Intentional Congruence With Nido Qubein

How many of us wish we could walk into a room and instantly command the respect and the demand we want from our prospects? It relies on several different pieces. How easily can you be imitated? How do you help the customer choose exactly what you want them to buy no matter what the price tag is? How do you manage risk? There are several intentional congruences that you need to plan for, and that is the episode we get to listen to today. Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today we have the absolute pleasure of listening to now Dr. Nido Qubein. He's the previous chairman of the Great Harvest Bread Company, president of High Point University since 2005, and so much more. We'll want to introduce you to him, but I want you to pay attention when you are introduced to him, how he speaks, what are all the intentional things that he is hitting, because everything is preplanned, everything is organized, and he's going to tell you exactly why That's so important.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy. The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril. They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by. Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless. His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

Uh, Nito is back with us, uh, literally by popular demand. He was with us last year, and we asked him to visit a different topic this evening than last year, which he was gracious to do. And, um, in a reality, in terms of an area of expertise, uh, it is his finest. Uh, I've known Nito for He's on that list of people where we have known each other and worked together off and on for more years than either one of us cares to count or talk about, but for a very, very long time. And from the very beginning, I will tell you, I told— for those of you that were here last year, you'll forgive me, but it is a little revealing story about him. Anito, of course, as you know if you read the promotional stuff before you got here, if not, I understand they have a remedial reading program at the university for you complete with masseuses. He, you know, he came here, some commonality, probably the only commonality with Gene Simmons, but, you know, he came here also as a, has a legal immigrant, not speaking the language, no particular assets, and made himself an extraordinarily prominent business leader with beginning in speaking, which is the environment in which he and I met. And Nido's a past president of the National Speakers Association, At a National Speakers Association convention, somewhat like this meeting, and don't take this wrong, but there are a number of people who dress very casually, and with each passing year, it seems, more and more casually, you know, down to the point that, you know, they're in shorts and t-shirts and stuff. And the joke at NSA was, you know, where can I find Kibane? Oh, well, if he's at the pool, he'll be easy to find, 'cause he'll be the only one in the pool in a three-piece pinstripe suit, a tie, and cufflinks. But, and you never, I can't recall ever seeing him out of his professional uniform in a business environment. And I tell it to you because it is relevant to the topic this evening, mastery of sales persuasion and influence. It is revealing of how someone gets from the very humble beginning to the exalted position now. Again, if you read, you know Nido serves on a number of corporate boards, chairman of the Great Harvest Bread Company, which has some 220 stores in some 40 states. He is president of High Point University, in case you missed that. And so how do you get from square A to, you know, square Z, which is his topic this evening, but one is a very strategic, disciplined approach to everything he does. And we talked about that earlier, and certainly he is a great example of it. And there's lots of ways to be self-promotional. You know, we see one approach to that in Mr. Simmons. We see another approach to that in what we do. Nietzsche's approach to self-promotion is a little more elegant and subtle and stealth, but nevertheless, he pretty much convinces just about anybody he wants to convince of doing anything to do whatever it is that he wants to convince them of doing, and sometimes they don't quite realize they've been convinced until the entire thing is over with and they've done it, and that's a very stylish approach approach to persuasion that is admirable and enviable and well worth a study. He is also, a great phrase from him that I have borrowed and use often is movement from success to significance, and so it is one thing to be successful, it is another thing to be extremely significant to others in what you do. With that, I would like to report he He asked us to raise some money for the scholarship foundation to which I've been donating almost since its inception. The Nido Kamei Scholarship Fund has, has helped over 600 young people since its inception. You were all very gracious to donate to it in getting your giant collections of stuff the first day that you were here. We promised him that we would raise $30,000. You folks contributed $31,000, so we beat the number. And Glaser Kennedy will add $9,000 to that just to roll it up to an even $40,000, because you don't want to give a guy— you don't want to give a guy an odd number check, right? You know, he's got a lot of talents, but math isn't one of them, and there's really, you know, You don't really want to confuse the poor soul. Listen, you are in for a spectacular evening with a very, very good friend of mine and a spectacular speaker and an expert in persuasion. Please give Glazer Kennedy welcome to Nido Qubein.

Thank you. Well, gosh, thank you very much, Dan Kennedy. No BS marketing and no BS anything, but the best thing you've done is you You sort of used Lebanese math by taking it from 31 to 40. You know, that's good style. You ask a Lebanese, what's 1 plus 1? He says, am I buying or am I selling? Hello. So I like it. That's good. Thank you. You're so kind to do that. I really appreciate it. I'll talk about it a little bit later today. But it's fun to be with you. It's always fun to be with men and women who have made up their mind that the journey of life could be laden with potential and pregnant with possibilities. That would be you. Now, this is Friday night. And Friday night, usually I'm having a glass of wine in front of a fireplace, eating some roasted almonds and stuff. But what Dan did not tell you, actually, is I passed up a wonderful evening tonight to be with you because you're wonderful too. Tonight in Washington, D.C., the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans is inducting 10 new members into its association. I happen to be a member of that association. There are 300 or so living members like Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, Oprah Winfrey, Justice Clarence Thomas, uh, Truett Cathy, who is the founder of Chick-fil-A. You get the idea. So tonight is the night. And I could have been seated there with Colin Powell and maybe Henry Kissinger, but hey, I came to pick up the $40 grand check. Hello. You know. Oh my goodness, let me tell you something. It's going to be a substantive night. How many of you have heard me speak here before? Let me see where you are. Okay, good, good. Well, this is going to be a learning night. It's gonna be a fun night. This is the 7th time I speak this week. So I've been everywhere this week. Now look, the other day I went into a Walmart. Okay, that's a lie. I sent somebody to Walmart. And I bought this little bag of chocolate. This is a bag of Hershey's chocolates. This is exactly 1 pound of Hershey's chocolate. Might anyone here tell us intelligently and accurately how much does this 1 pound of Hershey's chocolate sell for? $1.99. Oh, my dear lady, no. That's right, you got me the right answer. You're right. The right answer is $3.99 for 1 pound of chocolate, about 120, 130, plus or minus, pieces of Hershey Kisses in this bag. Now if you've been to Walmart lately or Costco or those places, you saw how these people were displayed. They were sitting in a big box just thrown on each other. And when you picked it up and you put it on the little cashier, the cashier picked it up, smashed it against the thing, dumped it in your bag. No respect is ever shown to this fine chocolate. On the other hand, I went to a place in North Carolina called Dillard's, a finer store you might say, and I bought this box. Of chocolate. This is exactly 1 pound of Godiva chocolate. Might anyone here guess— just the guys, not the ladies, the guys— might— because the ladies will know better, but the guys have no idea what I'm talking about. So might anyone tell us how much does this 1 pound of chocolate cost? $19, sir? When was the last time you had a date? You need Gene Simmons to line you up, baby. Right? $19, give me a break. Now, the truth is this one sells for about $35 to $40 in fine stores. It's exactly 1 pound of Hershey's chocolate. This one sells for almost $40. This one sells for almost $4. This one sells for 10 times what this one sells for. And someone might intelligently ask the question, how can that possibly be? How can you, in a land of free enterprise and capitalism, sell 1 pound of chocolate, one for $40, one for $4, Same weight, both are chocolates. Sure, this could be twice or 3 times and 4 times, but 10 times! How can that be? Why would anybody pay 10 times as much for this box of chocolate as they would for this one? And the answer simply is, people buy this chocolate to eat, people buy this chocolate to give. I'll prove it to you. When was the last time you bought yourself a box of Godiva chocolate and ate it on the way home? I mean, you'd have to be one lonely, helpless, just out of therapy, miserable human being to do something like that. You have no friends, you have no destination, you're just driving around and eating chocolate. Chocolate. Now I'll ask you another question. When was the last time you've ever seen anybody buy this bag of chocolate and just put a ribbon on it and give it to somebody? You'd have to be one mega-cheapskate to do something like that, or a guy who has no dates and doesn't know what else to do. So, so the deal is even cheapskates will not give this bag of chocolate away. What do cheapskates do? They camouflage their cheapskateness. So what do they do? They go down to the dollar store, they buy a mug for a buck, they open this thing up, They get some of that fluffy paper. Many of us receive that stuff only to be disappointed. It's fluffy paper at the bottom, it's fluffy paper everywhere, and such little desire in the middle of all that. And you put this fluffy paper in the mug, then you throw in 10 or 15 pieces of chocolate, and you give it to somebody. And people thank you for it, and then they cuss you as you leave. So that's what people do. I'll ask you another question. When was the last time you walked into someone's office and they had a box of $40 worth of Godiva sitting on their desk for anyone and everyone to partake? Take one, take two, take three pieces. The answer is never. They'll shoot you if you touch their box of Godiva. Their box of Godiva is nowhere to be seen. It's in the third drawer down on the left-hand side, locked up. The Godiva is kept for people who are special, people who are VIPs. And they take out the box and they offer you a piece of Godiva. But how many times have you walked in someone's office And they have this big, cheap glass jar, you know, dollar store, 99 cents, and they put this chocolate in it, and you could take 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, nobody cares. Because the value of this is perceived to be significantly less than the value of this. I'll ask you another question. Have you been to Hershey, Pennsylvania? Have you gone into the Hershey Factory. Have you seen how this chocolate is made? Huge rolling belts coming down out of nowhere. Big buckets of chocolate coming in and the spitting machine spits those things one after the other on the belt. And then these pieces are wrapped up and then they're pushed into these bags. They're smashed closed. They're thrown in the box. The box is loaded on the truck. Rocks, and it goes to Walmart. Have you been to a Godiva factory? Oh, let me explain it to you. Everybody there has white gloves, and they're all running around the factory putting the piece right there and running back again. And nobody can touch or breathe on the chocolate. In fact, inside this box they've created cavities so that a piece of Godiva chocolate in no way could be contaminated by touching or being into the zone of another piece of Godiva chocolate. Nobody gives a tinker's damn about what zone a Hershey Kiss might be in, or if it is or is not contaminated. Just eat it and shut up. You only put up $4, for crying out loud. But this one, oh no, this one. Sir, what's your first name? Doug. Doug, are you married? Yes. Where do you live?

Dallas.

You live in Dallas. I'm gonna do something for you that's gonna help your sex life in an unimaginable way. I would like to present you with this box of Godiva chocolate. There you go, Doug. Congratulations. And Doug, on your lonely nights, I want you to keep this somewhere safe. Take a look at it. That's why you have lonely nights. When you have a Hershey thought. That's what happens when you have a Godiva thought. The world opens up its arms for you. Here we go, Doug. There you go, enjoy. Now, now the bottom line is that a box of Godiva sells for 10 times as much. Look at that, he's going home already. Hey, hey Doug, we're not done. This 'Cause the convention's got another day or two. Man, what a lonely guy you really are.' So the deal is that people pay 10 times as much for a box of Godiva chocolate. It's an amazing thing. Can I tell you a little secret? When I used to charge a few dollars to speak, they threw me in Days Inns and Motel 6. When I started charging a lot of money to speak, they flew me on Learjets and picked me up in limousines. It's an interesting concept, is it not, that we create for ourselves the zone in which we choose to live. Now, you might argue with me that the Godiva chocolate is better than the Hershey, and I'll argue with you that there are many people like me who prefer to eat Hershey's more than I prefer to eat a Godiva. I'm a Hershey fan. If I buy a bag of those Hershey's, I'll eat half of it on the way home I don't care that I'm gonna have diarrhea for a month. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna be a happy camper for a while. And so don't talk to me about style and substance and taste buds and all the rest, because the reality is both are good chocolates. It is in the eyes of the beholder as to who likes which one of the two. But in reality, every day people Some people put $40 for a box of Godiva and some people put $40 and some people buy Hershey's for $4 and sometimes it's the same people. And they take the Godivas and they give it to somebody they care about. And so it occurred to me one day, how can I become the kind of person that people would want to give? Figuratively speaking, I keynote a lot of conventions and how do I get CEOs of large corporations to say, "That's the guy we want to come and keynote our convention." Or in my consulting days, how do I get a CEO, a mega decision maker, to say, "That's the guy that we want to help us with our company. It matters not how much he's going to charge because in the end, all the relevance is calculated based on results. Results rule." The question is, how do we do that? And so that's part of my discussion here tonight. I have discovered the secret. I have discovered the secret that we, in fact, ourselves, you and I, create for ourselves the kind of environments that create respect and that create demand. And this DVD that you saw, we distribute 20,000, 30,000 copies of that DVD, and Dan is half serious and half humorous about it, funny about it. The truth of the matter is we have, I told you last year, that we're moving up the ladder. And the truth is, Hyper University in 2 years has doubled its revenues, has tripled its freshman enrollment, has added 70 points on average for SATs. So we got better students, better students academically. We charge you more money, and we had 96.2 retention from fall to spring. You get the student, you charge them more money, they're better students, they stay with you longer. And guess what happens when they stay with you longer, they become raving fans, so they tell their friends, and now their parents are happy, so now you've got this geometric progression working for you in all kinds of dynamic ways, which is exactly the way I built my career over the years. I built my speaking career by geometric progression. I always thought if people liked what you did, if you gave them significant value, they'll tell the world about you. And if they tell the world about you, sooner or later the doors of opportunity are going to open up And when you least expect it, it's going to be amazing. You're going to meet the one person who's going to open the whole stage of life for you. In 1983, I published 3 books. How did it happen? I was speaking to a group and a guy came to me afterwards. He said, you know, your ideas are great. You ought to put them in a book. I said, I have put them in a book. I just don't have a publisher. He said, I am the publisher. And it was Pinnus Hall. And we published 3 books. And who would have ever thought that when I showed up in that town to speak to that audience, I'm going to find my publisher for not one, not two, but three of my books. You cannot tell me that when your heart is open and your soul is inviting, that the heavens don't open up its gates and shower you with all the blessings. I believe it with all my heart. When you hear Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, it isn't about how many pages of notes you take. It's about the mindset. It's about the mindset that evolves as a result of being in this place. Now, I've known a lot of people in my life. I've met a lot of successful people in my life, in all walks of life. I've studied them, I've analyzed them, I've dissected it. I've been really an evaluative observer about these matters, and I found this common thread. And the common thread is they're all Godivers. They're all Godivers. They find a way to position themselves in such a way that people want to do business with them. Two days ago, I I was down in Orlando, Florida, and I thought about Disney World. You know, they took the whole group to Disney World and so on. I thought about Disney World, and I thought, how is it that Disney World, all these years, people will go to Disney World, they'll buy a very expensive ticket to go to Disney World, and it's never for a day. Have you noticed that? You stay there for 3 or 4 days because a day you feel cheated. You haven't seen everything in a day. And have you noticed that people who go to Disney World once, they go to Disney World again? And have you noticed that if they go once and again, they bring more people with them? The children, the grandchildren, the friends. And have you noticed that while they're at Disney World, they buy other stuff and they spend money? At High Point University, we have an ice cream truck that goes around and gives ice cream every day. And I don't mean the little Walmart, you know, cheap ice cream. I'm talking about the big mama's to 3 of those and you die from cholesterol. I'm talking about serious ice cream, the kind of ice cream that when you're down at Epcot Center or Disney World and you buy one of those bars of ice cream, it costs you $8, and you look over to your husband or wife and say, "Honey, we done got screwed again." That's what I'm talking about. That kind of ice cream is what I'm talking about. And so people go to Disney World and they spend a lot of money. It hit me one day at Great Harvet stores. What if, or what would we have to do for our customers to pay to come into the store? I know it sounds like a crazy idea, but think with me for just a moment. What would we have to do in our stores to charge you $2, $3, $4, $5 just to walk into the store. How many of you have been to a Great Harvest store? Well, you know what I mean. We give big amples. We don't give samples. Somebody asked me the other day, well, you give all these big chunks of bread with honey and with butter. And people bring their friends with them and their family. They eat all that stuff. And what if they eat all that stuff and they don't buy anything? You go broke. I said, no, no, no. Everybody wants to go to heaven. And when you come into a store and you eat all that stuff, and if you were to leave without buying something, you're going straight to hell. So I'm not worried about that. Once people buy it, guess what happens? Once they buy it one time, they'll buy it again. And then they'll buy it again and again and again. Remember this: it costs you 7 times as much to get a new client as it does to retain an existing one. Client. So the name of the game, of course, is lifetime value. Every relationship must be equated based on lifetime value. It isn't about a single exposure. Stick a friendship— a friendship is long-lasting. Some people think they have to have millions and millions of customers. I'm not one of those people. I built very thriving companies with very few contacts, very few contacts. And if you have the right contacts and you build the right kind of relationships with them, it's amazing what can happen. Great things can happen in one's life. And so here's a question for you: Why would I buy a ticket to your park? Just a figure of speech. Why would I buy a ticket to your park? In other words, I'm saying, why would I do business with you? Here's a second question. If I were to buy a ticket to come into your park, how long will I stay in your park? Think about Disney. You go to Disney, you go in, there's so many things to do. There are rides to ride. There are restaurants in which to eat. They have stores in which you can buy things. They have parades that you can watch. They have shows that you can sit there and take a nap or enjoy. They have everything so you stay there a long time. Why should I buy a ticket to your park? And what's going on in your park that's interesting enough that will keep me there long enough. You know, at High Point University we discovered something interesting. A 17-year-old student— how many of you have high school kids? All right, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. 17 or 18-year-old student makes up their mind whether or not they like a school, a university, in the first 30 seconds they visit it. So we orchestrated with absolute perfection the first 30 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes of your experience. So now it's better than I told you last year, those of you who heard me. Now when you come to High Point University, there's a place for you to park, the student's name on it. It's not some cheap sign, it's an electronic sign. And it has your name on it, High Point University welcomes Bill Glazer from Baltimore, Maryland. And you see the sign and you know we put out some cash to put the sign up. And what's the first thing the kids do? Get out of the car, run to the sign, and stand there and smile as the parents take a picture. And you know in real estate when a woman starts calling a home a home instead of a house, we're halfway there. And so the whole emotional connection begins to take place. Why would I buy a ticket to your park? Why should I do business with you? How easily can someone else do what you do? I've been in this country for almost 40 years now. I still tell every audience I came to America with $50 in my pocket, no English on on my lips and no connections. And some of my cynical friends or skeptical friends say, "Come on, we know that stuff." Well, you know that stuff, but guess what? That's not as easily imitable as you think. Not as many of them end up on a stage talking about it. So I talk about it every time. I was in a car the other day in Chicago, and the driver of the car looked in the backseat and said to me, he said, "Sir, you have an accent. Where are you from?" "Where are you from?" I said, "Why, I'm from the country of Lebanon." He said, "That's amazing." He said, "You're the second lesbian I've had in this cab this week." So think about it. Why should I do business with you? How easily can somebody else imitate what you do? And if I were in the market to buy whatever it is that you sell, would I buy it from you? That's how we built High Point. University in under 2.5 years, in 2 full academic years. And the reason I like to talk about the university is because people say, well, yeah, you could do that in business, but give me a tough environment. That's a tough environment. Try to change a culture of a university and see how tough it is. And we've done it at High Point. We're a friendly place where everybody gets an extraordinary education, a fun environment with caring people. How did we do that? We ask the question, how easily can somebody else imitate what we do? And so in my office today, I met with 14 families, one at a time. As they come off the tour, at the tail end of the tour, they bring them to the president's office. I stand, I talk, I give information, I answer questions, and occasionally I charm. I'll explain that to you later, the guy with the Godivas. I got to do some work with you after hours here, but we'll do it later. And then never once do I let value interpretation pass by me. That's a beautiful term, value interpretation. Giving value is a prerequisite to success, but interpreting the value in a way that the other person understands it and measures it in a significant way is the name of the game. And so at the end, as they're about to leave, I'll look over to the student and I'll say, "All these other schools that you visited, did you by any chance meet the president?" And they go, "Well, no." I said, "Did you by any chance have a president stand here for 7 or 8 minutes and answer your questions or talk to you?" I said, no. I look to the parents and I say, that should tell you everything about High Point University. From the president on down, we're all available. That's not easily imitable. No, it's not. And so you create raving fans by finding that piece in your business that can make it work. Talent Talent alone is never enough. Because if it were only talent, you'll have talent until the next guy comes along with deeper talent, more talent, cheaper talent, faster talent. It has to be in balance. Everything has to be together in balance. You know, I may have shown you this last year. I carry a bird with me. Look at this bird. It's in perfect balance. I love it. When your life is in balance, when your business is in balance, the right value, the right price, the right time, the right customer, the right place, life is magical. When you're out of balance, things get all messed up. I have another gift for you. Mr. Photographer, come up here, please. I'd like to give you the bird. There you go. Yeah. So, so we've got to be a Godiver. We have no choice. This room is filled with winners. This isn't a common ballroom filled with just people. This is a room filled with men and women who are overflowing with a reservoir of talent and energy. We've got to be a Godiva. We've got to position ourselves in that way. We have to answer the question, why would someone buy a ticket to my party? Let me give you one thing that I got from Boone Pickens. Anyone knows Boone Pickens? Boone Pickens is a multi-billionaire. He's a fellow member of Horatio Alger. Made a lot of his money, he lost it, he made it again, and so on. And I asked Boone one time the secret to his success, and here's what he said. He said, I do not chase rabbits, I hunt Elephants. I thanked him for his words, didn't know what the heck they meant, but didn't want to seem stupid. And then I reflected upon it many times. And then I saw him after that several times, and I asked him to really give me examples. And he said, you know, in life there are only but so many hours in a day, and you can do certain things in a day. There's some people who chase rabbits. Why? Because rabbits are everywhere. Rabbits are easier to catch, rabbits are more manageable. And so, figuratively speaking, in business, these are the people who are chasing all the little stuff. Now, when we start in business, we have to chase some little stuff. But at some point in our business, we have to stand tall and say, "Hey, I'm going to go hunting for some elephants now. I want to get some big stuff." Elephants are harder to catch. Elephants have to be hunted down. Elephants are harder to haul. Elephants are not easily found. You have to go to the quadrants and the corners of the world to find these elephants. But rabbits, you can find them everywhere. You can go buy a couple of rabbits and they'll give birth to 600 other rabbits in no time at all. They're commonplace. Are you chasing rabbits in your life? Or are you hunting for some elephants? My father died when I was 6 years of age. And sometimes people ask me this question: If you could have changed one thing in your life, Nido, what would it be? My answer is always the same. If I had the power or the privilege to have changed something in my life, I would have much rather have had a dad. A dad who would have seated me in his lap. A dad who would have read me a book. A dad who would have thrown me a ball.— a dad who would have taken me to the circus, a dad who would have just talked with me man-to-man. But that was not my fate. Have you noticed that in life, when life dishes you a bunch of adversity, the heavens also send you a bunch of abundance? You just have to recognize it. You have to see it. You have to be open to it. And so there was my mother, a 4th-grade-educated woman. I'd put her against 25 PhDs from the finest Ivy League schools of your own picking, because this woman had a postgraduate degree in a discipline you and I would call common sense. Someone said, you know, the trouble with common sense, it ain't as common as it used to be. I think there's truth to that. My mother would feed us and clothe us and instill in us values for life and principles for living. You know, like, if you want to be a great person, you must first walk hand in hand and side by side with great people. If you want to be happy, hang around happy people. If you want to be successful, be in the midst of successful people. She'd say, if you want to be rich, find out what poor people do and don't do it. And it's true, that's the way life actually works. And so, you know, you know the story. I came to this country with nothing. I know I didn't tell you that, but I worked 10 hours a day to go to college. And I'll tell you what I did. My first job was in the cafeteria. They paid us 80 cents an hour to work in the cafeteria. It was a yucky job. It was a smelly job. Messed up your fingernails scrapping all the stuff. And it was not a good way to get dates. You You know, the girls just didn't want to hook up with the guys working in the cafeteria. So, you know, I worked there, I don't know, half a day and I quit. And I found a better job. I worked in the library, by golly. It's a cleaner world. You meet a lot of girls in the library. It's the right place to be. I worked in the library 2 days and I got fired. You know why I got fired? Because my job was to take the books that people were returning and then put them back in the stacks, you know, put them back on the shelves. I thought I was doing a remarkable job. I was putting the red books together, the green books together, the black books together. And apparently some lonely dude came up with some decimal system and that was the wrong way and they fired me. And then I got a job to write a column in the local newspaper. They paid me $4. A column. And soon enough, I found a way of doing these columns in under 30 minutes, you know, reporting what's going on in the college. And they hired me to do a second column per week. I was making $32 a month. Are you kidding me? This was unbelievable. And then the neighboring city called Goldsboro, North Carolina hired me to be their stringer. You know, to go get the news for them. And so I would go to the fire department, the police department. I'd walk there. I had no car. Every day. And I would copy down whatever the book said. You know, the police did this, or the fire. And I'd call it in on the telephone. And one day the fire department's book said that there was a fire in this house and 4 people lived in the house, and the results were fatal. And I called in the results to this paper in Goldsboro, and the editor said, "Well, how many people died?" And I said, "Who said anybody died?" And he said, "Well, you said the results were fatal." And I did not know what the word "fatal" meant. And I got fired. Remember, I learned English by taking 3x5 cards, putting 10 English words on this card today, 10 English tomorrow, 10 English the next day. I gave myself Sunday off. By the end of the year, 60 words a week multiplied by 52 weeks is 3,120 words. That's all I know, 3,120 words. Actually, that's not true. Since I became a college president, I picked up 16 dirty words from the frat boys. But that's it. That's it. You divide 3,120 over 5,000, that's 62.5% of what the average American has, because the average American has 5,000 words in their vocabulary. Vocabulary. You'd call me handicapped linguistically speaking, or disadvantaged vocabulary-wise. And you know by now, with this disadvantage and handicap, I've written 15 books today, translated in 23 languages, sold in over 70 countries around the world, recorded well over 100 CD programs, 6 CDs in each, and they're sold all over the world, plus DVDs and other things. I've done amazing things using the very thing that I did not possess when I came to this country. That's why nobody could ever tell me it cannot be done. We just have to figure out the system. I had to transform myself in life. I had to figure out why would someone buy a ticket to my park. I had to figure out how can I become a good diver. I had to figure out some of these things that I found other people were doing and were doing magically. And so I want to tell you about some of those things here tonight. That I think will be very important to you, and they are very important to me. These are secrets, if you will. These are systems. I have finally put them down on CDs. I've never really talked about them except in my sort of a small group where I charge, you know, $10,000, $15,000 for people to attend for a couple of days. I would share some of these concepts, but this is really how I went from a kid with $50 to a guy who helped start a bank in 1985, and a dollar invested in '85 is $32 today. This is how I've been able to buy companies over the years, and this is how I've taken a lot of this money from speaking and consulting. And, and I was at the top of my game, there's no question about it. I've picked between fame and fortune. I always picked fortune, always picked fortune. I let the other sort of pick the the fame and enjoy it for 15 minutes or 15 seconds, but I always went after the fortune. And I was very good at it. And I was making millions of dollars when speakers haven't even dreamed about making millions of dollars. And that goes all the way back to the early '80s. In fact, when I was 30 years of age, I made $1 million that year. And of course, I've never made anything less than that since then. I made many multiples of that for the years thereafter. I know a little something about making money. I know a little something about building companies. I know a whole lot about building relationships. And I know a whole lot about value interpretation. But I'll tell you what I know the most about— this term which I coined. I hope you'll never forget it. It's called intentional congruence. Let me see if I can explain it to you. This is a magical thought. It's hard to explain in a quick moment or two, in an an evening session, but I'll do my best to give you a glimpse into my world. What is intentional congruence? It is when everything you do mixes and merges with everything else you do to create a bigger and a better situation, a better environment, empire if you want to call it. Let me give you an example. All of the companies that I had were of course centered in different buildings, right, like their headquarters. All of the buildings that they were centered in were owned by a real estate company which I owned. Now I'm going to begin to draw for you the picture of intentional congruence. So just imagine what's going to go on. If I were showing you this on a board, I'd show you a circle in the middle of the board. That would be my primary business. And then around this primary circle, I will show you all kinds of other circles all the way around this middle circle. And in each circle, I would put down the name of a company that I have or something that engages my time and energy. And I begin to show you with arrows how every circle connects to every other circle in a multitude of ways, to connect to one other circle and every other circle. And that's true of all of them. So here's a simple example: Great Harvest Bread Company. I talk about it when I speak. And I drive a lot of business to Great Harvest because I speak a lot. And the companies that I have all send gifts from Great Harvest to our clients. And I do things for Great Harvest as in speaking. So Great Harvest pays us rent on the building. Great Harvest pays me to speak at the events. I bring Great Harvest business. More people associate me as chairman of Great Harvest, so therefore that brings me more positioning. You're beginning to see those little arrows going in every direction. So imagine this primary business is— it used to be for me speaking and consulting. And imagine a real estate company here, an advertising company here, a Great Harvest here, and you're getting the idea. So let's take the ad agency McNeil-Lehman. These people, I was doing speaking and consulting for them, wanted get services, public relations, communication, advertising services. So they'd come to McNeil-Lehman. I didn't have to mention it. They would just say to me, do you know someone you recommend, or do you know how I can do this or that? So everything I was doing was leading to everything else I'm doing. Look what happened tonight. Some of you have never heard the words High Point University. I mean, how fortunate— I say this with, with a sense of humility— how fortunate How fortunate is High Point University to have a president who is constantly invited to speak on the platforms of America and to mention the words and to speak about it in a positive format. What phenomenal positioning that is for the university. How many presidents do you know who are invited to come and speak and are paid large sums of money to do it, and then they use a case study about their university? Intentional congruence at its best. I don't get involved in anything that doesn't have intentional congruence. Look what you did tonight in a very nice way. You helped our foundation give money to students who are deserving or academically achievers but who have financial need. That's intentional congruence. It isn't always about economic value. It's sometimes about emotional value, relational value, educational value, reputational value.

Value.

But the truth is, look at your own life. Draw that circle in the middle, your primary business, and draw a circle— 5, 6, 7, 10, whatever circles you have— everything else you do in your life, even your family, your philanthropic, or your community volunteering, and see if you can draw arrows from each circle to every other circle. Sophisticated thinking indeed. We just have Steve Forbes, the publisher and editor of Forbes magazine, at High Point University. I watch what he does. Everything he does is intentional and congruent. You cannot get rich in this country doing singular things. And if you were to get rich doing singular things, you are opening yourself up to enormous risk, because if something happens to that one thing, you're out of luck. So you want to build a business that is is very secure and very sturdy. So for me, the first is intentional congruence. I applied it to every part of my life. It has served me magically well. Here's another strategy that I have, um, employed in my life, much to my benefit, and that is the strategy of risk management. Let me explain it to you, ladies and gentlemen. What I'm about to tell you could save you lots and lots of money. What I'm about to I'm about to tell you could keep you out of a lot of trouble. What I'm about to tell you can give you some ideas that can enhance your business without you having to bet the farmhouse, if you will, too. You know, if you take risk out of life, you take opportunity out of life. So never, ever avoid risks. That's not what life is all about. Life is not about risk avoidance. Life is about risk management. But the question is, how do you manage your risks? So I came up with a very simple formula that has helped a lot of people I've consulted with. This is worth its weight in gold. And the simple formula goes something like this: Never again in your life, never again in your life should you get involved in any, in any project— whether, let's say, it's buying a building or becoming a partner in a business or whatever it might be— never ever commit your resources to anything anymore in your life until you ask some questions. Here's question number 1: What is the best thing that can happen as a result of taking this action? Let's say you ask me to invest $1 million with you in your business. I'm gonna ask myself this question: What is the best thing that can happen as a result result of investing this million dollars with you in your business? I'm going to determine what that is to the best of my ability. I'm going to ask a second question: What is the most likely thing to happen as a result of my investing $1 million in your business? I think you'll agree with me that the best thing rarely ever happens, but the most likely thing is really what happens most of the time. Then I'm going to ask myself the third and most important question: What is the worst thing that can happen as a result of my investing $1 million with you in your business? And then I'm going to make up my mind. And here's how I'm going to make up my mind. If the most likely thing to happen will get me closer to my goals, and if I am willing to deal with the worst thing that can happen, then I go for it, all things being equal. But if the most likely thing to happen will not get me closer to my goals, why am I doing it anyway? And if I'm not willing to deal with the worst thing that can happen, I run, and I run like crazy. And that's why, knock on wood, I've never really lost any money. In business or investments, shy of equities like stocks. You're always going to make some money in the stock market, you're going to lose some money in the stock market. It tends to even itself out. But really, I haven't. Why? Because I'm a very diligent and a very thoughtful investor. And I just gave you my secret. It may have sounded simple to you. You start employing this simple formula I gave you and you will see how it will pay rich dividends for you in your life. Let me illustrate this idea a little differently. Would you free your hands for just a moment? Free your hands of everything. I'm gonna ask you to do a little exercise. I know you've been at this all day. I know it's been a long day. I know some of you are a little tired. I know some of you may have even had a beer or a glass of wine for dinner, and you're beginning to just relax and enjoy yourself. But nevertheless, I want you to do something for me. I'm gonna give you 3 seconds. Only 3 seconds, and I'll be counting for you to find a partner who's sitting next to you, preferably somebody sitting next to you. You can only have one partner. All right, here we go. Count to 3, find a partner, and take his or her hand, hold it up high. 3,000, 2,000. All right, great. Now you got your partner. Very good. Okay, you're good at this. All right, hands down. Now you got 3 seconds. You and your partner must decide who is going to be number 1 in this dyad, this group of 2s, and who is going to be number 2. You have 3 seconds. I'm counting. 3,000. Excellent. Now if you will, the way you decide How you decided who is number 1 and who is number 2 tells us a lot about you clinically. Some of you looked at your partner and you went, "I'll be number 1. I've always been number 1 and you're not changing my mind tonight." Some of you looked at your partner and you went, "you be number one," as if to say, "I, the royal king or queen, bestow upon you the privilege, but I giveth and I taketh away, by golly." And I suspect in this group none of you looked at your partner and said, "Look, you know me, Mr. Loser over here, you know, I'm most comfortable being number Number 2, don't screw up my life. Let me do what I'm used to doing. So number 1, where are you? Raise your hand, number 1. Let me see where you are. Thank you very much. Hands down. Number 2, raise up your hand, please. Thank you very much. Hands down. Number 1, number 2, please face yourself face to face. Turn your chair, face yourself. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Now number 1, number 1, follow the instructions. Number 1, open up your hands like this. Number 1, open up your hands like this. Excellent. Number 2, open up your hands like this. Number 2, excellent. Number 1, gently, softly, kindly place your hands on Number 2's hands. If you fall in love, it's okay. All right, here are the instructions. Number 1, Number 1, the instructions are for you. Number 1, the instructions are for you. Number 1, on the count of 3, I want you to push on Number 2's hands with all the might, all the power, all the strength. If you kill him, you kill him. Don't sweat it. Ready, set, go, go. Oh, come on, come on, come on. All right, now look, let me ask you a simple question. I'm going to ask you a simple question. I'll ask the question of number 1 first. Number 1, did I give you instructions as to what to do? Yes or yes? It's at night, the questions get easy. Now number 2, did I give you instructions as to what to do in return? No or no? No, what did you do, number 2? You resisted. Why did you resist, number 2? Well, you really wanted to be number 1? All right. Oh Lord, you need to be in therapy, girl, I'm telling you. All right, so why did you resist? Someone raise your hand. I'll call on you? Why did you resist? Yes, ma'am? Instinct. Instinct, yes. So if you do something wrong, you blame it on God. Yeah, I love it. It's not me, it's God who screwed up this exercise.

No.

With an answer like that, you have no hope of being admitted to High Point University. Forget it. Unless, of course, Of course, you're not looking for scholarships. Okay. All right. So no, it's not. Let me tell you what instinct is. Instinct is when you come home, someone left the stove in the kitchen on. You don't realize that the stove is hot. You put your hand on the stove. Uh-oh, your hand is now burning. What do I do? Do I remove my hand or do I amputate my arm? Right? You don't take any time thinking like that. Instinctively, instinctively, you remove your hand before you even think about it. That's instinct. You gave me the right answer. It was just the wrong question. Now tell me this. Number 1, you push. Number 2 pushed back. Number 2, when you pushed back, what did Number 1 do? Pushed even harder. Harder. The very thing we did not want, we were now inviting in larger quantity. How stupid can we possibly be? That's Hershey Kisses thinking, right? Now, when number 1 pushed harder, number 2, you pushed harder. And when you pushed harder, number 1 said, aha, That's the way you want to play this game? All right, all right, I'll show you a thing or two. And they gave it all their might. And what happened when that happened? We just kept pushing at each other. We were getting nowhere until and unless— what happens? Somebody gives up or somebody wins. And in life, that can't be the case. You cannot have a winner and a loser. When you have a winner and a loser, you violate the whole premise of lifetime value. Lifetime value is about establishing relationships where people are raving fans about who we are, so that even when we don't ask them to go out there and promote our business, they're doing it naturally. This is really for the phenomenon of High Point University, is that people are promoting the university and we're getting 224 4% more visitors this year over last year, 40% more applications than last year. It's an amazing phenomenon. You can't buy that with advertising, but you can build it from the inside out. And so it's all about premises. For me, it was all about premises. It's all about measuring your premises and seeing if you have the right premise in life. The reason a lot of people fail in business, or they fail to have their fullest potential is because they don't analyze the premise. They begin with the wrong premise. I'll show you what I mean. This is a glass of water. It has this much water. The water stops here, in case you can't see it. So I asked an audience the other day to tell me, is this glass of water half full or is it half empty? I was just making the point about, you know, positive thinking, negative thinking. What are you thinking? You've heard that. One guy stood up. It happened to be a group of engineers. I have nothing against engineers, just don't want them moving in my neighborhood. And one guy stood up and he said, "Sir, I do not see this glass of water as being half full, and I do not see this glass of water as being half empty." Empty? I see a glass that's twice the size it needs to be. I said, "Sir, you are a lonely, lonely man." And that was a turning point for me. The premise with which I was operating was there were two answers to this question. Half full, half empty. And this man is saying, no, if this is how much water you want, why don't you just use a smaller glass? So I went to the head of our math department at High Point University and asked him the question. What do you think? He said, no, this glass is full. The glass is always full. It may be half full of water, and it's half full of air. I gave him the number of the other lonely man so they can form a little kumbaya group. And, but then I realized he's right. So I would have to say, is this glass half full of water? Or is it half full of water or half empty of water? But to say, is this glass half empty or half full, is wrong. My premise is wrong. When we begin with the wrong premise, we mess up royally. This is why 50% of America's households are one paycheck away from bankruptcy in the land of the free and the home of the brave. This is why 80% of America's households have a net worth of under $100,000. $400,000, 401(k) engaged and involved, the equity in their home included, the car, the TV, and the jewelry too. And yet immigrants to this country come over here and they're not once, not twice, not thrice, but 4 times as likely to become millionaires as born Americans. I ask you why? And the answer is obvious. They begin with the right premise. They believe, they assume, they presume this is the land of the free and home of the brave. Here you can achieve your dreams. Here you can accomplish the impossible. Here you can start with nothing and build wealth. Yes, you can. While so many Americans were born in this country, have always had a TV, have always had two cars in the driveway, have always always had air conditioning, and they really think, "Well, we're in a recession. And if we're not in a recession, we're gonna be. And if we're not gonna be in a recession, you know, the wrong president might get in the White House and the wrong Congress might be in the Capitol and it's gonna mess up our life." And these immigrants are saying, "We don't even want to think about that. You think about that intellectually while I go out there, eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner." That's it. It's the premise. What is the premise? My mother put it this way. She said, son, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. Always learn from the experts, because the experts have their knowledge in order. Because, she said, if your knowledge is not in order, then the more of it you have the more confused you will become. Life is not about the assemblage of information. Your magic is not framed with how much you know. In fact, I hate to put it in these terms, but people don't care how much you know. What they care about is what is it you're going to do for them. It's called self-interest. There's a ground higher than self-interest. It's called enlightened self-interest. Enlightened self-interest says, yes, I'm going to give you what you want, because if I give you what you want, you're likely to help me get what I want. Always learn from the experts. I always paid for the best tax advisor. I always had the best business lawyer. I always paid big money to have the perfect consultant. I never shopped for Hershey Kisses when it came to something important in my life. I am amazed and I'm utterly shocked at how many people would go out and spend $200 for dinner, bottle of wine, steak, the whole bit, but unlike you, they would be so unwilling to invest in themselves. It happens every day. How do I know? I've spoken 6,000 times. Some of you know that I have given every penny I've ever made from any of my books, CDs, DVDs, Star Scholarship Foundation. We've educated well over 600 kids. It's the grandest, the finest, the best thing I have ever enjoyed in my life, to think beyond me to help others. I don't remember, frankly, if I told you how that happened or not, but I'll tell you the story. Your life is about turning points. Yes, it is. And if I were to give you 30 seconds right now and say, can you put down on a piece of paper the 3 turning points, the 3 turning points in in your life? If you can't do that, you haven't been thinking too deeply about your life, with all due respect. Because life is about turning points. My father's death was a turning point for me. My coming to America was a turning point for me. When I finished college, the second year at Mount Olive Junior College in those days, the only one that would take me because I spoke no English, I had no money, I wasn't exactly a stellar, you know, academic student. And I can tell you that I finished the 2 years. The president came up to me and he said, "Nido, I know you worked very hard to work your way through school, and you think you paid your way through school. You just might like to know that there was actually a chasm between the money that you owed the school and the money that you paid the school." And he said, "I want to tell you something. A doctor in a neighboring city picked up the tab for the difference." I said, "Oh, my, oh, my." I'd love to meet this doctor so I can thank him or her for the generosity of their heart, the gentleness of their soul, the kindness of their philanthropic mindset. And he said, that's what makes the story so amazing. This doctor doesn't wish to be known. He wishes to remain— he or she wishes to remain anonymous. What would you have done? Tell you what I did. I went back to my dorm, knelt by the side of my bed, cried my eyes out. And on that day, at that moment, I made a commitment to God Almighty. Now, ladies and gentlemen, always remember this: you make a decision with your brain, you make a commitment with your heart. That's why commitments are longer lasting. That's why commitments are harder to break. Excellence is a commitment. Moving from success to significance is a commitment. Getting into your business and really making it work demands a commitment. It doesn't take, you know, someone who pans you, who's just gonna run at the first sight of, "Oh my God, you're gonna have some failure. Oh my God, I can't get the money as fast as I thought." We are living in a land of free enterprise and capitalism. Everybody is a capitalist in America. You know that. One guy told me the other day, he said, "No, no, not everybody is a capitalist. Take a minister in a church. They're not capitalists." I said, "Are you serious? Have you ever met a minister?" Have you ever met a minister who was called to a lower-paying job in a church? Never! They're always called to something better. So we're all capitalists by definition of our existence, by definition of our survival. And so on that day I made a commitment to God that as soon as I begin to work, I'll start a fund somehow. I didn't know how or when to help others, and that was the beginning of of this scholarship fund.

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