The Importance of Community

I was born and raised in India. Being the firstborn in a large family was a blessing in disguise. You always have someone looking after you and someone always has your back.

Fast forward, moving to Canada twenty years ago, exploring different cultures, and having the opportunity to pursue higher studies felt like a dream come true - until the isolation kicked in.

I felt like I didn’t belong and felt like I was not welcomed. The places to meet people were at public libraries, places of worship, the neighborhood potluck, soccer fields, and golf clubs.

Facebook was still in its early stages. I had no clue what social networking was.

However, being alone in a foreign land forced me to join community forums to understand the local culture and jargon. To my utter surprise, talks were merely restricted to what your weekend plans were, where your next vacation will be, the next big house, and all the fancy cars.

All materialistic things.

No one talked about the next big idea, learning a new skill, their failures, getting healthier, and whatnot. After few dreadful meetings, I opted out.

I secretly wished and promised myself, that in the years to come, I hope life brings me into a position to build a community of like-minded individuals, I was longing and craving for.

20 years and counting, here we are. Better late than never.

As a Founder and CEO of Unmute, building a community is important to me!

Community creates belonging. Belonging can motivate members to elevate their performance and dedication to what they care about most.

With Covid engulfing our lives, it has shed a light on many things. Pushing the decades of progress for women, the rise in hate, killing, and racism et al only heightened the need to come together as a community – connect, learn and grow.

Having a sense of community unites us. Being a part of a community can make us feel as though we are a part of something greater than ourselves. It can allow us to connect with people, reach for our goals, and make us feel safe and secure.

Every person needs to have a sense of community.

Hence, Unmute Circles was born. It is my effort of bringing our community together and build conscious leaders that our world needs.

Unmute Circles are monthly events that foster an environment of openness to share our failures and victories as men and women in the current working landscape and build each other up.

Our community involves everyone - women and men and everyone else - who want to reimagine the workforce of the future.

With Unmute Circles, we want to encourage the idea of "unlearning". We'll be unmuting a new topic every month to gain new perspectives on topics we were taught to shrug off or ignore. The goal is to create an environment for others to connect, grow, and succeed. When one succeeds, we all succeed!

I am so thrilled to launch our first Unmute Circles on June 24th at 6:00 pm.

Here’s my advice- Surround yourself with people who talk about visions and ideas. Not people.

Name a community that inspires you to create meaningful change - comment down below. Let’s celebrate the communities that have helped us get to where we are today!

Priyanka Mehandiratta

Founder and CEO, Unmute

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