Today we are talking to Morgwn Rimel director of The School of Life.
We will be finding out ways entrepreneurs can improve their quality of life.
Hello Morgwn, pleasure to meet you.
For the benefit of our viewers and Pioneers, I want you to define for us, explain to us
what The School of Life is all about.
Sure, well in the simplest terms The School of Life is a business that's devoted to good
ideas for everyday living.
We are primarily concerned with how to help people live the most fulfilling lives possible.
And how long has The School of Life been running?
Three years, so we've had about 40,000 people participate in our public programs.
What are the goals and plans for The School of Life?
When the school was originally founded, the initial vision was to create an alternative
form of education for adults that was sort of non-traditional, so a way of bringing ideas
out of the ivory tower and onto the high street, and to make it more accessible, learning more
accessible and relevant to everyday lives.
So we started out by launching a range of classes, workshops and other weekend events,
and now we've moved into publishing, so we'll be launching a series of books next May, we've
started to design our own sort of knowledge led, very thoughtful gifts, games and stationary,
and we will be running events around the world.
You seem very very passionate about being able to run The School of Life, why is this?
Ah because it's an amazing idea and it's just wonderful to see people come together in the
community that's based around good thinking and good ideas, it's also an incredibly inspiring
place to work because you get to meet so many interesting people from all walks of life.
So which are your most popular classes?
Ah this is an easy one actually, we have three, well four, we have a lot of popular classes
actually, but there are four in particular, one is how to find a job you love, I think
for obvious reasons, how to realise your potential, again this idea of re-appraising ones values
and trying to work out what's really important, people thinking more about their relationships,
their creative lives, the things that they're really passionate about and maybe they're
not getting that from their career, and trying to find a way to reconcile that through past-times,
volunteer work, side projects, starting businesses, and kind of taking the leap from salaried
work into a completely new venture that's self supporting.
What types of people attend the classes?
Ah, you never know who you're gonna get!
And that is the beauty of The School of Life, I think if you kind of like had to pick a
primary group, I'd say people probably from their mid 20's to their mid-forties who are
obviously kind of dealing with the big issues in life.
So, sorting out their career, working through their first serious relationships or marriages,
starting families, like some of the really big pressing issues in life.
How do you think the old wisdom that you have here in the school matches up with the modern
entrepreneurial mindset.
We're actually really good in the sense that we draw in the old and the new, so it's very
much everything from ancient philosophy through to the latest neuro scientific research, as
far as we're concerned, it doesn't really matter if the idea is 2000 years old or like
two weeks old, both have merit and the beauty is in finding the underlying principles and
the universal truths that underpin every age and every epic in history.
I want you to give me at least three entrepreneurs or business people who are role models or
influencers for you?
That's difficult, okay, so, why don't we choose, we'll go large scale, small scale and sort
of creative, so I think on a large scale it would be Jamie Oliver, and that's purely because
he has created a business that is devoted in large part obviously to his own benefit,
but to the good, for social good, but it's come from a place of passion, like he loves
food and he wants other people to love food and to consider their health.
Another person that I really admire is one of our faculty members, Richard Reynolds,
who in a former life was a marketing executive, and worked in the ad industry, and now is
known as the father of the guerrilla gardening movement and this all sort of came about because
he lived in Elephant and Castle, he had no garden, and it was quite depressing, this
urban jungle, no greenery, and so he started to transform derelict spaces around his neighbourhood,
seed-bombing, planting beautiful wildflowers at the roundabout, and this became a movement.
One more!
Okay, so one more, well actually, this one is very close to the mission of The School
of Life, and that would be Dave Eggars, and his 826 National movement.
Dave Eggars is a writer whose based in San Francisco and he founded a series of quite
extraordinary workshop spaces which are fronted by unusual shops in the States, so there's
the superhero supply store where you walk in in Brooklyn, you can try on a cape, you
can buy like, invisibility powder an all this sort of thing and the idea is that kids can
go into this shop that is essentially completely surreal and sort of fantasy space, and there's
a little secret door, that just they go through and in the back of this space is a workshop
area where they are taught writing skills and they are free workshops run by volunteers
in the community and the whole business is geared toward getting kids to write.
What key areas do you think that entrepreneurs should focus on to have a more balanced and
healthier and happier life.
I think first it's the idea that work is not the kind of be all end all, especially when
you're working on your own venture and running your own business, it's very easy to sort
of get tunnel vision and nothing else matters, but as important as it is to devote yourself
completely to your mission and to your work, it's equally important to take time away and
to make the time off work a very productive and fruitful time for thinking.
I know I'm so guilty of this, it's really difficult to turn off and put the blackberry
down at the end of the day and to go home and do something different but it's so important
to give your mind a rest.
Entrepreneurs are obviously focussed on the bottom line or making profit, how important
is it to you that entrepreneurs also focus on their personal development.
It's incredibly important to develop your financial resources but developing your emotional
resources is equally as important because as the leader of a business and as somebody
whose an owner of a business, you're also responsible for other people and for managing
a number of different relationships whether those are within your organisation or with
external parties, and particularly in environments where it is very stressful and there's a fast
pace of change, so much happening, it's about developing that internal ability to kind of
manage and check your own emotions but to respond appropriately to the emotions and
concerns of the people around you.
It's been fantastic meeting you Morgwn, thank you very much and look forward to seeing you
again.
It's been a pleasure.