025 Michelle Ogundehin: Everyone Needs a Room of Their Own
Magazine editor, author, TV presenter Speaking to Michelle Ogundehin this week was a real joy. Currently on our screens every week as a judge on the addictive Interior Design Masters series, Ogundehin’s calm, informed and direct style has always been a real pleasure to watch. But for me, it is in her recent book - Happy Inside - where she shares her most insightful wisdom. In Happy Inside, Michelle lays out a manifesto of how we can all live better by doing the small things well. She shows us how the everyday things we miss out on on a regular basis can have a disproportionate impact on our health and happiness, and how we should start sweating the small stuff. And she says that we should give ourselves permission to take the time to express a more authentic version of ourselves, in the place that matters most, at home. “We need a room of our own. We need space to retreat, and to rest and to be silent. And it doesn't have to be huge, but it’s understanding that we need this, the human species needs this - we need to retreat to the cave a little.” As an award-winning editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration, regularly included in the power list of influential black Britons, Michelle has an impressive CV, but, she says, it’s the point in her life where she truly accepted herself for who she was, that brought her the most happiness, and, yes, the most success. “Success actually is right there, it's right there in everyone's hand already, and it is just the power to go, you know what, I'm allowed to be me. And that's, that's enough. It's enough in all the messiness.” I found our conversation, very stimulating, very practical and very helpful. And I really hope you do too.