Welcome to the Reboot Chronicles, connecting you to the world's top leaders and CEOs rebooting their organizations and themselves with revealing stories to help you prosper in unprecedented times.
I'm your host, Dean Tobias, and as a serial CEO who's led dozens of companies that created thousands of jobs and billions in revenue, my passion is uncovering powerful lessons that can inspire you to reboot your organization, your career, and your life.
Listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts, or at rebootchronicles.com. I'd like to welcome author, educator, and philanthropist, Dr. Nito Kubain, a passionate advocate for the development of future leaders.
Nito is president of High Point University and the hardest working inspirational leader I know who has reboot lessons for all of us here today.
His mission aligns pretty coolly with the Reboot Chronicles, being very serious about building businesses, experiential learning, leadership, mentoring, civic roles, and most importantly, inspiring the next generation.
Nehru has transformed High Point into a world-class university, attracting a half a billion in philanthropic investments and growing net assets to over a billion dollars, creating an amazing campus with about a hundred new buildings that inspire and deliver a remarkable student and faculty experience.
I also like that they focus on life skills with experiential education, holistic values-based learning, but they also have dozens of global leaders and CEOs like me popping in regularly to speak, teach, and prepare students to not just be successful, but to basically have some significance in their lives.
Nito's an award-winning civic leader who's served on dozens of nonprofit corporate and Fortune 500 boards like Truist Bank, Lazy Boy, Savista, and the executive chairman of the Great Harvest Bread Company.
Best-selling author, his latest book, Extraordinary Transformation, which chronicles his high-point journey, is chock-full of lessons for you to reboot your organization as he unpacks how he leads his team to nurture God, family, and country.
Nito, it's good to see you.Good to see you, Dean.Pleasure to be with you.
Yeah, it's great to have you on.And I've always been a fan of High Point.I won't make that a secret.So you've got that going for you.
But more, I'm just always impressed by having been an educator in higher ed for years, but also been on a couple of the educational boards.Not the easiest business model in the world these days.And it's been
Really impressive and documented what you've done and i'm mostly curious what that leadership journey has been like for you and your team because you, you've done the ultimate reboot the numbers are i couldn't spend half an hour reading your opening if i could but the numbers are off the charts what you've done and created there.
Well, listen, we've been blessed and highly favored, to say the least.I always say, if something is easy to do, anybody could do it.So clearly, everything has challenges built into it.Everything has opportunities built into it.
And when you have faith, And when you have courage and you put the two together, you have faithful courage, you can move mountains.So I've always believed there's no such thing as unrealistic dreams, only unrealistic timelines.
And, you know, I like to say that the circumstances in which we find ourselves do not define where we end up. They only determine where we start.So you can imagine I'm a believer in the art of the possible.
I believe all things are possible for those who are willing to work hard enough and smart enough.Now, you know, Dean, I was in business for 35 years, so I built six different businesses. I was one of America's busiest speakers and consultants.
I've consulted with some of the major corporations of our nation and beyond.So I was going to be the incoming chairman of the board at Haipo University.That was in 2004.They asked me to come and be president because the school wasn't doing well.
But probably in 08, 09 with the Great Recession, we may have disappeared, frankly.And so reluctantly, I came here.I never wanted to be a president of a school.That was never really my desire.But I went to High Point for my junior and senior years.
And yeah, and I was, you know, the incoming chairman.So I said, okay, you know, I actually, what I did, this is interesting.I didn't say, okay, I, as I said in the book, I said, no, let me, let me think about this.Let me pray about this.
It took me a long time actually.And what I did is I spoke to half a dozen of my CEO buddies, people I was doing work with, And all of them said, you should do it.
You should do it because you can constructively and positively disrupt some of this stuff and create perhaps, if not an anomaly, certainly a highly distinctive university.And I believed them.You know how you believe people.
So I came here with faith and maybe a degree of ignorance, I'll admit. And my goodness, when I got in here, I realized, my Lord, I have a big mountain to climb.We had 100 faculty members.We had three academic schools.We were landlocked 91 acres.
We had $120 million deferred maintenance.Our revenues were $28 million. And we have 1,400, 1,450 students.Just contrast that.Today, by the way, I came agreeing to do it for two years.I fell in love.I fell in love with the students.
I understood there's a big difference between the word legacy and the word impact.Legacy is what people think about you.Impact is what they feel because they crossed your path.
And so I said, you know, I could really make some impact on the lives of these young people.Because after all, I came to America with no money, no English, no connections, and I was able to succeed in this nation.
I know a thing or two, because I've done a thing or two, and maybe I can share that with them.So today, 20 years later.That's a long two years there.
20 years later, we went from three academic schools to 14, including law, pharmacy, engineering, dental medicine.You get the idea.This is serious stuff.And we went from 91 acres to 600 acres in the middle of a city, mind you.
And we went from 100 factor number to 500, revenues from 28 million to half a billion, and no deferred maintenance.We fixed all that. And our net assets, as you said, have grown to more than $1.3 billion.It has been a remarkable success story.
I think more in spite of me than because of me.Maybe what I did was to create a culture and inspire people to believe that we can do something, and then to execute on it consistently, passionately, and unconditionally.
And I think that's what happened.
And you have this thing about you, this authentic engagement, I guess, is the only word I can come up with.Because I've seen you walking around campus and just people come alive, as do you.
It's not just, hey, how you doing, walking by like most college presidents.The interesting thing is while you did all that, by the way, two years turns into 20.That's rare.Most CEOs don't stay that long, chief executives.
But while you've done that, most higher ed institutions have either suffered, there's you know, the haves and the have nots.Many have gone out of business.
The little liberal arts schools, like, you know, 400, 480, 480 schools in the last seven years have shut down.
Wow.Worse than I thought.And you went from a tiny little school, kind of like Lake Forest College, where I was on the board to, um, you know, a major global player that, um,
I don't even know how you choose who gets in school, because you have an overcapacity of applications, I'm sure.But if you had to give some of these other schools advice, and I'm sure they call you, please come and turn around my institution.
What would you tell them?
Well, 450 institutions have come to visit me.And the question is always the same.How did you do it?How did you get the board to agree to it?Where did you find the money?The usual questions.I should tell you that
You know, we have been ranked now by the Princeton Review, a very prestigious source, as the number one, best one college in America, by U.S.News & World Report as the number one, best college in the categories, best colleges in the South.
I saw that.14 years running, number one, most innovative school.We have grown, Dean, by design and on merit. What I would say to other schools, I'm very saddened when I see a school closed down.
I showed my faculty and staff at opening this year about more than a hundred schools that just shut down in the last two years or so.It's very, very sad.It's not something we want to see because a lot of students to be educated.
We want to see schools thriving and doing great.Having said that, The world is changing.I have served on many corporate boards, as you know, the fifth largest financial institution in the country, Truist, Lazy Boy, Savista, Great Harvest, et cetera.
I can tell you the world is changing in industry and in business, but the world is really changing. in terms of the competitive terrain, the world is flat, as Tom Friedman taught us all.
And the reality of it, if you don't transform your model to deal with this ever-changing, ever-competitive marketplace, you will be left behind.And what we did at High Point is we reinvented ourselves.So we don't swim in an ocean of sameness.
We don't swim in a lake of differentiation.We swim in a small pool of distinction.We have managed to find a way that puts us in a small category and people are flocking to us.
20,000 students applied this year to our freshman class, 30,000 in total with graduate school.We just opened up this year, largest freshman class, largest enrollment.
Freshman class, by the way, is larger than the entire population that was here when I arrived in 05. and the total population is roughly 6,400.But numbers are not everything.
It's your capacity to administer and manage an institution that is fiscally responsible, that has a future view for growth, appropriate and responsible growth, that has a comprehension of risk management, single most important skill any executive can have, risk management.
I like to ask people this question, Dean. Why do you think you have brakes on your car?And people say, well, so I can stop the car.No, that's not why you have brakes.Because when they first invented cars, the car could go five miles an hour.
You could open the door, put your foot out, and put it on the ground and stop the car.Or you can get out of the car and go in front of it and stop it.The reason you have brakes on your car is so you can go fast.That's why you have brakes.
Because you would never go fast if you didn't have the ability to manage the risk of an accident or whatever.And so the same is true of everything.
If you master the art of risk management, I'll give you a simple formula for that for all of our viewers.Always ask this question, what's the best thing that can happen as a result of taking this action?
What's the most likely thing to happen as a result of taking this action?What is the worst thing that can happen as a result of taking this action?
This action being build an academic school and university campus, buy a piece of land, buy some stocks, whatever it might be.This is how I make a decision.
If the most likely thing to happen gets me closer to my goals, because if it doesn't, don't waste any time, but if it gets me closer to my goals, and I'm willing to deal with the worst thing that can happen, I go for it.
I never pay attention to what's the best thing that can happen.Anybody can manage that.That's usually how we get in trouble.When the worst thing happens.So that's what I mean by risk management.
Yeah, and a lot of these schools, they're on the verge of irrelevance, obscurity, and decline.
You've had a couple CEOs on that have talked about the era of bullshit jobs is kind of going away, because a lot of these major corporations have these jobs.And there's a lot of degrees that just aren't helping people.They're not preparing them.
They're not reality-based.It also seems like another theme for you is, I mean, most of these institutions, I love picking on government, but it's,
run like the government they're not run like a business people i guess would come in and say hey what are we doing to mitigate risk what are we going to grow would you ever consider.
Weird things like you know when you're looking at growing like actually.Acquiring another school and maybe having multi locations are you always gonna be like.
Yeah that's a really good question of course i've considered that.I'm a person who believes in qualitative quantity. So quantity alone is not enough.Quality alone is not enough.
You can have the greatest quality in a product or service, but if you don't have a critical mass, you can't run your operation.So quantity alone is not enough.Just having more students and having more campuses doesn't do it.
It has to be productive and efficient.It has to add something to it.It has to be collaborative.It has to be intentionally congruent.And I've looked at four or five schools.The ones who are interested will be the ones in trouble.
So you're actually chasing good money after bad money, and we chose not to do that.We've created our own operation here.93% of our students, by the way, live on campus.So you can imagine we run a very large organization with housing.
You're basically running a city.
Yes, it's a small city within a city, absolutely.But you ask good questions about productivity, efficiency, and so on.Why did this experiment work?Because of three things. Number one, values.
You know, where there's clarity in anything you do, people either like you or don't like you, but clarity is a wonderful thing to have.So I say authenticity is above charisma any day of the week.So number one, values.
Our values are God, family, country, and all the elements that go with it, patriotism, stewardship, discipleship, love of others, acceptance, gratitude, all those things. Second one, outcomes.Outcomes, outcomes, outcomes.
I don't know any parent who wants to pay money to send their school to a private school like Hyper University and say, oh, I don't know what they're going to do when they graduate, but at least they've had a good time for four years.
Oh boy, you'd be surprised. Well, maybe there's a minority, but that's a foolish outlook.And so people want their kids to do well in life.So our results here are amazing.And we are the premier life skills university.
So we have respected the protocol of the academy. In other words, if you're going to major in mathematics, you must be a mathematician.If you major in biology, you must master biology.
But we also framed that Mona Lisa, that academic protocol, we framed it with life skills.
So we want to make sure that when you graduate, you're sturdy enough, strong enough, open enough, flexible enough, resilient enough to deal with the demands of the marketplace.
to be prepared to walk into a company and be a person of value from day one.And it's not just a sort of a branding statement.This is an ecosystem, Dean, that is both vertical and diagonal in its strength.And so it works for us.
Our outcomes and our students graduate within six months of graduation, get a job, go to graduate school, start a business.99% of them do that.National average is 84%.We beat it by 15%.
And we have all kinds of systems, success coaches, et cetera, to deal with that.The third one is service.Nobody is more high touch than Hyper University.The hospitality, the service that we render here to parents and students appropriate.
We don't pamper students. We prepare students for a life filled with success and framed with significance.So those three things.
put us in a small pool of distinction, and we have students from all 50 states, by the way, and 50 countries, and they pay a lot of money to come here, and they're happy to the one, and they go advocate the school to the world, and that's how you build any service, any product, and colleges for years did not understand that you have to own a position in the marketplace.
It's not about branding.You can have a very strong brand.That doesn't mean a whole lot if there's no appreciated value for what you do.People don't necessarily want that.And so what you have to do is you have to own a position in the marketplace.
And positioning is everything, right?You know, why should people do business with me?
You know, and so on. Same with the brands.It's all about distinction.Most of the universities, many of the business schools I've taught at, all they care about is the rankings, not so much the differentiation.Or they might have a legacy.
Can we just drill into outcomes?So how are you preparing?You're basically preparing this next generation to work in the 2030s and 2040s, things that we cannot realize yet.
We're preparing them for the world as it is going to be, not as it is, not as it was.How do you do that? Okay, so number one, you have to create a culture on campus that accepts the fact that we must do that.
So faculty must believe it, staff must believe it, parents must believe it, students must believe it, so they would wanna be participants in the process.Future culture, yeah. a future view of what the world is gonna be like.
And we don't know exactly what the world's gonna be like.Most of the job that we prepare students for today will be gone by the time maybe three, four, five years.
But what we do know is that you show me a person who has a clear vision, a person who knows how to put a solid strategy, a person who knows how to apply practical systems, a person who's resilient enough to consistently execute even when the heat is on,
We know that those are elements that work.Flexibility works.
So if you know how to think, how to have a growth mindset, if you know how to be coachable, if you know how to have emotional intelligence, if you know how to focus on important things in your life, all of those things, I put them in three different categories.
The person who has a great sense of awareness, and a person who develops a truly meaningful level of judgment, and a person who does those two things will have relevance.So what's important is to create a relevant human being.
Let me give an example, Dean, just to show you how real this is. I never ran a school before.I was a business guy.I was an entrepreneur.I came out of graduate, never had a job.I came out of graduate school, started my own business with $500.
I saved a penny at a time.
What are you talking about?That's why you're on the program.A lot of university presidents want to be on, but this is the story.You have brought in this unique perspective that It's needed in almost every institution out there.Not just learning.
You know, I started a business at marketing, another one in real estate, another one in retail, another one in banking, another one in something else.
And then when I came here, I was able to apply what I know, what I learned, the brain that expanded, the capacity to do more.And I said, if I could just understand the basics, the fundamentals, I think it'll be applicable.It's exactly what happened.
Now, building a culture is a very difficult thing, as you know, you have to inform people, involve people, inspire people.You have to expect what they do, you have to increase what they do, they have to create impact with what they do.
It is a constant and consistent. process.You know the challenge?I mean, you seem to know a lot about educational field and sector.A lot of people don't understand that.The challenge is many institutions, good institutions, create wonderful content.
But content without a balance of context It's not that useful.If all you have is information, I'll use you and discard you.This is what I do with Google.I go to Google, I get what I want, I discard.
If all you have is knowledge, I'll call upon you only when I need you.I had a root canal yesterday, I only called on that, and Adonis when I needed him.But I don't think about him every day, trust me. And, but if you have wisdom, people respect you.
So what we have to do is to create wisdom, wisdom as an awareness and judgment, which leads to relevance, and then to show people how they can apply that in many, many different facets.And that's what a good leader does.
Leaders create capacity in others.High Point University is creating capacity in our students, saying you are enough, you are capable.
Learn how to get involved, learn how to become a man or woman of purpose, and see how the world sits up and pays attention.
Yeah, amen.What kind of challenges are added on in running a faith-based institution?What's that?What kind of complexity, I guess?
I'm a person of faith.I believe God breathed in my nostrils and gave me life. I thank God every day for the gift that cost me nothing, but without which I would expire.It's called oxygen.
When was the last time each of our viewers have thanked God for oxygen?The one thing without which you would die, you'd be gone.And so that's what I believe.So when I came here, I said, you know, we're going to be a God family country school.
and I respect you regardless of who you are, because you're a creature of God regardless of what you believe or who you are, whether you like it or not, you're created in God's image.So for me, you're good.
And we have Christians here, we have Jewish students here, we have Muslim students here.I'm sure we have students of no religion or no belief whatsoever.But that does not reduce
our capacity to create an environment in which we teach the essence of what it means to be a person, a wholesome person, a person of faith.So you're never gonna hear me speak without giving God the glory.
You're never gonna hear me speak without saying America is a wonderful country.Of course I'm familiar with the blemishes in its history.Of course I'm familiar with the inequities in our society.I know that.
But unless you've lived somewhere else, you don't understand.You know, lots of things happen only in America.Opportunities to start a business.How else do you explain my life story?
Coming here at 17, not knowing anybody, being no place to go at Christmas, you know, I had to go find a place to stay and so on.
I heard you were down to 30 bucks in your pocket by the time you got here.
Yeah, about $35 I had in my pocket when I came here.That is absolutely correct.You've done your homework.And that was it.But I worked, you know, I worked throughout college and before college.I have a great work ethic.
That's one of the things, by the way, to prepare a student's work ethic. Work ethic.Work is not something you do because it's punishment.Work, you do something you do because you create impact, create meaning in life.
And if you're not happy doing what you're doing, either find something else to do or find ways to make that more enjoyable and to your soul, but also more useful to your brain so that you grow every day in some meaningful way.
I love that.I teach and mentor a lot of people, not just students, but I call it the power of and.It's like you need to go to grad school and work at this volunteer role.
Work at your corporate job, even if you hate it, and maybe also work on the side of the startup, whether or not you're getting paid.
But always doing two things, and that's the future of where life is going, why it'll prepare you better for whatever world you end up in. Do you guys do that there?
Do you make sure that they're working on, because out of that comes more purpose because they can discover more things.
Yeah, every student here is required to do community service.So we have our students about a million hours a year in community service.They raise a million or two years for nonprofits.We have, every student has an internship.
We have a relationship with something like 4,800 organizations nationally. We have externships where we send them to, you know, HBU in the city to study different things.We're very, very, very active in developing the whole person, right?
It's not just about experiential learning.It's about being holistic in your view of your ability and your capacity.
It's about having balance in life, you know, spiritual balance, yes, but also intellectual balance, familial balance, social balance, economic balance, physical balance.When we are in balance, we do amazing things.But, you know, most people,
Dean run around complaining in life and whine.Do you know people like that?I know a lot of people like that.
I have this little doohickey right here.You see this little doohickey?And it goes like this.What is that?I call it the no whining clicker.You whine, we click your butt.
I need to get one of those.Oh my God.
So you could be sitting in a vice president's meeting and someone says, I don't think we could do that.
And someone could take this baby out and make this clicking sound and everybody in the room knows we got us a loser because whining is the opposite of thanksgiving.So when we whine, that means we're not thankful for the cup that runneth over.
We're just looking at the little spill outside of it and whining about it. And so life is what you make it.No one's responsible for your own happiness, your own joy.
You know, you gotta get up in the morning and be grateful that you have the essence to live and a meaningful work to do and a purposeful life to have.And that's my attitude about life and living.You know, I've given,
I've given more than 8,500 presentations worldwide, as you know.I've had millions of people buy tickets to come to my seminars.I don't do that anymore.And buy my CDs and books and all the rest.
And often I was so disappointed because a lot of people, you know, we're standing in line, they spend $1,500 to buy your CDs and books and so on, and then not do anything with them.
You gotta move the needle, and you gotta move the engine, and you're the driver of the engine.And so, that's what I say to our students here, you know, or our applicants, don't come here.
Please don't come, please don't even apply here if you don't wanna be successful in life.Because this is a school about ensuring that you have success, however you define success, Dean.
You know, somebody might define success by having a lot of money and a big house on the hill.But a third grade teacher might define success
she or he are overworked, underpaid, they might define it by helping children in the third grade to learn how to read or write or do math, right?It's just as important as you're the biggest company.
And so I want people to fulfill their dreams and become citizens of the world and are very responsible, be disciples, if you will, stewards, if you will, of the gifts that we've been given.
That's significant, quite frankly.Do you have a lot of groups on campus like FCA?I've got a lot of friends in leadership at Fellowship.
We have about 150 groups.We have about 150 groups on campus.Here's what we don't have.We are not a campus of activists.We're a campus of actionists. So if you just wanna do hoopla and creative stuff, I'm not interested in that.
Because you always have access to me or others to talk, let's just talk.Tell me what's on your heart, let's figure it out.
This business of running around and destroying stuff and wasting time and just screaming, I tell our students, why would we do that?That is the failure of communication.
Let us build bridges that we can walk across and come to each other, not try to be divisive in our relationship.By the way, it's the same thing with faculty.
Dean, in 20 years, in 20 years, this business guy, this entrepreneur, really, I've never had one conflict with faculty. That doesn't mean we agree on everything, you understand?I don't wanna agree with everything, because then we'll be redundant.
I want people different views, I wanna negotiate, I wanna discuss and debate with you. but we've never had conflict because our culture is to say, we can always talk.We're all citizens of this nation.We can always get along somehow, some way.
And so that's a culture of decency and a culture of respect.Let's respect our similarities and appreciate our differences and work to make something good come out of it.
Yeah, it's called, sounds like you're teaching future leadership skills, which is so critical out there.
What, you know, when you look at yourself, what's the biggest challenge you've had to overcome that, you know, you could share with folks that are struggling with things out there?
Oh my goodness.I, I've overcome so many of them, Dean.
I know.I couldn't, I've seen some of your stories, but I don't know which one, which one was really tough for you.
Well, all of us will cross paths that are tough and challenges.I call those turning points.Turning points make you stronger and better, and eventually hit the tipping point.And so when I was six, my father died.
My mother, fourth grade educated woman, raised us, five of us.She had to work and make money to feed us and clothe us.Turning point, big turning point.She sent me to America on a one-way ticket.She borrowed the money to buy the ticket.
Came to America, didn't know anybody, learned language, find my way around, a turning point, big turning point.It's a big one.So I've had a lot of those challenges.
I've had to reinvent who I am professionally several times, which is why I survived and thrived all these years. I'm 76, just for the record, and I've only just begun.I have so many more ideas, and the day is way too short for me.
And so I love sharing and coaching.I'm not a teacher. A teacher imparts information to another.I'm an enabler of learning.
I'm more focused on you, what you understand, and what you can extract from what I'm saying than I am in performing to you about the five points I know about anything.And so, I've had a lot of challenges.
When I came to High Point, it was a big challenge.I mean, I've had a challenge when I first started my first business.
I had a challenge to expand my- It must have been culture shock for you, though.
Yeah, but you know what, I didn't think of that.I thought of it as, I'm here to serve, I'm here to make something happen.So I would wake up in the morning and I would say, what can we do today to move us forward?And I think by not paying attention,
to the distractions that may be external, I focus on the internal.How can I bring power and strength to the process?But it was tough because we had no money, we had no students, we had 370 freshmen losing 20% a year.
Today we have 1,600 plus freshmen.We had no buildings, we had no schools.That was tough, my friend, I'm gonna tell you the truth.And then guess what happened?About the time I sort of began to understand where I am in 08,
Stock market crashed, the Great Recession came to be.That was tough, because I wasn't sure, wasn't experienced, I didn't know.Will we have students come here or this is the end of us?And then about the time we got that going, COVID came.
But in COVID, we had strength.We stayed open, we rented 10 hotels, I hired doctors, nurses, drivers, more food people.
And when we sequestered students, you know, because they had COVID in a hotel room, we delivered food to them every day, we checked on them every day, and the parents went crazy. They said, who would do something like that?And the word went out.
High Point is a place that really, really cares about your children.
Awesome story, Nito.Thanks for joining us today.By the way, I'm going to start calling you the CEO.You're the chief enablement officer.Hey, that's good.I accept that.I accept that with gratitude.Absolutely.Appreciate it.
You've been listening to Dr. Nito Kubain, who is the president of High Point University.This is Dean Tobias with The Reboot Chronicles.I want to thank you for joining us, and we will see you soon.
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