(happy piano music) - Hello, everyone.

Time for Powerful Women: Let's Talk.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

I'm Jennifer Moss.

It is a pleasure to bring you today's powerful woman on that national front once again.

Women across the country are also doing some incredible work.

Today's powerful woman is Colette Colclough.

She's with Maryland Public Television, one of our PBS sister stations.

Colette is the vice president and head of human resources there, and that of course has powerful woman written all over it.

Colette has more than 20 years of experience in training, human resources, payroll, management, and recruitment.

Before her work at Maryland Public Television, Colette worked at Maryland's Department of Labor in licensing and regulation where she served as the director of human resources.

She also had served at other television stations as well in a human resources capacity, as well as helping with the startup of Politico, which is a politically-based journalism organization that distributes content via the internet, newspaper, TV, and radio.

And we're so glad to welcome you, Colette Colclough, to Powerful Women: Let's Talk.

We appreciate you being here.

- Thank you, Jennifer, thank you.

- Human resources is a very key and much needed capacity in pretty much all businesses, correct?

- Yes, absolutely.

And we focus on the two words, human and resources.

We want to help move people forward.

- Okay, and as you do that, so you've had quite an accomplished career.

Are you enjoying the journey as you move along in what you're doing and trying to do for those you work with and others?

- So I would say 90% of it, absolutely.

But as you know, in everything that we do, there's always peaks and there's always valleys.

And so it's how we overcome those valleys that makes the peaks that much greater.

So I would say in, throughout my career, I've had quite a few, quite a few peaks and experiences with valleys that allow me to enjoy those peaks.

- Absolutely, and I would imagine too, the valleys, you help a lot of people navigate through valleys of their own.

That is part of your job, I would imagine.

- Yes.

Whether it's personal valleys, like family, family situations, or it's navigating work and career and trying to reach a higher goal where people feel as though that they're stuck.

Giving them options, alternatives, and opportunities.

That's what the resources part is all about.

- Okay, and so you know, I mentioned off the top, your work with the Maryland Public Television's Women's Leadership Forum, of which of course, you are a founder.

I wanna talk about that at length.

That kind of has powerful woman written all over it as I mentioned off the top as well.

So on your LinkedIn page, you note that, you know, "When I see a void, I don't wait for someone else to fill it."

"I step forward and do it myself."

That approach is what led to the founding and growth of the Women's Leadership Forum, now in its fifth year, congratulations on that.

- Thank you.

- And reaching more than 2100 women with tools, with support, community, and empowerment.

You know, that is something again, you created because you saw a void.

Let's talk about that void first.

What was the void that made you say, "You know, we need a conference for women to look at so many different things."

We'll talk about that in a second too, but what was the void?

- The void I think is actually being connected to other women.

You know, yes we have our girlfriends, but we also want to have mentors, people who could give us expert information that would lead us to our next best thing.

Not necessarily changing what you have in your head, but being able to be connected to someone who could guide you to doing what you dreamed of doing.

What you want to do, what you thought about doing, what you think that you are like great at, but you say, I have to, you know, provide for my family.

How could I be great at the thing that I really love to do without sacrificing my family and my wellbeing?

So I wanted to make sure that women could see themselves in all their possibility and all their greatness and be connected to the resource that would take them there.

- And that's exactly what you do.

Now in your fifth year, the conference actually coming up.

- Yeah.

- How does it feel to have something that you perhaps maybe never even knew would do so, but grew to this point?

That's gotta be a good feeling.

You've got over 2100 women now participating.

- Well, first of all, I'm blessed to be able to even say that because I didn't dream of that.

And it is also a, you know, kind of ironic that I thought small.

I thought of just getting 60 women, like girlfriends, getting them together and us having conversation.

And it grew exponentially to the point where I look for volunteers to help me to get it off the ground and help me to navigate it.

So it really feels kind of surreal to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you to say fifth year.

Fifth year, the number of women to have people and the resources to actually come and say, "I'd like to be a part of this."

It is, it's phenomenal.

And it's awesome.

- And you cover everything in the conference.

You know, that totally aligns with what we're doing here with our Powerful Women segments.

What do you help women do or discover through that?

I looked at your slate, you've got a wonderful number of people contributing in so many areas of conversation or of fields of interest or people who are actually employed in those areas.

What do you help women do throughout the conference?

- Well, I would like to say that we grew into focusing on money.

We do focus on money because it's kind of what drives us and our economy and survival.

And so when we talk about financing, financing dreams, financing hope, being able to budget, making sure we have our pockets lined correctly, being able to balance the budget, being able to actually have extra money to be able to do the things that we dream about doing or want to do or to do just for ourselves and how we think about it.

So even our keynote is this year is focused on that, but we also move into self-care.

We talk about how we treat ourselves, what we should think about when we think about being good to ourselves.

What does that actually mean to be good to ourselves as women?

Even having a conversation this morning about how do you actually approach a boss about getting more finances?

Which can be a form of self-care, because we think about it and sometimes we think about it so hard that it just causes stress, right?

- And you never talk about it, and then you never talk about it.

- And we never talk about it.

Or we talk to ourselves about it, which is a different thing.

So we have to talk about mental health, right?

How to communicate.

So we run a gambit of curriculum, if you will, so that women have choices to be in the space that they would like to be in to learn more about themselves so that they can make better choices of how to move in their lives, how to move with their families, how to move in their communities and in their careers.

- Yeah and I mean, you touch again, you said you run the gambit because you talk about the mental health, but you also talk about physical well-being.

You talk about navigating, you know, and just stepping out for the dream.

I mean, there are people who will discuss and advocate for that.

- Risk taking, negotiating.

We have sections of our workshops that are geared for that.

- Personally, have you, as you've traveled your career's journey, your path, have you encountered barriers along the way?

- Oh, absolutely.

I don't think that I would be where I am if I didn't.

And you know, the adage is true, is that you, it's how you navigate through those barriers and the lessons that you learn that kind of enables you to face the next day, or the day after, the month after, the year.

Being able to actually be a resource to someone else who might encounter the same barrier that you did.

How did you navigate that barrier?

For the most part, the barriers are no different than perhaps our ancestors have encountered.

However, they've gotten more savvy and technology has played a greater role in that.

And so we just have to learn what that is.

And that's why it's important for us to talk and gather and tell one another what we are experiencing because the history actually helps us to navigate what's happening to us in the present, in the present.

- And so people also would know that they're not alone.

I mean, that's huge on the journey as well to know that you're not alone.

So one of my easy breezy questions that I love to ask the people that I interview on Powerful Women is, you know, laughter's good for the soul.

What makes you laugh?

Everybody needs a little laughter in their lives.

(Jennifer laughs) - What makes me laugh?

I think when people look back and they laugh at themselves, you know, and what you did, like what you did even just to get by.

What you did in your job is like, you know, "I told my boss that years ago?"

"Why did I ever say that?"

Or, "Yeah, I did try to make dinner and work and put gas in the car, and I was doing all these things."

"Why did I, what was I in such a hurry for, for doing that?"

I think the ability to laugh at yourself is important because it is, you know, you gotta have, you can't be serious all the time, right?

- That's right, absolutely.

I totally agree with that.

So as we look at in our final statements here, so much happening in the world that we live in today.

We all know that, and people are often looking for that word.

I mean, a lot of what you have said is already encouraging, but they're looking for that word or that, you know, signal of encouragement, do you by chance have any favorite sayings or a model that you use to encourage yourself and perhaps others?

- Take a break, and do you.

Take a break and do you.

I think as women, we are such caregivers.

We're taking care of the dog, the cat, the children.

Let's face it, our husbands.

- The parents, sometimes.

- I was gonna say, we're caretakers, caregivers, we shop, you know, and I'm talking about grocery shopping.

We might, we have to sometimes take a breath and say, "What is it that we can do to take care of ourselves?"

You know, what's that moment, what's that time that we carve out, we actually purpose to do for ourselves?

So ladies, this makeup that you see here today, it doesn't happen every day.

And it's something that I wanted to feel, I wanted to feel good about in being here with you.

That's what made me feel good about me being here on the air.

Do you, and it's okay.

Take that time out to do you.

- And that also is what your conference allows women to do as well.

So good luck with that too, blessings there.

Colette Colclough, thank you so much for joining us for today's Powerful Women: Let's Talk.

We appreciate you being here.

And we wanna thank you for joining us for another edition of Powerful Women: Let's Talk.

We'll see you next time.

(happy piano music) - Veverly Austin is an award winner, businesswoman, involved in her community, wife, and supermom of four.

She's the founder of Veverly Austin Enterprises, Rock'N The Runway GR, creator of Confident Wear Boutique, and well, there's more.

She's a highly sought after speaker, both nationally and internationally, and we get to speak to her, well, locally.

So welcome to Powerful Women: Let's Talk, Veverly!

- Hello, so good to be here.

- Good that you're here.

And of course, we're speaking to you locally, but thanks to the internet, you are all over the map internationally to boot with this.

- How exciting.

- Thank you for you, congratulations.

And I wanna make note, your name is Veverly with a V. How often are you called Beverly?

- All the time.

People just really decide to correct my name for me.

But that is Veverly as in V as in Victor.

- [Shelley] Yes, so here we are.

You're quite involved in your community, your extensive resume.

You are the president founder of many organizations, receiving your MBA, your other masters as well.

I'm gonna cut to the chase and ask what drives you to excel?

- Really I grew up in a home where education was key.

And so for me, and I grew up in the hood, the south side of Chicago, and so education was my escape.

It was my escape out, and I literally loved to use my imagination.

So going to the library was, it was my way out.

And so, and I did it.

And so going away to college and then furthering getting my master's, I was the first one in my family to get my master's.

And then I just, I love school, Shelley.

(Veverly laughs) And so then when we moved here to Grand Rapids, I decided to go ahead and get another master's.

So working now, thinking about getting my doctorate.

I don't know, I just feel weird when I'm not in school.

- And that's a good thing.

What a role model you are.

Many of your organizations, Confidence Rocking, Get Your Fight Back, have positiveness to them.

Is that intentional?

- It is, and actually Girl Get Your Fight Back was the, it's the brain child of it all.

And so really back when I was doing empowerment sessions for women, that's where it all started.

And just really wanting to give back because I struggled with self confidence as a young girl, really not knowing who I was and not knowing what my self worth was.

And once I got ahold of that, I just really had a quest to help other women.

And that really just birthed so many other things out of me and it's been such a pleasure to see these things birth, to see these businesses birth, and to help other women to really grab hold of who they are.

One of my biggest focuses has been on at home moms who really are losing themselves, but I help them know that at home, being at home with the children is major, but you also have other things in you that can really help you be fulfilled in life.

- Fill in the blanks.

You went from lesser confidence to exceeding confidence.

How did you make that happen?

- Bumps in the road, failures, tired of making failures, tired of not feeling my greatest or feeling, you know, battling a little bit of depression early on in years, and really not knowing where to go or who to turn to.

And so through, I did go to counseling, and going to counseling, and I dug deep within, because for me, I really thought that I was gonna be running corporate America.

I went to school to run corporate America.

But then when I got married, my husband, we decided to, that I would stay home to raise the kids.

And that was a little tough for me.

It was very hard.

And so that kinda weighed on my self-esteem.

And so realizing that being a mother is worthy.

And so, and I also had some things inside of me that I can do from home.

And once I tapped into that, my self-worth just skyrocketed and I had to help other women.

- [Shelley] Yes.

- Your faith, important to you, as one of your degrees is in the faith field.

Tell me more here.

- [Veverly] Yes, my faith is the foundation of everything that I do.

My husband is a pastor, and so we do run a ministry.

And so I did get my second master's in urban ministry from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.

And so without my faith, there's nothing that I could do.

And it really is the catalyst that pushes me along, even when things are rough, especially now in COVID, it has been my faith that has kept me going and really pulling from a time where things feel like they have dried up.

This has been the most lucrative, the most prosperous, the most, the one of the best times of growth in a time where the world is facing great tragedy.

- [Shelley] Yes, all right.

Let's take apart your resume.

Rock'N The Runway GR.

Tell me more.

- [Veverly] Oh, that is my baby!

(Veverly laughs) Rock'N The Runway, again, was birthed from Girl Get Your Fight Back.

A conference that I did for women, we did a fashion show.

And so I really, I got hold of a story of a young lady who had breast cancer.

And when I got a hold of her story, she was taking care of her sister's children who had passed away of breast cancer.

And when I got a hold of her story, we decided to give a portion of our proceeds from our show to this young lady.

And here we are.

Man, it's been like, we're 13 years in.

This year, we're 13 years later, still helping women increase breast cancer awareness.

Last year, one of our was a very sad time because right after the show, one of our survivors passed away.

And this is why we do what we do, because early detection really does save lives.

So we use fashion to help women to increase awareness and go check their top size.

(Veverly laughs) - [Shelley] Said it here.

Confident Wear Boutique, obviously fashion is important to you as well.

- It is, something else that birthed from Girl Get Your Fight Back.

I literally, from Girl Get Your Fight Back, I just did tees.

Confident woman tees, and they were a hit.

And I started selling them internationally, nationally.

And from there we started selling clothing.

And now, thanks to an amazing organization at the arts marketplace, I have my boutique downtown at Studio Park, and it's been amazing.

And I love having this staple place, and it's a shared space with other women, other local women makers.

And it's been amazing.

Amazing exposure and amazing way to own your own business without all of the overhead.

But it's been outstanding.

- Confident Living Consulting.

Where's this going?

- [Veverly] Yet again, another branch from Girl Get Your Fight Back.

And so Confident Women Consulting, I have been working with a lot of companies and organizations to help their workers and help their employees with life skills, with better bettering themselves in life because one thing that we know statistics shows, if your workers are doing well in just everyday living, they'll be better performers on their jobs.

And so I really go in to help train in leadership training, help them organizations with things like that.

- I'm gonna ask something personal.

A little birdy tells me three boys and a little girl?

(Veverly laughs) - Yes, I have a little three boys.

- How's that little girl doing?

She's doing amazing, Shelly!

She has her own business.

She is a little lady after her mom.

She's actually doing some speaking for Meyer, so she's in the in-house for that and she has some big things coming, but she is her own little public speaker and her own little mogul.

So I have trained her.

She runs her own business, Confident Girl.

And so it's attire for girls to build confidence.

And so she's coming out with accessories and a stationary line, and she plays piano, and volleyball, and track.

(Veverly laughs) She's a pretty remarkable young lady.

- You do do a lot of public speaking.

Why are we so, I guess I'm speaking on behalf of myself or others, afraid of public speaking?

- [Veverly] Well, one of the biggest things in this, I actually do a class on it.

And so I do a class and we do it virtually and in-person on public speaking is because especially now with everything being virtual, people are afraid to even still get in front of the camera.

So most people are, the fear of what people would think about them, the fear of people judging them, and most people just have a fear of people's faces when they're in front of them.

And so now with even just the Zooms and the online classes, that's still a type of public speaking that you still wanna do with excellence, you wanna do it with confidence.

There's etiquette to doing your Zooms and so forth.

And so many people are just afraid to talk to other people, especially now in this world of texting.

(Veverly laughs) Everything is texting and behind the scenes, pulling us away from personal contact.

And so I think a lot of that has really made people afraid.

And so one of my things is I teach public speaking classes to give people that confidence, to be able to have this conversation one-on-one.

- In my days, we'd passing notes and whispering in ears, there we go.

Back to your boys.

Are you coaching them to be allies to your daughter, to other women?

- [Veverly] I am.

My oldest, he's 19.

He is finishing up his second year at GRCC.

So proud of him.

He wanted to stay home due to COVID, but he is into trading, so that is his niche.

And then my middle son, he is into wrestling and he wants to start his own business, too.

So we'll work him.

Once I get my daughter set, then we're gonna push him along.

My goal is really to try to figure out what each one of my kids are passionate about.

And once I'm, as I'm finding that, my goal is to go full throttle and give them all the resources they need in those areas.

Sometimes as parents, you wanna push your kids into what you were passionate about.

I was guilty of that, but I decided to really step back and find out what they're passionate about, and find the resources to push them into those areas full throttle.

- [Shelley] Future pastors in the making?

- Let's hope not, because pastoring is tough.

(Veverly laughs) - I'll ask that cliche question.

How do you do it all?

- [Veverly] I don't.

And I think that's a misnomer is that you can do it all.

And I heard a quote once, and I do not know who said it, but it says "You can have it all, but not all at once."

And I really live by that.

And so there's quite a bit on my plate, but I have grown to learn through tiredness, through fatigue, through being burnt out, that sometimes you can't do it all, but you have to know what has priority when.

And so each week, each Sunday, I'm looking at my week, and certain things take priority each week, and that varies week to week, but you can have it all, but just not all at the same time.

And so I stopped trying to do it all at the same time.

- All right, let's have some fun.

Give me an answer to morning or night person.

- Absolutely nighttime.

- Favorite song?

- Oh my gosh, my favorite song.

Beyonce, I love her song.

- [Shelley] I'll let you leave it at that.

Because yeah, I can, I know which one it is.

(Veverly laughs) How about peanut butter, soft or crunchy?

- Oh my God, crunchy.

- Know what you're having for lunch.

If you could get on a plane today, where would you go?

- I would go to Dubai.

- Why?

- Because I've never been there yet, and it is one of my places on my manifestation list.

I don't believe in the bucket list.

- Name of your memoir would be?

- Oh gosh, "Persistence: Burn Her Through."

- What is your message to the young Veverly?

- My message to the young Veverly is, do not be afraid of what you see.

Follow what's in your heart.

- [Shelley] Great, where are you in 10 years from now?

- Oh, 10 years from now.

I am traveling a whole lot with my daughter as she is world-renowned and world-known for her brand, Confident Girl.

And my husband and I are doing a lot of vacationing in our ministries are really flourishing in with planning ministries in other states.

- [Shelley] All right we'll see you in 10 years.

- [Veverly] Yes.

- What do you leave us with?

What is the word for the year?

- The word for the year is to stay focused, and it is to take charge of your thoughts.

One of the biggest things that I tell people through this time of COVID is your thinking matters, and your thinking really can pull you out of what you're surrounded by.

So don't be overtaken by the information that is coming at you, but go ahead and take charge of your thoughts and feed yourself thoughts that will propel you forward and into prosperity.

- Now, do we get to see you on the runway?

- No.

(Veverly laughs) That's not my gift.

- Veverly Austin, thank you for this edition of Powerful Women: Let's Talk.

- Thank you.

(happy orchestral music)