The deets:

• Starbucks in North Austin
• 3:30pm
• 100+ degrees outside therefore iced coffee for both of us

Background: I met Deep at the Entrepreneurship class I am taking from Gary Hoover and decided he seemed like the perfect person to kick this coffee thing off.

What did I learn?  A lot.  Here’s some of what I walked away with.

• College really isn’t for everyone.
• Travel allows you to view everything through a different lens.
• Learning to do more with less gives you freedom that goes beyond money.
• We are all far more the same than we are different.
• Deep has no interest in me being his intern.

With the exception of the last one, these were all really fascinating lessons that Deep shared through his answers to my overly thought out interview questions.  A few other surprises include his biggest travel lesson, how he believes we can end war and a daily activity he says is a huge factor in his success.

The interview kicked off with the obligatory chit chat of two people somewhat awkwardly brought together by randomness.  Deep will later share with me that what’s most memorable about him is the very thing I’m about to expereince.  He has an ability to connect easily and relate well to others.  In fact, making friends is something he has always done effortlessly.  This is no doubt a contributing factor to him being a quite well known character in the Austin scene.  His fan club includes elected officials (such as the mayor!), one of the biggest real estate moguls in the US and countless local business owners-just to paint the picture.  Lucky me!  First interview and I chose the guy who knows the entire city. He is modest about his success and I spent the entire 1.5 hours eager to hear more; feeling more like I was having coffee with an old friend than a virtual stranger.

College was a complete waste of time, according to Mr. Nasta.  Now that’s not something you often hear, but I suspect a sentiment shared quietly by many.  I found this out when I asked him what the happiest day of his life was.  His answer-college graduation.  Not because he was excited about the future before him that his degree had opened up.  Instead, he was just glad it was finally over.

Deep adamantly told me that he is convinced college made him less creative and far less entrepreneurial than he was when he began or would have been if he’d never gone.

I tried the old cliches I often turn to when trying to make myself feel good about my 4 (OK, 5) years and $30+K spent on my degree such as:

• Well, college is really an exercise in finishing something you’ve started.  It shows you can commit and complete that which you set out to do. NOPE!
• Oh, well certainly you made some great friends and contacts that are valuable beyond a price tag.  UH, NO!
• Living on Top Ramen and Sunny Delight must have taught you financial lessons about how to live cheaply.  ACTUALLY, WRONG!

He shot down every suggested value with such passion that it became obvious there would be no changing his mind.  For Deep, college simply had no value at all and no matter how hard he or anyone else tried to find it, there was no silver lining.

Fresh out of college, Deep got into Real Estate and bought his first house for $50K, added $40K in improvements and then sold it for $150K.  The day it sold, he started the day with a balance in his bank account of $6.00 and lucky for him, ended the day with $60,006.00.  He literally was out of money and almost out of luck.  Launching off of that success, he reinvested the money and did it again and then again.  He also began selling Real Estate as an agent and banking away his commission checks.  This is what allowed Deep from ages 22 until roughly 35 to travel the world.  In total, he visited over 40 countries mostly solo – making friends in each new spot he landed.

Travel taught him many valuable life lessons that are obviously at the core of the man he is today.  The biggest is also his idea for ending war.  Deep found himself sitting at a table in a hostel with people from every country you can imagine.  As they sat exchanging stories it occurred to him that there would be no war if the leaders of every country would sit around a table just as he and his fellow travelers were and swap life stories.  Deep had learned we (humans) are all exactly the same-regardless of where our passports originate.  He used Iraq as an example and talked about how it’s easy for us to sit in the US and villainize people we don’t know.  But the truth is, the mothers there cry just as much when their sons are killed as American mothers do.  As I considered this I was saddened by the obvious truth of it.

Travel also reinforced something Deep had learned at a young age (but NOT in college) and that was the skill of doing more with less.  He lived out of a rolling suitcase (for reasons unknown, he detests backpacks. I failed as a reporter to get to the bottom of that mystery). Trotting across the globe, everything that mattered could fit in an overhead bin and Deep found a freedom there that carries over into his life today.  He reflected that compared to the majority of the rest of the people on this planet, Americans are ridiculously wasteful and far too consumeristic.  I know he’s right.

I promised a travel tip, didn’t I?  As mentioned above, Deep stayed in hostels when he traveled.  For many years he selected the hostel that was listed in the travel guides as “quiet” and shyed away from the “party hostels”.  What he realized, a bit late in his adventures, was that he met way more people and did way more stuff when he stayed at the party spot.  So his lesson was – nap and read when you get home from your trip.  While you are there, spend every moment soaking it up, experience everything you can and make friends with everyone you encounter.  You will never regret any of that.

Success.  It’s a topic that I find fascinating.  I’m curious what people do that contributes to their success.  For Deep, it’s pretty simple (as the best success tips generally are).  First, he is a big list maker.  And list completer.  He works off a to-do list and always makes sure he completes the biggest stuff first. Or as Brian Tracy would say, he eats the frog.  I will use my meeting with Deep inspire me to be better at that.  I tend to ignore, trip over and often flee from the frog.

Deep has a theory that people fall into one of three categories.  Complacent (75-80% of folks), incompetent (about 10-15%) and competent (roughly 10%).  He prides himself on being the latter and says if you ask him to do something, he will get it done.  It may not be the very best execution but he will competently complete the task.  Success is about showing up and as Deep says, as simple as it sounds, his success is about not screwing up.

At this point, you might be thinking, “This Deep guy is pretty cool!  I too am pretty cool.  I think Deep would enjoy having me around.  I should offer to work for free in exchange for learning from him.”  Well, let me save you the embarrassment. First off, you are not the first person to ask (in fact at least one person asked him just yesterday!).  Second of all, he has no interest in having an intern, so move on.  The best I can offer is for you to go back and re-read, as many times as you like, this blog post.  Perhaps after a while it will feel like you were there and you can feel as though you were a part of the magic.  The only other option I can give you is to check out his page on Facebook, CheapDeep, for money saving tips on pretty much anything you can imagine. Also a really cool illusion thing (look for the black and white pic of a girl).

Who will I meet next week?  Only one way to find out.  Check back and read all about it here.  Until then, be cool and be interesting!