Dr. Nido Qubein is an accomplished university president and a nationally recognized author, speaker, and leader. He came to the United States with only $50 in his pocket and a few words of English in his vocabulary. Yet, he went on to become one of America's most sought-after speakers and consultants. As the president of High Point University in High Point, North Carolina, in less than a decade, he has led the institution to phenomenal growth and significant academic advancement, tripling its size and moving it to the number one spot among best colleges in the south.
As an American citizen, President Qubein has been the recipient of some of the highest national awards, including induction into the Horatio Alger Association for Distinguished Americans with Gen. Colin Powell and Oprah Winfrey. He is the son of a Lebanese mother and a Jordanian father, the youngest of five children in his family. His father passed away when he was only 6. His mother, who had little education, raised him and his siblings. He says, “She had the wisdom of the ages,” and would tell her children that being poor was a temporary condition. “You may be poor in your pocket, but you can always be wealthy in your heart.”
(We invite you to listen to the conversation between Crystal Thornton and Dr. Nido Qubein in the podcast below.)
Crystal: Dr. Qubein, you have quite the testimony that has inspired so many. When I hear you speak about your mother, I hear the honor, and the love that you had for her. She was the reason you came to America in the first place. Would you share how that happened?
Dr. Qubein: “Well, my dad died, as you said when I was 6 years of age. That was a major turning point for me. He left my mom with five kids, and she had to find a job. She was only fourth-grade educated, and she had to work hard to feed us, and clothe us, and mostly plant seeds of greatness in our hearts. For example, my mother taught me the three most important lessons I learned in my life:
'Who you spend time with is who you become.
What you choose is what you get.
How you change is how you succeed.’
And I've attempted to live my life in her legacy, in a way that can pay tribute to these important points, wise points as they were. Then when I was 17, she borrowed money and sent me to America on a one-way ticket to go to college to improve my future. You can just imagine landing in America. This is way back in the late sixties when you didn't have media that showed you the whole world as it happens, so to speak. And I was lonely, and sad, and homesick, and had to work my way through college, which was pretty tough. I went undergrad and grad, and upon graduating from graduate school, I started my own business with $500 I'd saved a penny at a time, and the rest is history.”
Crystal: A rich history for sure. You chose to attend Mount Olive College (Mount Olive, North Carolina) because its name reminded you of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Faith has been an integral part of your life's journey, hasn't it?
Dr. Qubein: “Yes, I believe that if you have faith, and if you have courage, and you put the two together, you have faithful courage. And with faithful courage, and living in the right sector, you surround yourself with the right people, make the right choices, life is filled with opportunity. So, I like to say, ‘There’s no such thing as unrealistic dreams, only realistic timelines.’ The circumstances in which you find yourself today, do not determine where you end up. They only tell us where you start. I believe, Crystal, in the art of the possible, that we were created for a purpose, that God breathed in our lives, and in our nostrils, and gave us life so we can be extraordinary. But becoming extraordinary is a choice, and that choice demands a degree of determination, tenacity, resilience, and certainly faithful courage.”
Crystal: You went on to become a sought-after motivational speaker and corporate consultant. Thanks in part to a Mr. Ben B. Franklin from Topeka, Kansas. He was the president of the Association Dinner Clubs across America, also known as the Executive Clubs. That was another turning point for you.
Dr. Qubein: “I was young. I was in my mid-20s, and I spoke at a speaker showcase where a bureau got a bunch of speakers together and they gave us 10 minutes to share our best material, and there were people in the audience who could then book you. And I was innocent and ignorant all at the same time, but I did that. I spoke and maybe Franklin was in the audience, and he liked me very much. He was booking speakers to speak at Executive’s Clubs across America, where people paid money to go have dinner and listen to a speaker. But of course, with the advent of television and access to the world through radio and print, then slowly and surely these clubs disappeared.
And so no, they're not in business. But Crystal, I did 200 of those across the country. It was the impetus and the groundwork for people to hear me speak. And then eventually corporate people who were in the audience started asking me to go speak to their companies. And then one thing led to another. Of course, as you know, I started many businesses thereafter.”
Crystal: High point University's success since you've been there is “Evidence of God at work.” That's the way you describe it. Would you elaborate on that?
Dr. Qubein: “I came in 2005. I was going to be a chairman of the board. I didn't want to be president. I owned businesses and I was traveling around the world. But I felt led to come here and try to fix High Point. High Point at the time was not doing well. We only had 370 freshmen, losing about 20% a year, and only 1,400 students, only three academic schools, only 91 acres landlocked. And so, they asked me to come, lest the school find the same result and end as so many colleges today are finding. They are closing, or they're going bankrupt, or cutting programs, et cetera. So, I came here, and I said, ‘We need to raise some money, and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to challenge us to raise $10 million in the next 60 days.’ But as it turned out, we raised $20 million, in half of that (time). Since then, of course, we've raised almost a billion dollars, built 108 new buildings, went from 90 acres to 600 acres, from three academic schools to 14 academic schools including pharmacy, and law, and dental medicine, optometry, all of that. And today we have 6,400 students who hail from 50 countries in 50 states, another 2,300 employees, and another 100,000 visitors to campus every year. We are now a thriving institution with an enormously powerful future. But it all began because I believed it, and I managed to get enough people around me to believe it. And today, people step up and step out to help us achieve our goal. When I came here, I said, okay, I'll do it for two years. Here I am 20 years later. We have a great team here, and they're doing great work.
You talk about turning points. Things happen in life for a reason. We have to have open hearts to receive those, and not so much to always be logical about everything. Logically, that wasn't a good decision for me because I was making more money and all of that, but emotionally it has been the right way to do it.”
Crystal: You have said the influence you have with people and the impact that you leave behind, are the most important things in life. Your influence has had an extreme impact on the students at High Point University, the faculty and staff, as well as the city of High Point itself. When did you know that your ideas would be successful?
Dr. Qubein: “I think the single most important skill anybody could possibly have, is risk management. Your ability to manage a risk, empowers you to take a risk. If you don't know how to deal with a risk, you'll never take a risk. Which means, you'll never step out of your boat, and figuratively speaking, attempt to do something uniquely different.
For me, it was all about managing risks well. I am not an optimist. I'm a paranoid optimist. While I have optimism in my heart. I also, always have a slight degree of concern that something might not work out. Because as long as you have a slight degree of concern, then you will do everything you can to ensure that the concern doesn't come to be. And that's kind of what really led me, if you will. Now, what happens in life, is when you achieve something and you succeed at it, you tend to achieve something else perhaps bigger, and deeper, and wider, and more impactful. And then you succeed at that, then you'll take another possibility. And that's what happens to me. What happened at High Point, yes, we've grown in this enormous way, but we did not do it in one month, clearly. We did one thing at a time, and now we can do three or four things at a time. And that's the nature of life. If we understand that principle, that you can have a metamorphosis in your life, a transformation in your life. If you're willing to let all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle work together intentionally in a congruent manner. It takes courage, and it takes faith. But one without the other is incomplete. You have to have both of them, so that you can get going.
But you know what? I never sit back in my chair and say, ‘We have arrived.’ I never say, ‘Oh, we are the best.’ I never say, ‘There's nothing else for us to do.’ I always get up in the morning saying, 'What does the future have, and how can we strategically position ourselves in it well.' And every night before I go to sleep, I ask a question, ‘What did I learn today I did not know yesterday?’ That allows me to dissect what happened in the day, extract something worthwhile from it, and then do something with it in my life. The next day, I get up and with the armament, if you will, to move onwards and upwards, perhaps in ways that most other people would not be daring to do. Whatever it is you want to do in life, learn to do it in a fluid, fluent and flowing manner, and you will see that people will be a path to your door.
It's a blessing to live in America. It's a blessing to have good health. It's a blessing to have a professional career in which you can influence people and impact their life. I get up every morning and can't wait to get to the office and get things going. And I think that's a mindset. I think that's an attitude. I think that's a spirit that a person has. And if you think about what my mother said, ‘Who you spend time with is who you become.’ What she really meant is ‘Wherever you choose to reside, that locale influences, and affects, and transforms who you are as human being.’”
Crystal: The motto at High Point University is “Choose To Be Extraordinary.” How does High Point University help prepare its students to be extraordinary compared to other institutions of higher learning?
Dr. Qubein: “That’s a great question. There are four pillars that we work on here every day. The first one is values. We're a God, family, country, school. We honor the nation in which we reside. We honor the God that we believe in. We're an inclusive university. Of course, we have people of all religions and perhaps no religions, but we as an institution stand on these pillars. Second, this is the “Premier Life Skills University.” So, it's not just what you learn inside the classroom, but it is what you can do with it when you exit the classroom. And that's my way of saying the academic piece is imperative, it's foundational. But then we bring in these in-residence professionals here, like the founder of Apple Computer, the founder of Netflix, the chairman of AT&T, and the chairman of Domino's Pizza. They come and teach our students every semester. They meet with students, and they instruct students. That's real-life learning. So, if you can take the academic piece, which is the Mona Lisa, and you can wrap it up with a practical piece, which is what you're going to do in life, you got a great combination. That's why we're the Premier Lfe Skills University. The third one, outcomes. 99% of our students get a job, start a business, or go to graduate school within six months of graduation. The average nationally is 84%. We have a 99% rate, which is astounding. And the last one is responsiveness. We pride ourselves on being responsive. A mom can call us from anywhere to check on something or another. There's responsiveness of people here who abide by the “Sundown Rule": answer every email, answer every phone call by sundown every day. When people feel that you listen, you care and you respond, magic happens. So those are the things that we do, not just as a brand statement, but as vertical, and diagonal parts of our ecosystem. And that is embedded in every department, every classroom, every subject, and every person.
Crystal: You say "Life is not about giving back. Life is about giving." I know philanthropy is also a part of the HPU experience. "To whom much is given, much is required." That is something else that you live by.
Dr. Qubein: When we talk about giving, that means we give the way we love our children. It's unconditional. If you say, well, that school is being good to me, so I want to give back, you're missing the whole point. If you give back, that means you have a duty of giving back. Like you have a loan with the bank, and you have to pay it back. But to give unconditionally is wonderful. I live by the words of the Scottish theologian, William Barkley, who said, always give without remembering, always receive without forgetting.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Nido Qubein and his story visit https://www.nidoqubein.com.