How to be a Visionary

Anastasia Brown & Kathy Anderson

Alaina Mullin

To get the writing juices flowing I looked up the word “visionary” in a thesaurus. I was surprised to find words like “starry-eyed” and “unrealistic” as synonyms. When I call someone a visionary, I think of words more along the lines of “bold,” “creative” and “fearless.” Two women immediately came to mind when I was pondering my focus for this column—I’ve known both for decades and watched them create from a front-row seat. When I asked both the Oscar and Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Allison Moorer and the awardwinning celebrity interior designer Kathy Anderson how a person becomes a visionary, they had the same answer: “Practice.” I didn’t expect that answer, so I did a deep dive with both of them and learned a few things along the way.

Allison Moorer

Alaina Mullin

ALLISON MOORER | Survivor, Published Author & Brilliant Songwriter

I met Allison back in 1997 when she was a recording artist for MCA. After TonyBrown signed her to the label, he introduced us for artist management consideration. I had been co-managing Keith Urban, Junior Brown, John Berry and Paul Jefferson and also working with Peter Frampton as his local day-to-day manager at the time. We had several great meetings and I felt positive that we’d be working together. Enter my brilliant partner at the time, Miles Copeland, who flew to town to meet Allison for the first time. We all decided to have lunch at Valentino’s, where he proceeded to interrupt Allison the entire time. As I felt her slipping away, I gently kicked Miles under the table. He boldly asked aloud why I kicked him, so I told him that he was interrupting an artist I wanted to work with! But it was too late. Allison didn’t vibe with Miles, and we lost her. That’s not to say that I didn’t love working with Miles for eight years—I did—but in hindsight I should have demanded he leave the business closing to the ladies. Thankfully, that experience didn’t squelch our mutual girl crush.

Now, let me give you some background on Allison. When she was 14 years old, her father shot her mother and himself while she and her older sister, Shelby Lynne, were all inside their small home in Alabama. I know she heard it, but I’ve never asked her what she saw. That alone would cause a person to become jaded, but no, God thinks she’s a bit stronger.

Fast forward 13 years and she welcomes a baby boy into the world. He’s got her vibrant blue eyes and a touch of her red tones in his hair. All is well until he approaches two, when his speech begins to regress until he doesn’t speak at all. Diagnosed with autism, Allison does what she always does. With grace and determination, she puts one foot in front of the other. She found the best doctors, schools and information to give John Henry his best life.

When he was only six weeks old, Allison was asked to speak with Maya Angelou on her radio show. When Maya inquired about Allison’s upbringing and family, Allison explained, “I gave my answer that I always give: ‘My parents were troubled, but their lives were more important than the way they died.’ Then Maya asked me what I was going to tell John Henry.” That interview set her on the path to write her memoir and record a companion EP, both entitled BLOOD, which will be released in October of this year.

Anastasia Brown & Allison Moorer share a laugh at Brown's Belle Meade Home

Alaina Mullin

I have watched Allison experience huge highs and lows over the last 22 years—from watching her perform the Oscar-nominated song she penned for Robert Redford on the biggest stage in the world in 1999 to hearing her concern about John Henry’s safety in their previous home of NYC just last year. At the age of nine, he’s gotten to be strong. On a walk one typical day in New York recently, the noises scared him so much that he broke free and ran into the street. I learned of this not because Allison was having a moan, but because she automatically went into problem-solving mode. When I asked her how she stays so positive—because I’ve never heard her complain—she replies, “I have always had a deep desire to be healthy. How you actually get there, there are a million ways, and I’ve tried them all. You can surrender to living a dysfunctional life or not. I’m not going to be a fucked-up person.”

When I asked her what she would advise her younger self, she quickly replied, “Don’t worry so damn much, and especially don’t worry about what men think.” While listening to Richard Rohr’s podcast “On Being,” she got inspired about being a woman and growing older, stating, “Richard was saying women past the age of 40rise, while men start to go in the other direction, but we come into our own around that time. There is truth to that. We have to be fearless.”

Adding the role of entrepreneur to her career, watch out for Allison Moorer this fall. She’s compiled a great team to help her do business the way she wants to and create music, books, and content she believes in. At 47, she’s going to be proving Richard Rohr right. After experiencing so much in one lifetime, Allison says, “I’ve got a lot to offer because of that, and I’m not afraid to back up my ideas and my opinions with that experience.”

When I asked my two girl crushes about how to become a visionary, as I mentioned, they both said, “practice.” I have believed in artists, songs and movies as well as in creating a self-sustaining film, TV and scoring industry here in Nashville before many other people did, so does that make me a visionary? Or bold? Or simply naive? I asked both of them how they do it, to which they responded, “Practicing having vision means having a real identity to what your center is first. A person who’s not deeply connected to their core values cannot be a visionary. They could be talented, but never change someone’s mind.”

Kathy Anderson photographed in her studio downtown Nashville

Alaina Mullin

KATHY ANDERSON | Celebrity Interior Designer & Overall Girl Boss

If you’ve spent any time in downtown Nashville, you’ve seen Kathy’s thumbprint everywhere. Whether you’ve been backstage at The Ryman, Blake Shelton’s Ole’ Red, Black Rabbit, Sinema or Alan Jackson’s Good Time Bar, you know Kathy’s design. And if you’ve looked through articles with photos of the homes of Carrie Underwood, Reba or Kid Rock (among many others), you’ve witnessed Kathy’s skills there, as well.

I go way back with Kathy—back to 1996, to be exact, long before she became a “big time” business mogul. We were both working single moms raising three boys from ages four through ten, mine being the youngest. It was a great scenario: when she had to work late I got the boys, and when I worked long hours, she took over. It takes a village to raise children while growing a business on your own. Well, she did it, all while changing the Nashville skyline and taking care of her family and mother who suffers from seizures. She’ll take ten meetings and create multiple designs all before driving to her mother’s home to coordinate her medications. No victim mentality with this one—Kathy’s mom, Jessie, must have instilled into Kathy the “can-do” way of thinking, because that’s how she rolls, too (even with her physical limitations). A good lesson for all of us: the words and emotions we send out are the same as we receive.

I’m about ten years younger than Kathy, so that means I watched and listened carefully, soaking up her philosophy about business and life. The “practice” theme came into play again as she said, “Everyday I practice visualization. I’ve been fortunate to do it for clients for the last 30 years. Running on their ideas initially, I finally found the freedom to do that for myself.”

I was there when her first crazy idea came about. Standing on a cliff on the small island of Isla Mujeres, Mexico, Kathy bought, or rather leased, this run-down piece of property from the country of Mexico. She proceeded to build a stunning villa on that cliff, and loads of Nashville music industry leaders followed suit. It happened again on 2nd Avenue North, when she saw the potential growth downtown long before anyone else. Her amazing office and home are now worth five times what it was when she believed in downtown and bought a run-down two-story 1890s building five years ago. Now that is visionary.

“My husband, David Malloy, will comment that he wishes he could see what I see,” she confesses. “When I was growing up, my dad was a house flipper before it was a television show. By the time I was 14, we’d lived in 12 different houses. We always lived in construction.”

Like Allison, Kathy rarely complains or sees a negative as a negative, but instead as a learning experience. “It’s never one stumbling block, never one thing, it’s constant change,” she says. “It’s never like, ‘I’m rolling now, I don’t have to worry about anything.’ There’s always a new challenge, or, as I call it, a ‘design opportunity.’” To that end, Kathy and David enjoy a hobby they call “Free Dreaming.” The next project is a farm in Springfield, TN, for a weekend getaway and party space. As if designing and becoming a real estate mogul wasn’t enough, she also, in her spare time, launched her own line of pillows, rugs and wood flooring. You can find these items in her design studio on 2nd Avenue North.

How does one become a visionary, I ask again? Kathy simply replies, “To be bold, you must be fearless. Once you start, it becomes a practice. Like you, Anastasia— your ears are so practiced, while listening to music you can hear a song that no one else would notice.” Hmm, now I get it. I do practice what I love every day. Thanks to all of my fearless girl crushes, past and future—you teach and inspire me.

Kathy Anderson photographed in her studio downtown Nashville

Alaina Mullin