Music has always been, and always will be, a part of Johnson's life.

"It's taught me discipline, it's taught me how to focus, it's taught me organizational skills. It has made me reach a level within myself where I have really gotten to know myself better. Some people may find that strange or a little weird or something, but I love music. I love all forms of music, from classical to jazz to rock, pop. But I just find something within music that just keeps me alive, and I love it.

"And from that music, because, you know, it's taught me how to listen and have a critical eye in watching and just trying to get things done, it has latched over into the media business, it has latched over into the hotel business. It has helped me pay attention to detail, and really be able to achieve the success that I want to achieve."

While the arts are her passion, Johnson is no dilettante when it comes to sports.

"Sports has always been in my life, from elementary school all the way through college. In high school, physical education was a requirement, unlike the way it is today. So I ran track, I was on the synchronized swim team, I was a cheerleader in elementary school, high school. I was the first African American cheerleader at the University of Illinois. And so I've always had my hands in sports, and this is all before Title IX. So I've been very, very involved in sports.

"My mother was a sports nut. I mean, she never missed a Cubs game. I am telling you, she traveled with me to every competition, whether I was involved in it or whether I was cheerleading. She loved the football, she loved the basketball. My kids are sports nuts. My son played football all through high school against Russell Wilson. My daughter is a professional show jumper. So we're a sports family. We are a sports family. So it's all been part of that, yeah. So that has been my introduction to sports, and golf has really been something new that has come into my life in the past 15 years I have to say."

Johnson admits she faced a learning curve when she bought Innisbrook.

"I didn't know anything about golf, and as an African American woman it was never on my radar screen because we were never allowed in private golf clubs, and that's where all of this golf course stuff started. It was segregation. We were segregated out of golf clubs, so we never had the networking opportunities to learn to play golf. So I'm an accidental hospitality owner in the golf business. …

"I have to say, it hit during the recession. I was trying to build a resort in Middleburg, Virginia, and it took a lot longer than I thought to get the entitlements, to get it through, and there were other obstacles there that we don't need to get into, but I had hired this dynamic team of executives to help me get my company started. So here I am totally stalled, and I'm like, what am I going to do with them? Well, first of all, I bought a small little intimate resort outside of Charleston, South Carolina, called the Woodlands. It won Forbes five-star reviews three or four years in a row. But still, it was too small to make money. And then a broker came to me with Innisbrook because it was in bankruptcy. And so it was under the golf trust, so they approached me, and once I went through the gates of that campus, I fell in love with it. But more importantly, what I saw was not only the bones of an incredible run-down resort, but also the passion of the employees there.

"Now, you have to understand, Innisbrook was really the hub of over 700 employees. I mean, it was the real economic engine for employment there. And if it closed, you had over 700 employees out of jobs. So I took a complete tour of it, and the property was so depressed that it was like the perfect buy -- the perfect buy -- because it was really inexpensive. And so I bought all 900 acres, the 1,100 condos, and what I needed to do was put about $26 to $30 million into that property to turn it around, and that included improving the golf courses.

"As the years have gone by, our latest improvements have been the restoration of Copperhead, and that's Mr. (Larry) Packard's prized golf course. … I wanted it to be a shining beacon of the PGA TOUR, and so I put another $4.2 million into that golf course, and I'm telling you, it is better than ever, and we made some slight changes to really challenge our best golfers that were coming in there on the TOUR."