Brock leMieux: My First Profilee!

I recently had a skype conversation with Brock leMieux, a “global nomad” who is only a year older then me and has already fit in a plethora of experiences during his 20 years of life. Our skype conversation spanned from San Francisco, where I am, to Oslo, Norway, where he is currently based. However, Brock grew up for most of his life in a small rural town in Northern Minnesota (where he described himself as "a big fish in a small pond"), and a lot has happened in between his time there and his current location in Scandinavia. His path truly represents a self-designed, liberal arts, interdisciplinary education. A whole novel would have to be written in order to capture everything he has done in the past few years of his exciting, unconventional path, so for now I'm just going to include a few thought-provoking selections of what came out of our conversation. 

Brock really began his eduventure in high school, when he studied abroad during his sophomore year in the south of Spain through Rotary Youth Exchange, and then attended an innovative, public performing arts boarding school in Minneapolis where he studied theater. After reading two inspiring books that lead him to think more about his path (Taking Time Off and A Whole New Mind), Brock decided to take a year off before deciding whether or not to attend university. In our conversation, Brock talked about his own process of discovering what he wanted to do in life:

"I thought 'I am seeking and I will find.' If you don’t know what you’re seeking, it will come, because I’ve always said, trust your gut, trust your instinct, your intuition, because the right opportunities come along and they’ll bring you to the right places.

It’s also a lot about self observation and self inquiry. That was really big learning for me, why was I traveling around and why was I stopping? So, people need to ask, for example, “Why am I going to university? Is it because my parents told me to? Is it because that’s what everybody else does? Is it because I don’t know what else to do?” I mean, all those are fine answers but you must accept them before you do something. You can’t just go to university or do something, you have to ask yourself why."

·      So, Brock took his life savings ("that wasn't much," he says, as he describes himself as a hard working self-starter who grew up working in various jobs), and in the next few years he traveled, worked, and lived in various places around the world. He eventually decided not to attend university after that initial first year "off," although has not entirely ruled it out for his future. A few of his various eduventures include volunteering in India for two months, teaching english and working in a bookstore in France, participating in a famous walking pilgrimage in Spain, squatting with circus performers in Montreal, attending conferences around the world, volunteering for an interesting NGO in Morocco, and being a student in Amsterdam at Knowmads, a creative and well-regarded year-long learning program that educates changemakers for the future. 

At the end of our conversation, I asked Brock in his opinion, what were key components for learning in the future. He responded with three points:

• Entrepreneurship. "The entrepreneurial spirit should be taught no matter whether or not you want to get into this business or not. It’s not about business, its just having the entrepreneurial mindset in whatever you do."
• Personal Development. Like he mentioned above, an important component of learning is self inquiry and reflection, and finding out what you are truly passionate about and capable of. 
• A project-based, small group setting. "The classroom would be like a living room, people would be coming and going, and it would have 18-98 year olds. It would bring in a lot more wisdom from older people and projects with people in the 'real world.' It would be a learning community almost like a family."

Although there is a lot more to include on his story and reflections, I am going to save that for the larger book/project. If you want to follow more of Brock's path, follow him on twitter (brocklemieux) or his blog.