 Hi, oh that mic works. Oh my god. It's so exciting to finally be here on stage in Bangkok. I work here in Asia Hasn't this event been amazing so far? I love it. So really I could do this four times a year Yeah, as you already heard my name is Carol and I'm the culture and recruitment strategist at Yoast and also the head of cloud just hackathon I am originally from Luxembourg a very small country in Western Europe and Living in Germany for nine years now And I also consider myself an advocate for diversity inclusion and positive mental health in tech You probably already have guessed it. This talk is going to be about mental health So let's maybe start with the big elephant in the room Why did I choose to give a mental health talk today? well, I Struggle with depression and anxiety myself and I have decided not to be ashamed to share this publicly Also, I am a firm believer that as a society and a community We all have a responsibility to create a safe and welcoming space for people struggling with mental health issues So they can feel more comfortable and safe to open up to co-exist and to seek help if needed Seeing role models on stage was essential to me to be able to open up myself and As with so many other important topics around inclusion and diversity Representation matters here It helped me realize I was not alone in this and If now I can be a role model for just one single person in this room today or maybe later on WordPress TV Giving this talk will have been worth it ten times over Let's remove the stigma around mental health issues and let's start today So instead of fighting my elephant and trying to hide it I just decided to accept it as a part of me and bring it with me to Bangkok and You can see it here in the room brought by my awesome colleagues from team. Yoast so What are indicators that you should take a step back once in a while? Let's first talk about performance and motivation loss What do you are filling your regular day with does it actually spark joy? No matter if we're talking about your professional career your hobbies your volunteer work your family life It is important to understand that true ambition and efficiency Come and come are born and grow from within driven by passion So what are your passions and what personal values are attached to them? When we simply enjoy an activity or see it as an opportunity to explore to grow to learn and live to our fullest potential We are intrinsically motivated Extrinsic motivation on the other hand involves external rewards or is avoiding punishment Intrinsic motivation can be key to success and fulfillment So if you don't feel you're driven by intrinsic motivation at least partly You may want to change that Now let's talk about health physical and mental health are interconnected and interdependent and make no mistake Your body will tell you and show you eventually with brute force and all sorts of physical symptoms If you ignore signs of stress and feeling mentally unwell for an extended period of time Do you know the feeling when activities that you always found energizing suddenly drain all the energy out of you? And you can no longer bring yourself to do them even though they used to be fun Have you ever felt like all you can see in front of you is a mountain of to-dos? And even if every single task would be easy to complete You feel exhausted and you no longer manage to tackle a single one Well, this is all too familiar to me What about you? If your physical or mental health are already compromised it is about time to get to the bottom of it take a few steps back and I am well aware that taking care of your physical and mental health requires lots of time and This is where we are allowed to learn how to reevaluate our priorities and set them straight and Talking about priorities, I would like to investigate the concept of FOMO the fear of missing out with you We all live Incredibly fast-paced lives these days. We see unique opportunities Everywhere and we want to grab them all and preferably all at the same time There's always another email or social media account that we need to check for new messages, right? and oh wait Here's another project. I should get involved into because it could boost my career and What about squeezing one more event into the already full schedule? FOMO is real and very stressful and a common phenomenon in our society and in this community It increases the pressure and expectations. We are already placing on ourselves But what if I told you there's a way more pleasant counterpart to this? Meet Jomo the joy of missing out You don't have to run after every opportunity you don't have to attend every event and You certainly don't have to burn out while working or volunteering for an open source project Embrace the joy of missing out and celebrate self-care instead of FOMO For instance and as some of you may know I Really like myself a good party at a word camp But sometimes I'm just exhausted by all the networking I'm already doing during the day and I will never forget the first time where I decided at a word camp not to join the activities at night and Take a good bath order room service and enjoy myself some Netflix series while having pizza in my bed And oh my god. It was so so good Trust your intuition if the timing is not right and your priorities are not matched There will always be a next opportunity Start making your own conscious and responsible decisions and don't let FOMO decide for you and In this context, I would like to point out the principle decisions are made by those who show up in our community Is this really the message we want to spread in terms of sustainable contribution? This is fueling the fear of missing out Not to mention that decisions are most certainly not made that way in this project And one would have to be very privileged to comply to this and I believe we could do better than to increase Pressure on community folks to always be active and always be on Now that we know the indicators that tell us we need to act What can stepping back look like I? Like to distinguish between a reality check a health check and adjusting adjusting and resulting adjustments Who are you today? Compared to five or ten years ago What are your personal? Priorities today and what values are attached to them Human beings are designed to evolve and I am proud to say that I am not the same person today That what I was five years ago or even one year ago and I truly hope that in two years from here I will not be the same Carol you're seeing today. I love to evolve and I learn every day and That's why I feel the need to question myself my priorities and my personal values every now and then And I have found that in this regard. There's nothing more inspiring to me than traveling the world learning from people with different backgrounds with different cultures and Yeah, just like what I'm doing here right now at WordCamp Asia in Bangkok Learning and evolving while traveling means wealth to me so I decided to adapt my lifestyle accordingly and Today I live partly as a digital nomad together with my husband and little Buffy and we're traveling the world together This is a little Buffy by the way What does wealth mean to you and Are you already living your life according to your passions and personal values? If not Where can you start to adapt your lifestyle to get closer to where you want to be? Dare to become a pioneer and leave the comfort zone occasionally As you step back to do a little bit of self-discovery Change can be scary, especially when struggling with mental health issues But it doesn't always have to be a drastic change to start with Baby steps really can go a long way here When and they're gonna bring you forward the second part of the personal inventory would be the health check Say it with me. There is nothing ever more important than your health Get your priorities straight and focus on self-care Put your well-being first And I want to make an important call here today mental health matters Please don't you ever feel ashamed or afraid to ask for help? You did not choose to get ill On the contrary you are choosing life and yourself by deciding to get better and you are all absolutely worth it Last but not least Please never see the steps back. We are talking about today as a regression. They are not Before anyone can jump over a canyon or an obstacle they first have to walk back In order to build up enough speed with a running start to even make that jump And to greater the distance the higher the obstacle well the longer the run up And the farther back you have to go But every step back is necessary to get you to the other side to overcome the obstacle and to finally move forward in the right direction and for good Thank you