Someone once said you can take the girl out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the girl. But what if the girl never lets the city in? Who does she become?
Michelle Johann grew up in Ringgold, Georgia, a town she poetically describes as existing at the crossroads between affluence and poverty.
“You had some people who were not necessarily rich but there was money to be made in that area and you had a lot of us who were rollovers from Appalachia,” she says. “Our parents were laborers, and we were in church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night, praying for a better life.”
Johann (pronounced “yo-han”), 42, is not frowning upon her childhood but remembering it as it was. The daughter of a textile worker and an evangelical preacher who suffered a debilitating aneurysm when she was 10, she remembers a father who could not be there and a mother who was a blur as she dashed between jobs.
“I was taught to work from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed,” Johann says. “Not that there was no love or joy in our home, but there was work and there was church and there was glory to God in our labor.”
As a child, Johann knew little about the world beyond the Protestant work ethic that defined her family. Yet as she watched her mother’s unending toil claim years of her life, a fire started to burn in her chest and every breath she drew fed the growing flames.
“My mom is a hard worker. A morning to night, bleeding palms kind of worker. So, I was never afraid of hard work, but I was afraid I’d have to always work as hard as she did.”
As Johann marked off grades in Ringgold’s public schools, she developed a love for radio and began to envision a different future for herself. She remembers with a broad smile the praise a teacher heaped on her and a friend for a radio show they recorded in seventh grade. And she recalls practicing to speak the way people on the radio did in an attempt to smother her Southern accent beneath ordinary diction.
“I’d pause and rewind tapes of people talking on the radio and overpronounce the words because I wanted to speak like they did. I didn’t want to speak the way the people around me spoke, not because I thought it was shameful but because people would always know where I was from. I wanted people to wonder where I was from.”
Radio daze
Working in radio was Johann’s first dream. And radio did become a part of her life for a season.
While Johann was attending classes at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, WUTC hired her to serve as an on-air announcer. She eventually added a night shift at US 101.
Johann also took a third job making biscuits at Aretha Frankensteins, not because she was having a hard time shaking her nose-to-the-grindstone instincts but because she had a destination in mind.
“Those jobs were going to take me somewhere,” she says.
As Johann was making a beeline to the future, something caused her to make a hard right turn: her appetite for pizza.
While dining at Mellow Mushroom in downtown Chattanooga, Johann passed a table of German business executives. As providence would have it, she also spoke German.
“I loved languages after spending so much time becoming cognizant of my diction,” Johann explains. “I also loved history, a lot of which has to do with the Germanic countries. So, I taught myself to speak German; I liked the way it sounded.”
Johann generally spoke German at social gatherings to entertain others. However, her chance meeting with the German executives in 2007 opened a door that seemed to materialize out of thin air.
Impressed with Johann’s command of their native language, the foreigners engaged her in conversation. She later suggested they broadcast a help wanted ad for an executive assistant on the radio – and then convinced them to hire her instead after she saw the job description.
The company eventually promoted Johann to general affairs director. Over the course of seven years, the job not only allowed her to shake off the last of her Ringgold roots but also took her to England, France and Germany. Her employers also sent her back in school, where she learned German in a classroom setting, and enabled her to transcend the poverty of her youth.
However, it did not encourage Johann to work less.
Matter of the heart
When the company that employed Johann left the North American market, she continued to work for other German companies for 14 years. Each position elevated Johann above her previous station until her last employer made her the third link in the chain of command.
By this time, Johann was also married and had two daughters. So, while the money and status were nice, she says, there was a cost.
“I was traveling 80% of the time. A lot of that was international. There were times when I pumped breast milk on airplanes and in cars driving down the Autobahn. I did everything I could to keep my jobs but also be a mom.”
When Johann was home, she was smacking her alarm at 3 a.m., rushing to reach her office in Marietta, Georgia, by 6:30 and then racing back to Chattanooga for the evening shift with her family. Finding even a moment to catch her breath was like chasing a feather in a windstorm.
In time, a secret buried inside of Johann brought her frenzied routine to an abrupt end.
“I was flying from Detroit to Las Vegas and was about to miss my flight,” Johann recalls. “As I was running to the plane, I had what felt like a heart attack and collapsed.”
Johann’s doctors said she did not have a heart attack. They then broke some unexpected news: She’s one of a rare breed of individuals who have an artery wrapped around their esophagus. Regrettably, this vessel can tighten during moments of stress and mimic the sensation of a heart attack.
“I never knew I had that issue,” Johann marvels. “I was probably born with it.”
When Johann’s doctors grounded her for what would be the better part of the year, she knew she had a decision to make.
A new career
Raised as an evangelical Christian, Johann has since converted to Catholicism. Although this irked her mother, Johann believes Protestants who frown on Catholics are splitting hairs.
“I believe my mom knows our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will meet us where we are,” she smiles.
Christ will also shepherd his sheep to where He wants them to be, Johann adds. Yet despite her belief in her Lord’s guiding hand, Johann was unaware she was learning to become a Realtor as she and her husband, Josh, searched for a forever home.
At first, Johann thought finding a forever home would take an eternity.
“Josh and I didn’t know where we wanted to be. We bought and sold on Missionary Ridge and in St. Elmo and Shepherd Hills but nothing felt right.”
Finding a Realtor who was a good fit for the Johanns also took time. Eventually, Josh suggested they call Jay and Ali Robinson of The Robinson Team at Keller Williams Greater Downtown Realty – a group known for selling luxury homes.
Johann laughed and said the Robinsons wouldn’t take their call.
Jay proved her wrong.
“He said, ‘Michelle, we serve everybody,’” Johann chuckles. “And they do. They were our Realtors for our next five transactions. Working with people who literally wrapped their arms around us and took care of everything made us feel served. We loved working with them.”
Then came the day Jay asked Johann if she’d ever thought about becoming a Realtor. Although she waved off the question, Jay had planted a seed in her thoughts. As Johann weighed his suggestion, she accepted that she would first have to embrace a new attribute – humility.
“I had an ego,” Johann confesses. “I’d crawled out of an impoverished ditch to graduate from college and become an international executive. I took pride in the work I’d done and the titles I’d earned.
“But I could no longer sustain the work I was doing. I had to find something that would allow me to be present with my children but also use the skills I’d acquired.”
When Johann decided to become a Realtor, she knew where she’d want to hang her license.
“If I was going to do this, it would have to be as part of The Robinson Team,” she remembers. “I didn’t want to do it as a solo agent or with a team that collected people. I wanted to align myself with consummate professionals.”
And so she did.
A new day
Johann started working as a Realtor in June. Instead of roping her into one role, such as a buyer’s representative or listing agent, Jay and Ali gave her free reign to build her business and contribute to the team as she wished.
The Robinsons also gave Johann golden opportunities that masqueraded as open houses. Within five months, she’d closed 11 transactions and sold $5 million worth of real estate.
Johann credits prayer and affiliating herself with the right team for her success as a rookie Realtor.
“Every time I hosted an open house, I arrived 20 minutes early, dropped to my knees and prayed that the open house would be fruitful and that God would send people to me I could serve. That was the first and most important thing.
“The second most important thing was working for The Robinson Team. They market well, they present well and they have incredible reach.”
As Johann develops her identity as a Realtor and a member of The Robinson Team, she’s drawing on her days as a globe-trotting executive to serve international buyers. She’s currently calling for people of all cultures, as well as transient buyers and people who are relocating, to reach out to her.
“If you’re thinking about moving to Chattanooga – especially if you’re from a European or Middle Eastern country – I have a lot of cultural experience and would love to serve you in a respectful way.”
As much as Johann’s time on the clock differs from what it once was, she says the changes at home have been even more dramatic.
The difference of a day off
Johann hasn’t discovered untapped reserves of spare time in her schedule since becoming a Realtor. Her days are still full, but real estate has given her the flexibility to be more present as a wife and a mother.
“I still work a lot,” she says, “but I also work smarter.”
Johann and Josh own a home in Signal Mountain, where their backyard view begins along the edge of Prentice Cooper State Forest. This places miles of forested trails and gushing waterfalls at their feet.
This sprawl of unbounded nature is a good fit for a family with two children who seem to be drawing power directly from Tennessee Valley Authority. Thankfully, Johann says, she’s there to enjoy it.
“When I was traveling, my kids were always in aftercare or with my mother or at camp. Now I can pick them up after school.”
Johann can also wrap her arms around her daughters as she’s conversing with them instead of struggling to hear them on FaceTime. And she can attend events at their school rather than of learning about them later.
“My daughters were often the only ones at a school event without a family member,” Johann says. “Now I can be there with them instead of asking another parent to take photos for me.”
Best of all: Johann’s children no longer cry as she’s leaving their house to buy groceries because they think she’s flying to the other side of the world.
Other pockets of grace abound in Johann’s life. Her mother is now the owner of a chain of Domino’s franchises, for starters, and Johann has found the time to pen and publish a children’s book titled “Guess What God Made.”
Johann also has the time to attend mass whenever local church bells summon all good Catholics to worship.
Perhaps there’s a bit of her Ringgold upbringing left in her after all.