In her book Executive Style, Judith Price covers a lot of really cool offices from the 1970s—think Diane Von Furstenberg, Estée Lauder, Malcolm Forbes. What won me over was this paragraph in her introduction:

Style isn’t something you’re born with or something you acquire when you reach a certain age. It isn’t something you earn if you live in a particular city or at a specific address. Style comes only from recognizing your own best traits and exhibiting them with taste and flair in everything you do. Style is what makes whoever you meet know you are unique.

This lesson should find its way into every school’s curriculum, because it’s so applicable beyond interior design. It’s important for you to recognize your own best traits, not because you want to indulge in yourself, but simply because it’s your style.

While there are other disciplines that teach taste and flair, helping a person recognize their own best traits is essential. A designer or a coach can help you, but at the end of the day, you will be the best champion of yourself. 

P.S., Another one of Judith’s great lines: “Executive Style is not a book about interior decorating. Instead, it’s a book about exterior reflection.”