Legacy of the Warm and Welcoming Conference #3 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

When you start organising conference with a great team of people and you have to leave the team due to personal conflicts with other people and mental issues, what is your legacy?

How about the team delivering the best conference you’ve been at where you felt safe enough to you speak about the mental issues.

Total Words

849

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. Surround yourself with good people
  2. Create warm and welcoming atmosphere
  3. With difficult people sometimes it’s sometimes ok to let go
  4. With good people, yout legacy will survive

About Jarek Potiuk:

Independent Open-Source Contributor and Advisor, Committer and PMC member of Apache Airflow, Member of the Apache Software Foundation, Security Committee Member of the Apache Software Foundation

Jarek is an Engineer with a broad experience in many subjects – Open-Source, Cloud, Mobile, Robotics, AI, Backend, Developer Experience, Security, but he also had a lot of non-engineering experience – building a Software House from scratch, being CTO, organizing big, international community events, technical sales support, pr and marketing advisory but also looking at legal aspects of security, licensing, branding and building open-source communities are all under his belt.

With the experience in very small and very big companies and everything in-between, Jarek found his place in Open-Source world, where his internal individual-contributor drive can be used to the uttermost of the potential.

Contacting Jarek Potiuk::

You can contact Jarek by email or connect wit him on LinkedIn

By Jarek Potiuk

I have co-organized already more than 10 conferences with strong community – building focus. Both online and physical from 300 people to 10.000 people – in Poland, where I came from but also in Canada and US.

So what do you  do when you see an opportunity of organising a 300 people community-focused conference for the charity organisation that is your “mothership” organisation, you spent last 5 years contributing to? Yes, you guessed it – you start organizing it. Different country, different people but similar challenges and you expect it to be no different.

Removing initial hurdles, getting a few people enthused, forming the organisation and working together is what usually happens next. And so it did this time – great team of people started to prepare. Year in advance, plenty of time.

If not the organization hurdles and “difficult” cooperation with poeple from the mothership organization who think very differently than you of partnership, cooperation and generally being friendly and helpful. Plus getting into another depression episode which makes things looking worse than they are.

While you want to work with those great people you started it with, it gets to the point, where you can’t even think about being anywhere close the conflicting and hostile atmosphere coming from above (or so you perceive it). Depression worsens, You finally make the tough decision to cut yourself off from the stressors and quit organisation – leaving the people you brought in without your leadership and support, left to interact with somewhat difficult people and organisational hurdles.

Fast forward 9 months later. You come to the conference – fearing how you will be perceived and fearing the confrontation with difficult people. You have your part in the conference, you lead a track there so you had your part in preparation.

And … you find yourself at the perfect conference you imagined year ago. Perfect size, perfect number of attendees, great atmosphere. Difficult people are nowhere near the mainstream of what happens but you are welcome as a friend. The organisers not only followed all the intial ideas but surpassed it big time and even coined the term WWJS (“What Would Jarek Say”). You have great time with them – both during and after the conference and feel like you never left the team. But also you hear that the “difficult” people were even more “difficult” and you are happy you have not been involved.

There is the karaoke bar party where you sing together with the friends of yours and you are having a fantastic time.

And the event is just great, friendly and welcoming place – you feel safe and comfortable to make yourself vulnerable.

Then you attend a talk of your mentee who explains how – thanks to – in parts – your mentorship and creating a welcoming and supporting place she got out of the worst time of her life, mentally, how this changed her life, and life of her mother who came to the event from a small city in Peru.

It’s all so warm and comfortable that you give a lighning talk where you speak about your depression and how you cope with it in front of the attendees that just saw you smiling and happy – and they come to thank you for speaking about “dark side” and how important it was for them.

Call it a legacy – leaving the legacy of warmth and friendship with people you love and respect so that – despite some difficulties – they can create a great place for you to speak about your struggles.

My Mental Break Down #47 #cong23 #reality

Synopsis:

What a breakdown can teach you about reality and perception.

Total Words

106

Reading Time in Minutes

<1

Key Takeaways:

  1. Our sense of Reality can rapidly change
  2. We can occupy multiple reality states
  3. We interpret the same thing differently
  4. Reality is perception

About Richard McCurry

Richard – who has apparently made Chinese more fun to learn than skiing through his startup Newby Chinese – enjoys the odd nappy change, while also revelling in the fact that his ginger-gene has triumphed over Spanish blood.

Contacting Richard McCurry

You can reach Richard by email

By Richard McCurry

Dear Fellow Inmates #91 #cong18

Synopsis:

Poem about mental health.

4 Key Takeaways:

  1. New ideas come from talking
  2. Mental health needs to be discussed
  3. Greater understanding means better ideas
  4. Poetry can express emotions more powerfully

About Caoimhe May:

Caoimhe May (Pronounced Queeva/Kweeva May) is a teenager from County Galway, Ireland.  She is a writer of Poems, speeches, short stories and unseen work.
She openly suffers from severe anxiety and depression and openly speaks about her mental health issues in order to raise awareness and end the stigma and embarassment around all mental illnesses.
Caoimhe May is also an avid and actively speaking feminists and is extremely passionate about equality for every type of person on the planet.
She believes strongly in standing up for what you believe in, being resilient, being powerful while empowering others, and the journey of recovery and self love.
Caoimhe has been reading and writing all her life, and had a children’s book published when she was twelve that she had written at eight years old.
Caoimhe May is a secondary school student and so she finds it hard to find time to apply to events or speeches but would speak in front of crowd about what she believes in every day if she could.
She wants to go into public speaking, the media and performance arts when she leaves school and any leeways anyone may have of getting her there would be immensely appreciated!
She is also available to do readings and poem performances for any event.  Caoimhe also promises to make a difference in the world for the better, be it big or small.  And she does not break promises.

Contacting Caoimhe May:

You can reach Caoimhe by email or follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

 

 

By Caoimhe May

 

The great big ship capsized, the fear had you paralyzed,

            And so, you could not realise, until it was no longer a surprise

            And the sinking, it progressed, and as though I was possessed

            I hereby openly confess, I became totally obsessed.

            An obsession with my fear of society, that grew so strong inside of me

            Trying to edge away yet politely from everyone and hiding the anxiety.

            It became like an infection, although I think I should mention,

            If you were to pay attention, it sparked from retrospection.

            The obsession of perfection, fear of any correction,

            Of societal rejection, even of my own reflection

            The power to sense any tension, in perpetual suspension

            And despite my introspection, it wasn’t my intention

            That this mental abreption would lead to my depression.

            There begins the numbness, the long periods of dumbness

            The really painful sinking, the suicidal thinking

            That back of mind thinking that your insides must be shrinking

            And the vision of the surface, begins to lose it’s purpose

            Because the light on top is less visible and you become more miserable

            And everything makes you irritable and you repeat: this is horrible, it’s horrible

            Your life seems ever so dismal to do simple things you’re just not unable

            Your thoughts for life are so unclear, you simple want to disappear

            How and why did you even get here? And how come it’s so difficult to shed one tear?

            Getting up in the morning out of bed, it fills you with a sickening dread

            Of having to endure the day ahead, why can’t you just stay in bed instead?

            But to stay in bed is to procrastinate, and the next problem will frustrate.

            If I stay in bed too late, it may have an effect on my weight

            So out of bed I evacuate, into a world in which I’m an inmate

            I feel the increase of my heartrate, and the danger of my lungs to suffocate

            To stop the hunger I hydrate, and on I go and emaciate.

            Often my head begins to spin, the more I lose, the more I’m thin,

            Breakable hair, dried out skin, calories out equal calories in.

            If you don’t like what’s on the scale, well I guess you can call that a fail.

            Scrutinise every single detail, oh the joys of falling victim to the “perfect” female.

            Until you’ve achieved the desired shape, I’m afraid there is no other escape

            Despite the fact your bones may ache, or you cannot stay awake

            You have to stay in full control, keep on track to reach that perfect goal

            The goal that lies in an endless hole, that kidnaps you and steals your soul.

            But listen to me, you need to know, your life is worth much more than a few kilo

            It’s worth more than living up to some fake photo, you need to recover, you need to let go.

            Fight those thoughts, learn how to say “no”, you must create a new manifesto

            I know you could feel very low, but it’s gonna get better, be it quick or slow.

            This whole experience, will help you grow, at the end of a storm will be a rainbow.

            But for people to see this, for people to know, we need to start talking, more experiences shown

            We need to end the stigmatism

            Be it through campaigns, speeches, social media or feminism.

            We need to cease our criticism, stop saying silly things as a euphemism.

            This society’s approach is a form of terrorism, through judging, ignoring, oblivion, racism

            We need to end this disgusting schism, what is the point of narcissism?

            When it does no good, it’s just negativism, I need your help with this activism.

            To end mental health sigma sectarianism, it’s at the top of my list, it’s my optimism.

            So, are you going to help me with my vision?

            Or are you going to keep hidden, inside your own prison.