great grandchildren,” he said. “But because I broke that cycle (of absent fathers), that will be my greatest contribution to my family, my community and this country.”