Gardner Chris - Start where you are: life lessons in getting from where you are to where you want to be

/ Start Where You Are

Universal Lessons for Pursuit

Without a Plan, a Dream Is Just a Dream (the C-5 Complex)

We All Have the Power of Choice

The Cavalry Aint Coming

Start with What Youve Got in Your Hand

Baby Steps Count, Too, as Long as You Go Forward

Stop Digging Your Potatoes

What Would the Champ Do?

Say Peace Be Still

Even Lewis and Clark Had a Map

Find Your Button

/ The Thorny and Golden Past

Personal Lessons Drawn from the Past

Whos Afraid of the Big, Bad Yesterday?

In Your Library of Resources, Value All Experience

Draw the Line of Your Life

Whose Child Are You?

Check Out Your Own Version of Genesis

Whos Who in Your Hood?

The Red or the Yellow Bike?

Sometimes You Gotta Give Up Christmas

No Test, No Testimony

/ Hitting the Anvil Marketplace Lessons for Success

The Law of Hard Work Is No Secret

Core Strengths Forged on Your Anvil

Wizards Begin as Blacksmiths

Are You Bold Enough to Go Back to Basics?

Supply and Demand Aint Rocket Science

Truth Is a Hit

Learn the Ropes First, Then Conquer Rome

Whos Who at the Office and in Your Spheres of Influence?

It Takes as Much Energy to Bag an Elephant as It Does a Mouse

Share the Wealth

/ Your Empowerment Zone

Life-Changing Lessons for Mastery

Seek the Farthest Star

Seeing Ghosts, Reading Signs

Opportunities, Like Pancakes, Are Best Served Hot, but Sometimes You Gotta Set the Table Before You Can Eat

Stay Open, but Dont Wing It

Mo Money, Mo Options, Mo Problems

Money Is the Least Significant Component of Wealth

Conscious Capitalism: A Personal and Global Primer

Make Your Dream Bigger Than Yourself

/ Spiritual Genetics

Spiritual Lessons for Connecting to Your Higher Power

Embrace the Best of Your Spiritual Genetics

Breaking Generational Cycles

Your Divine Inheritance

Gods in the Details

Passing the Torch, Raising the Bar

/ The Good Old Everyday

Ordinary Lessons for Happyness

Dont Postpone Joy

Claim Ownership of Your Dreams

Get Em and Go

All of the stories that I have included in Start Where You Are s forty-four life lessons have come from my experience of them in a variety of formsincluding private correspondence and personal conversations. In consideration of the privacy of those individuals, some names and identifying circumstances have been changed. Where I have included conversations and dialogue in these recollections, they are not intended to represent word for word documentations but are meant to evoke the spirit in which the exchanges took place and to teach the lesson that was presented at the time. All efforts have been made on my part and that of my co-author to check spellings of names and fact check dates for those who granted permission to have them included. A special thanks to everyone who has blessed me by sharing the wealth (see Lesson #29) of how you started where you were and got to where you wanted to be.

I love questions. There was a time in my younger days when I didnt appreciate how powerful questions really were, especially when asked of the right people at the right time. But over the years, the more I got past my own ego, the more willing I was to flex my question-asking muscles, and the more daring I became in putting the answers to use.

For anyone who knows a part of my storyeven what you may have read on this books flap covertwo questions that have been indispensable to me over the years should definitely ring a bell: What do you do? and How do you do that? At age twenty-eight, as a first-time (soon to be single) parent, I had the good sense to ask those two questions of a San Francisco stockbroker named Bob Bridges. This guy didnt know me from Adam but was willing to let me buy him a cup of coffee and answer my questions. And he went a step further by steering me toward a couple of people he knew, who in turn opened doors that led to my pursuit of an ultimately thriving career on Wall Street. Through all the ups and downs that happened after meeting Bob Bridges, I never forgot my debt of gratitude to himeven during the toughest pass early on when my toddler son, Christopher Jr., and I became homeless, at the same time that I was working full-time getting my start. There was never any way that I could return a commensurate favor to Bob, but I did make a pledge to myself to pay it forward in the futureby offering meaningful direction that comes from my life lessons to anyone willing to ask for it.

This is to say that as I invite you to cmon in and browse whats offered on these pages, please know that you and your questions are welcome here. My hunch is youve got some already; youre probably asking, How do I know if this book is something I need? What can I expect to take away from it? And you may also be wonderingwhy cant Chris Gardner spell happyness correctly?

Let me begin with the first question. Start Where You Are is a book that has been gathering steam in the back of my mind for many years. Those were the wordsStart Where You Arethat I wrote down on the top page of a yellow legal pad one day after months of knocking on doors when I was first trying to get just a foothold in the brokerage business. I couldnt seem to catch a break. Maybe you have been in those shoes, too. Well, that basic mantrato start by using the resources I already had while building toward those I desiredallowed me to hang in there. Since then, whenever difficult circumstances have seemed overwhelming and I didnt know where to begin to take action or how to shift gears, the message in that simple statement has revved me upjust as it has whenever Ive been stalled or stuck or a dream has loomed so far in the distance that I began to doubt if it could ever be reached.

When I was fortunate to have the opportunity to publish what became my first book, The Pursuit of Happyness, the original idea was to focus on the life lessons Id pledged to pass on one day. In the beginning, I had inklings that I might not be ready to do that, not without first doing the groundwork of laying out what had happened in my life to inspire those lessons. But whenever anyone suggested that I consider writing a full-length autobiography, I shut down. What, relive the darkness and bare my soulfor everyone and anyone to see, no less? No thanks!

The more I thought about it, however, the more apparent it was that unless I did the hard work of looking back at the grittier chapters of my life, it could easily be turned into the superficial version of the rags-to-riches road from homelessness to success, from being literally penniless to having actual wealth. As the CEO of a multimillion-dollar institutional investment firm with millions of stakeholders around the globe, run through three offices staffed by a diverse, amazing team, along with activities Im passionate about in the areas of public speaking, philanthropy, and personal empowerment, I didnt want my story to be made into a fairy tale. Therefore, in order to tell the real rags-to-riches partthe ability to break the generational cycle of men who abandon the children they fatherI had to confront the painful memories of growing up fatherless and the most empowering decision of my life, which I made at age six. That was the promise I made to myself that when I grew up and had children of my own, they would know who I was and that I would be present in their lives.