Why I want to attend LEAP Summit Zagreb?

The important thing is to pay attention to the deadline, they said. Why of course, it always is, that’s why I bookmarked the page well in advance. And then life happened. A first time visitor, just like you, would shrug and say “well, she didn’t want it hard enough”—but they wouldn’t be right. I will try and prove you wrong a day too late. 

LEAP Summit is a global conference on innovation, IT and modern technologies, entrepreneurship, career development and life changing stories, as they describe themselves. LEAP stands for Learn, Engage, Act, and Progress; and I really feel the importance of these words for my personal and professional development. Sounds a bit cliché, doesn’t it? Well, read on.

I Want to Learn

If you decide to change your career, like I have, having to learn is no brainer. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and think to myself there’s no way I am ever gonna learn it all—but that kind of is the goal, right? Lifelong learning and having a learning mentality. Knowing that you will never know everything, but not letting it discourage you. Trying to grasp as much as you can and, maybe even more importantly, make sense of it. 

And while you can always rely on articles and webinars, meeting people that know more than you do and are willing to share their knowledge tops my charts. LEAP has announced some pretty amazing speakers and they haven’t stopped, but are announcing two more every Monday! I would love to listen about brand building, innovation, storytelling and entrepreneurship from the leading experts and hopefully get right on track with my own ideas. Oh, and let’s not forget meeting the first woman to climb Mount Evererst from both sides—that’s some serious #girlpower!

I Want to Engage

When I was younger and still enamored of science and my (then) prospective career in science, I attended the linguistics seminar in Petnica Science Center several times a year. I would live, eat, sleep, read and attend lectures with dozens of young people that were interested in similar things I was.

Though the program didn’t really allowed for breaks, we slept less than ever. The energy was great and contagious, we were finally among like-minded people and almost only like-minded people so we didn’t want to waste our time by not spending it together, awake. I would always come back home so energized and inspired—back then nothing could compare to the seminar days and my regular life seemed dull afterwards.

These days I feel I’m missing the whole experience. As my focus and interests have shifted, I am longing to visit a conference where the crowd would be all about marketing all things digital. Actually, not just any conference. With 2,000 participants and more than 60 speakers from more than 40 countries, I can tell with certainty Leap will be the most energizing event of the year.  

When you share energy and passion, just like love, it can increase. So I really want to steal some of the LEAP energy this year 😉

I Want to Act

For me, this part relates mostly to the post-conference state. But if I can draw conclusions based on my previous experience, feeling energized during and after the event and brimming with awesome new information leaves me in a state “Okay, now what?” and makes me want to act. 

Don’t get me wrong—I am usually on the lookout for new things to do and implement all the time—but nothing beats this will to move just after I have organized, or during organizing, everything I’ve heard into meaningful chunks. If you’re like me, that’s when you usually have the most ideas on what and how you should do next. And you really do it!

I Want to Progress

It all comes down to this. Of course we like meeting new people and mingle and network, but the core goal in coming to conferences and events like these is (or should be) progress. We don’t just want to listen to a great talk, we want to use it in a way that is helpful to us. I’m not going on about making the best version of ourselves possible, because our current versions are good too, but essentially, yes: we want to progress. I want to progress. And what better opportunity there is than one that offers learning, engaging and acting? 

LEAP Summit will be held 11–13th May in Zagreb, Croatia. (That is another reason for coming worth noting: Zagreb is a cool vibrant city I greatly recommend, and I haven’t been in years, so I’d love to see what’s changed and what hasn’t!)

Tickets can be bought here and the price varies from HRK 300 (€40) to HRK 1200 (€160). The motto of the LEAP Summit is Where Changemakers Leap into Action—so I hope we’ll leap into it together!

Photo: LEAP Summit Facebook event page