We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Noelan Arbis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Noelan below.

Noelan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

Noelan: We need to move away from ideas such as “success” and “failures”. Education is seen by many as a vehicle to success, not ever fully defining what success means for an individual. Personally, I think the subjects we teach in school are very limited. They showcase only a limited amount of skills, knowledge, and career paths for any human being. We test everyone in the same subjects, and if someone is good at them, we consider him/her a success. We then envision that person to have a “successful” life in the future. On the contrary, students who don’t do so well are considered “failures.” But we never truly question what we’re teaching our students.

Are these the right “subjects” that every human should know about? And are these fields and disciplines really all that truly measure the success and failure of a human being? I think humans are capable of an infinite amount of things, because we are naturally creative. But education limits what we teach and, therefore, limits what we do.

I have high school, undergraduate, and masters degrees. But in none of those education did I ever learn how to find out who I truly am. In my opinion, finding out who you are should be the primary role of education. And to do that, we need to teach students at a young age that it is of the utmost importance to look within themselves–not to others–to find out who they truly are. If we’re taught how to do that, we will finally be rid of these concepts of “success” and “failures.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Mabel: I started off my career in interior design, creating spaces from large shopping malls to cafes and offices. After working in the architecture and design industry for about 8 years, I found myself burnt out and wondering if I was on the right path. What I could do that allowed for a more well balanced life and let me explore what I felt like was of more interest to me?

When Noelan suggested we start a floral studio, my mindset was “why not” – life is unpredictable and I figured the opportunity to start something would allow me to explore skills and interests I wasn’t able to before. Being an entrepreneur has allowed me to understand one of my greatest joys is connecting with others – something that we now often find ourselves doing as we work on collaborative projects with other local small businesses. It’s also allowed me the freedom to explore other interests – such as photography and business development.

At blooms & poems, we provide florals inspired by house-written poetry that we write – to put it simply, they are our expressions of what it means to be human. Flowers are something humans are intrinsically attracted to and complimented with the poetry they are inspired by, we hope to connect with our customers. Our proudest moments are always when people say they connect with our work and are inspired to write their own poetry or purchase more flowers for their homes. Whether it’s a vased arrangement, a poem, a floral workshop, or centerpieces at an event, we hope our work inspires others.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Noelan: We’re relatively new, so we don’t really have a big clientele as of yet. But I would say meeting people in person through our pop-ups and workshops have been a great source for meeting clients. And of course, social media also helps in sharing our work to those who might be interested. It’s an avenue that we’re always looking to get better at, so that more people could find out about our work.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Mabel: For us, I think the biggest thing has been understanding how to communicate with an open mind. Because Noelan and I are not only business partners, we are also life partners, there was a learning curve on how to best communicate for business. With him in a background in finance and mine in interior design, we found that we were accustomed to different deliverables and communication styles. I have learned and am still learning to be more direct and solution based in order for my message to be understood best. It’s been difficult at times but also rewarding – it’s made us realize we need to truly understand ourselves first and helped us communicate better in our personal relationship as well.

Noelan: Haha. Same.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bloomsandpoems.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloomsandpoems/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/bloomsandpoems/