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(soft lively string music) (inspirational music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, a good friend of mine, Colleen Callahan, founder of Colleen Callahan Communications, that's gonna be a key word here, communications, former Illinois director of natural resources, and longtime media guru in this business.

So I'm talking to a legend here.

Welcome, Colleen.

- Oh, thanks for asking, Matt.

- I've known you for a long time and in so many different capacities, Illinois, University of Illinois.

But one thing that you do that falls under the radar is you care about the community and you've been on many boards and many nonprofit boards.

And back, this was back in 2004 and 5, I was running Youth Farm and you were on the board, so I actually reported to you.

- (laughs) In a way, yes, that's right.

- In a way.

So one thing we were just talking about is my kids, five kids, but four daughters.

And I always would talk to my, and I still do, talk to the girls about women can do anything any man can do.

You have to have that girl power.

You've always been that big advocate for women leaders and I've always thought that was really cool.

- Well, thank you.

It started, since you framed it that way and as I think back on it now, with my mom, and probably even with her mom, my grandma, who was a very, strong-willed is a kind way to say what my grandma's personality was.

But my mom would say to me, when I would stand in front of the television set watching the noon markets on Channel 3 out of Champaign, I would say, "I wanna do that.

I wanna report the markets.

I wanna report the agricultural stories."

And I would've been in high school at that juncture and my mom would say, "Well, you can."

And I'd say, "But there aren't any women doing it," and she'd say, "But you can."

And my dad was always very encouraging.

So I took the path that I did, not because I wanted to prove a point to anyone or even to myself.

I just genuinely wanted to do what I ultimately was given the opportunity to do.

- And you did it well.

But you know, it's always fun to talk to people when they bring up their parents because I talk about my dad and my mom all the time.

And you know, your dad was a big influence too and he'd come from a political family.

- Very much.

I adored him, yes.

- Yeah, I mean, it's almost... And I think one of the things that I think a lot of young girls, like my daughters, is they sit there and they see a lot of things about kind of breaking through that glass ceiling, you know.

It's almost like... And I've always just embedded in their heads.

And so it's kind of cool because they 100% have that confidence.

And I think that's the most important thing, not only as a parent, but just for women in general.

- I'm glad you framed it that way.

I have to say, I didn't have a lot of confidence, and that may not seem like it would've been the case since I was able to do a lot of things in broadcasting that women hadn't done prior to my breaking that agricultural glass ceiling.

But I had a lot of supporters and people who encouraged me, as we've just said.

But when you brought up my dad, the thing that I flashed to that I think was influential is that my dad was very active in the community, and so was my mom.

My dad raised the money to get a new fence around the local football field.

My mom was the president of the Junior Women's Club in this little town of, you know, 1,500 people, and she helped raise enough money to get a new lighted scoreboard.

So I grew up in a family who just did those things.

And it wasn't about achieving something.

It was about being part of the community.

So I think, as I look back on it now, I, you know, graduated from the University of Illinois, was able to start my career here in Peoria at WNBD, which also had an affiliate in Champaign and Channel 3.

I think one of the reasons I was able to do what I did for 32 years there was because of what you started out with.

I got involved in the community.

I'd go to the meetings.

And then I wouldn't just be an attendee.

Somebody would say, "Well, we need this or that," and I'd say, "I think I can help do that," or, "I know somebody that can help do that."

I think that's a very big part of being successful and achieving, is making sure that you're doing your part.

- Yeah, I like that.

And you know, one of the things with that too is you did have the confidence to not only take that from your parents, but I think what's really important about that is, if you look at now your career and where you've gone, it really sets the stage for almost everything it seems like you've done.

- It absolutely has.

There's no question about that.

I recall the interview for my first job.

So I was in Champaign at Channel 3 and I thought this question which I had anticipated would probably be the deal-breaker when they said, "Do you think that you have more experience in broadcasting or in agriculture?"

Now, my lack of confidence came because I didn't have history in broadcasting.

It's what I wanted to do, but I didn't grow up in broadcasting.

I grew up in agriculture.

So for a flash of time, I fought with myself, thinking, "Okay, I know the right answer, but is that the answer that they're looking for?"

And so I was honest with them and with myself and I said, "Agriculture," and they said, "Good.

We can teach you broadcasting, but we can't teach you agriculture."

- [Matt] Oh, that's good.

- So that sort of gets to your point too.

I just did what I did the way I knew the best way to do it.

- [Matt] I love it.

- And I was able to then achieve things that I would've never imagined.

- Yeah, I mean, you've done some cool things.

Not only you have your own company, but, you know, former director of Illinois.

I mean, when you're talking about director of natural resources, and we're gonna get to that in a second, but that is about as vast as a - It is.

- job could be.

But I want to go to one story real quick.

And, you know, you accompanied the secretary of agriculture to Afghanistan and Iraq and I never will forget the story you told.

And I think this was back in '03.

- [Colleen] It was.

- And when you went there, I was blown away.

You were presenting, I think, at a rotary, and you laid out this story and you had the pictures with it.

And the way you articulated this story was so cool and compassionate at the same time because of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But if you don't mind just touching on that story just for a second 'cause I thought I was so neat.

- Yeah, well, thank you for remembering, for one, 'cause that was a while ago.

I have to start where that began actually.

The secretary of agriculture at the time was Ann Veneman.

And Ann Veneman was the first, and to this day, only female secretary of agriculture.

It so happened that she was serving in the cabinet at the same time that I was serving as the president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters as the first woman president.

So our paths had crossed and I had interviewed her.

I think the reason she asked me to accompany her, even though we never spoke about it, was that she was comfortable with me because she was uncomfortable in a media setting.

She was brilliant, but not so comfortable in a setting like this.

- You were safe.

- And so I was a safe person to accompany her.

And I almost didn't go because when I got the call from the chief of staff, I had just started my new business.

And I had some motivational speeches to give.

I had some other commitments and I thought, "I've gotta do this to start my business.

I gotta get some footing."

And so I said, "Boy, please share what the secretary how honored and humbled I am, but I can't go."

And I thought about it all throughout the day.

The call came in in the morning.

So day goes on, Dick, my husband, gets home, and I said, "Well, I got an interesting call today," and I said, I explained, I said, "But I'm not going."

And he said, "You're not going?

You said you told him you're not gonna go?"

And I said, "I did."

I said, "I do have these commitments, but the real truth of the matter is I'd be scared.

I'm scared to go."

And I learned more about Dick at that moment in time about his Marine Corps Vietnam machine gunner, door gunner experiences than I knew in all of our years of marriage.

And I looked at it differently.

Well, I knew that the right answer was to say yes.

I needed some encouragement and Dick gave me that.

Well, he didn't tell me to go.

In his great way of using his sense of humor, and you know him and he does have a great sense of humor and timing.

- Witty.

- And he is.

And he said, "Well, how do you think all those entertainers get in and out of all those war zones all the time?"

And he said, "And you'd be with the secretary of agriculture, cabinet member.

If they bumped them off, all bets are off."

I said, "Yeah, but I'd be with them."

And so we did have fun with it and after we talked, the thing that gave me the greatest pause was Dick said, "Colleen, really, all anybody can ever do in life is react and respond."

And I never thought about it that way.

- That's strong.

- But Dick was in a war, and I was afraid to go to a war zone.

He'd lived it and fortunately lived through it.

And so when he said, "All you really ever get to do is react and respond," I thought, "That's right."

Every day, that's all we really do is react and respond at the highest level.

That's all, the president, no matter who he or she is, just every day reacts and responds.

So about three in the morning, I woke up and I went to my laptop and I emailed, and I said, "If the offer still stands, I accept."

Now, that was on a Tuesday and we were leaving on a Saturday so there wasn't much time after that, but only to know that from the time I said I would go and they said yes and here are the details and the itinerary, I had a knot in my stomach that wouldn't leave no matter what I did.

So fast forward, get to Andrew's Air Force Base.

We're handed three briefing books on Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the three countries that we visited, and then we got on Air Force Two, which is the plane that the vice president or the First Lady takes.

And at that moment, once we got on the plane and I started in my immersion, I realized that I didn't have the knot in my stomach anymore.

It wasn't the anticipation any longer.

It was underway.

And it's sort of like when you go to the doctor and they say, "You know, I'd like for you to have more tests," and immediately, - Right.

- your mind races.

But once you're there and you're getting the tests, - You're fine.

- You're fine with it because now the process is underway, and you know what, you're reacting and responding.

That's the backstory to going.

- That's cool.

- To your point about the people.

There was a very strong women's component, as you would expect from the first secretary of agriculture, when we were in Afghanistan.

So we visited a women's center.

And we took first aid kits.

One of the things that we did was visit a community center.

And that's where the Afghan women would go during the day because the husband were away, they were out, they were working, and so the women could leave.

And that day, the lesson was on very simple hygiene and it was about taking a pot of water and putting a salt solution in it and bringing it to a boil so that they could use it as a Pedialyte substance.

Because 25% of the children die in Afghanistan before the age of six because of dehydration from diarrhea.

So just us being there for that lesson and knowing that when that session was over that we were going to be adjourning out into a courtyard where the secretary and I stood on a platform and then we handed the first aid kits that we had brought, you could see, even with the burkas... And you could still see the eyes, even though their faces were covered.

You can still see the eyes and you could see the look of appreciation and desperation all at the same time.

It really was - Life-changing?

- a life-changing experience.

Again, fast forward from there into Iraq, completely different setting.

Afghanistan is a dusty, rubbled, pebbled desert, complete chaos.

You get to Baghdad, even though the the war is going on, you see curbing on the streets, you see stoplights, you see universities and you think, "Well, this is a really functioning society."

Now, Saddam Hussein wanted to take all of that for himself.

And once we got into the Green Zone into his palace that the Marines had taken then for the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority, again, you could see that we were there because we wanted to help.

- [Matt] Right.

- And it wasn't about, again, to your point about the people, it wasn't, even though this was...

It was the Bush administration.

No one ever, at any point, told me or asked me to say anything when I got back.

They didn't say, "Now make sure as people ask you that you say this about what we're doing," or, "Don't say this about what you saw."

That never happened.

So after I was back and we got a bill, a statement in the mail for the trip... Again, you can imagine it, "What?

They ask you to go, they ask you to risk your life, and now they're sending you a bill for this trip?"

And I said, "Yes."

And it was prorated for the number of people who were on the trip of her staff.

(chuckles) And I said, "Dick, look.

No one ever told me what to say."

As a journalist, as a communicator, - That's true.

- when I tell the stories that I told at Rotary, they were purely my impressions.

They were purely a presentation of what I saw.

And when I first got back, I thought, "You know, I have new perspective now about the Middle East."

You know, what most of us know about the Middle East is that there are a lot of countries that end in -stan and that's about all we know.

- That's true.

- Really, truly.

And I thought, "No, that's not right.

I don't have new perspective.

I have perspective," - A perspective.

- a perspective that, one, I didn't have before.

- Love it.

Love it.

- And could never have had.

- Yeah.

- So was it the right thing for me to do to pay for my portion of the trip?

Yes.

Because- - It's worth a million.

- Absolutely.

- So, that is so... - I love that story.

- So it is.

It is about the people and what I saw and what I learned.

And that was before we'd captured Saddam.

That was in November and he was captured in December.

And I said to Dick after that, "You know, frightened as I was initially to accept, now that I've been there and back, I wanna return.

I wanna go back and ask the Kurds what they think now.

And it was about the people.

- Isn't that great?

That's a great story.

So let's talk about your company for a second.

- Sure.

- You have a phrase.

You say, "To communicate is the beginning of understanding."

What do you mean by that?

- It was one of the first things that my instructor at the University of Illinois, Dr. Jim Evans, said in my first ag communications class.

It was, "To communicate is the beginning of understanding."

You know, there are some things that people say- - They just hit you.

- And it did.

And I thought, "That's right."

If you don't talk about things, there'll be misunderstandings or there won't be a relationship.

To communicate is the beginning of understanding.

So from that first class to now starting my own business, I called Dr. Evans and I said, "Dr. Evans, I'm creating a website for my business and I'd like on the homepage to put this quote and I'd like your permission and I'll give you attribution."

And he said, "Did I say that?"

and I said, "You did."

And I thought about how many times do each of us say something that we say, as just part of the course of conversation, that we have no idea the impact that it might make on someone, and it did.

- And so I will always - That is cool.

That's cool.

- attribute it to Dr. Jim Evans.

- That is really neat.

So your business, you offer not only leadership coaching, but you offer media coaching.

And I think what's interesting about that is, doesn't it seem like a lot of people do not understand either the power of media, or if they're interviewed, like, how bad their interviews are?

I mean, I'm being serious.

I had a guy once, I was gonna tell- - No, I'm- - That's what you do.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - I gotta tell you a quick story.

So, this wasn't that long ago.

I mean, we're talking only like six, seven years ago.

And they're doing a story and I'm in my office at Children's Home and a cameraman walks in and he's the cameraman and the interviewer, okay.

So he looks at me and I do the interview, and at the end, he puts down his camera, he goes, "Mr. George, can I ask you something?"

and he goes, "I don't want you to be mad at me.

I don't want you to take offense to this.

But if you go back and look at how many times I've interviewed you and how many times you've been interviewed, a lot of times lately, you've been coming across as if you're mad."

And I went, "Really?"

I said, "Okay."

I go, "Go ahead and do the piece and I'm gonna watch it tonight."

And I watched it tonight, and he was 100% right.

And I thought about it for a long time and I thought, "Well, maybe it's because I'm fighting for these kids and it ticks me off."

But I couldn't, I was coming across so wrong.

And I was thinking about you asking this question because, think about it, I've probably done, I've probably filmed 140 shows but I've probably done, I don't know, two, 300 interviews.

And I had just a guy having the, you know- - Yes.

That's what I was thinking.

- I thought it was great.

- The courage.

- I wrote him a letter.

- Yes.

- "Thank you for telling me that 'cause I've changed the way I do interviews," off of one person.

That's the impact that you have when you're coaching.

- Yes, that's right.

That's right.

It is, you know that old line, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

- That's right.

- Whoever said that was brilliant, and it's true.

And so because public speaking, particularly when you know it's being recorded, creates anxiety.

And many people become different people in that moment.

They know the subject matter.

That's not the issue.

And that's what I always try to tell people.

The reason that the radio or the TV station or the podcaster is there is because you're an authority on something or you have a very strong opinion about something - Got you, yep.

- that they want to share with others.

So it's not that you don't know.

The only reason to be nervous is if you're unprepared.

That's really the only reason to be nervous.

If you know the subject matter and that's what they're coming to talk to you about, then you just answer the questions.

And when you appear nervous or in your... And you weren't nervous.

It was just your demeanor.

- Right.

Yeah, I wasn't nervous.

- And you could have just, you know, you could have sat there like this.

Well, you know what?

You're putting a block between you and the interviewer, but it looks like a block between you and the person that's watching.

It looks like a defense mechanism.

- Very true.

Very true.

- Because you're not, you're not talking to the interviewer.

They don't see the interviewer.

- That's cool.

- They only see you.

There are little things like that, just now, your response was, "(sighs) That's right.

(both laugh) - Right, it's true.

- It's true, it's true.

So there are a myriad of things like that that, over the 32 years when I was on that side of the microphone and the camera that I observed, that I can help people with.

- That's pretty cool.

I'm gonna have to have you back on because I'm just gonna do the whole show on you as the Illinois director of natural resources because I really want to go into that but we don't have time.

But I will say this.

It's impressive being a first female to do so.

And it's like that, but that's your history.

That's a pretty cool thing.

And I think a lot of young females that are coming up in the business actually need to watch this show and learn about you and maybe even reach out to you to get some advice.

- Well, I accept your invitation to return.

But what I would say about that is that I had hoped that I would be able to do agricultural rural broadcasting.

And I was given that opportunity and it worked for me and for the stations that I worked for for 32 years.

What came next was not in my day planner.

I was asked to run for Congress, as you likely remember.

That was not in my day planner.

I was asked if I would consider that.

I did not know a great deal about USDA rural development when I was asked to lead that agency - It's so cool though.

for the federal government at USDA.

Being the director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources was not in my agenda of things that I would wanna do.

- But I'll say this- - But one thing led to the next.

- And to be asked is a blessing.

- It is.

- because you've had- - It absolutely is.

- Well, anyway, Colleen, I'd love to have you back.

Thank you for coming on.

I wanted to get this in.

Thank you for being an advocate for rural areas.

- It's my pleasure.

- It's important.

- It is.

Let's talk about that next time too, okay.

- Let's do it.

- Colleen Callahan, one of my favorites.

I'm Matt George and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - Thank you for tuning in to "Business Forward" brought to you by PNC.

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