Millionaire investor who slept on the toilet floor

When Chris Gardner and his son lay on the floor of a public toilet, he never thought his life story would become a Hollywood blockbuster.

In the early 1980s, Gardner, then 27, and with his toddler son, had been homeless in San Francisco for a year. He had enrolled in a stockbroker training program that paid him so little in internships that he couldn’t afford a deposit on an apartment.

So he and his son slept wherever they could. In addition to the toilets at the train station, they slept in parks, in churches, or on benches at work when everyone else had gone home. They ate food from charity and spent most of the little money Gardner earned on babysitting so he could go to work.

Despite his difficult circumstances, Gardner performed well. By the end of his internship, Dean Witter Reynolds (DWR) hired him as a full-time employee.

Gardner was finally able to rent a house for the two of them. His career took off. And by 1987, he had his own investment company called Gardner Rich.

Chris Gardner is now a famous speaker and author. Photo: Chris Gardner

Today, Gardner is worth an estimated $60 million and travels the world as a speaker. He also funds numerous charities that help the homeless and organizations that fight violence against women.

Gardner had a difficult childhood and even spent time in prison before interning at DWR. That's why Hollywood was interested in his life story, releasing the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" in 2006.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Gardner never knew his father. He grew up in poverty with his mother, Bettye Jean, and his alcoholic, violent stepfather. He spent time in a foster home after his mother tried to kill him in a fit of despair.

Still, he said his mother remains his inspiration. "Every day she tells me, 'Son, you can do anything and be anything you want to be.' I believe in that, 100 percent," he said.

Once, while watching a basketball game on TV, he commented that one of the players could make a million dollars. "My mother said, 'Son, you're going to make a million dollars someday.' I never thought about it before," he recalled.

Of course, those millions didn’t come immediately. After graduating from high school, Gardner served four years in the U.S. Navy. In 1974, he moved to San Francisco to sell medical equipment.

His life changed completely the day he met a man who parked his Ferrari nearby. Gardner asked him what he did for a living, and the man replied that he was a stockbroker. After the conversation, Gardner became interested in the profession.

They met again, and the man helped Gardner get an internship interview at DWR. However, a few days before the interview, he was arrested for unpaid parking tickets. He eventually showed up for the interview, wearing the clothes he had been wearing before his arrest. Still, Gardner’s enthusiasm helped him through and he was eventually hired.

In 2012, Gardner’s life changed again when his wife died of cancer at the age of 55. It made him rethink what he wanted from life. And after three decades of extreme success in finance, he decided to make a complete career change.

“A couple of times, in my last conversations with my wife, she asked me, ‘Now we see how short life is. What are you going to do with the time you have left?’ Those conversations change everything for you. If you’re not doing what you’re passionate about, you’re compromising yourself,” he says.

So when he realized he didn’t want to work in investment banking anymore, he turned to speaking and writing. Now, Gardner spends 200 days a year traveling the world, inspiring audiences in more than 50 countries.

Scott Burns - Director of investment company Morningstar commented that Gardner "is a great example of tenacity. He can go broke, but only if he allows himself to."

Gardner believes he has rejected the theory that people are products of their environment. "If I had followed that school of thought, I would have become an alcoholic, a wife beater, a child abuser, and an illiterate," he says.

Instead, he made a positive choice, thanks to the love of his mother and the help of others: "I chose the light, from my mother and from people who are not even related by blood. And I cherish those opportunities."

According to VNE