Wakati ule wa utumwa wa wana wa Israel nchini Misiri Mungu alimsaidia Yusufu kufasiri ndoto ya Farao, ni ndoto hii na fasiri yake sahihi ndizo zilisaidia nchi ya Misiri kuwa taifa lenye nguvu kuliko mengine ya wakati wake {Mwanzo 41}. Baada ya tafsiri ya ndoto ile Farao alimteua Yusufu kuwa mtendaji wake mkuu ili kufanikisha fasiri ya ndoto yake (Farao) na kupitia Yusufu Misiri ilitumia vyema miaka saba ya neema kujikusanyia nafaka ya kuwatosha wao na mataifa ya jirani katika miaka saba ya ukame na dhiki, si tu taifa la Misiri lilipata chakula bali pia liliweza kuwa na nguvu kuliko yote kwa sababu ya utajiri uliotokana na hekima ya Yusufu.
Ninapoyatazama matukio ya Somalia na ukosefu mkubwa wa chakula nayafananisha na ndoto ya mtumwa Yusufu nchini Misiri, njaa ya aina hii haitakuwa ya mwisho, historia inatuambia kuwa angalau kila baada ya miaka kumi kunakuwa na ukosefu mkubwa wa chakula unaotokana na ukame. Kwa kutumia ukweli huu naona hii ni baraka kwani tukiitumia vizuri itakuwa ni fursa ya kutuwezesha kufaidika na ukosefu mkubwa wa chakula wa mwaka 2021 kama ambavyo Misiri iliweza kujikusanyia chakula kwa kipindi cha miaka ile saba ya neema.
Tatizo kubwa la uzalishaji nchini kwetu ni ukosefu wa maji, lakini bahati nzuri ni kwamba mvua hunyesha na mtu akichimba bwawa anauhakika wa kuwa na maji ya kutosha ndani ya miaka mitatu.
Ushauri wangu:
Tuanze sasa kujiandaa na ukame wa 2021 kwa uzalishaji wa chakula cha ziada tukiweka mkazo kwenye kilimo cha umwagiliaji, bahati nyingine nzuri ni kuwa sasa kuna fursa nyingi ambazo zinasubiri kuchukuliwa. Nitatoa mfano wa pesa zinazotarajia kutolewa na wahisani kupitia mradi wa SAGCOT (google neno hili kwa taarifa zaidi). Lakini bila maandalizi sasa fursa hizi zitachukuliwa na wageni na tutaendelea kulalamika bila mambo kubadilika sana.
Kijijini kwetu kuna jamaa alikuwa anachimba malambo kwa ajiri ya kunyweshea mifugo na gharama yake siyo kubwa sana, mimi nitafanya majaribio kwa kuchimba bwawa kutumia mheshimiwa huyu. Lakini kitu kingine ambacho tunaweza kuanza kujiandaa ni kujikusanya ili tuwe na nguvu ya pamoja na tuweze kunufaika na fedha zinazotolewa kupitia madirisha kama hili la SAGCOT ambalo linaweka msisitizo zaidi katika kuwaendeleza wakulima wadogo kupitia vikundi vyao, lakini pia ili umoja una manufaa mengine kuwa uzalisha unapokuwa mkubwa inakuwa rahisi kupata soko na pia kuweza kuongeza thamani kwa urahisi.
Pia msisahau kuchangamkia fursa ya kupata ardhi, nasiki Lindi kuna maeneo mengi ya wazi ambayo tunaweza kuyachangamkia na kujinufaisha kama wawekezaji wa ndani, nitakuwa na safari ya ya kuuelewa mkoa wa Lindi mwezi August nakaribisha kwa yeyote atakayependa tufanye safari hii pamoja
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Je umekubali kutawaliwa?
Uwezo tunao, sababu tunayo, na nia tunayo
Hii ilikuwa sehemu ya hotuma ya Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere wakati akilihutubia taarifa baada ya Tanzania kuvamiwa na nduli Idd Amini Dadaa wa Uganda mwaka 1978. Kutawaliwa ni fedheha, kutawaliwa maana yake ni kupoteza uhuru na utu wako. Kwa sababu hizi za msingi Taifa la Tanzania liliingia vitani kupambana na hatimaye kumpiga nduli Idd Amin ili kuepuka fedheha na kuhakikisha uhuru wa Tanzania hauingiliwi na mtu yeyote.
Kuwa masikini maana yake ni kuwa mtumwa, kuwa masikini maana yake ni kutawaliwa, ni sawasawa na kuwa chini ya ukoloni. Mababu zetu wakiongozwa na viongozi wao akina Mkwawa, Kijekitile Ngwale, Isike, na wengine wengi walipigana kufa au kupona kupinga kutawaliwa na wakoloni kwa sababu ya fedheha waliyoipata walipokuwa wametawaliwa na wageni. Walikataa kufanyishwa kazi wasizozipenda kwa ujira mdogo ama pasipo ujira wowote, walikataa kufanyishwa kazi kwa mababu zao, walikataa kulipishwa kodi walizotozwa ili ziwasaidie watu wengine, walikataa kudhalilishwa kwa kupigwa vipoko mbele ya watoto na wake au waume zao, walikataa kupoteza heshima yao, walikataa kunyimwa haki zao za msingi kama kusafiri bila kubaguliwa, kusafiri bila vizuizi vya aina yeyote ile, kubaguliwa katika kupatiwa huduma.
Ukiwa masikini utafanyishwa kazi usizozipenda, utafanyishwa kazi kwa ujira mdogo, na utafanyishwa kazi bila ridhaa yako. Kila nikiiona mzee akifanya kazi ya fedheha kama kufagia barabara, ulinzi wakiwa na umri mkubwa naona ukoloni uletwao na umasikini, kila nikiona mtu ameshindwa kupata huduma sitahili za afya kwa sababu ameshindwa kumudu gharama za matibabu najua utumwa uletwao na umasikini ni hatari kuliko maladhi wanayougua. Kila nikiona watoto wameshindwa kupata haki yao ya msingi ya kupumuzika na kucheza kwa kufanyishwa kazi katika umri mdogo ili waweze kupata mahitaji yao, kila nikiona mtoto ameshindwa kupata haki yake ya msingi ya kupata elimu bora anayositahili naona udhalimu na mateso yaletwayo na umasikini, kila nikiona watu wakibebwa kwenye mikokoteni ama malori wakisafiri kutoka sehemu moja kwenda nyingine naona mateso yaletwayo na nduli umasikini. Kila nikiona watu wakikosa mahitaji yao ya mhimu kama malazi, chakula na mavazi wanayostahili naona umasikini ukiwa kazini, naona utumwa ule ule walioukataa mababu zetu, naona ukoloni walioukataa akina Kinjekitile, naona uvamizi alioukataa Mwalimu Nyerere.
Kinjekitile aliweza kuhamasisha majeshi ya mababu zetu kwa kutumia maji, Kinjekitile alijua tatizo kubwa lao lilikuwa liko akilini mwao; akafanikiwa kulitafutia dawa kwa kuwapa maji aliyowaaminisha kuwa yalikuwa na uwezo wa kuzuia risasi za wakoloni. Kinjekitile alifanikiwa kuwahamasisha mababu zetu na kuwatisha Wajerumani waliokuwa na siraha bora na kali zaidi kwa kutumia maji ambayo yalikuwa hayana uwezo wa kuzuia risasi kama walivyoaminishwa. Kilichowatisha Wajerumani ulikuwa ni ujasiri wa watu waliokuwa na siraha duni kuliko zao. Kilichomkimbiza nduli Idd Amin na majeshi yake ilikuwa ni ujasiri na umoja wa majeshi ya Tanzania, baada ya hotuba ile ya Nyerere kila Mtanzania alikuwa tayari kwenda vitani ingawa kila mtu alijua vita havina macho lakini walihamasika kuhakikisha kuwa taifa lao linaondokana na fedheha ya kutawaliwa. Wake kwa waume walijikusanya kumfuata, aliingiwa na hofu alivyouona umma wa Watanzania uko nyuma ya kiongozi wao wakiwa tayari kufa ili mradi wanarudisha heshima ya taifa lao.
Leo hii kuna watu wengi wamezama kwenye dimbwi la umasikini na wameridhika kuwa hawawezi kuondokana na umasikini kwa sababu hawana nyenzo, hawana siraha. Wengi, wakiwemo viongozi wa taifa letu wanadhani kuwa umasikini huo utaondolewa na watu wengine kwa kuwaonea huruma. Wengi wanajua hawawezi kuondoka kwenye bonde hilo kwa sababu ama hawana mitaji, ama hawana elimu, ama kitu kingine chochote ambacho wanadhani wakikipata wataondoka pale walipo. Historia inatuambia kuwa hili halitawezekana na halitatokea hadi pale wao wenyewe watakapokata shauri ya kuondoka kwenye kituo chao, cha umasikini na maisha duni. Ushindi wa vita yoyote huanzia akilini mwa mpiganaji, huanza pale jemedari na majeshi yake watakapoamua kuwa ni ushindi pekee ndio utawapa mapumuziko, tofauti na hapo adui atashambuliwa na kukoseshwa usingizi mpaka atakapo salimu amri. Mitaji na elimu ni vitendea kazi tu ambavyo hurahisha kazi vinapokuwepo lakini siyo sababu ya kufanikiwa.
Ndugu msomaji wangu, ni pale tu utakapo amua kuwa umasikini basi, ni pale tu utakapochukia kero na fedheha zote ziletwazo na umasikini na kuamua kuwa lazima uondokane na fedheha hizo ndipo utakoweza kuondokana na umasikini au hali duni ya maisha yako. Sitaweza, na sina uwezo wa kukueleza ni namna gani utaweza kuondoka pale ulipo kwa sababu kila mtu ana malaika wake, na kila mtu ana kipaji chake kilicho tofauti na watu wengine. Unaweza kuondokana kwa kubadilisha kazi kama utatafakali na kuona kuwa kwa namna unavyofanya si rahisi kuondokana na hali yako duni, unaweza kuendelea kufanya kazi yako ile ile lakini ukabadilisha namna unavyoifanya na namna unavyoyatumia mafao yanayotokana na kazi yako. Katika dunia hii kuna watu wamekuwa mamilionea kwa kufanya kazi unayoidharau, kuna ambao wametajirika kwa kuzoa taka, ndiyo, kuzoa taka! Kuna wengine wengi wametajirika kwa kupika, wapo pia wengi waliotajirika kwa kilimo. Kinachowatoutisha waliofanikiwa na wale ambao wameshindwa ni namna wanavyofikiri, kama ukiamua kuondokana na umasikini kwa kutumia kilimo lazima ukipende kilimo na ujiaminishe kuwa hakuna kitu kingine kitakutoa hapo isipokuwa kilimo, kama umeamua kuwa utaondokana na umasikini kwa kuokota taka lazima uzipende taka na kila unapoziona ufurahi kuwa ile ni fursa yako ya kuondokana na umasikini na siyo uchafu! Kama unataka kuondokana na umasikini ukiwa mwalimu lazima kwanza ukate shauri na kuamini kuwa ni kuwatoa watu ujinga pekee ndiko kutakako kutoa kwenye lindi la umasikini, ni lazima ufurahi kuona mtu hafahamu kitu unachokifundisha siyo kwa sababu hajui bali ni kwa sababu hiyo ni fursa yako kuondokana na umasikini, ukiwaona wanafunzi wako na mazingira ya kazi yako kuwa ni kero hautaweza hata siku moja kufanikiwa ukiwa mwalimu, ni lazima kwanza uione kazi yako kuwa ni fursa ya wewe kufanikiwa. SIRI YA USHINDI NI MOJA, KUTOPUMUZIKA HADI USHINDI UMEPATIKANA.
Hii ilikuwa sehemu ya hotuma ya Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere wakati akilihutubia taarifa baada ya Tanzania kuvamiwa na nduli Idd Amini Dadaa wa Uganda mwaka 1978. Kutawaliwa ni fedheha, kutawaliwa maana yake ni kupoteza uhuru na utu wako. Kwa sababu hizi za msingi Taifa la Tanzania liliingia vitani kupambana na hatimaye kumpiga nduli Idd Amin ili kuepuka fedheha na kuhakikisha uhuru wa Tanzania hauingiliwi na mtu yeyote.
Kuwa masikini maana yake ni kuwa mtumwa, kuwa masikini maana yake ni kutawaliwa, ni sawasawa na kuwa chini ya ukoloni. Mababu zetu wakiongozwa na viongozi wao akina Mkwawa, Kijekitile Ngwale, Isike, na wengine wengi walipigana kufa au kupona kupinga kutawaliwa na wakoloni kwa sababu ya fedheha waliyoipata walipokuwa wametawaliwa na wageni. Walikataa kufanyishwa kazi wasizozipenda kwa ujira mdogo ama pasipo ujira wowote, walikataa kufanyishwa kazi kwa mababu zao, walikataa kulipishwa kodi walizotozwa ili ziwasaidie watu wengine, walikataa kudhalilishwa kwa kupigwa vipoko mbele ya watoto na wake au waume zao, walikataa kupoteza heshima yao, walikataa kunyimwa haki zao za msingi kama kusafiri bila kubaguliwa, kusafiri bila vizuizi vya aina yeyote ile, kubaguliwa katika kupatiwa huduma.
Ukiwa masikini utafanyishwa kazi usizozipenda, utafanyishwa kazi kwa ujira mdogo, na utafanyishwa kazi bila ridhaa yako. Kila nikiiona mzee akifanya kazi ya fedheha kama kufagia barabara, ulinzi wakiwa na umri mkubwa naona ukoloni uletwao na umasikini, kila nikiona mtu ameshindwa kupata huduma sitahili za afya kwa sababu ameshindwa kumudu gharama za matibabu najua utumwa uletwao na umasikini ni hatari kuliko maladhi wanayougua. Kila nikiona watoto wameshindwa kupata haki yao ya msingi ya kupumuzika na kucheza kwa kufanyishwa kazi katika umri mdogo ili waweze kupata mahitaji yao, kila nikiona mtoto ameshindwa kupata haki yake ya msingi ya kupata elimu bora anayositahili naona udhalimu na mateso yaletwayo na umasikini, kila nikiona watu wakibebwa kwenye mikokoteni ama malori wakisafiri kutoka sehemu moja kwenda nyingine naona mateso yaletwayo na nduli umasikini. Kila nikiona watu wakikosa mahitaji yao ya mhimu kama malazi, chakula na mavazi wanayostahili naona umasikini ukiwa kazini, naona utumwa ule ule walioukataa mababu zetu, naona ukoloni walioukataa akina Kinjekitile, naona uvamizi alioukataa Mwalimu Nyerere.
Kinjekitile aliweza kuhamasisha majeshi ya mababu zetu kwa kutumia maji, Kinjekitile alijua tatizo kubwa lao lilikuwa liko akilini mwao; akafanikiwa kulitafutia dawa kwa kuwapa maji aliyowaaminisha kuwa yalikuwa na uwezo wa kuzuia risasi za wakoloni. Kinjekitile alifanikiwa kuwahamasisha mababu zetu na kuwatisha Wajerumani waliokuwa na siraha bora na kali zaidi kwa kutumia maji ambayo yalikuwa hayana uwezo wa kuzuia risasi kama walivyoaminishwa. Kilichowatisha Wajerumani ulikuwa ni ujasiri wa watu waliokuwa na siraha duni kuliko zao. Kilichomkimbiza nduli Idd Amin na majeshi yake ilikuwa ni ujasiri na umoja wa majeshi ya Tanzania, baada ya hotuba ile ya Nyerere kila Mtanzania alikuwa tayari kwenda vitani ingawa kila mtu alijua vita havina macho lakini walihamasika kuhakikisha kuwa taifa lao linaondokana na fedheha ya kutawaliwa. Wake kwa waume walijikusanya kumfuata, aliingiwa na hofu alivyouona umma wa Watanzania uko nyuma ya kiongozi wao wakiwa tayari kufa ili mradi wanarudisha heshima ya taifa lao.
Leo hii kuna watu wengi wamezama kwenye dimbwi la umasikini na wameridhika kuwa hawawezi kuondokana na umasikini kwa sababu hawana nyenzo, hawana siraha. Wengi, wakiwemo viongozi wa taifa letu wanadhani kuwa umasikini huo utaondolewa na watu wengine kwa kuwaonea huruma. Wengi wanajua hawawezi kuondoka kwenye bonde hilo kwa sababu ama hawana mitaji, ama hawana elimu, ama kitu kingine chochote ambacho wanadhani wakikipata wataondoka pale walipo. Historia inatuambia kuwa hili halitawezekana na halitatokea hadi pale wao wenyewe watakapokata shauri ya kuondoka kwenye kituo chao, cha umasikini na maisha duni. Ushindi wa vita yoyote huanzia akilini mwa mpiganaji, huanza pale jemedari na majeshi yake watakapoamua kuwa ni ushindi pekee ndio utawapa mapumuziko, tofauti na hapo adui atashambuliwa na kukoseshwa usingizi mpaka atakapo salimu amri. Mitaji na elimu ni vitendea kazi tu ambavyo hurahisha kazi vinapokuwepo lakini siyo sababu ya kufanikiwa.
Ndugu msomaji wangu, ni pale tu utakapo amua kuwa umasikini basi, ni pale tu utakapochukia kero na fedheha zote ziletwazo na umasikini na kuamua kuwa lazima uondokane na fedheha hizo ndipo utakoweza kuondokana na umasikini au hali duni ya maisha yako. Sitaweza, na sina uwezo wa kukueleza ni namna gani utaweza kuondoka pale ulipo kwa sababu kila mtu ana malaika wake, na kila mtu ana kipaji chake kilicho tofauti na watu wengine. Unaweza kuondokana kwa kubadilisha kazi kama utatafakali na kuona kuwa kwa namna unavyofanya si rahisi kuondokana na hali yako duni, unaweza kuendelea kufanya kazi yako ile ile lakini ukabadilisha namna unavyoifanya na namna unavyoyatumia mafao yanayotokana na kazi yako. Katika dunia hii kuna watu wamekuwa mamilionea kwa kufanya kazi unayoidharau, kuna ambao wametajirika kwa kuzoa taka, ndiyo, kuzoa taka! Kuna wengine wengi wametajirika kwa kupika, wapo pia wengi waliotajirika kwa kilimo. Kinachowatoutisha waliofanikiwa na wale ambao wameshindwa ni namna wanavyofikiri, kama ukiamua kuondokana na umasikini kwa kutumia kilimo lazima ukipende kilimo na ujiaminishe kuwa hakuna kitu kingine kitakutoa hapo isipokuwa kilimo, kama umeamua kuwa utaondokana na umasikini kwa kuokota taka lazima uzipende taka na kila unapoziona ufurahi kuwa ile ni fursa yako ya kuondokana na umasikini na siyo uchafu! Kama unataka kuondokana na umasikini ukiwa mwalimu lazima kwanza ukate shauri na kuamini kuwa ni kuwatoa watu ujinga pekee ndiko kutakako kutoa kwenye lindi la umasikini, ni lazima ufurahi kuona mtu hafahamu kitu unachokifundisha siyo kwa sababu hajui bali ni kwa sababu hiyo ni fursa yako kuondokana na umasikini, ukiwaona wanafunzi wako na mazingira ya kazi yako kuwa ni kero hautaweza hata siku moja kufanikiwa ukiwa mwalimu, ni lazima kwanza uione kazi yako kuwa ni fursa ya wewe kufanikiwa. SIRI YA USHINDI NI MOJA, KUTOPUMUZIKA HADI USHINDI UMEPATIKANA.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Poverty is evil!
“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty... our first duty – a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed—is not to be poor.” George Barnard Shaw
Every time I walk in the street and see poor people I think about it and say to myself I could as well be this poor if I were to be sacked from job and remain unemployed for six months, every time I see men and women working in the old age I reflect it on me that I could wind up just like them, when I think of the beautiful dreams of my vacations in resort islands I realize that they could remain just dreams unless I do something different.
Have you asked yourself these and other similar questions, what are your answers. Let us share them here and see how we could work together to realize our beautiful dreams. The dreams of our young ones attending the best universities there is, the dreams of our beautiful homes becoming reality, the dreams of buying the best luxuries for our loved one.... let us dream on and work to realize these dreams... IT IS POSSIBLE IF WE DARE TRY WHAT WE DAY DREAM... there is no short cuts, the only way that we can tell whether our dreams can be realized is by trying!
Every time I walk in the street and see poor people I think about it and say to myself I could as well be this poor if I were to be sacked from job and remain unemployed for six months, every time I see men and women working in the old age I reflect it on me that I could wind up just like them, when I think of the beautiful dreams of my vacations in resort islands I realize that they could remain just dreams unless I do something different.
Have you asked yourself these and other similar questions, what are your answers. Let us share them here and see how we could work together to realize our beautiful dreams. The dreams of our young ones attending the best universities there is, the dreams of our beautiful homes becoming reality, the dreams of buying the best luxuries for our loved one.... let us dream on and work to realize these dreams... IT IS POSSIBLE IF WE DARE TRY WHAT WE DAY DREAM... there is no short cuts, the only way that we can tell whether our dreams can be realized is by trying!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
You've got to find what you love - Steve Jobs
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Obstacles in our paths
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.
The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
Friday, May 28, 2010
The Success story of Chris Gardener
Homeless But Not Hopeless: Millionaire Chris Gardner’s Early Years
Chris Gardner wears a $10,000 watch on each wrist. On the right hand is a Cartier set to Chicago time, and on the left is a Roger Dubuis set to South African time. “I was late once and it cost me $50,000,” explains Gardner. “I figure it was cheaper to wear two watches.” For a man who not too long ago had only two suits to his name and could not even afford to pay rent, Gardner has come a long way. From living on the streets and bathing in public restrooms to owning a successful multi-million dollar stock brokerage firm, Gardner is living out the American dream.
Born on February 9, 1954 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Christopher Gardner’s first few years were filled with nothing but difficulty and uncertainty. He was the only son in a family of twelve children. His single mother was trained as a schoolteacher, but wound up taking on numerous part-time jobs in order to provide for her family. “She was probably her happiest when she was teaching my sisters and me,” recalls Gardner. “She was our professor, our Socrates.” The absence of a father is something that would come to profoundly affect Gardner’s life.
Gardner and his siblings were transferred back and forth between relatives and foster homes. His mother had been imprisoned twice; once, for allegedly receiving welfare while working, and the second time for attempting to burn down the house of Gardner’s abusive stepfather. “I’m sorry she didn’t succeed,” says Gardner of the incident. “Until I went to the U.S. military, the worst violence I ever saw in my life was in my home.”
Gardner was a smart student, but had little interest in academics. He studied trumpet for nine years, wanting to be the next Miles Davis. Eventually, Gardner realized, “I had the attitude, but I didn’t have the talent. Besides, there was only one Miles Davis and he already had that job.”
After dropping out of high school, Gardner lied about his age and joined the U.S. Navy. He had hoped to become a medic and travel the world, but never got any farther than North Carolina. However, the experience did introduce Gardner to a cardiac surgeon, who would later hire Gardner as his clinical research assistant at the University of California Medical Centre in San Francisco after both were discharged. Gardner enjoyed the work, but was only making $7,400 a year and he wanted more.
Gardner toyed with the idea of becoming a doctor, but decided that years of paying off medical loans were not for him. Instead, he became a medical supply salesman, earning $16,000 a year. It was while loading equipment into his car one day that Gardner’s life would forever change. He caught sight of a bright red Ferrari and was immediately in love with it and all that it represented. “I asked the guy two questions,” Gardner recalls. “One was, ‘What do you do?’ The second was, ‘How do you do that?’”
As fate would have it, the driver of the Ferrari was a stockbroker. When Gardner heard that the man was earning over $80,000 a month, he decided that his future lied in investment. He had no education, no experience, and no connections, but that was not about to stop Gardner from achieving his new dream.
From Rags to Riches: Gardner Lives the American Dream
“A slow walk to Wall Street is how others describe my life,” says Gardner.
Once he had decided to become a stockbroker, Gardner immediately set out to find an investment firm that would give him a chance. In one brokerage firm, Gardner finally found a manager of a training program who was willing to give him a shot. However, when Gardner showed up for his first day of work, the manager who had hired him had been fired and no one else had ever heard of Gardner or his new position. He left with his hopes disappointed.
Nevertheless, Gardner didn’t give up on his dreams. He continued to seek out investment firms, taking odd jobs to pay the bills in the meantime. Dean Witter, a San Francisco-based brokerage firm was interested in Gardner but refused to bring him on board before putting him through ten months of interviews. It would be a grueling ten months.
In this seemingly short period of time, not only would Gardner’s girlfriend run off with their son and all of his belongings, but Gardner would also find himself penniless and in jail. After running Gardner’s car license plates, a police officer discovered that he had $1,200 worth of fines for unpaid parking tickets. Gardner was sent to jail for ten days, with his release date just one day before his final interview with Dean Witter.
Gardner showed up for his interview in a T-shirt and dirty jeans. He could have fabricated some heroic story to explain his appearance. Instead, Gardner decided to tell the truth. In plain terms, Gardner told his interviewer that the mother of his son had ran off with his child, that he was broke, and that he has just gotten out of jail the day before. As luck would have it, the interviewer had recently been through a nasty divorce and could sympathize with Gardner. He was immediately given a position in the company’s training program.
Soon after landing his new job, Gardner’s ex-girlfriend returned with their 18-month-old son, leaving him with his father and promptly taking off again. Since the house Gardner was staying at didn’t allow children, the pair found themselves living on the street. “The truth is, I was homeless before Chris came, I just didn’t know,” says Gardner. “I was just functionally homeless – living with friends, staying a night over here, a couple of days over there. Now, with Chris, I had to face it.”
Eventually, the father and son began to scrape by in a $10-a-night motel, while Gardner continued to study for his broker’s exam. “I was homeless, but I wasn't hopeless,” he says. “I knew a better day was coming.” They were given refuge in a shelter for single mothers until Gardner had earned his license, after which time his persistence in cold calling earned him the attention of executives at Bear Stearns, who offered him a job. After the company went public in the late 1980s, Gardner saw his sphere of influence shrink and decided to strike out on his own.
In 1987, Gardner launched his own brokerage firm in Chicago, Gardner Rich. “If you look around the country, no city has fostered more Black entrepreneurs than Chicago,” he says. Gardner quickly began to land major clients for his new company, including the pension fund of the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Since then, his business has continued to take off and Gardiner hasn’t looked back.
“It’s not just my story,” says Gardiner of his autobiographical book, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, which has also recently been turned into a major motion picture. “It’s the story of a lot of people who grew up and took a lot of crap – and decided, ‘I'm going the other way.’”
Chris Gardner wears a $10,000 watch on each wrist. On the right hand is a Cartier set to Chicago time, and on the left is a Roger Dubuis set to South African time. “I was late once and it cost me $50,000,” explains Gardner. “I figure it was cheaper to wear two watches.” For a man who not too long ago had only two suits to his name and could not even afford to pay rent, Gardner has come a long way. From living on the streets and bathing in public restrooms to owning a successful multi-million dollar stock brokerage firm, Gardner is living out the American dream.
Born on February 9, 1954 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Christopher Gardner’s first few years were filled with nothing but difficulty and uncertainty. He was the only son in a family of twelve children. His single mother was trained as a schoolteacher, but wound up taking on numerous part-time jobs in order to provide for her family. “She was probably her happiest when she was teaching my sisters and me,” recalls Gardner. “She was our professor, our Socrates.” The absence of a father is something that would come to profoundly affect Gardner’s life.
Gardner and his siblings were transferred back and forth between relatives and foster homes. His mother had been imprisoned twice; once, for allegedly receiving welfare while working, and the second time for attempting to burn down the house of Gardner’s abusive stepfather. “I’m sorry she didn’t succeed,” says Gardner of the incident. “Until I went to the U.S. military, the worst violence I ever saw in my life was in my home.”
Gardner was a smart student, but had little interest in academics. He studied trumpet for nine years, wanting to be the next Miles Davis. Eventually, Gardner realized, “I had the attitude, but I didn’t have the talent. Besides, there was only one Miles Davis and he already had that job.”
After dropping out of high school, Gardner lied about his age and joined the U.S. Navy. He had hoped to become a medic and travel the world, but never got any farther than North Carolina. However, the experience did introduce Gardner to a cardiac surgeon, who would later hire Gardner as his clinical research assistant at the University of California Medical Centre in San Francisco after both were discharged. Gardner enjoyed the work, but was only making $7,400 a year and he wanted more.
Gardner toyed with the idea of becoming a doctor, but decided that years of paying off medical loans were not for him. Instead, he became a medical supply salesman, earning $16,000 a year. It was while loading equipment into his car one day that Gardner’s life would forever change. He caught sight of a bright red Ferrari and was immediately in love with it and all that it represented. “I asked the guy two questions,” Gardner recalls. “One was, ‘What do you do?’ The second was, ‘How do you do that?’”
As fate would have it, the driver of the Ferrari was a stockbroker. When Gardner heard that the man was earning over $80,000 a month, he decided that his future lied in investment. He had no education, no experience, and no connections, but that was not about to stop Gardner from achieving his new dream.
From Rags to Riches: Gardner Lives the American Dream
“A slow walk to Wall Street is how others describe my life,” says Gardner.
Once he had decided to become a stockbroker, Gardner immediately set out to find an investment firm that would give him a chance. In one brokerage firm, Gardner finally found a manager of a training program who was willing to give him a shot. However, when Gardner showed up for his first day of work, the manager who had hired him had been fired and no one else had ever heard of Gardner or his new position. He left with his hopes disappointed.
Nevertheless, Gardner didn’t give up on his dreams. He continued to seek out investment firms, taking odd jobs to pay the bills in the meantime. Dean Witter, a San Francisco-based brokerage firm was interested in Gardner but refused to bring him on board before putting him through ten months of interviews. It would be a grueling ten months.
In this seemingly short period of time, not only would Gardner’s girlfriend run off with their son and all of his belongings, but Gardner would also find himself penniless and in jail. After running Gardner’s car license plates, a police officer discovered that he had $1,200 worth of fines for unpaid parking tickets. Gardner was sent to jail for ten days, with his release date just one day before his final interview with Dean Witter.
Gardner showed up for his interview in a T-shirt and dirty jeans. He could have fabricated some heroic story to explain his appearance. Instead, Gardner decided to tell the truth. In plain terms, Gardner told his interviewer that the mother of his son had ran off with his child, that he was broke, and that he has just gotten out of jail the day before. As luck would have it, the interviewer had recently been through a nasty divorce and could sympathize with Gardner. He was immediately given a position in the company’s training program.
Soon after landing his new job, Gardner’s ex-girlfriend returned with their 18-month-old son, leaving him with his father and promptly taking off again. Since the house Gardner was staying at didn’t allow children, the pair found themselves living on the street. “The truth is, I was homeless before Chris came, I just didn’t know,” says Gardner. “I was just functionally homeless – living with friends, staying a night over here, a couple of days over there. Now, with Chris, I had to face it.”
Eventually, the father and son began to scrape by in a $10-a-night motel, while Gardner continued to study for his broker’s exam. “I was homeless, but I wasn't hopeless,” he says. “I knew a better day was coming.” They were given refuge in a shelter for single mothers until Gardner had earned his license, after which time his persistence in cold calling earned him the attention of executives at Bear Stearns, who offered him a job. After the company went public in the late 1980s, Gardner saw his sphere of influence shrink and decided to strike out on his own.
In 1987, Gardner launched his own brokerage firm in Chicago, Gardner Rich. “If you look around the country, no city has fostered more Black entrepreneurs than Chicago,” he says. Gardner quickly began to land major clients for his new company, including the pension fund of the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Since then, his business has continued to take off and Gardiner hasn’t looked back.
“It’s not just my story,” says Gardiner of his autobiographical book, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, which has also recently been turned into a major motion picture. “It’s the story of a lot of people who grew up and took a lot of crap – and decided, ‘I'm going the other way.’”
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