Eleanor Gammell
The School of Life
Episode 30
The School of Life | Eleanor Gammell explores spaciousness, self-enquiry, and community resilience
The School of Life is a global organisation dedicated to helping people lead more fulfilled lives. They facilitate a range of events and programs around the world to enable people to delve into the complexities of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, relationships and so much more.
The School of Life was founded in 2008 by a group of philosophers and thinkers, largely led by Alain de Botton, a philosopher and author. His initial idea was was how can we put into physical experiences tangible community space-based experience, the kind of ideas that that particular group of people were thinking about and writing about at the time. Essentially, how can we turn great ideas into tangible experiences for people?
One the school was established, six key themes were chosen to focus on including self-knowledge, relationships, work, calm, sociability, leisure & culture. These areas underpin the curriculum with the belief that each of these areas brings us closer to fulfilment in different ways.
Today, the school has branches in London (headquarters), Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul, Melbourne, Mexico City, Paris, São Paulo, Sydney, Seoul, Taipei and Tel Aviv. It was an absolute treat to sit down with Australian managing Director Eleanor Gammell and find out more about the school, and it’s presence in helping folks move through the complexities of life.
“What we’re really tuning into at the moment is actually just holding space for unknown conversation and for people to explore together what it is they feel like they’re being challenged with in the face of what we’re seeing in politics, in social movements at the moment.”
— Eleanor Gammell, The School Of Life

The School of Life | Eleanor Gammell
Podcast
Mentioned in conversation…
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The bigger questions we’re asking ourselves around work, purpose, relationships and self-awareness.
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Why now more than ever we need to provide spaciousness for people to connect with one another and explore the big concepts we’re moving through collectively.
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The importance of taking stock of our whole lives and evaluating ‘success’ on a much more holistic level.