Welcome to a very special episode and wisdom mini-series. This four-part series originates from an archive of rare 2004 recordings of wisdom conversations with my mentor, John Wells Jr. In the truest sense this batch of wisdom has been two decades in the making.
Sadly, John passed away in early February 2005, after battling cancer. Those conversations and recordings served as a pre-cursor, perhaps even a prequel to this podcast which launched 15 years later in 2019.
The Art of Visualization
In Part Two of our our mini-series, you will hear John tell one of his favorite stories. It’s the story of the world’s most famous sculptor, Michelangelo, working to craft the statue of David. This story is a wisdom lesson illustrating the incredible power of belief guided by the art of visualization.
When John shared this story with me, it inspired me to take my marketing consulting firm, once a dream, to a greater level of reality. He challenged me to envision the greatest form my business and my life could attain.
What might John’s rousing story inspire in you today?
More About Our Wise Guest – John Wells, Jr.
John was one of the most effective and influential mentors in my lifetime. He taught, led and influenced me, opening my eyes and expanding my thinking on those things that truly matter. I was deeply blessed to know him.
John was a dedicated retail veteran and community leader who co-founded Wells Home Furnishings after many years working at R.H. Kyle Furniture Co.
Known for his entrepreneurial spirit, he led his business to award-winning success and earned induction into the National Wholesale Furniture Association Hall of Fame. Beyond his career, Wells was deeply involved in civic and youth service organizations in Charleston, including the Boys Scouts, YMCA and United Way, among others, reflecting his commitment to community betterment.
His leadership extended to serving as past president of the National Wholesale Furniture Association, where he influenced industry standards and fostered professional growth. Locally, John was known as an effective, tireless leader and chairperson of several charity fundraising drives.
In 2000, John was honored with the prestigious Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Though he never sought the spotlight, one day the President of the United States, George W. Bush, stood in Charleston and honored John Wells for his service. His legacy is marked by his dedication to his family, his profession and his community, leaving a lasting impact on everyone who knew him.
Resources
YMCA Spirit of the Valley Tribute Video to John Wells, Jr. (2005)
Wells Home Furnishings website
Credits
Special thanks to Motion Masters, Inc. – Diana Sole Walko, CEO/President – for generously supporting and capturing video and audio from these 2004 sessions.
Editor + Technical Advisor Bob Hotchkiss
Brand + Strategy Advisor Andy Malinoski
PR + Partnerships Advisor Rachel Bell
Marketing, Social Media and Graphic Design Chloe Lineberg
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Episode Keywords
Wisdom, Art, Sculpture, Podcast, Michelangelo, John Wells Jr., Mentor, Visualization, Potential, Resilience, Vision, Leadership, Service, Courage, Insights, Family, Cancer
Episode Transcript
0:00:00 – Skip Lineberg
Welcome back to this special mini-series Conversations with my Mentor, John. This series is derived from a set of unique, rare recordings captured in October 2004. Those 157 minutes of wisdom conversation with John Wells Jr stand as the prequel to the Main Thing podcast.
In Part One, you were introduced to John Wells Jr. You heard me speak of his strength, how he never gave up, kept battling cancer until his very last breath. Today, here in Part Two, you’ll hear about his belief in the power of visualization. Last time, John used a mythical football game as a metaphor for presenting his wisdom lesson. This time, John uses art, specifically the art form of sculpture, to convey the wisdom for this lesson.
A note to our listeners the audio of John’s voice was ripped from a set of videotapes recorded in the fall of 2004. Those tapes sat in a box in my garage for over 10 years. As a result, the audio is weak—partly because John’s voice had been weakened by cancer and chemo treatments, but also because of the effect of aging, weather and temperature exposure from my unheated garage where those tapes sat for a decade. You’ll likely want to turn up the volume when you hear John’s voice. I promise you the exceptional quality of John’s wisdom message will outweigh the somewhat low and poor quality of the audio.
A Bit More About My Mentor – John Wells Jr.
0:01:38 – Skip
Now here’s a bit more about my mentor, John Wells Jr.
John was my client, my fellow community servant, my role model and my dear friend. John lived fully. He led boldly. He loved deeply. John helped raise millions of dollars to fund improvements to our city of Charleston and its surrounding region, improvements to the community’s arts venues, our health and wellness infrastructure and our social support services. John gave tirelessly to the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, the United Way and to countless young leaders, including me.
His excellence was recognized on a national stage In the year 2000,. John was honored with the prestigious Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Though he never sought the spotlight, one day the President of the United States, George W Bush, stood in Charleston and honored John Wells for his service.
To me, John was much more than all that. He was the man who sat with me, asked me the deep and hard questions. He shared wisdom and showed me what it meant to live with courage, humility and heart.
Our Hope and Shared Vision
In the fall of 2004, as his health waned, John and I made a decision we would sit down together and we would record and share his wisdom, his stories, his lessons. Neither of us knew how little time we had left. Those conversations became a gift, a gift that I now share with you.
Each episode will feature John’s voice, his perspective and his timeless wisdom. You’ll also hear my reflections on what his words meant to me then … and what they mean to me now.
My hope is simple that these conversations spark growth in you, just as they did in me, and that they honor the life of a man whose legacy continues to ripple outward. So let’s continue with John Wells Jr and his second wisdom lesson.
0:03:56 – John Wells Jr. Shares His Powerful Wisdom Lesson
Michelangelo, the greatest sculptor and the greatest, probably the greatest painter and sculptor in the history of the world. But Michelangelo had a dream and in this dream he woke up and in his mind he’d heard from God and God was speaking to him: “The greatest challenge of your life, that I’m challenging you now, is to create the world’s greatest statue, and I want you to sculpt this statue of David.”
Michelangelo gets up out of bed, walks over to the table, lights a candle and starts to look at maps. Immediately, he’s looking at maps about where to get this piece of marble.
Well, the next scene, it shows him at the same table and he’s got 25 different pieces of marble with a little label on it, and that label says this piece of marble came from southern Italy … this piece of marble came from a quarry in Milan, Italy. This one came from so and so. You can see all these pieces of marble. You can see the different colorations of them and almost pick it yourself—because he picked a white piece of marble.
And he reached over and picked up that piece of marble. He said, “Here is the marble that I need to make this statue of David. It’s perfect the grain of it, the coloration of it. This is it!”
0:05:43 – John Wells Jr. Continues the Story of Michelangelo
So, the next scene … it shows Michelangelo with eight mules and wagons, with all these people and sculptors and with all this machinery. And they’re going up this quarry in northern Milan. Michelangelo and his team got to the base of a quarry in Milan, Italy, where this marble—this world’s perfect piece of marble—needed to come from. So they put the scaffolds up.
The next scene shows Michelangelo on the scaffold, and he’s going up the scaffold. And he’s being guided by God, who says to him: “Michelangelo, you are going to produce the world’s most perfect statue, the statue of David, and to do this, you must have the world’s most perfect piece of marble that there is, with no flaws.”
So he’s going up that mountain. As he goes up the mountain, he’s feeling the grain of the marble with his hands, as he’s going up the wall he yells down, “Raise the scaffold.”
And they would raise it up another three feet, and he would feel it like that. So finally he got up to about 75 feet, and he yelled down, “Stop the scaffolding.” Michelangelo had his hands up on this wall. It was very dramatic.
0:07:28 – John Wells, Jr.
Michelangelo at that point said to God, “Dear God, give me the strength to go into this mountain and liberate the statue dwelling inside. Dear God, give me the strength to go into this mountain and liberate the statue dwelling inside.”
Now, obviously, you know what that means. Here is the world’s most perfect form, and it already exists in the body of that mountain. Michelangelo is going to pull out a block of marble and scrape off the outside of it where, when he’s done, inside there is the statue dwelling of David.
0:08:56 – John Summarizes the Wisdom Lesson
It illustrates the potential of, of attaining life’s goals by perceiving them as already existing. Because if you truly believe and can visualize, not what you want, necessarily, but what is available to you. Virtually everyone in the world has the opportunity to attain their goals by approaching them from different views.
In other words, they, their opportunity, is equalized because they can … they can bring it to a more conscious level, to where they can attain those goals instead of saying, “That’s unattainable for me; that’s for somebody else.”
And so, in the final analysis, he gave Michelangelo that extra ability to go in and to attain the world’s most perfect statue.
Reflections from Your Host
0:10:36 – Skip Lineberg
Hey, it’s Skip back again, and I want to share a final reflection. I have two brief thoughts for you.
First, John was different. His thinking was different. His approach was different. The way he viewed, and the way he appreciated people, the way he dealt with people, was different.
You know, street wisdom often is heard as this: “Oh, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
But John, as you heard … as his story illustrated, lived in a manner such as this: “If I can see it, then I will believe it. If I can visualize it, then I can do it. And once that happens, those around me will see it too.”
That might have been a new way to retail finer home furnishings. Or it might have been the concept of building a community rec center with an indoor swimming pool on the top of a mountain on the edge of town … or building a world-class symphony center in a community of less than 250,000 people.
There are myriad examples of John’s visionary thinking, leading to innovative new things that others simply could not conceive.
0:11:57 – Skip Continues the Reflection
The second thought that I’m so delighted to share with you is simply the symbolic act of sculpting. As I’m working with my audio engineer to craft the raw audio that we capture for each new episode into a finished podcast of a very high quality. We always aim to bring you the best.
So as I’m listening and cutting, evaluating and revising the recorded material … each and every time I do that, I imagine myself as a sculptor. There’s a masterpiece of wisdom just waiting to be revealed. Working with my team, my job is to simply chip away the unnecessary parts. In short, my job is to visualize a world-class wisdom lesson, to trust that it’s in there … and then to help bring it to life.
Well, that’s all for now. I invite you back next week. Won’t you join us for part three of this unique mini-series “Conversations with my Mentor John.”
Outro
0:13:14 – Announcer
That goes by incredibly fast, doesn’t it? Time flies when you’re hacking wisdom. Thank you for listening to this wisdom conversation.
If you enjoyed this podcast and found the wisdom lesson valuable, then I encourage you to share it with a loved one or friend. Did you know podcast recommendations from one person to another remain the strongest form of podcast growth worldwide? It’s true, and we’d appreciate you helping spread the good word. Let’s give a big, hearty thank you to the crew of the Main Thing Podcast. These are the folks who truly keep the wisdom pipeline flowing.
Audio engineer Bob Hotchkiss, strategy advisor Andy Malinoski, public relations and partnerships guru Rachel Bell, social media and digital marketing expert Chloe Lineberg, graphic designer Emma Malinoski and, of course, our patrons. Those generous folks who provide monthly funding support to help underwrite our costs of production. I couldn’t do it without you, nor would I want to.
Your feedback matters a lot. If you have a question, a suggestion, maybe an idea, or even a nomination of a future show guest, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at info at themainthingpodcast dot com.
Well, that’s a wrap for this show. I’m your host, Skip Lineberg, signing off for now and inviting you to join us again next time for another special delivery of wisdom.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
