Chris Gardner Quotes

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Chris Gardner

Profession : Businessman

Birth : February 9, 1954

My mom had to be resourceful. She grew up dirt poor in rural Louisiana.

Chris Gardner

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

Chris Gardner

Be bold enough to find the one thing that you are passionate about. It might not be what you were trained to do. But be bold enough to do the one thing. Nobody needs to dig it but you.

Chris Gardner

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

Chris Gardner

I say to people all the time, it is OK to fail. Some of the greatest successes in the history of America started out as failures.

Chris Gardner

I've created the life I wanted.

Chris Gardner

I've never been big on sports coats and pants. I'm a suit guy. It makes it clear who's in charge.

Chris Gardner

I'm a Levi's guy.

Chris Gardner

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

Chris Gardner

One time, I was going to be in L.A. for 10 days for a business conference, and I took eight different pairs of sandals.

Chris Gardner

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.'

Chris Gardner

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.

Chris Gardner

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

Chris Gardner

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.

Chris Gardner

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.

Chris Gardner

I grew up without a father.

Chris Gardner

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.

Chris Gardner

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.

Chris Gardner

Unfortunately, some of the best fathers are mothers.

Chris Gardner

A father is everything in the world.

Chris Gardner