Going into my senior year of college, I found myself sitting on the deck of one of the most beautiful homes I had ever seen. It was nestled on Seattle Sound with a massive rolling lawn leading down to a private dock. Apparently, a Roosevelt once owned the property. It was gorgeous.
My friend’s Dad came out to join us. As there had been a fair amount of conversation about what we were all gonna choose for a career after graduation, I took the opportunity to ask the dad how he made his wealth and if he had any career advice for me.
He looked at me thoughtfully, stared out at his beautiful water view for what seemed like a minute, smiled, and turned towards me and said, “One man’s garbage is another man’s gold Eric!”
He then proceeded to tell me a story when he was just a year or two older than I was, starting out in commercial real estate in Seattle after graduating college.
He said he had a boss that was a major asshole. Every day he would hurl insults at all the newbies. He would demand to know what they were doing to generate new leads.
To show off, he would pull a stack of business cards from his drawer that he had gathered networking around town, and hurl them at whoever was the target of his scorn that day.
He  wanted us to believe that he was such a sensational networker that he could afford to give up stacks of leads and still hit his sales quota every month.
My colleagues whispered to me that these were his shitty leads. They all told me they were a waste of time and that they would just throw them in the garbage.
One day it was my turn. I got a stack of thirty business cards chucked at me. Instead of following my colleagues advice, I decided to be proactive and call every single lead. On the 27th card in the stack, somebody finally answered.
“This is Bill.” a young man answered.
I said, are you still looking for office space?
“Yes I am”, the lead replied. “My partner and I just moved to Seattle and are looking for our first office space here. Can you help?”
Absolutely Bill, how much square footage are you looking for?
Not only did I get Bill Gates and Paul Allen their first office space for their startup Microsoft, they utilized me for all their office spaces over the next 25 years of their growth.”
After I heard this story, we just sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Both looking out at the amazing view without a single follow up question needed. He gave me exactly the wisdom I was seeking.
