 Taking care of each other one of the best ways we can contribute back to the community back to the project I'm going to have a couple of stories here and I'm going to show you some words on the screen If everybody that can identify with any of these stories or these words, raise your hand for a couple of seconds It's not going to be for 10 minutes So you're struggling to get everything done. You don't know how you're going to do it you work for yourself you know, you're independent you're an entrepreneur and It's just it's impossible. So you get depressed You work from home or you work in a cubicle farm like me But you just work so much you feel isolated overwhelmed and exhausted you Put things out in the WordPress community to try to help everybody understand more things about it and Yet you don't feel like anything you're doing is right. You feel like a failure the adversity just feels just It's overwhelming You have fear. I mean, these are all primal words. These aren't WordPress words but desperation anxiety anxiety right now Fatigue I mean we all get fatigued. You can only work so much. You can only think so much Imposter imposter syndrome. I think a few of you heard me talk about that and Change I'm up here trying to change myself and change the WordPress community last year at work camp Europe met Molo leg put a challenge out there to put forth five for the future and It was directed. I think more at the agencies But it was taken as everybody everybody should put five percent of their energy Towards WordPress towards giving back towards the project That's great. The project needs that project needs you to contribute to it You should get involved. You've seen this slide a few times this weekend. I'm on the community team I'm a community deputy. I help work camps happen looking at Kathy there. I And it's important. It's all important But it comes at a price So while we're all giving five for the future and helping make WordPress this amazing platform that it is and We're doing everything we can to really just I Mean nothing can compare to it We're kind of losing sight of some very important things We're not investing in ourselves. We're not contributing back to ourselves Without us as contributors back to WordPress and it doesn't matter. It could be one simple patch It could be the core team. I mean all the way up to Matt Mullenwijk and all the way down to somebody that Went to a word camp once we all contribute back to this community into the project But we need to take some energy Back from the project and start investing in ourselves You do that by stopping for a moment and you stop and you think and you take take a deep breath you catch your breath Trust me they help sometimes you need to have some a married band of Crazy fools that help you through it. I've got a front row here of some of them and You know, they help me get through the day and they help me event some are here some aren't but you know these really strange people That I identify with and this is just a handful of people in my work WP morning crew slack chat and we talk every day usually and They are the the basis of what stop laughing Dan And it's it's so important to me because they are my outreach the WP morning crew came about because of something and It started at the end of last year Oh wait, I'm sorry. I'm skipping and my presenter notes aren't on here We do have fun sometimes the morning crew this was us getting ready to walk into the convention center this morning So yeah, yes, I we need a little laughter. So this was us coming down the escalators You know those four big escalators. We do things as a group. So but Not to bring everybody down, but all of this my little support team here came about because of Kim Kim Parcell if you didn't know her we lost her a year ago The world lost a very special person I'm lucky to have called Kim a friend Kim was one of those people that made sure everybody else was okay Hashtag WP mom you see it up there. That was her hashtag Andrea Renek referenced it yesterday the two of them kind of teamed up on that and Every so often I do still see the hashtag, but it really hasn't been there And so when we lost Kim besides some of us personally that knew her and even if you didn't know her She still impacted you. We lost a big part of our heart One of the impacts Kim had was helping us all help each other and ourselves And I'm I'm here to tell you that we need to get that back We need to remember what Kim stood for and Helping ourselves and helping each other I remember when Kim won the MacBook Air last year right before WordCamp San Francisco And I was one of the first people to tell her about it and when I saw her at WordCamp San Francisco She was just so excited like Rich look here it is She was just so happy and she made sure everybody else that she knew was happy, right? I mean is that who here knew Kim Parcell and can say anything, but she tried to make people happy I Want that back. Yes. WP drama it exists. It always will exist. You can't get away from that We are an intense community that has so many important things to talk about but take away the drama Take away the negativity Let's start spreading some love. Let's do what Kim Parcell would have done So be like Kim every day Take a few minutes to do what WP mom would have reminded you to do for yourself I still see the occasional tweet on it You know, hey, you didn't eat lunch yet, and it's like five o'clock in the afternoon. You bet you didn't eat breakfast She would tweet it yell at you and you would probably get up and go eat your breakfast or you'd go outside You'd see the sky You would do things that you forgot to do because we work so darn hard to make this This community this project and they go hand in hand The project is the community and vice versa. So We need to take those breaks throughout the day Stand up walk around talk to somebody just look out the window at your cat Call a loved one. It doesn't matter and then after you've done that for yourself Reach out to somebody else, you know in the community Especially if it's somebody you know that might be having a rough time and talk to them Now if you're not on Twitter the hashtag isn't a symbolic to you, but if you're doing this stuff tweet about it, I Want to see hashtag WP mom come back I want to honor Kim and everything she stood for everything that was important. I Want to see it become more than just one person or two people? I want to see all of us become Kim and Look out for each other talk to each other help each other Find a way to make that happen find a way To share your pain and share your growth tweet about it use the hashtag Take care of each other Where all the project has? Okay, please it's important. I've personally been going through some personal crises these last couple weeks It's been rough and I haven't reached out to a lot of people You know some of my crew know I you know don't yeah I know and I don't I don't ask for help and they've reminded me I've had people from all over remind me rich, but just ask Don't put yourself in a hole whether it's personal professional wordpress whatever we are all a family Even if this is your first word camp this community is beyond anything. I've ever seen anywhere So please take care of each other help each other Don't wait to ask somebody you know that might be in trouble. I say that cautiously, but you know If you think they're just stressed just reach out to somebody tweet about it put WP mom Don't embarrass somebody Don't you know this isn't what it's about. It's not a shaming thing. It's a growth thing So that way at any point next Thursday somebody decides to look and search the hashtag WP mom on Twitter We can see interactions between each other. We can see Somebody reaching out to me and go rich. How's this going? How's that going and vice versa vice versa me asking somebody else? Hey, how's your day going? Did you eat breakfast yet? Because that's what Kim would have done and that's what keeps us going So please take care of each other Take this great project these great people that contribute take a step back and get back to each other Take care of each other