What if your someday started today? Someday I’ll write that book, I’ll say that thing, I’ll push that envelope, I’ll take that stand, I’ll find that courage to become what I’ve always known I’m made to be.

I call this a core story. It’s the double edge sword of everything you are made as. It’s the story you can’t run fast enough from and the story you can’t run fast enough to. It’s the conscious, or unconscious narrative that drives every turning point of your life. It’s okay if you don’t believe me. This isn’t a faith-based thing. This is a story, and every story is a mystery. Your life unfolds clue by clue until in your very last breath you turn around to see, you’ve had the answer all along.

Your Story from the Core is also the medicine you give the world, and the same medicine you need. It is also your personalized poison, a consistent resistance that grows you…

THIS IS SOMEDAY is an interview series with people who are living, giving and contributing from the core of who they are. This is their medicine. This is also their poison. This is their someday that they are living today.

CHARLENE SANJENKO

This is Someday was recorded on the land known as Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island), in Kanata (Canada), Turtle Island (North America) on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) people. TinaOlife acknowledges the ancestors, supernatural ones, hereditary leaders and matriarchs, all land, water and air creatures for their stewardship.  I offer this story within their story and this story within yours.  All relations as one story.

WHO IS CHARLENE SANJENKO?

Charlene SanJenko is an Indigenous Impact Producer + Media Visionary, braiding for better by brokering impact, building brand value using advertising dollars better.

She believes that impact media will follow in the footsteps of impact investing this decade. As the Indigenous Founder of PowHERhouse, Charlene SanJenko is a bridge between two cultures in our country. 

Charlene is from the Splatsin tribe, the most southern tribe of the Shuswap Nation in British Columbia and now resides on the beautiful Sunshine Coast with her husband, Ben, and step-daughter, Willow, since 2004, the traditional territory of the Squamish (skwxwú7mesh) First Nations where she enjoys hiking, horses, and regular connection with nature. 

A former two-term Gibsons municipal politician, competitive athlete + performance coach, social impact entrepreneur since 2000, YWCA Women of Distinction Award Nominee (2014), and community economic development enthusiast, Charlene is able to see the End Game, walk through a growth plan, and synthesize the efforts necessary to enjoy the greatest leverage, clarity, traction, and fulfillment for individual leaders, communities, and the collective whole. 

In the mid-90’s Charlene worked in a privately owned brokerage firm in the investment services industry. Her days were spent placing trades on various stock markets and keeping blue-buy tickets and pink-sell tickets straight. Now, Charlene brokers impact. Since 2013, Charlene has led a passionate team at PowHERhouse Impact Media Group in the digital media arts space, thriving to create and produce trajectory-shifting projects, programming, and meaningful experiences.

To shift society, we must shift the narrative. Charlene believes that media is the most powerful trajectory-shifting vehicle of our generation. The total advertising expenditure in North America (2019) was $253.6 billion U.S. dollars and is projected to reach $254 billion dollars by the end of 2022. Charlene is a media visionary and a broker of impact who is innovating a path to use brand dollars better to shift behaviours before they become social, environmental, and economic problems.

THE CONVERSATION

TinaO: I’m always happy to sit down and listen to a visionary, you specifically. So I’m super grateful to have this time to lean into some of the bigger questions that are unfolding for you into wisdom and answers and more questions. And I just want to thank you for being with me today and taking some time to check in and dive in. So thanks for being here.

Charlene: Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. It’s like the wiser we get the more questions we have.

TinaO: This feels like a really good segue into my first question for you as a visionary. I don’t think I’ve had visionaries in my life before, so getting to know and experience you has taught me a lot about all the things that come with that title. I’ve heard you say many times: I see you, I see all of you. I wonder if you can share with me what that means, and what it is like being a visionary.

Charlene: Well, it’s it’s both a really fun and a really frustrating place. As a visionary, you primarily see possibility, and then you immediately jump to the fullest potential of any situation, human being, or opportunity. You jump right to 100%, and then you gauge your conversations and your actions based on how prepared you think the other person or the other party is.

TinaO: And of course, I’ve been on the receiving end of that. From my side, I want to share that sometimes it feels like the most exquisite invitation. We’ve talked before about the impact of really being seen. It’s as if the permission slips needed for that woman or leader just fall from the sky. I’ve been on that side of the visionary piece, and that alone has catapulted me forward in many places in my life and work.

I’ve also been on another side of it. I don’t know if this is just a Gen X thing, or part of growing up in a big family, but I’ve also experienced: “Don’t you tell me who you think I am…” I have felt that on the inside too. Usually about three days later, I ask myself What if she’s right? What if she’s wrong? What if we’re both right? What if we’re both wrong?

Charlene: I love that. I love that. That’s the invitation: healthy conflict, because then I say, ‘Show me’. So it’s kind of that baiting, you know, baiting someone or something on. Show me differently, you know, like, let’s go, let’s play. As long as I have sparked something, my job is done. As long as I wake it up so I can take a look at it, I will push a button and expect pushback. Great! Because then I know you’re alive. You know?

WHAT IS IMPACT MEDIA?

TinaO: Let’s jump into impact media. You’ve been working in media as an impact champion for the last decade or more. Can you help us understand what impact media means? I’m a core story person so I have to ask:

Do you think you chose impact media? Or do you think Impact Media chose you?

Charlene: That’s a good question. I think impact media ‘invited’ me with a curiosity or calling, but I chose it when I chose to make a commitment to pursue it and play the spark of an idea all the whole through to the full realization of a vision. Otherwise, it’s just an idea.

I can trace it back. I’ve always been inspired by Oprah’s impact in the world. I’ve always been frustrated by botox and fake boobs on magazine covers. I’ve always been deeply inspired by an uplifting musical performance or theatre show where your heart is opened right up.

For every sensory experience that we have, it’s either going to bring us up, or it’s going to bring us down. It’s either going to bring us closer to who we really are, or distract us away from it.

I just watched five people being shot in about five seconds… Is that taking me closer to the human being I want to be? Or is that taking me further away? I believe media is the most powerful influencer of us and who we currently are, and who we want to be as a society. I don’t think there’s anything more powerful. Impact media deliberately and intentionally chooses to lift society, one project at a time, one experience at a time, one creative endeavor at a time, and one impact champion story at a time. If it is the most powerful tool out there lifting society, I want to be a part of it.

WHAT IS AN IMPACT CHAMPION?

TinaO: I think you just hit on the word that I’m really lit up about. I’m hearing you say that impact media is about bringing us closer to our human experience. I love this term impact champion, because an impact champion does just that. They aren’t the impact heckler, or an impact coach… they’re a champion.

Charlene: The cool thing about impact champions is that you can ‘do impact’ and develop or deliver impactful solutions while operating under the radar for years. You can be doing a world of good, and you certainly are a champion. However, most folks who end up finding and choosing to work with me have come to realize that the impact they’re here to make can be exponentially amplified, as they get brave enough to let others SEE them. When you’re hiding and doing good, you’re creating solutions, no doubt about it; but, are you shifting society? Are you shifting the behaviour of society?

TinaO: You bring up a really interesting piece, having just completed a solo show and am currently beginning my campaign to release it beyond my control to hold it. Hands down, as an Artist of Impact, OMYGOD is the best work I’ve done so far. I showed up at a 100% I didn’t even know was possible. And the big aha for me is that I clearly have some control issues. What is this? Is it safety? Is it not wanting to be misunderstood? Is it not wanting to offend? I want to come back to impact champions and impact media, one of the great things about media is that it doesn’t belong to you once you release it. That’s impact. I wonder if that takes you anywhere?

Charlene: Yeah, it does. It brings up a few things. You’ve heard me say this, it’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s about us. Your highest gifting doesn’t belong to you. We are all interconnected beings having an experience in this lifetime. When we find and bring out our highest gifting, that is for the interconnected mass that is us. It’s for all of us. For all of our relations. How did we get to be so insular? The release you’re talking about, when you experienced it, probably felt pretty good, because it’s natural. You are recognizing, Oh I get it. This is not about me, this is for us. This is for all of us. When I finally got that, things got lighter and more energized. I got out of my own way. But it also arrived with a sense of responsibility. Right? The world deserves all of you. How dare you not give it all. What gets me excited about impact media is, I feel like if I can work with those who are ready to show that, then that’s going to become the norm.

You’ve heard me say this before, humans are operating at only 15% of what I believe we’re fully capable of, if we would let ourselves play at our highest potential for our collective greatest good.

TinaO: Your story knocks, you answer, you serve it, and then you let it go.

MONEY LEFT ON THE TABLE

TinaO: You have this saying about money being left on the table. What does that mean in connection to impact media?

Charlene: If the game that we’re playing is to shift society by what we’re consuming through media every day, if we want our behaviours to elevate, to get upstream of the societal problems that are currently bogging us down on all levels, then let’s elevate what we’re paying attention to. 

As someone who came from an investment services background, I learned how to turn over all of the rocks to see who the players might be to put a deal together. The players in this game of impact media are: the impact champions or artists of impact who are creating the stories, impact producers like me who are willing, ready, and wanting to help those stories to be told, and the third piece, the conscious advertiser, brand and impact investor. I believe that the advertising industry wants to catch up with the social impact and social innovation industry. I believe that brands, brand specialists, conscious advertisers and marketing executives are out there who have done the personal growth work. Let’s call them the next level of more conscious and caring leaders.. They’re at a tipping point, and they want to invest in quality campaigns and quality projects. They have money to spend, and they are no longer happy creating commercials only to sell their products and services. Our job in the world of impact is to give them the clear and obvious stepping stones to really viable, interesting, quality campaigns, projects, and creative opportunities, because with them, their brand will be built, their customers and employees will be happy, and they’ll be positioned as an impact champion to all of their stakeholders, industry contacts, and future recruits. They are SEEN as the good guys they are, they’re literally helping to solve the world’s problems and elevating humanity, and again, pent-up energy is released that can be used for exponential impact  I just don’t see a downside. The market that’s currently being left on the table is over $250 billion in US dollars spent on advertising annually in North America.

TinaO: To quote you and your dry sense of impactful humour: This is a duhhhhh moment for advertisers and brands.

IMPACT MEDIA AND HOW HEALING HAPPENS

TinaO: I really think the world is sitting right on that edge of these kinds of decisions which brings me to my last question for you. You’re an indigenous woman, and I know that this year has been tremendously hard for you, specifically over the last few months (currently the remains of over 2000 Indigenous children have been located in unmarked graves across Canada). I also know that you’re grateful for the possibility of healing that can happen as the truth continues to be acknowledged. This happened. So there’s gratitude there for healing to happen, and I know that you care deeply about impact media for the greater good of the world. There’s so much I could ask here. Just this morning in GATHER for HER we heard from Indigenous Leader Nadine Bernard, Indigenous people are older than this country. From that core place, there are answers. I wonder what you might want to share with us as an indigenous woman with ancestral knowledge and wisdom, and as an impact champion yourself currently writing your first screenplay, what you might want to share with us about your journey. I realize that this question itself is its own conversation, but it feels key to me with impact media because it’s about coming home. Where do you want to go with this question?

Charlene: For me, it is about coming home. At our very core, as humans, we realize how far we’ve gone from our center. I think when we let go of the distractions, I think we can all honestly agree that we’re off kilter. And I feel like if we can tune into our heart, our soul or whatever your word is, at our center, there is something that we’ve forgotten. I’m not going to say lost. I’m purposely saying that we’ve forgotten. We’ve gone a bit off track, and hence the coming home.

I think what pulls me to impact media so strongly is that ultimately, I’m an optimist. Ultimately, I’m the visionary, and I know it’s in there for most people. I see it. With enough little clues, enough little hits, enough little reminders, enough little insights I do believe as a society, that we can come back on track, and we can come home. Truth must come before reconciliation.

I think the power of what we see everyday can lead us there. Media can remind us of who we really are. Don’t forget who you really are… reminding us in little tiny hits of communication and conversation. I think it could be inevitable. I want to make it inevitable that as a society, we come back together. We come back to remembering why we’re here in the first place. We don’t need to get in a rocket ship and go somewhere else. We need to go deep inside with gratitude and remember why we’re here, that we are all connected.

THE POWER OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Charlene: That’s the power that I believe, of indigenous peoples. We’re storytellers. There’s a reason that stories are passed down from generation to generation. It’s so we don’t forget who we are, and where we’ve come from, and what we believe, and what we value. So why wouldn’t we, being older than this country, why wouldn’t we choose to remember? We can return home and lift society with our media.

TinaO: I have two phrases that come to mind. One I will borrow from you: duh, and the other one is that Indigenous people are the original impact champions.

Charlene: Yes.

TinaO: This feels like a beautiful place to end.

Charlene SanJenko and I have been friends and colleagues now since I was merely months out of cancer treatment (2016). I saw what she was up to with PowHERtalks and I reached out to her. We had one conversation, one, but that conversation changed everything.

When she says: I see you, I see all of you, she means it. While neither one of us could’ve seen the book that is coming (Story Stones), the show I completed this year (OMYGOD), and the Storytelling for Reconciliation work I am building, she saw me. She saw my potential, and she named it, and gave me an opportunity to speak on stage. At that time (2015) I was far from being what we might call ‘ready’. I shook through the entire talk. I opened on a verse from a song that was playing during my first radiation treatment and I was so nervous, this singer (me) could barely stay on key.

But she’s a visionary. She doesn’t see who you are today, she doesn’t even pretend to see what you will do, she sees what is possible, what has potential, and what may be peaking around the corner for you if you’re willing to look.

In Charlene’s core, her story is one of calling.

She calls us to the Fire.

The Fire where we gather to remember, weave, and tell stories for seven generations of impact.

Thank you for listening.

To become an Impact Champion or Impact Investor reach out to Charlene directly at charlene@powherhouse.com

Tina Overbury is the writer and storyteller of OMYGOD – a storytelling for reconciliation experience about the women we burned, the babies we buried and the Gods we worship. She is a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection.

Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is devoted to global reconciliation through the exploration of origin stories, sharing our oral history, land-based knowing, and a continued focus on communication as a sacred practice.

She is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media as a core-communications specialist working with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a co-host of GATHER for HER, and a PowHERhouse Artist of Impact Amplify Coach helping leaders become artists and artists become leaders.