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“My first ambition in life was to be Miles Davis,” recalls Gardner. “I didn’t want to be a trumpet player, an artist or a jazz musician – I literally wanted to be Miles. My mom said to me, ‘Baby, you can’t be Miles. There ain’t but one, and he got that job.’ But I made a commitment at an early age that I wanted to be world class at something,”
Before realizing that his dream of becoming Miles Davis was unattainable, Gardner had spent nine years studying trumpet. “I wanted to be world class at it or world class at something,” he recalls. “At 18, Miles Davis was in New York playing with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. At the same age, I was playing with some cats named Pookie and Ray Ray. It wasn’t going to happen.”
Gardner attributes his rise to the top to his mother and her “spiritual genetics”, which encouraged Gardner to dream big dreams for himself and strive to become the best. “We all understand genetics,” says Gardner. “You get your eyes from your dad, your mom’s nose, there’s nothing you can do about that. But your spiritual genetics you can choose, pick, embrace and commit to. That’s what I did.”
Gardner’s mother was a natural born teacher; she both loved doing it and did it well. But, after being abandoned by her husband, she found herself in the position of having to care for 12 children all on her own. She sacrificed her dream of teaching to take numerous part-time jobs that could better support the family. “Though my mom had too many of her own dreams denied, deferred and destroyed, she instilled in me that I could have dreams,” says Gardner. “And not just have dreams but had a responsibility to make them reality. My mom taught me from a very early age that I could do anything I wanted to do.”
One day while the two were watching a college basketball game, Gardner said, “Wow, one day those guys are going to make a million dollars.” His mother replied, “Son, if you want to, one day you could make a million dollars.” Gardner recalls being stunned after hearing that statement. “Until she said it, it wasn’t a possibility. I always knew I wanted to be world class at something. I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t run and catch a ball, and I couldn’t dance. But I was pretty good at reading and writing. So that was my ticket.”
To this day, Gardner maintains the attitude that not only can he do anything he sets his mind to, but he can succeed and become the very best at it. “We bag elephants,” Gardner says of the high-powered investment deals he negotiates on daily basis. “That's our motto. We go after the big deals because it takes just as much effort to land a $500 account as it does to land a $5 million one.”
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