Sprechen Sie Success? 2026: A Diary Entry

Attendee status: returning
Immigrant status: still strong
Corporate job: yes, unfortunately
Emotional preparedness: questionable but optimistic

Dear Diary,

It’s happening again. 

“Sprechen Sie Success?”.

Except this time it’s bigger, and most importantly, less emotionally stressful for my Google Calendar.

Last year, I attended Sprechen Sie Success? with the cautious optimism of an immigrant corporate girlie who still says “sorry” when someone bumps into her. Is it because I grew up in the UK, where everyone is terribly kind all the time for no apparent reason, even when they’re being passive-aggressive? Maybe. Anyways, my Sudoku and pattern recognition training was finally paying off, as my thoughts that day included mostly:

“If I go to this workshop, I’ll miss that keynote.”
“If I stay for the keynote, I’ll miss the CV photo.”
“If I miss the CV photo, I will obviously never succeed professionally again.”

Sprechen Sie Success 2026 has done what everyone wishes they could deliver: clear boundaries. 

• Day 1: All keynotes. All performances. Big main-character energy.

• Day 2: All workshops. All CV photos. Skill-building. Glow-ups. No FOMO.

Which means, deep breath, I can attend every single workshop I want this year. No sneaking out early. No sitting in a keynote, wondering what transformative exercise I’m missing in Meeting Room 1.

This alone is worth celebrating with a prosecco. Prosecco. Prosecco… you know what that reminds me of? Networking. Which, in my mind, is usually quite gross. It’s forced. Name tags, small talk about the weather, blah blah BLAH. As an immigrant woman in Austria working in corporate, networking often feels like a sheer waste of time.

But then… I discovered NIWA. 

Against all odds, networking became:

🎀cutesy
🫶kind
😮actually useful

Instead of “What can you do for me?”, it was more:

“Oh my goodness - SAME.”
“Wait, you too?”
“Let’s get coffee and complain productively.”

And suddenly I had contacts, confidence, and zero urge to hide in the bathroom.

So, dear diary, and anybody who managed to get their hands on this, REMINDER for me to book using code SUCCESS10 for a discccccouuuuuunnnt (love).

Wishing myself luck,

See you next year.