About Chris Gardner &
"The Pursuit of Happyness*"
by Michael T. Robinson

Chris Gardner, as played by Will Smith in Sony Pictures "The Pursuit of Happyness" is the Ultimate Extreme Career Changer. What he endured and what he eventually accomplished shows the rest of us just what is possible, no matter how poor or how little education you have.

Just how this man went from a low paying $13,000 a year medical job to being homeless on the streets of San Francisco to earning millions per year and finally owning his own stock brokerage / investment firm that does $100 Million Dollar deals is an amazing story.

The fact that while he was homeless, Chris Gardner never once abandoned his infant son, is even more of an accomplishment.

You may have seen the movie by now or you may have seen Chris Gardner and Will Smith on the Oprah Winfrey show, so you have some idea what I am talking about.

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Career Advice from "The Pursuit of Happyness"

By reading Chris Gardner's rags to riches life story we can see these gems of career and life advice in action:

You Must Have a Strong Passion for the Work You Do

When Oprah Winfrey asked Chris what was the one thing above all others that contributed to his going from spending the night sleeping on the floor of a train station bathroom to earning millions every year, Chris said it was that he finally found the work he was meant to do.

By leveraging his Navy training he had become a very talented medical technician and researcher. However he was only making $13,000 per year which barely kept a roof over his head in expensive San Francisco.

Chris had dreams of being a medical doctor but for some reason he never started down that path. It was a dream that was out of his reach. It actually was not what he was meant to do. He had landed in the medical field by accident rather than by plan. Fortunately he got lucky.

Later, when he met the stock broker in the red Ferrari and when he worked as an intern in a brokerage house he just knew that he had found his life's calling. He had found his true passion in life.

How can you discover the work you were meant to do? Try our Career Planning Test. It will help point you in the right direction.

You Must Focus

Chris Gardner had incredible focus, no matter what he was doing.

The fact is, you really can't achieve anything great in life if you don't focus on it. Focus means you have to give up doing a lot of other things.

Looking back on my own life I can see that the only time I accomplished anything significant is when I was totally focused on one thing and one thing only.

In today's world, people think multi-tasking is the key to success. For some that may be true, but for most people I think focusing on one thing is the only way to really get ahead.

When you multi-task you make a tiny amount of progress on several tasks, but you don't get very far in any of those areas. You certainly don't make any breakthroughs or make any major life changes if you are multi-tasking.

Look at people who have gone form being extremely overweight to being totally fit and buff. They have to spend 4 to 5 hours a day exercising and eating right. Compare that to someone who try's to squeeze in 30 minutes of exercise for 3 to 4 days per week. It's just not the same.

If you want to make a major change in your life you are going to have to drop a lot of activities and focus exclusively on the work that will lead you to where you want to go. It's that simple, and that hard.

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Don't wait. Time is running out. The older you are, the harder it is to make big changes in your life.

You Must Set Goals

Chris set a goal of making 200 cold calls each and everyday.

He was starting from scratch to build his client base. He had to make hundreds of cold calls to drum up clients. he had to take a lot of rejection. But in doing so he found clients who later brought him huge commissions. We are talking about single clients for whom the commissions ran over $250,00 per year.

He never let himself leave the office until he had made his 200 calls that day. So once you know your direction and what you are going to focus on, set goals for each day. Set longer term goals for the month, the quarter, the year.

Career Change Means Sacrifice

Throughout the book, Gardner made sacrifices to make his career change work.

He could have stayed in the medical field. It was comfortable. It paid the rent. It kept some food on the table. It was predictable. He was successful and respected. He was very good at it.

But it was not his true calling. It was not the right path for him. He had to change. But the transition to being a stock broker was not smooth. Career changes usually have a few bumps in the road.

Keep Asking Questions, Keep Learning

Chris Gardner kept asking and learning from the people around him. he did it in the Navy. He did it in the medical field. It was the questions he asked the stock broker in the red Ferrari that set him on his true path in life.

Just Keep Moving Forward When Everything Looks Bad

When everything looks bleak you must just keep moving forward because things can surprise you and get better.

When you are trying to achieve something new and unknown, there will be days when you get very discouraged. On these days, all you have is your own faith.

Chris basically taught himself to stop feeling sorry for himself and to just keep moving forward. He had to remind himself of this everyday when he was living on the street.

It is usually just a few steps beyond where you want to quit and give up that you begin to see success. You can't give up when just a few more steps will start things going your way and your hard work begins to pays off.

Basically, no matter how bad things look you should never give up.

*Note: The spelling for "Happiness" has been changed by Chris Gardner to "Happyness." This is not because of anyone's spelling abilities. It has special significance in the book and the movie.

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