Chris Gardner

The secret to success: find something you love to do so much, you can't wait for the sun to rise to do it all over again.

You know how mountains get moved? Everyone who can move a couple, move a couple. Those who can move rocks, move rocks. Those who can move boulders, move boulders. That\'s how mountains get moved. If every one of us did everything we could, I believe we would be in a different world.

Others may question your credentials, your papers, your degrees. Others may look for all kinds of ways to diminish your worth. But what is inside you no one can take from you or tarnish. This is your worth, who you really are, your degree that can go with you wherever you go, that you bring with you the moment you come into a room, that can\'t be manipulated or shaken. Without that sense of self, no amount of paper, no pedigree, and no credentials can make you legit. No matter what, you have to feel legit inside first.

You have to be bold because there will be folks who will say, \"You can\'t\" or \"You shouldn\'t\" or \"Why?\" There is a certain boldness to saying, \"Well, I really don\'t want to be a high-powered corporate lawyer. I\'m really passionate about painting.\"

I just wanted to make a million dollars. But I couldn\'t sing and I couldn\'t play ball, so I said to my mother, \'How am I going to make a million dollars?\' And she said to me, \'Son, if you believe you can do it, you will.\'

But if you don't take the necessary steps to make them happen, dreams are just mirages that mess with your head!

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

Don\'t ever be afraid to hire people that are smarter than you. Just because they are smarter than you doesn\'t mean they have to make more money.

When you tell your kids they can be anything, you\'ve got to be careful. I told my kids that, and I ended up with a music producer and an interior designer. But they\'re doing it.

I\'ve created the life I wanted.

Business school professors don\'t take selling seriously because they don\'t know how to sell. It\'s easy to talk about business theory and production time and just-in-time development. Selling is much more difficult.

I\'ve been saying to people for a long time, \'If you\'re not doing something you\'re tremendously excited about, and you\'re not feeling passionate about it, you\'re compromising yourself every day.\'

I do one thing - I don\'t do it on purpose - but I always make other guys look underdressed.

Salespeople are the most important people in any organization. Until a salesperson gets an order, nobody in the company has a job.

I\'ve never considered selling anything other than profession, but it\'s more than that. It\'s one of the highest callings that you can aspire to. Not everyone can do it.

The people who care the most about the folks in your community are living in the community. They don\'t live in Washington, D.C.

Unfortunately, some of the best fathers are mothers.

Finding gainful employment to pay for housing is hard for any veteran experiencing homelessness. It\'s even more difficult for veterans who\'ve also had encounters with police and stints in jail.

I was blessed to have the guys at Bear Stearns as mentors. They taught me a lot, but most of all, they taught me that there\'s nothing wrong with selling if you\'re selling the right product to the right person.

Passion is everything. In fact, you\'ve got to be borderline fanatical about what you do.

If you\'re passionate about something, you can develop the abilities.

Passion is not something you have to talk about. People feel it.

Passion is the thing that won\'t let you sleep at night because you want to get up in the morning and go do your thing.

When I was a kid, we played a jump rope game called double Dutch - where you had to jump over two ropes swinging in opposite directions. Picking just the right moment to jump in was a practiced art form.

I had never gone to college. I was not from a politically connected family. I had no money of my own. Who is going to do business with you?

We can all look to our friends, family, and those we admire for inspiration.

I also often hear people say that the deck is stacked against them because of racism, sexism, or other oppressive \'isms.\' But once you let go of the blame and excuses, you\'ll see that you can alter your position on your own.

Don\'t wait for the perfect time to start making changes to your life; the time is now.

Just remember, you\'re never too old to have a hero.

I\'ve been talking to a lot of young people, especially here in America. I let them know that the people who they\'re competing with for opportunities live all over the place. They\'re probably not in your city, state, or country; they are hungry, and they are grinding! Some of the things that a lot of us take for granted, these people don\'t.