 Welcome back to our online streamers, and hi again to everyone. Still me, Santana, MC, for Track 2. Woohoo! I've actually just heard news that we are tracking super far ahead of the other track, Track 1. So we will have some time for some questions for our flash talkers. Probably just one perf, but let's give it a go. Up next, our next speaker I'm very excited to introduce is Carol Olinger. She joined the WordPress community in 2016 during a sabbatical that she took focusing on mental health, and so her flash talk will take a look at how stepping back can be the best way to move forward. Please welcome Carol. Oh, no. Botard, Wittgen, Lisboa. That's all I can say in Portuguese, and maybe I could order a beer or two. Yeah, my name is Carol. Thanks for the lovely introduction, Santana. I'm the culture and recruitment strategist at Yos, and also the head of Clouds of Peketon, and I do consider myself an advocate for positive mental health in tech, and also diversity and inclusion. Originally I'm from Luxembourg, and I do live in Germany for the past nine years. Oh, Luxembourg has a huge Portuguese community, by the way. So, 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 decided not to be ashamed to share as we do on stage today. Also, I am a firm believer that as a society and a community, we all share the responsibility to create a safe and welcoming environment for people struggling with mental health issues, so that they can start opening up, have a more easy time to coexist, and to seek help if needed. The role models on stage who were speaking publicly about their mental health issues was essential to me before I was able to open up myself. And as with so many other important topics around inclusion and diversity, representation really matters here. It helps 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, having given this talk will have been worth it ten times over. So let's remove the stigma around mental health issues together, and let's start today. So instead of fighting my elephant or trying to hide it, I just decided to bring it to me, to Elizabeth, and accept it as a part of me, and take it by its trunk to show it to you. But this talk is called Stepping Back to Move Forward. So what could be indicators that you should take a step back once in a while? Let's first talk about performance and motivation loss. What you are feeling your regular day with, does it actually spark joy? And no matter if we're talking about your professional career, your hobbies, your volunteer work, or about how you built your family life, it is important to understand that true ambition, passion, and efficiency are born and grow from within. That was so much fun. So what are your passions and what personal values are attached to those? When we simply enjoy an activity, because it is fun, or we see it as an opportunity to explore, to learn, and grow, we are intrinsically motivated. It's just fun what we are doing. Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, involves external rewards, or it's about avoiding punishment. And intrinsic motivation can be the key to success and fulfillment. And if you don't feel like you're driven, at least partly by intrinsic motivation, 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 eventually show you with brute force and all kinds of physical symptoms if you ignore signs of feeling mentally unwell for an extended period of time. Do you know the feeling when activities that you have always found energizing, all of a sudden drain the energy out of you, and you can no longer bring yourself to do them, even though you used to enjoy them? Have you ever felt like all you can see in front of you is just a mountain of to-do's? And even if every single task would be easy to complete, you feel exhausted, and you no longer can tackle just a single one? Well, this is all too familiar to me. And if you're in physical or mental health, or both, are already compromised, it is about time to get to the bottom of it, time to take a few steps back. And I am well aware that taking care of your physical and mental health requires lots of time. And yeah, this is a precious asset that we don't seem to have nowadays anymore, right? But this is where we're also allowed to learn how to evaluate and to set the right priorities in our lives. Talking about priorities, I would like to investigate the concept of FOMO with you, the fear of missing out. You know what FOMO is? You've all heard the term, did you, right? Yeah, you did it, Angel? Yeah. Wait for it. Wait for it. We live incredibly fast lives these days, and we see unique opportunities everywhere, and we want to grab them all at the same time, preferably, right? That's not familiar. There's always another email, we need to check, or social media account, maybe there's new messages, and oh wait, here's another project that could boost my career eventually, so I should maybe become a part of it. And what about squeezing one more event to the already full schedule? FOMO is real and really stressful, and a common phenomenon in our society, and also in our community. It increases the pressure that we are already putting on ourselves and the expectations. But what if I told you there's a far 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 volunteering on working on an open source project. Embrace the joy of missing out, celebrate healthcare instead of FOMO. For instance, and as some of you may know, I really like a good party at a work camp. But sometimes, even Carol is just too exhausted by all the networking she's doing during the day, and I will never forget the first time I decided at a work camp not to join the social activities at night. Don't worry, it's not going to happen today. And I went to my hotel room, ordered room service, and enjoyed eating pizza in my bed while watching Netflix. It was so good, it was so good. So please trust your intuition. If the time is not right and your priorities and values are not matched, there will always be an extra opportunity. Start making your own conscious and responsible decisions, and don't let FOMO decide for you. 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 definitely not made that way in this project, and one who would have to be very privileged to comply with this principle. Not every one's time on WordPress contribution is sponsored, right? I believe we could do better than to increase the pressure on community folks to always be on and always be active. 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 resulting adjustment. Who are you today, compared to five or 10 years ago? What are your priorities today? And what are your personal values today? Human beings are designed to evolve. And I am proud to say that I am not the same person today as I have been 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. Because I love to evolve. I want to learn every day. And that's why I feel the need to question myself, my priorities, and my values every now and then. I want to stay connected with my evolving self. I have found that in this regard, there's nothing more inspiring for me than traveling and learning from people with different backgrounds and from different cultures. Learning and evolving while traveling means wealth to me. So I decided to adapt my lifestyle accordingly. Today, I live partly as a digital nomad, traveling the world together with my husband and my dog, which is a psychiatric service dog, little Buffy, she's the cutest. So the question is, what does wealth mean to you? And are you already living your life according to these passions and personal values? And if not, where can you start to adapt your lifestyle to get closer where you want to be? Dare to become a pioneer and leave your comfort zone occasionally as you step back to do a little self-discovery. And change can be scary, I know that, 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 when starting to move forward. The second part of the personal inventory will 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 today. Mental health matters. And please, don't you ever feel ashamed or afraid to ask for help. You did not choose to get ill, if that's the case. On the contrary, you are choosing life and yourself by deciding to get the help you need to feel better and you are absolutely worth it. Last but not least, never see the steps back that we are talking about today as a regression. They are most certainly not. Because before anyone can jump over a canyon or an obstacle, they first have to walk back in order to build up enough speed to make that jump in the first place. And to greater the distance, the higher the obstacle, well, the longer the runner and the farther back you'll have to go. But every step back is necessary to get you to move to the other side, to overcome the obstacle, and finally move forward in the right direction and for good. Thank you.