The School of LifeConference 2018 —Switzerland

the school of life conference

What to Expect

Our conference is hugely memorable and distinctive. For a start, you are not being taught in entirely standard ways. The experts on stage don’t merely lecture to a passive audience; they invite almost continuous interaction, getting participants to look inside themselves, to complete a variety of psychological exercises and to share their stories with others.

Talks are peppered with films, pieces of music and visual prompts; all the senses are properly stimulated to keep the mind fresh and receptive. Furthermore, there is an enormous emphasis on friendship. We are not merely seated quietly on our own, isolated from other participants. We are guided to mingle, form smaller and larger groups and reveal meaningful things to one another. It is impossible to leave after three days without having made quite a few firm friends.

the school of life conference

Programme Details

D AY 1 —   F R I D AY  Emotional Education, Self-Knowledge, Sociability  

We begin with a look at what emotional intelligence is, how it can be taught – and what we can acquire of it in the days ahead. We consider our particular position in history: living in an age obsessed with romantic fulfilment and career success – and we propose that The School of Life has a distinctive set of answers to the disappointments and dreams of our time.

We define ourselves as an organisation suspicious of that tricky word ‘happiness’, but profoundly interested in ‘fulfilment’, a richer term that is more alive to the real complexities of existence.

We identify that a core task of emotional intelligence is to achieve self-knowledge. To this end, we take you on a journey around your own mind, paying particular attention to the past and its subterranean influence on the present.

   

Next we consider sociability. We admit to our longing for sincere connection with others, but also to the challenges of finding this.  We learn about the art of good vulnerability, about ways to listen to others fruitfully and how to overcome barriers to intimacy. We teach strategies that help remove excessive superficial contact from our lives, and put all these into practice at a social event with our newfound acquaintances to close the day.

the school of life conference

Programme Details

D AY 2   — S AT U R D AY M O R N I N G Relationships – Choosing Partners, Relationship Skills, Emotional Maturity

On our second day we study why we have the ‘types’ we do – and how our early experiences give us scripts of how and whom we can love. We learn that there are always more possible partners than we initially believe and that we can broaden our unconscious scripts of whom we can love by understanding our past more clearly.

We also look at the techniques that can make relationships work in the long term. The School of Life firmly believes that love is ultimately a skill, not an emotion. We learn about how to communicate, how not to sulk, how to allow others to get close to us, how to understand and explain our distinctive way of feeling loved, how to forgive and be forgiven, how to negotiate conflicts through humour and how to deal with sexual conflicts and awkward desires.

We don’t evade the darker side of love. We look at the notion of good and bad compromises and usefully complicate the way we are looking at the choices before us.We’re reminded that many of the answers we need are within us already, waiting for the correct tool to extract them.

D AY 2   — S AT U R D AY   A F T E R N O O N Work, Potential, Confidence, Failure 

We move on to consider the emotional dimension of our work; what impels us to want to do a certain sort of job, and why it is often so hard to align our emotional desires with our practical requirements. We explore our working personalities and sift through our authentic interests.

We consider a variety of blocks and inhibitions which prevent us from pushing forward with our hunches, with particular attention paid to parental and societal expectations.

We pay particular attention to the idea of confidence. The difference between success and failure often hangs on this almost humiliatingly small and elusive concept that standard education never touches. We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow professional fields, but we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence which can serve us across a range of tasks in professional, but also in personal, life.

the school of life conference

Programme Details

D AY 3 — S U N D AY  Culture, Calm, Meaning, Happiness 

Calm has a natural and deep appeal. Most of us long to be more patient, unruffled, at ease and capable of reacting with quiet good humour to life’s setbacks and irritants. But we are often still only at the very beginning of knowing how to be calm. This morning will give us a range of the most effective answers.

Next we consider meaning. A meaningful life is close to, but at points importantly different from, a happy life. It draws upon and exercises our higher capacities, for example, tenderness, care, connection, self-understanding, sympathy, intelligence and creativity. We investigate how to orientate our lives in a more meaningful direction.

In our final hours together, we go back over the journey we have been on and recap its most fundamental lessons.

the school of life conference

Timetable

F R I D AY 1 2 O C T O B E R14.00 Doors Open 15.00 Introduction: The Problems of Our

Minds, Self-Knowledge17.00 Break 17.30 Sociability 19.15 Close and Welcome Drinks Reception 

S AT U R D AY 1 3 O C T O B E R09.00 Doors open 09.30 Relationships 11.00 Break 11.30 Relationships Continued 13.00 Lunch 14.00 Purpose & Confidence 15.45 Break 16.15 Work & Failure 18.00 Close Optional Dinner

In addition to the Conference we will be hosting a three-course dinner on Saturday 13 October from 7pm to 11pm. 

Dinner tickets are limited and can be purchased with a Conference ticket using the options in the dropdown menu.

     

S U N D AY 1 4 O C T O B E R09.00 Doors open 09.30 Meaning & Culture 11.00 Break 11.30 Happiness & Calm 13.00 Close

the school of life conference

Course Leaders

ALAIN DE BOTTON  is the founder and Chairman of The School of Life. Alain was born in Zurich, Switzerland and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic

books that have been described as a ‘philosophy of everyday life.’  He’s written on love, travel, architecture and literature, including the titles How Proust Can Change Your Life and The Consolations of Philosophy. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries and his latest, titled How to Think More About Sex was published by Pan Macmillian as part of The School of Life’s series of self-help guides.

R AUL APARICI is the Faculty Lead at The School of Life. He also works as a coach, consultant and facilitator and teaches on the Postgraduate Coaching Programme at Birkbeck,

University of London. With a diverse background which includes a career in the fitness industry, a BA in English Literature and an MA in Critical Theory, he likes to match academic insights with real life wisdom. He has a particular interest in psychoanalytic concepts and is generally curious about the human condition.

MARY ANN SIEGHART is a journalist, broadcaster and author. She presents programmes for the BBC and has spent 30 years as a political columnist for  The Times (of London),

The Independent and The Economist. She was a speaker at The School of Life Conference in San Francisco in March 2018.