'Happyness' for sale

He's gone from homeless single dad to successful stockbroker. And that's just the start for Chris Gardner Inc.

By Jia Lynn Yang, Fortune Magazine reporter

September 15 2006: 2:22 PM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- In 1982, Chris Gardner was just another go-getter in the training program at Dean Witter's San Francisco office, making $1,000 a month. He was also homeless. Gardner couldn't afford both day care for his 20-month-old son, whom he was raising alone, and a place to live.

So for a year he and Chris Jr. slept where they could - cheap hotel rooms in West Oakland, a shelter at a church in the Tenderloin, under his office desk, even, on occasion, the bathroom at the Bay Area Rapid Transit MacArthur station. He remembered the words of his mother, Bettye Jean Triplett, another single parent, who grew up during the Depression outside Rayville, La., where slavery was still a living memory: "You can only depend on yourself. The cavalry ain't coming."

Looking up: Gardner is enjoying watching his life turn into a major movie.

So Gardner worked, making 200 calls a day to snag clients for Dean Witter. "Every time I picked up the phone," he recalls, "I knew I was getting closer to digging myself out of the hole." Within five years he had opened his own institutional brokerage firm in Chicago called Gardner Rich, which is still thriving today.

Then, in 2002, a story on local TV set in motion a series of events that will culminate this December, when a movie based on his life, "The Pursuit of Happyness", hits the theaters, with Will Smith playing the lead role.

For More Go to the Money/CNN article.

Zipper Down on the Highway to WELATH

Have you ever discovered that your zipper is down and wondered how long you had been parading around in this condition and why no one informed you?

They may have been too embarrassed.

The solution is to let you be embarrassed.

How do you navigate these sensitive situations? I had an article up here with a severely misspelled title for at least a week. I spelled "wealth" as "welath."no one said anything - or noticed - OR did they? I was embarrassed - but not much.

I misspell all the time, but usually not in a title.

Should someone have said something or would that have been nit picky?

I just finally saw "The Pursuit of Happiness" last night - at least I thought I did. Then I looked and it was spelled HAPPYness - just like a recurring scene from the movie where Chris Gardner is repeatedly annoyed at the misspelling on a wall in his neighborhood.

It is funny how little things keep us from focusing on the pursuit of the BIG things.

Ultimately, they did not stop Chris Gardner. See the movie and read the book if you are discouraged, thinking of giving up, or devastated by a zipper down after being in public for hours. Few people have had to overcome the challenges he faced on the road to success, but everyone has their own.

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  Chris Gardner: The Pursuit of Happyness

To learn more about Chris, his philosophy, philanthropy, and work, go to his official site.

I just finished Bob Burg's book and audio set, "Winning Without Intimidation." Bob is REAL. His authenticity is evident to everyone he meets. He treats all people the same - as if they were the most important people in the world - and he wins - and they win! he might have an answer to the zipper question.

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  Bob Burg: Winning Without Intimidation : How to Master the Art of Positive Persuasion in Today's Real World in Order to Get What You Want, When You Want It

By the way, the whole zipper/mispeelink thing was just a point of inspiration and a launch pad for me to start writing this morning. Whether you are pursuing wealth or welath, the pursuit is the it of it and it will be hampered if you major on the minor distractions or allow perfectionism to become an excuse for inaction.

The conditions were never just right for Chris Gardner to pursue his goals and they will never be just right for you - so get started now! There is no better time.

While we are at it, let's embrace a new philosophy of WELATH.

W - Welcome life with all its imperfections, embarrassing moments, and hardships because there will be m ore joys that sorrows if you will pursue them and embrace them.

E - Elevate others along the way and build them up rather than tearing them down.

L - Live, Laugh, Love with expectancy, wonder, and authenticity.

A - Accept Abundance as the true measure of wealth. Abundance means that there is more than absolutely necessary for mere survival. Abundance is accepting grace as a lifestyle and as n endless supply from a generous God to children He loves. It also means that we appreciate what we receive and receive it with giddy joy.

T -Take the steps necessary to move incrementally toward your goals of wealth or welath. Just like it doesn't ultimately matter if you mess up the letter order, there may be some play ion the order in which you take these steps, but take them and do not expect to arrive quickly. "Get rich quick" almost always implies gimmickry. The studies i am doing loosely, informally, and occasionally from Proverbs on wealth and work all point to this reality. you could also call it TIME. Take Time!

H - Hope and keep hoping. Never surrender your possibility view of things to come. That which is not can be. Persevere with hope!

I am on a personal retreat in the Sierra right now. I drove into Sonora to do my blogging at a Starbucks. I always appreciate my friends, the Greens for their generous offering of their cabin in the hills for my study and enrichment time. I also appreciate their cable television, but I must say that it is sometimes a distraction from my mission.

This time the cable is off and I am grateful. It has forced me in two directions:

(1) I am taking fewer breaks to catch the latest repeats of old news on CNN.
(2) It has forced me to watch the encouraging videos I brought from home in the evening while I am sorting papers. In addition the "The Pursuit of Happyness," I finally watched, "Facing The Giants."

I was tearfully encouraged and you will be too. Then, you may want to read the book. You can probably get the video at the same link:

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  Stephen Kendrick and Alex Kendrick: Facing the Giants: novelization by Eric Wilson

The joke is still on me. After running spell check, I discovered, as I had suspected, that I had misspelled, "misspell" throughout this entry.

Keep on kmeeping on!

Should You Consider Network Marketing?

No one system of commerce has received as much enthusiasm on one sign and criticism on the other. I am a big supporter of the concept of network marketing for reasons I state below. However, it is important to factor in some questions when choosing to affiliate with one of the many fine network marketing companies available:

1. Is this a company YOU want to be associated with? Do they have the track record, integrity, management, and stability necessary to meet YOUR needs?

2. What organization and team will you be joining within the company? What is its training system like? Do you like and can you relate to the leaders? Are they supportive and helpful? Can they lead you to success?

3. Is the product needed, compelling, credible, and something you can be passionate about?

4. Are you willing to invest the time, effort, and money in my training and in the promotion of my business that it will take to succeed? Am you willing to take ownership of the responsibility for your own success?

5. Are you willing to grow, change, and be challenged? Can you take direction, criticism, and help?

6. Is the compensation system sound and is it something that rewards success and organizational growth?

7. Do you like people or are you willing to learn to like people?

8. Are you willing to put in one full year of effort before assessing success or failure?

If you can answer most of those questions affirmatively, here are some reasons I believe you should give it a shot:

* Network marketing is based upon the Golden Rule - It is about helping other people. The mentor does not benefit from the person being mentored unless he or she helps that person become successful. He does not give advice that is not to the mutual benefit of both.

* Network marketing is based upon a multiplication of influence model. A person becomes effective by leveraging time and influence and developing leaders.

* Network marketing is a way of helping people develop their fullest potential, to do what others say can't be done.* Network marketing helps people develop character. Unless there is character development, success is unlikely.

* Network marketing thrives is an atmosphere of integrity, honesty, and excellence. Since it utilizes word of mouth as its primary means of advertising, it is absolutely necessary to maintain a high regard for truth and quality.

* Network marketing rewards effort. It thrives on the law of sowing and reaping.

* Network marketing promotes personal growth, reading, education, and acquisition of new skills.

* Network marketing is an arena where people are valued and people skills are taught. Relationships are nurtured and cherished.

* Network marketing provides an opportunity for developing new relationships which are essential in any model of success.

* Network marketing promotes principles of good stewardship, generosity, and delayed gratification.

* Network marketing helps people get out of debt and promotes a healthy view of credit and debt.

* Network marketing teaches punctuality, reliability, and leadership, as well as other skills that are transferable to other areas of life.

* Network marketing provides a platform for successful people to reach vast audiences with their message.

* Network marketing teaches people to dream great dreams, to build faith, and to have hope.

* Network marketing helps people become financially free to support worthwhile causes.

* Network marketing helps people reach the place where they will not become financially dependent upon their children and society in their old age.

* Network marketing teaches respect, good etiquette, and consideration of others.

* Network marketing gives people back their times so that they can do the things with their lives that they were born to do, whether that is more time with family, service, or community work.

Many wonderful products and services are offered today through multi-level networks (Really, all businesses are multi-level). Find the team and product that is right for you and give it your all.