Bring Your Community Wherever You Go: Why I joined the Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Ok hear me out. Humans are social animals. Whether you are a 5 year old on the playground or a mid-career professional working in a buzzing city, we cannot deny the social nature of our existence. Yes you might be saying, that you are an introvert, and you may not enjoy any social gatherings, or you get nervous at meeting new people. We certainly all have different tolerance level for socializing, networking, or just speaking with a stranger for the first time. However, some part of you reading this still values the benefits of being in a social environment, at least once in a while. This common value drives not only our relationships with the people around us, but it also drives our economy. It drives how many restaurants and bars a certain city would have, it drives how many coffee shops and meeting places one can find on a weekday afternoon, and it drives how and with whom we want to spend money. Our resources are limited, and as we grow older I trust that many of you that are reading this also feel that time has become an invaluable currency that you want to use carefully. Therefore, if you are going to be social, and time is limited, you have choices to make. Where do I want to spend my time, and why? This is where I have made a conscious decision 7 years ago and once again recently to use my time to grow the Canadian business and friends community abroad, at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

So how do I explain what a Chamber of Commerce is? This was one of the replies I got back in 2016 after I asked a former Chamber Board of Governor in Tokyo. On Google, you might find something like: "A Chamber of Commerce is a non-profit business organization that aims to assemble all the major business players in an organizational setting". If you ask a business representative, you might get: "A Chamber is a membership organization that organizes events for people to network". If you ask a government employee, you might get: "A Chamber is where the business community of that specific country gathers to work together with the government on a specific economic goal and have the businesses represented". While all of the above are true, as a former director at the Canadian Chamber in Tokyo, my view is simple. A Chamber is a place where business professionals can make friends. A place where friendships and partnerships can grow simultaneously, but without any pressure. A place where a community can come together, regardless of your background, and support each other in our day to day struggles within our busy schedules. After being hired as the youngest director at the Canadian Chamber in Tokyo, I thoroughly felt that I knew nothing about running a business, nor did I understand what it would take or what it took for our members to have succeeded in their respective fields. I came into the community not only naively, but also felt the need to prove myself. After all, how can a 25 year old director be taken seriously by some of the most successful professionals who are 30-40 years more senior than me. The first thing the community taught me was humility. Within the first week of my new job, many business and organizational questions overwhelmed me and gave me a nice 39 degree fever for 2 days. As students who graduated from Western universities, you think you can conquer the world. Well if not the entire world, at least the part that you think you can. Well, the reality is somewhat cruel. The reality is that many of us are not prepared for real life business challenges after our graduation, and our best teachers are often the people that we meet along the way in our careers. Show of hands if this is true for you. The longer I interacted with our members, the more I felt there were more for me to gain by learning from them.

But why friends? We are all so critical about people using LinkedIn as a friends platform like Facebook, and don't want to see non-business articles or information. The feeling could be similar if you look at a Chamber from the outside perspective. Look at all of these CEOs, managing directors, and tech founders gathering and have their business talk. It shouldn't be a place to make friends, it should be business only. If this is still what you believe, then I have to say you are not understanding the true meaning of a business community, at least not what the Canadian Chamber is all about. I shared similar feelings in my 20s while trying to prove myself in front of our senior members. I always had to be serious, talking about the latest business topics, and acted more professional than the older people. But did I have to be? Was I really going to be judged if I didn't? What if they did, so what? At certain points, I became aware that this so called "professionalism" is just a barrier that we have created for ourselves so that we don't have to show people our real selves. Its our getaway for not being personal and putting our feelings to whoever we are meeting and speaking with. Giving us an excuse to just talk about business potentials but never about getting to know another person at a deeper level. This was especially the case after organizing multiple events at over 500, 600 participants. For a somewhat introverted person like me, it was impossible to deeply connect with every single person. Thus why should you at all?

Many of us left our homes for whatever reason to search for a place to better our careers. All of us have our own unique stories of how we ended up here. As adults, it is almost as if behaving professionally and keeping things "businessy" is the default. What has changed for me is the way I look at my role in these business communities. The Canadian Chambers and many other communities that I am involved in, are not only business groups and platforms that I can use to enhance my career and future deals. They are opportunities to meet likeminded individuals who regardless of titles, have things you can learn from. They are channels for all of us to make friends, some life long friends, by deeply connecting with them without the ego of professionalism. They are places where people who have similar values and experiences can come together to just simply chat, have a drink, and escape to. For me, joining the Canadian Chamber reminds me of a simpler time. Not only does it remind me of where I come from and type of people that I like speaking with. It reminds me of a time that making friends was so much easier. Nobody had egos, nobody had prejudice, and nobody had expectations. We come together as a social community to help each other, grow together, and be ourselves.

As I remember slurping some of the best beef noodles together with the smartest and welcoming people I have met during our recent event in Taipei, I cannot help but to think, isn't that something we all deserve?