PANDEMIC
PIMPING
This talk confronts a hard truth leaders and organizations are still grappling with: who benefited, who paid the price, and what was learned—or ignored—when the world shut down. Chris Gardner challenges executives and workforces to examine decisions made under pressure, the human cost behind them, and what responsible leadership truly looks like moving forward.
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CULTURAL IMPACT
Chris Gardner’s influence extends far beyond the page and the stage. His life, values, and decisions have shaped conversations in film, education, leadership, and public life—reaching audiences globally.
The Pursuit of Happyness
THE FILM
Adapted from Chris Gardner’s life, The Pursuit of Happyness became a global cultural touchstone. The film introduced hundreds of millions to a story rooted in responsibility, perseverance, and choice—earning critical acclaim and Academy Award–level recognition. More than entertainment, it remains a reference point for resilience, leadership, and what it means to endure with purpose.
We are excited to announce a partnership with the AFL-CIO
PERMISSION 2 DREAM
The Chris Gardner Foundation is committed to ensuring the vision: that everyone has Permission to Dream. Through our Back-2-School program, Chris speaks to our country’s next generation of leaders about how to set and obtain life goals. Chris shares personal life and financial lessons via personal speaking engagements and ongoing virtual support.
VIEW FOUNDATION
2021
Permission to Dream
On a winter’s day, Chris Gardner set off with his nine-year-old granddaughter Brooke to find the harmonica of her dreams. The search sends them North “beyond the wall” into a foreboding Chicago neighborhood and, soon, on a harrowing adventure that will change both of their lives—and ours.
BUY NOW AT AMAZON
2006
The Pursuit of Happyness: An NAACP Image Award Winner
At the age of twenty, Milwaukee native Chris Gardner, just out of the Navy, arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm than Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him as part of the city's working homeless and with a toddler son.
2010
Start Where You Are
Ever since the story of his transformation from homeless, single and struggling father to millionaire became known the world over, Chris Gardner --whose life story both inspired the movie The Pursuit of Happyness and became a #1 New York Times bestseller by the same name--has been inundated with two questions: “How Did You Do It” and “How Can I Do it Too?” Gardner's power-packed, transformational reply is the basis of this long-anticipated book.
