The School of Life
“The School of Life is designed to help you live a calmer, wiser, more fulfilled life.”
Heads up, I have a work connection with The School of Life - I helped put on their three-day Conference at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in the spring of 2018. It was kind a personal dream come true as I’d followed and obsessed over the brand for years, so this entry is going to be unabashedly in the direction of loving what they do.
I’ve known about The School of Life since they first got going over a decade ago in 2008 as a single bricks-and-mortar location in London. But now The School of Life has developed into something else: a multi-platform cultural enterprise with outlets across the world. Their initial store/classroom/therapy room now has its duplicate in multiple international locations which include Amsterdam, Berlin, Sydney and Taipei, while the distinct content developed in London now fills the twice-yearly Conferences that have so far been hosted in Los Angeles, Lisbon, Zurich and SF.
But let’s not forget the YouTube channel, the crazily popular off-site events, the gorgeous publications and products, the community app, an architectural serene retreat, even marriages and a Book of Life (which has all the thoughts on all the things). The distinct yellow pop of this life-managing brand has found infinite ways to weave itself into our lives. And this has all been done without ever really talking directly about our mental health - which is maybe the most genius thing of all.
All of this, the crazily ambitious web of physical locations and online supports, is all guided by the philosophical wisdom and cadence of writer and thinker Alain de Botton. The School of Life was, and is still, very much his own passion project, aiming to extend emotional intelligence into our everyday lives. His ambition seemingly to shape how we think about all aspects of who we are and how we interact in all the main areas of potential concern, which he’s identified as work, relationships, sociability, self-knowledge, and calm.
At the core of this mission are the roster of classes, the first step of doing something in real-space with The School of Life. These classes are approachable How-To’s for schooling us in well, umm, our lives, with subjects that we all need like How To Find Love, How to Identify Your Career Potential, and How to Fail (believe me, you need to know how to do this).
I took the class at the London school in How to be More Confident, a mixture of practical techniques and the latest research, with an undertow of stoicism (which I know is having a moment but can be sort of a downer sometimes, less grounding more annoying). Over an afternoon, we were invited to think about what confidence is, practice it by interacting with our fellow students, and learn the techniques to deploy it in our lives. All in a comfortable classroom that made it feel like learning about yourself was as natural as learning about History, or Art, or some other capital letter subject heading. That’s quite an achievement in a country that does this kind of thinking typically behind closed doors of a home kind.
The School of Life is not a bad place to start if you are looking for a very accessible journey into who you are and how you might best function. Choose a class, build a curriculum for yourself, book a bibliotherapy session, and dive deeper and deeper into the gorgeous wisdom of this brand.
To find out more: www.theschooloflife.com / Twitter @TheSchoolOfLife / Instagram @theschooloflifelondon / Facebook @theschooloflifelondon
