Latest / Daily Influence / 641. The Power We Already Hold: Global Impact Through Reflection, Compassion & Collective Purpose with Shenali Rajaratnam

Transcript

641. The Power We Already Hold: Global Impact Through Reflection, Compassion & Collective Purpose with Shenali Rajaratnam · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet moment just for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Greg Colino.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Shionale Rajaratman, an extraordinary visionary, social entrepreneur and global advocate for women's empowerment.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Shionale is a co-founder of Power of Women, a worldwide movement
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: and conscious platform celebrating and elevating female leadership, as well as co-founder of we are the hope, a 501c3 dedicated to creating positive holistic change in communities.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: With a background that spans music, media, entertainment, and technology development,
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: She champions entertainment, conscious innovation, collaboration, and love-based leadership.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chanelie's work is a powerful example of what happens when creativity, compassion, and global vision come together to uplift humanity.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chanelie, welcome to daily influence.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Greg, for having me here today.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's begin with your journey.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today, building power of women, co-founding.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are the hope and becoming a global voice for collective empowerment.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Greg, once again.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think it's a long story but to really give an overview.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Power of the men is a result of, um, I would say the upbringing I had through my parents, my relationship with my brother.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: and my incredible friends I have around me and the people around me.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Power of women is a reflection once again.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: My dad growing up always said, you can do anything.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, how I saw that is I didn't see myself as a girl or a boy.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just saw myself as a person who can do anything if I set my mind to.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think we are the hope is something I've co-founded with my brother.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: when my grandma passed away back in 2017, as a way of coping with her passing on.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she dedicated her entire life for peace, world peace.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was vegetarian and she spent many years really going around creating positive change in terms of building bridges across communities in Sri Lanka and inspired us to really,
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Coped with her passing on because my brother and I were very close to her and that's how we ended up creating we out the hope and power of women was a result of it's more than just women's and parliament.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: We all come from a mother.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: We all one of every single one of us every listen
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we're not talking about men as the separate species.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are other brothers, other fathers, other uncles, grandfathers, sons, friends.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's really about power of women taking a new narrative, looking at peace, unity, compassion in the world, how do we live a quality life by changing the narrative, how we have viewing the world for so long.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And seeing each other's family,
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what power of the men is really bringing everybody together.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean the moms, usually the other ones who keep the families together and really taking that into power of women and bringing people together.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I hope that answers the question of how we got here.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: your path clearly laid the foundation to the movement you're building.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Power of women is rooted in elevating identity, purpose and connection.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: In our IN team series, we emphasize that influence starts with knowing who you are and how you show up.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: What personal values or defining moments helps shape your leadership and the mission behind power of women?
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a very good question.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when we say that how much time I was spending with ourselves was as honest screen on being so distracted by what's happening in the world.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I always like to ground myself in certain timeless principles that really spans across every religion as well, every culture across the
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I have this framework we use at Power of Women, and we are the hope, and it's the four R's.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the first one is reflection.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can we self-reflect on who we are?
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we like what we like?
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we feel what we feel?
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: How are my relationships with the people around me?
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what is the point of all the purpose of existence?
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Really understanding, asking yourself, not letting anybody else tell, but for yourself to sit down,
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: spend some time with yourself and reflecting, why am I doing what I'm doing?
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is the purpose of existence of my life?
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And really finding that point that really makes you feel alive.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And usually you realize, you're all at service for somebody else.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We all in service.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And even science has shown that, you know, this is all an illusion in essence,
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: based generated, so really looking at it, reflection, recognition, having recognition of self as a value in your own self, seeing how much you bring to this world, being comfortable with yourself, and also recognizing relationships in our life, and recognizing why we do what we do after
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: first it starts itself respect and it goes into also respecting others because when you really understand your own self and you value your being you're able to actually have compassion and extended to another person because you valued for yourself and that's where recognition and respect comes in and
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Always looking at the last one is resolutions, so always looking at the future now and the future, whatever happened in the past happened and we cannot really do much to change it, but from this point on if you take a deep breath.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, let it out and start from this point on what is in my control, what can I do from this point on looking at the future?
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think working from that point on resolution.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So those are some of the principles I would say I follow in my life as well as through power of women and we are the hope.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: for expressing love, when you're interacting with thought those and with yourself.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, those are some principles I would say that we follow.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing those.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Finally, through your work from global events to grassroots initiatives, you've inspired countless people.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience where you felt you made a meaningful positive impact on someone's life and how that reinforced your commitment to this mission?
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is such a good question and I would definitely the first thing that pops into my head is power of girls' clubs that we created out of power of women in Kino-Ni Uganda through rotary club of Kino-Ni, a local club in Kino-Ni Uganda.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: We started something because the girls wanted just like what you're doing
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: have mentors they can learn from expand their worldview and have some positivity in their life and we created this group, we brought a group of girls together 289 girls and we created 12 clubs and by this first year we picked four ambassadors for the power of girls clubs and we had them do exercises to build their confidence and what happened was this girl started
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: making videos, writing scripts, and making videos saying what they want to be in their future.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And three of the ambassadors said they wanted to be a nurse, a midwife, and a being public administration.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one year later, they kept doing these exercises to build their confidence using music, media, dance, arts, and few months ago, this year, three of them actually got into college.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: which they never thought they were getting to college or even think about their future.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, that was a moment that really reinforced that the amount of impact we can have in somebody's life is so immense when you just take the time out of your day to just get out of yourself in fact and be in service for somebody else.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I communicated with them often and I
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: skills are saying the villagers are calling them the nurses of the village and and they feel so proud of themselves and for me to hear that that is just life-changing and really gives me a reason to continue.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, these moments say so much about responsible influence and action.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: your platforms emphasize collaboration, peace, well-being, and broadening the global narrative.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you guide individuals, especially women, to take responsibility for their own growth, voice, and influence so that they can create positive changes in their homes, communities in the world?
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it starts with, once again, when I was sharing the R, the four R's reflection, recognition, respect, resolution,
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: women already so powerful.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Once you can really realize the amount of power you hold in bringing communities together, keeping families together, actually bringing life to this world, we can really change the narrative, what we see as, I mean, every, every king comes out of a woman.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we are looking at society, it's the mothers who hold
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: the actual power in racing the children.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when they realize, we are not, the world is not happening to us.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a part to play in it.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have come so fine this world.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they so much happening.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We cannot ignore that.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is so much violence happening against women.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's about, I think, time we really start building a relationship with our brothers, our fathers, our friends, our uncles, our grandfathers.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if they are the perpetrators, finding those groups through connection and collaboration, your communities.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And power of human is really building that bridge, how do we build those communities, meaningful communities, where we all guided by a shared set of values and a mission, a shared mission.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I said reflection when you ask yourself what is the point of existence or what am I doing as this human body,
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You realize we are all seeking peace, peace of mind and well-being for ourselves and our loved ones.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it boils down to that even the precedence of the world, to the richest person, to the mother who is working nine to five taking care of her kids.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are all looking for peace of mind and well-being for their kids and for themselves and their kids.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what is well-being?
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: the SDGs, the United Nations SDGs to be more relevant to ourselves, which is we are looking for mental, well-being, physical, emotional, social, economical, environmental and most importantly spiritual grounding and well-being.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that is what we can come back to ourselves and really not give our power away to the world.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: where we get so distracted by the media out there, what the messaging is telling, the advertisements to all the noise and the chaos and just come back to ourselves.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: We really start seeing the amount of power we hold and bringing others with us.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because when women lead, this is beautiful thing that happens we have seen over the years.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: They don't let anybody
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: get left behind, which is such a remarkable quality of woman has in Italy, and realizing that power we hold to bring life to the world, to bring communities together just innately that instinctual ability to understand that emotional intelligence.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have when we recognize it, it's very much,
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, power of women blends culture, technology, story, telling, and activism.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: From your perspective, what does responsible influence look like when building a global movement?
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And how do you stay grounded, align, and intentional as your reach continues to grow?
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think even what you are doing great is so important, what you're creating a daily dose of positivity in the world.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is your
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: service to the world and that's how everybody has to be.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we all have to take accountability and why do we use music, media, arts, culture because I mean that's what communities are built around and music is such a powerful ability to touch people's hearts
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's a good bit, it doesn't matter where you are.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can really just get together and really dance to it.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's a really good bit.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it also has a beautiful healing element to it.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Music, arts, that really brings communities together.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when you ask, how do we say grounded and responsible in doing this work, I think it's very important, once again, going back to self,
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: and recognizing that we are all an extension of each other.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are all one.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are all sharing this Earth and we might not see directly but one of my, that how we touch each other, but it's like the butterfly effect.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are all constantly impacting and influencing each other and how can we take responsibility in following the golden rule?
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: do what to others, what you would be down on to you and really understanding and value in yourself so you can extend it to others.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we don't have all the answers.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have to say we don't have all the answers alone, but the beautiful thing is when we come together in unity, in love and compassion and empathy, we really can't find all the answers.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: For the answers we are seeking for.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that is the most important
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: My self as an individual cannot save the world, but I can do my part, take responsibility and accountability for my part, so I can create that positive influence that really impact on those.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that, generally.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: What message are words of encouragement?
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference in the world, especially those who are still discovering their voice or purpose?
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's really important.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I go back to the point of self, really,
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: really recognizing you are already a gift.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Every person holds such an important gift within them, and the key is not to compare yourself with others when discovering your gift.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because one person might be able to draw beautifully and another person can sing another person can drive a business.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now the person can run a country.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: This so many gifts, I mean,
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even the roles we each play in each other's role is so important and remembering that.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even once mild from you could save another person's life and it might be as simple as you think, hello to somebody who looks a little bit down and you might think, hey, what is my gift in that I just said, hello, you had the gift of lightning up another person's entire day
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: simply taking that action.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So don't ever discount the amount of positive influence you have within you to impact your own life and others around you.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you know one of my favorite quotes is we created a song with that line as well.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: The word impossible spells I am possible and always remembering that whatever you put your focus on too, you are able to really grow that
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: area and do it.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So don't ever doubt yourself and the amount of power you hold within yourself to really impact on the person's lives.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's something I would always.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing your stories in your advice.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your work reminds us that each of us holds the power to elevate humanity when we choose to lead with purpose.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're honored to have you on daily influence.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for having me Greg.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was such a wonderful time, man.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anybody who wants to be a part of
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: power of women that's P-O-W-E-R-O-F-W-O-M-E-N.Info-I-N-F-O-O-Gwana Instagram, which is power of women.Info as well.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, would love to have you all be a part of what we're doing.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're welcome, Shinaley.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll put all that information in the show notes.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for joining us and sharing your stories and advice today.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for having me Greg and best wishes with what you're doing.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in today.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: We influenced.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope today's conversation brought you insight and inspiration.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use little positivity today.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, small actions create big impact, keep showing up, leading, and growing one day to time.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible, and fluent.
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.