After watching the Will Smith movie "The Pursuit Of Happyness", a movie based on the real-life story of Chris Gardner, I just felt like I wanted to read more and learn more about him.
The book "The Pursuit Of Happyness" (from which the movie was based on) chronicles Chris Gardner's life and his remarkable journey to wealth and fame.
We start with Chris and his difficult childhood - how he was moved from home to home not really knowing who his real father was. For a time, his mother spent time in jail and Chris would eventually have to live life with a violent and abusive stepfather and would learn several important lessons along the way.
Having to rough it out in his tough neighborhood, Chris kept his head on straight for the most part, but occasionally got himself into trouble. As Chris grew older, he started a medical career and when things didn't pan out, he eventually found himself homeless with his son living on the streets of San Fransisco.
It wasn't until one day he happen to come across a business man in a Ferrari and upon learning that this business man was a stock broker, he set out to become one.
Despite having no knowledge in the field, he overcame countless challenges and his fierce determination finally got him where he wanted to go.
This is truly an inspiring and just goes to show you that with dogged determination, we can all be whatever we want to be.
Chris Gardner is now a very successful broker and founded a multi-million dollar brokerage firm.
If you read the book "The Pursuit Of Happyness", you'll quickly learn that the movie was heavily changed and a lot was modified from the book.
First things first, the reason I was really interested in both the movie and the book was because I thought it would chronicle more about how he made it as a broker, which interests me a lot since I am in the same field.
The movie does a pretty good job in showing how he did it, but I would say that only a quarter of the book was dedicated to describing his claim to fame.
Most of the book mainly describes his difficult childhood and rather difficult years as a young adult. I do understand that the book is more of a biography than anything else and by dedicating so much of the book on his difficult past definitely helps you feel just how far he came along to get to where he wanted to go.
But my main interest was his journey to get from living on the streets to multi-million dollar broker and unfortunately you won't find much in the book. In fact, the movie probably does a better job of showing the rags-to-riches transition than the book did.
Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and Chris is living proof that if you put your mind into anything, you can accomplish anything.
- One of those inspiring stories that just goes to show you that anything is possible
- For those who watched the movie, this book is like the DVD bonus in that it goes much deeper into just how difficult Chris's past really was
- For those looking for a story that parallels the movie will be disappointed as it is very different from the movie
- Not for the faint of heart - there is quite a bit of profanity and it is also quite graphic as well
6 Out Of 10
