Noob School - Building Bridges: Russell Stall’s Impact on Greenville

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

In this episode of the Noob School Podcast, we sit down with Russell Stall, a dedicated city council member from Greenville, South Carolina. Russell delves into his journey of civic engagement and his significant role in bringing TEDx to Greenville. Over the past 11 years, he has spearheaded over 80 TEDx events, creating a dynamic platform for innovation and idea-sharing in the community. Join us to hear his insights on leadership, community development, and the transformative impact of fostering a culture of ideas. Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.co I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

New School. All right. All right. Welcome back. Welcome back. John Sterling here. I've got truly an old and good friend here, Russell Stahl. Russell, thanks for being here today.

It's my pleasure. Russell and I go back to high school, okay, all the way back. We went to different high schools, but we kind of knew each other in high school. And I was doing my homework today, Russell, and I looked us up on LinkedIn. Of course, we're connected. 521 mutual connections. Wow. I mean, most people don't have 521 connections.

So we do, we cross paths a lot going back a couple of decades. That's pretty cool. Well, and John, that's what makes Greenville great. Yeah. Is those relationships that we have with each other. I agree. And they're deep and consistent. Right.

It's pretty awesome. I think so, too. I wonder about that sometimes, like if someone said, okay, John, you've got to move to. Phoenix, you know, nice city or San Diego, whatever, you could never, you don't have enough time to recreate the surety of some of those friendships. No question. Yeah.

No question. And the beauty about it is Greenville is kind of is a very, is a small place. Yeah. And those relationships are really important for getting stuff done. Right. And, you know, not that I call everybody all the time, but it sure helps. when you know somebody. Yeah.

And more importantly, somebody that knows you. Right. I agree. So those relationships are cool. Yeah, and that would be the same. I think if you were in Phoenix

or New York City or anywhere else, you'd want those relationships, but you can't just blow into town and get them. No. No, it takes a generation to build. Right. So right now,

Russell is on Greenville City Council, and you've been there for how long now? Seven years. Seven years. Yeah. pretty cool job I imagine. I love it. Yeah. I love it. It's it's awesome to be part of something great that the city is doing. Right. And we have an amazing product in this in this city. Right. And we brag about it all the time. It's so being part of that and that activity and making stuff

happen is as pretty incredible. Feels good. It feels great. It feels great. Yeah. You know, I live downtown, work downtown, exercise. I do just about everything. Play music downtown. Yeah. And of course, I love it. And when people ask me about it, I'm like, well, first and foremost, it's safe. Yeah.

It's a safe. And I go to other cities. I go to Asheville. I go to Charleston. None of those places are safe like Greenville's safe. And it feels safe. Yeah. It's not only safe, but it feels right.

I remember taking the kids down there for events going on at Falls Park, and we just let them go. And my friends from Atlanta think that's crazy. They can't imagine that you just let your 8-year-old and 10-year-old child roam freely downtown, but it's that safe. Hadn't always been that way. I agree. I remember when we were in high school, you wouldn't even go downtown. No. No.

If I went downtown when I was in high school, I didn't tell mom and dad. because apparently I was up to no good. And you went with some people. Yeah, you absolutely had to go with people. Yeah. Although cruising was pretty, cruising Main Street was a pretty sweet deal. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

But that's when it was four lanes, so you could, the key was get on the inside lane so you could talk to people on both sides. Oh, that's good. And then turn around at Court Street. Yeah. I should have done more of that. It wasn't a cruiser. We didn't tell Mom and Dad.

Huh. Well, let's talk about that. I was going to get there in a minute, but how, in your opinion, how does it go from that 40 years ago where you really wouldn't go down there? There were shuttered up stores. There was hobos living in the hotels, right? It was dangerous and it was nothing really a value to draw people there. How does it go from there to what it is now, which is one of the best places to visit in the country? I think last count, we had 38 communities from.

the rest of the country business last year to find out what the magic is. Yeah. What made it happen? And we tell people that it's been a 50-year overnight success. Our redevelopment was driven primarily by Max Heller. And Max was experiencing at the time, this is in the late 70s, he was experiencing the family movement out into the suburbs where family flight happened and families were moving to Simpsonville and Malden so our population was declining first

time ever and max noticed the emcy storefronts it would downtown was horrible yeah and I mean you could buy wigs you could buy shoes you could buy drugs and you can buy people in downtown Greenville. And so Max staged an effort to revitalize it. It started with, he brought in Lawrence Halperin from Seattle here to consult with us. And you had a core group of people, Tommy Whitech, Buck Mickle, a very loving, they love the community so much. They saw it was a real problem. And so they hired Halprin to come in and do the study.

But it wasn't about the study. It was about what happened after the study. And the inspiration that the community got, people jumped on it. And so it started with the Hyatt. Yeah. John is all about relationships. And, I mean, there are a lot of great stories about how the Hyatt got here. It's the smallest regency property in the country.

And there's a story that maybe the one I love is that the president, the Hyatt's, or the head of marketing for Hyatt, his daughter was at Furman, and he needed a place to stay. I don't know if that's true or not, but I love the story. And then the other story is Max was visiting the Hyatt in Chicago, and they figured out that Trudy, his wife, and the chairman were both from the same city and all. So it's so much about relationships and trust. And so it started with the Hyatt. We took Main Street to two lanes instead of four. We planted trees. It was a concrete mess.

What's really key though is we brought people back. We brought the residents back to them. No one was living downtown. downtown. Very, very few people were living downtown. We had quite a few transients living downtown, but there was no residential to speak of, brought in retail, unique retail, retail that was not national chains, it's local. And our redevelopment started with those anchors.

It started with the Hyatt. Then after the Hyatt, the Peace Center, after the Peace Center baseball. Yeah. And the next move is down Main Street, down Old Pendleton Street to the West End. Yeah. And then you just saw development move in. And it's incredible what happens when people come back. The masses of tourists and people just rejuvenate it and give the place great personality and brand.

The mayor will tell you that in the 80s, he met with a consultant, and he asked him what Greenwald's personality was or is. And they said, well, Knox, you don't have a personality. You don't have a brand. And so, I mean, look at it now. It's incredible. We're a place that, you're a place that, you know, I guess I'll back up.

The magic of our revitalization is we believed in ourselves. And maybe we were just a little bit naive, and maybe we were naive enough to believe that we can do anything. And I strongly believe Greenville is a place that if we put our minds and our hearts and our money to it, it's going to happen. And we think big here. So the revitalization is magic. And I'm actually, I'm getting my doctorate at Clemson,

and I'm writing my dissertation about that revitalization and the importance. Yeah, and the importance of the relationships that were built along the way. And leadership that didn't care who got credit for it. You know, you're pushing sales stuff, and this is all a sales pitch. but what we're doing is we're selling Greenville as an opportunity. We're selling opportunity where we're matching people with chances to do great things in this city. What's interesting, you know, from a sales perspective, you mentioned, you know, trying to get the Hyatt in Greenville. And today's, you know, the people that are, the salespeople that are watching the show today,

You know, today they're doing like email blasts and social media posts and all. They're just doing things to cover everybody. And what Tommy White and people like that were so good at was figuring out who is the right person who can actually use the stick and make this happen. And let's go see them. Let's talk to them. The magic that happens across the table when you're having a drink or a meal with somebody. is there's no better way to sell product. You can't do it.

We can't sell Greenville on the Internet. Right. Email. You certainly can't do it through email. One of our challenges today is that the default for connections is through email and social media. And that will never replace face-to-face one-on-one. And I don't have to know a person's dog's name, but it's really important for me to know a little bit about you. You know, know where you're coming from.

And in politics, we found that not everybody's going to agree with me. And there are oftentimes that are difficult where we have divisiveness. But if I have the opportunity to sit across the table from somebody, John, and try to understand, And, you know, why do we think differently? Yeah. And you don't have to, you don't have to bleed the same things I do, but, you know, let's try to understand each other a little better. Right, right. And build some connection and build some friendships.

Oh. Because that's what's made greenville, what it is today. I agree. I agree. And, you know, we have a lot of people like me and you that have been here for a while. So you have those connections. It's not people coming and going all the time. So I think that's pretty cool.

Now let's back, we'll come back to that. Let's back up for a second and let's tell the people, if you want to end up being one of the driving forces to help shape a city like you're doing, what's the ideal way to do that? And I know that you started out going to a public high school, Greenville High School, which gave you, you know, a, broad array of friends from all different backgrounds if you're gonna cooperate with people in the city and you know everybody. I assume that was part of the foundation of how you got here?

That was huge. Being at Greenwood High was one of the best experiences I've had and certainly foundational for who I am because the people I met at Greenwich High, I still keep in touch with many of them but I never would have had the chance to meet somebody that lived on another side of town or that had a different that was had a different upbringing I green will grow was foundational yeah and I know Knox was student body president I was student body president and that was such a great experience that opened doors for other potential relationships it it Greenville High was such a great experience for me.

And it was at a time where Greenville High was having some problems. When you were there? When I was there. It was a challenging time for Greenville High. So when you were president, what did you have to deal with? It's kind of funny, I mean, not to take things lightly, but our big deal was where we were going to put the senior smoking lounge. Oh, really?

a smoking lounge in Greenville High School. We had an unofficial smoking lounge down by the gateway that we're smoking different things. But our challenges at Greenwood High were dealing with each other and dealing with, you know, what's going to happen to my classmates when we get out of Greenwood High? Because not all we're going to college. And people have a lot of stuff going on in their lives. And Green Ohio taught me how to navigate some of that. Where when I get a call from an Angley constituent, for example,

you know, I've got to realize they've got some stuff. They probably have some stuff going on that is impacting the anger. But Green Ohio was just. It's a great experience. Yeah, cool. And also, I was on the council for the other high schools. So I got to know, become really good friends with, especially Wade Hampton people, Jane Roblo, and a few people from the other high schools. Yeah.

And I'm still buddies with them with them now. That's good. That's good. And Jane, she was on the news, right, for a long time? Oh yeah. She became like a speech coach or something. And then she went to, she was on the today show. Was it today? It may have been good morning America. Okay. And she's come back and she's at YFF now and it's doing great and it's a great citizen and lover of the community. Yeah, well it's wonderful. Anyone who's in really, I mean, it really goes we advise students or young people to get involved in as many, different tribes as you can, whether it's a sport or a hobby or student leadership or whatever and meet these different groups of people that you'll never meet otherwise, and then to make an effort to stay in touch with the Jane Robillows of the world, you know, for the rest

of your life, because those are the people you call sometimes to get things done, right? And it's not all business either. I mean, it's kind of fun just go out and reminisce and laugh about the fun times you had. I think about my children, both my children went to Southside High School and were really involved in debate. That was life-changing for them because that gave them the talent and the skill to talk and to have a conversation. And Southside was the same way as Greenville High. It was very diverse. And they just had a great experience at Southside as well.

Good. Good. And then you went to W&L? I did. Why don't you pick W&L? I originally wanted to go to Wake Forest. Okay. And I had my hand in the mailbox with my early decision and being a cocky 17-year-old.

I pulled it out and I said, I can get it. in, no problem. And I went up to visit W&L, and as I got out of the car, somebody came up to me, a student came up to me and said, are you a prospective student? And I said, how can you tell? I weighed probably a buck 10, and I looked like I was 12. But he said, let me show you around. And so a student, I wish I knew who that student was because he came up to me and grabbed me and took me around campus. And it just felt, it was unlike any other place. It just felt special and I felt special.

And W&L at the time was all guys. With like five girls schools around you, I think. Well, yeah. There were, I think, seven girls schools within driving distance. But we were told at our 25th reunion by the dean that, our class was the reason that W&L went co-ed. He said, y'all are the worst class academically in the history of the university.

But it went co-ed, I think, three years after I got out. Well, I've been up there, everyone I know that went there had a great experience and enjoyed it. The beauty about W&L for me, it's not for everybody, as is any college, but what I loved about W&L It's very small. And so you knew everyone in your class. And they know you, good, bad, and ugly.

And it was just, it remains a really tight-knit group. I was telling you before we started, I had a message track going on this morning from eight or ten fraternity brothers that we were having some discussions about stuff that they did. I've never done anything wrong at WD. Correct. But it's pretty amazing to think those relationships have lasted 40 years. Yeah, it is amazing.

It is amazing. 40 plus years. Yeah. So Washington Lee, and then did you go right to business school or did you go to work? No, I worked for a while. I worked in D.C. I worked for a department store in D.C. Polo?

Before Polo. I worked in the I was head of the China Silver Department at Hex Department School. Nicely done. Nicely done. So I have the when I got married I had the nicest China you can imagine. And it was highly

involved in that decision on what we're going to do. And then I moved over. I was worked for Ralph Lauren for a couple of years selling the home furnishings line. Okay. And which is a bit of a challenge.

because at the time it was really expensive. We were selling $5,000 sheets, and we had a night spread that was a $50,000 retail night spread. So it was a little bit of a hard product to sell. But I remember when the night spread came out, the $50,000 night spread, Ralph did it. Ralph Lauren did it primarily just to say you could. Yeah.

And I had a polo store in Palm Beach that bought $25,000. five of them. And so it put the factory in a little bit of a bind. Nice. We're going to have to actually make these things. Yeah. But I worked for Polo for a couple of years, and then I went to I went to Emory to get my MBA. So how was the sales training at Polo? We were very, very small. There were, in the home furnishings line, there were, I think, five salespeople. So my territory was 13 states. I was the southeast. We were a division of J.P. Stevens, which is kind of interesting because J.P. Stevens had a big presence here,

including my father who worked for J.P. Stevens. And one of my greatest experiences was when the board of Stevens came up to Polo during Market Week to meet with the management of Polo. and I was in the receiving line, and they would go down the receiving line, and they'd get to me, and, oh, Russell, how are you? Because it was Buck Bickle, and it was all the people that I grew up with. Yeah, yeah. And so, again, I'm beating that drum about relationships. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

And then you decided to get your MBA, and you went to Emory. Yeah. Did you just want to be in Atlanta, or is that the specific school you liked? I chose Emory primarily because of Atlanta. Okay. I didn't want to move. It's a great school. I've heard it's a great school.

And I had a good experience there. When I got out of Emory, I worked for a management consulting firm based out of Boston. Mercer. Mercer Management consulting. At the time, it was Temple Barker and Sloan. It was a small boutiquey. firm. So I was consulting primarily in the energy industry, doing some customer satisfaction work. And then one day I was sitting in my office and had my paycheck in one hand and my billing sheet

in the other hand and they didn't match. And I said, I'm billing this much and I'm getting paid this much. Something's wrong. And so I decided to hang out my own shingle. I did that for 12 years. And that's partway through that is when I moved back to Greenville. Okay. And the reason we moved back is my wife grew up in Charlotte. And she came home one night from her five-mile hour and 15-minute commute in Atlanta. and said, Russell, I'm done.

I'm ready to move, and I thought we're going to Charlotte to be close to our parents. And she said, I want to be close to your mom. Oh, that's nice. And so I picked up the phone that night and made the best phone call ever made, which is, Mom, I'm coming home. Wow. And so we were home about two months later. We were back.

I was in Atlanta for 16 years. Yeah. And I don't miss it. I have a son that lives down there that we visit occasionally, but it was just time. And I remember leaving home on the way to Washington and I thought I'm never coming back to Greenville. Greenville was, as we've talked about, not progressive. It was not a good place for a young person to be. And I said, I'm never coming back.

And 16 years later, I did. And I have not regretted that for a minute. My only regret is, why didn't I do it sooner? Yeah. We're certainly glad you came back. I thought I was going to be gone too, and I came back also. I mean, it's... I like it here.

And I live on the same street I grew up on. Oh, really? My mom's on the next street over, my niece and nephew on the next street over, my brother lives in my grandmother's old house, one street over. So we're all, I'm trying to get counsel. I think I know where you live. It's like right off Augusta, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And do you still have the bees? Oh, yeah. Okay. It's the subject. I want to hear, he's a big hobby other than all the other stuff he does is a bee man, a beekeeper. So tell us about the bees and why they're important and what you're doing with them. I started beekeeping, I guess it's probably been a dozen years ago.

And I did it because I needed pollinators in my garden. And so I called a local beekeeper and I said, can you come put a couple hives? And he said, I'd love to. And I'll charge you $25 a month per hive. And I said, well, I'm going to do it myself then. And so I got certified. I'm a journeyman beekeeper, which is, I guess, second level beekeeping. And I've been doing it for a dozen years.

And they're like, I have like 25,000 little friends in my backyard. Yeah. I haven't figured out how to name them yet. Oh, that's going to be tough. And then we've got chickens now. It's a little farm yard we have. That's very nice. How many eggs do you get a week?

We have six chickens. We get about four. We get four a day. Four a day? Yeah. That's about right. Yeah. That's good.

So any bee stinging going on? Nah. Do you wear all the stuff when you go out there? Oh, I look like I belong on Mars. So you put it all on? I'm allergic to bees. Okay. But, no, I put it all on.

And, yeah, the old school beekeepers, though, they don't wear anything. Right. They put out some kind of vibe, but not to sting me. Don't sting me. And I think some of them treat bee stings as bee kisses. I don't get it. No, I rarely get stoned. So it's good for your garden.

Great for the garden. And you get the honey. Get great honey. It's supposed to be good for like health reasons, right? The local honey? Local honey is great for allergies. It's great for, it's the only natural, truly natural food this around. They found it in the pyramids.

It's used for embalming people. I mean, it's crazy good stuff. All right. We'll keep going. So some great work there in Atlanta, and you started your own business. You moved back here. But then you started at some point the Clemson. I think you got a master's degree along the way.

No, recently. Planning? Recently. Recently. After when I moved back here, one of the things I did was went through Leadership Greenville. Okay. And Leadership Greenville fired me up. And I got excited about the potential of what could happen and the impact I could have. The trail I could leave for Greenville.

And at the final retreat at Leadership Greenville, I announced I was starting Greenville forward, which was an organization that facilitated Vision 2025, which was a pretty big and bold vision for Greenville. We started that in 90, I can't remember, 2006, I believe, I started that. And so we were responsible, we were the shepherds. of the vision, which meant we were reaching out to the community. We weren't leading a lot of stuff, but we were making sure that other people were. So if we saw things weren't happening on one of our visions, I'd pick up the phone or schedule a call fee and just try to nudge people along, build collaborations with people

that otherwise wouldn't have those connections. I think I filled out your survey when you were starting that. We sent it to a lot of people, I'm sure. I filled out kind of my thoughts for, so you took the most important things that should be happening by 2025 and started to pigeonhole or get after people who try to make these things happen.

Yeah, John, we had, when I inherited the vision piece, there were 17 task forces, which is way too many. And so we narrowed it down to seven. And we had committees around each of those. You know, some were small, some were larger. But those committees were primarily responsible for putting out the feelers and making the connections to make some of these visions happen. And amazingly, there were 500-something items that we wanted to accomplish.

And when I left, we, Greenville, I'd not say we, but Greenville had accomplished about 75% of them. Nice. You know, some small, but some of them barely significant. It's funny reflecting back at the time because at the time, a couple things that are of interest is there was a coolness committee. We had a committee that was responsible for coolness, which my wife just thinks is the funniest thing ever. She said, you're on that coolness committee?

Let me give you a clue. If you're on a coolness committee, you probably aren't very cool. but the coolness committee, one of their efforts was we need a rooftop bar. Okay. And look at it now. There are all kinds of rooftop bars now. And then the other effort we were pushing is we didn't believe we could be a great place for young people right out of college. And so we were pushing the family-friendly, go out to Atlanta for a few years and bring your family back to Greenville.

Lo and behold, we're now a mecca. We're a mecca for young professionals now. I credit the chamber with a lot of that. They have a program called Pace Settors, which is a mentoring program that I've done since the beginning. I think I've been doing it for 15 to 18 years. And the Paysetters program, I have eight to ten mentors a year that we help walk them through their personal journey. help set goals and maybe create some aspirations for them to do cool things. And so over the years, I've had about 170 or 180 people that I've mentored.

Wow. And it's really fun now because they're now, especially those younger classes, they're now middle-aged and is doing great in their careers. And it's really fun to feel like you've been a parent to some of these young people. And maybe you had some influence, maybe helped them walk through some things and make some discoveries.

That's wonderful. So when you mentor these 10 people a year or whatever, how much time do you spend with them in the course of a year? Officially we meet monthly. Individually? No, we need as a group, which is the power of it. The power is... Everyone has a idea.

You have eight or ten people that don't know each other otherwise. And it's arranged so people are in different industries, they're from different backgrounds, and it's people they wouldn't meet. And they form the most amazing friendships. I mean, they're in each other's weddings. they're I mean it's it's pretty powerful but the power of that group mentoring is they have people that hold them accountable so when we set goals if I set a goal if I want to start a business I want to lose weight I want to buy a house we have

what are called goal buddies that will call the mentee and and make sure that they're moving along that path. It's very, very powerful. What's it called? Pace-setters. Okay. It's a very powerful program. Okay. That's great.

That's wonderful. And I also want to ask you, let's take this one a little bit deeper, but you just decided, I don't know why, but you decided that Greenville should have its own TEDx talk series. And I think it would be fun to walk through, because everyone can say I'd like to be a city leader, I'd like to make things happen for the city. how on earth do you make that happen?

Because it happens every year now. I mean, it's an ongoing thing, right? Yeah, we are, we get a lot of awards in this city. My favorite is we were just voted, we shared the lead with, I think, Omaha. We were just voted the most optimistic city in the country. And we laughed that, you know, I'm not sure we were going to get that. but we have a sense of entrepreneurship in this city, unlike any other place, I think. And as I said, at the beginning of belief in ourselves.

And we have people that instead of saying, I wish something would happen in this city, if only. We have people that are, well, I'm going to make it happen. said, I'm going to be the person that's going to take the lead and make it happen. And again, the beauty about Greenville is we have that group of leaders that all they want is to make it happen and don't care if they get the awards and the accolades. And just take the bull by the horns and just do it. TEDx was, we were the first TEDx in South Carolina.

and when we found out that TEDx was offered, Ted was offering these talks, we were one of the first in the country actually to get it. And there was a small group of people that organized the first couple, and then Greenville Forward stepped in and took over. And we've done it 12 years or so. We're in a bit of a sabbatical right now. But we have, we featured over 300, speakers at our events. We have 29 million views of our talks, our local talks on YouTube.

Seven million or one speaker, by the way. Which speaker? It was talk on fasting. Really? Wow. And then the second one is a Buddhist monk. Okay. So it's not very traditional Ted. Ted talks. Marcus King, who's making a big name for himself now, was one of our performers. And it's been energized and we see what's happened to some of these performers. We're starting to, we're slowly starting to come back, but we're starting with monthly salons. So we're starting by doing, not even monthly, but every now and then we'll do a smaller salon. which are evening programs featuring a couple speakers. And I love those because they're intimate.

You can focus on certain subjects. A couple months ago, we did a program on how does Greenville manage its growth. I think the next one is probably going to be on AI. Where are you holding them now? There at Zen. Zen. I went to one in Zen. I'll never forget. I'm sure you introduced everything.

And I can't remember the gentleman's name, I'm sure you will, but he was a roller coaster designer. He's designed, you know, hundreds of roller coasters around the world. And his message, I'll never forget. He says, he goes, I can't really do my taxes. I can't remember people's names. But if you show me a piece of property and tell me what should the roller coaster look like, I can just see it. And he said, that's my message to everyone, is figure out what's easy for you. And just do that.

And the key to those TED talks is it's one idea. Yeah. And what is that, if you can't boil it down to one idea and do it in 16 minutes, it's not worth spending time with. One thing. One thing. What's that one thing? Well, I think that's a great one. And you had to get, how did you get that, the funding to make any of the payment part of that happen? It's, it's not expensive. Okay. The we don't pay our we don't pay the speakers.

Okay. It's 100% volunteer. It's 100% volunteer staff. Okay. We cannot, as a matter of fact, I cannot hire anyone for Ted. We do hire out production and in the video. We hire out the food. But most of that is covered by ticket costs.

Okay. But we also had some real generous corporate donors that have that have helped out. But again, it's not an expensive event. But I think from perspective of the fact that you have so many contacts, that it wouldn't be hard for you to pick up the phone and find a venue, maybe Carl Sobasinski to give you a deal on the food, who are the volunteers?

Exactly. You know, and just, you know, you got it. The challenge we found recently, though, is the volunteers to help us, put the events together. My time's fairly limited. And when I was doing the big conference, I mean, it is a huge time commitment to put on these events. And you're so dependent upon the volunteers that come together. Ted has tendency to attract pretty cool people and interesting people.

So we're still challenged in finding the right mix of people that can put on an event as big. as TEDx, as big as conference. The salons are a piece of cake. The salons. I guess I went to a salon. They're not hard. Right. If it was a Zen.

And we've done, we've probably done 80 to 100 of those. And the Ted's are like an all day deal. Ted's all day. And it's, it takes a lot of time. And most of the time is curating the speakers and making sure the speakers

are not professional Ted talk folks. Right. And we've made the decision that Ted, that we want all our speakers to be local. I like that. Which isn't normal. Most Ted's get them from all over the place. But Cranville's got so much talent

that there's so many ideas in Greenville that we can support Ted very easily. The last TED event we had, for 16 slots, we had 260 nominations. Wow. But we also, we've changed. We've changed our thinking where now we're more actively recruiting the speakers, where we come up with the idea and say this is a great idea, who can talk about it.

Like sales, for example. Who could you get for that? I wonder. I wonder. Just throwing it out there. I wonder. Just throwing it out there. I can go 16 minutes.

Well, one more question. It's hard to go 16 minutes. Let me tell you. I bet. I bet. I bet. So I'll tell you a quick side story about. 16 minutes. So I got a corporate speaking gig a couple years ago. And I don't do many of them,

but I was delighted to get it. It was up in Charlotte. And I didn't really do the upfront contract very well. I just figured I'd show up, you know, I got my hour, you know, whatever. So it's 9 o'clock. And all the people are there, the CEO's there. And he goes, he goes, John, I'm just going to introduce you real quick. I'm going to say a few words, like 10 minutes, and then it's all yours. And I said, how long do you want me to go? He goes, Well, lunches at 12. Nice. Three hours.

Three hours? Yeah. So I said, really? He goes, yeah. And so, of course, we did a lot of roleplay and breaks, and we somehow made it. But my lesson learned was you've got to define these things up front. So a couple of questions. What's your favorite book?

Right now, I don't have a whole lot of time for regular books. So my favorite books now would be the books I'm reading. from a PhD fun books. I think on my nightstand is learning Python in 24 hours which has taken me a little longer. You're not like tearing through Ludlam books or anything. No, no, we're not doing a whole lot of that.

But yeah, so I regret that I don't spend a lot of time on leisurely reading because I'm reading so much. One thing that's unique about a PhD is, I mean, you just read a lot. And part of my focus besides planning is on digital history. And with the history stuff, I mean, you're reading 1,500 pages a week kind of stuff. And so I'm not reading a whole lot.

Well, I don't think any of these people are going to be reading any Ph.D. books on city planning, but... My goodness. It's all right. It's all awesome. I mean, it really is. I'm sure. Well, someone's got to read all these books. If we're going to have a beautiful city.

I spend a lot of time in the South Carolina room and at the library doing research primarily on Max Heller's letters. And I think the librarians think I'm a little odd because I'll come across a letter and I'll like, oh, that's cool. And so I have to be shushed when I'm in the South Carolina room every now and then. All right. So what about favorite word? Favorite clean word. Yeah, favorite clean word.

Optimism. Optimism. Wonderful. That's a Greenville-Ger-City Greenville word, right? Yeah. I also love the word connection. I don't know. That's a difficult one, John.

I'll blurt one out in a minute. That's okay. I think about Tommy White. She's, you know, one of the people who did the most for the city. And I remember, you know, I knew him like you did, but I knew him from tennis a little bit. And he was just so, just quietly pecking away at these projects that might take 20 or 30 or more years. He never was pessimistic. If something would go wrong, he would just.

to say, well, we just gotta keep going. And that's what it takes here. We live in a short-term world right now. We live in a world where results are expected by quarter. Politically, it's expected by the term that you're in office. And so unfortunately, a lot of politicians, not necessarily local, but generally politicians are working from term to term, and are not thinking the impact of things in the next generation.

Right. When I do presentations, I show a slide of the front gates of Furman, taken back in 1960. And I asked people, show me, I mean, do you know where this is? Nobody knows where it is. And then I show a present-day picture of the gate at Furman, and it's covered by trees. and the analogy is that the trees that we plant and the ideas we plant now,

many will take a generation to grow to maturity. Greenville's Unity Park, for example, that was originally suggested in a plan written in 1907 by Kelsey and Guild. And they said we need, they called it the Hudson Athletic Fields. which is exactly where Unity Park is. Also, they called for a civic center to be built, where the Peace Center is now. So some of these ideas are going to take,

I'm not going to see a lot of this stuff I'm planting. Right. But 1907, what was it that made the last couple of years the time to pull the trigger and make Unity Park happen? What happened to make that work? A visionary mayor. a mayor who believed in possibility. I sat on,

Knox and I, 25 years ago, stood at what is now the edge of Unity Park on one of the sewer pipes, and he said, Russell, what would you think about a park here? And my response was, well, sounds great, good luck, Knox, have fun with that one. And to see that come to fruition is very exciting, but it's because I credit Knox, but I also credit we approached it from a neighborhood perspective.

Instead of mandating what was there, which is what happened in the 30s, we told people what was going to be there and excluded the black race. And this park has been, unity is a perfect word for the, part because we've the neighborhood has been responsible for what goes in there and what is continuing to go in there and so one of the taglines we use is it's a promise kept that a hundred

years ago it was a pipe dream and so a lot of projects like that takes some time and you just have have to have the vision to see the impact of these minor, smaller decisions to build up to it. Tommy White's was really good at that. Buck Mickle was really good at that. And Max Heller was really good at that, although he was impatient. And he wanted stuff to happen quicker. He commissioned a study on when Max couldn't get the Civic Center in place in the 70s, on where Heritage Green is now,

he commissioned a study on who are the most influential people in Greenville. And the idea was, I want to know who I need to be in front of to make this happen because we have formal leadership, but I think more importantly, Greenville is driven by informal players, the folks behind the scenes that hold power that we don't know about, So we got to find out who those people are and tap into their resources and their energies. Well, it's pretty amazing.

And here's an easy one, easy one for you. Favorite band? Oh, I got to go back old school, Parliament. Parliament and the Funk of the Elis. And the mothership connection. Yes. No question about it. Very nice.

And it's part of Green Ohio. It's part of who I am. and unfortunately I went to see them at the handle bar a few years ago and they just aren't the same. Right. Is George Clayton still alive? He's still alive, but he's bigger. I hate that this is recorded, but he's an overweight bald guy without the curl, I mean, without the dreadlocks and without the robes.

Well, they were amazing. There were some great bands back in we were in high school. I mean, you got Parliament. I mean, Teddy Pender. grass is always one of my favorites. Earthwind and fire. Earthwind and fire's got to be up there. Lakeview was good. So I was a huge R&B affectionato back in the day. Me too. Me too. Well that's good. Okay. And I told you I wasn't going to say Taylor Swift. I just I know I just couldn't go there. Well, that's everyone's favorite. I thought I like her. It's everyone's favorite. Well, good for her, man. She's

become very successful. I'll give her that. Yep. That's for sure. Um, And she is a great salesperson. She is a great salesperson. She's found out what the people want. She knows her brain. And she's giving it to them. Yep. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

I give her a lot of credit. Anything else you want to promote that you're working on? There are a lot of things in the works. Yeah, Greenville's always moving. I mean, we've always got something we're tinkering with. And some we can't talk about yet. But I'm trying to, one of the projects I'm working on is creating a city planning design center in downtown, which would be a collaboration between the city of Greenville Planning Department and Clemson's planning school,

where in best case scenario, no other city I know of does this, where you have the two come together to create a place where people can come to look at plans, They can dream a little bit. It's a think tank where we can dream about what's next for Greenville. So we're, I'm working on, I'm certainly not alone and I'm not the major player in this, but I'm, I have my, at least my hands in it on trying to make that kind of thing happen. I love it. But again, it goes back to the, it goes back to connections and, and building trust in the community.

Well, certainly with the Clemson MBA program, I think is a perfect example that nobody would ever go to that school in Clemson. And not an NBA student. But boy, downtown Greenville, they're all over. There is no better lab for city planning in the world than Main Street Greenville, South Carolina. I love it. Maybe it could put in one building. We'll see where it is. We'll see where it goes.

All right. Well, thank you very much. I know you're busy. It's been delightful to have you. Some great sales lessons, all about connections. All about connections. Find out who is the person I need to talk to. And John, it's about knowing who you are

and knowing what your product is. And being a champion of the product. And we're fortunate that Greenville's, our best product is our city. Welcome downtown. It's an easy sell, but we've got to know it. And I'm really interested in making sure people also understand the history and what got us here. And appreciating those people that did it.

Well, you're doing a good job. Thank you. I hope you stay on the city council for a long time. Is there anything beyond that you'd like to do eventually? Politically not. And we'll see what transpires. If you look in my career, I mean, maybe some advice to some of the younger people out there, if you look in my career, it looks like it was highly planned, which it was not.

But I would encourage younger people to go with the flow a bit. And, you know, see what opportunities emerge as you move along and build off those connections as you go along. No career is highly planned. Right. Well, some are. But, you know, be flexible. Yeah. And see where things go and figure out, you know, what's going to be my impact in this world?

And when I leave, what trail am I leaving for other people to follow? Well, you'd be a good person to follow on that because you're leaving a great trail. Thank you, your kind. Thank you, buddy. Oh, my pleasure. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Okay.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.