Ken Steorts shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Ken, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Lately, I have been deeply enjoying riding my 2017 Triumph Scrambler 900 both to work – and out into the countryside. Not having been raised a “motorcycle kid”, I found the joy of riding about 10 years ago and recently began spending a majority of my time using this transportation I fully love. The freedom of the open road and the nearness to the smells and sights of the drive are two of my favorite things about motorcycle riding. Although I try not to encourage anyone to ride due to apprehension about safety, I personally find absolute glorious fun riding in urban and rural environments regularly.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am a visionary discoverer of ways to restore and renovate the world around me. I have a large number of brands and organizations that I launch and empower others to run, while guiding other projects more directly and long term. My experience has been around creative arts and Christian religion, for the most part, intermingled with a love for nature and conservancy of the created world.
Skillet was my first public launch of a brand, initiating the Christian rock band with my friends and taking on a leadership and marketing role from the early stages. When I saw the strength of the brand enduring, I launched CADI, a private community arts training school for kids to learn music, art, dance, and language. Soon after, I handed that over and began my largest personal work, Visible Music College in Memphis, TN.
Having led Visible for 26 years as president, I have fronted several projects along the way that still impact lives – Madison Line Records, an independent record label that works at the first stage of artist development, Visible Community Music School, which served hundreds of families for music lessons until 2022, Memphis Chesterton Society, which began in 2019 as a response to the need for worldview awareness, and the Year for Memphis Music alongside our WVZM 100.3FM station with Memphis music and focused on young people and new artists.
With my wife of 30 years Joy, we have renovated 6 homes, living and working within 100+ year old homes for families, raised kids into music and home ownership, helped restore and save three historic buildings, and are guiding the establishment of Memphis’ first (and maybe anywhere) urban spiritual retreat center for day retreats right in the core of the city, City Retreat Memphis. My passion with this project alongside Joy is sustainable living, urban homesteading, tiny home construction, and refitting classic cars for electric operation.
I maintain my three piece band “the beep” since 2001 as songwriter/singer/guitarist and am working with film and video most recently, which was a boyhood passion for script writing. I am finishing a number of short books and working hard to hand over leadership of all I do to younger leaders all the time. After, restoration comes even to yourself.
I find life to be a real joy – to live in a struggling city with impact and to develop impacting projects here and, yes, one on the island of St. John for future generations.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
Part of my journey has been education and specifically higher education in the arts and religion. I treasure my experience in gaining degrees in commercial music – audio engineering, music composition, and social research, complete with awards along the way. I have enjoyed innovating swiftly in higher education through Visible Music College. When I see a supposed “fresh idea” on a major news channel, we’ve often done it years before, like the three year bachelor degree. I try to believe in higher education like I once did but I think I see the reality of the tool that education is, and am no longer excited about the system.
That’s ok, much of innovation is done by small entities and worked out in the small, relationship space. My work in education for creative Christians has been significant and admirable. Yet, the combination of church, rock and roll, and university if a tough three way intersection to stand in for 26 years. My experience will go to help others, but it is time for my leadership at the helm of a single institution is coming to an end. As I take on more important (for me) diverse Board roles in multiple organizations, both religious and not, do consulting globally for small schools and creative ministries, and build some of my own creative and helpful content that I hope endures, my role at Visible Music College itself will shift to support rather than leadership.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Betrayal of friends taught me a lot about the world. The shocking lack of communication before the surprise shift to antagonism has always shocked me into seeing how the world is and learning about myself and my poor communication. I’ve been shaped by the disappointment of others as I begin to develop patterns to help me work with people better before the end days. Relationships end, and I don’t want that to be true but the failure of them has taught me it’s power to be positive towards everyone and receive the correction internally.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
I would say the public version of me is accurate, just very limited as to the depth of my passion for people and places and limited as to the width of my interests. You work on a public persona, and as I call them, my multiple “profiles”, but you cannot communicate to the larger world the scope of who you are. We can try through mass social media but it is limited to the captured thing and I desire authenticity so much that I don’t love curated images of me. So, I end up presenting less than I could or would like to show. Those who follow the creative line of my work know me as gentle and those who follow me publicly know me as energetic and a starter. I am both and much more, as are we all.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
I am investing in a number of non-profits that will take some time to build a following because you cannot make lifelong changes through spiritual growth and direction and retreat to happen faster. I work closely with my wife Joy on her projects and ours together in St. John, but these are for future repeat visitors who experience growth in God and creation. I love that dynamic actually, and see this in my children as well. We also have 10 Godchildren and they range from 0 to 24 years old, so they are the future in which I invest my time and energy day and night. The relationship time always pays off big.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.visible.edu
- Instagram: visible_ken
- Linkedin: KenSteorts
- Twitter: @KenSteorts
- Facebook: Ken Steorts
Image Credits
All photos taken by Ken Steorts
