EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: The Powerful Woman

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Let’s talk ‘Extraordinary’. The late, great Dr. Seuss once said, “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.”
Our Extraordinary Person of the Week has used that line and many others to inspire our community. Khalilah Olokunola is in the spotlight with how she helps create powerful women.

Khalilah Olokunola is a wife, a mother of two, and a powerful woman. “My husband was fortunate,” she told Daniel Seamans. “He moved with a large group of people he knew. I didn’t have that.”

Scared and nervous, Khalilah would marry and move to Wilmington from New York City and take a leap of faith.

“When you relocate, it’s kind of a bittersweet feeling,” Olokunola said. “You don’t have the friends that you once had, the place you came from, you’re not really sure where to go and what to do in-line with what you’re used to with entertainment and socializing.”

With her life in a blur, she looked inside herself. “I had to go through a period of self-discovery on my own to find out why I’m here,” she says of her personal rebuilding.

“I can help you with that,” Olokunola says to a colleague in need of designing a website for her new business.

Olokunola emerged from her self-discovery with a mission to bring women together through networking. A sisterhood…of sorts…where girl power creates powerful women.
Her community organization, Powerful Women, now meets monthly using resources as creative as a message in a Dr Seuss book to inspire.

“You have to believe in yourself first,” she says. “We want women to believe that they are powerful because we are powerful.”

She’s grown her group of women from a few to a roomful at the River Room in Downtown Wilmington.

When asked what makes someone powerful, Khalilah said…

“Being powerful is not about a title, it’s not about what demographic you live in or what your socio economic status is. It’s about being confident in what you are doing and pressing towards your goal, because you only fail when you stop trying and if you keep trying then you continue in the area that you want to be successful in.

*High five* Khalilah! You are not just powerful….you are extraordinary.

Want to know more about the Dr.Seuss/Winnie the Pooh themed creative workshops or how you can start networking with the group?

Khalilah’s website is—> www.Powerfulwomenilm.com
Khalilah’s facebook is—> https://www.facebook.com/ILMWomen

Do you know an extraordinary person? Let me tell their story! Email me at dseamans@wwaytv3.com

-Daniel