Michelle Morgan is an award winning founder of 5 purpose led businesses, winner of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award, the Queens Award for Innovation, Lloyds Business awards and most recently invited to join the Society of Leadership Fellows at Windsor Castle.

In December 2016, 16 years into her entrepreneurial journey, having spent the year leading the Livity the youth led network she founded in 2001 through a successful £1.5million social investment round, she burnt out suddenly and violently, physically and mentally. What came next was even more challenging as she realized her passion and purpose for the business she had created and loved deeply had also burnout, triggering a terrifying episode of anxiety followed by depression.

As part of her own self-care and alongside a medical recovery plan Michelle gave herself permission to play with the idea ‘if I did it all over again what would I do?”. She hit a wall immediately as she found it impossible to follow the rule of ‘do something you love’ as she had depression: “I’m not passionate about anything apart from sitting in my beautiful PJs you bought me for Christmas” she’d wail to her husband Remi Rough, an artist. This continued until one day she suddenly found herself at the crossroads of where brilliance meets madness, where the PJs that represented everything holding back became her inspiration. She wondered, ‘Could we use the duality and symbolism of ‘the PJ day’, both good and not good, to help make mental health an everyday conversation?” Could we make the most kind, caring, ethical and sustainable PJs, designed by the most brilliant artists, using the PJ as our blank canvas to create something beautiful and joyful? And could we use our product, platform, packaging and people as the Trojan horse to deliver hopeful stories of mental health and as a way to celebrate the small joys in life? There might just be something in it…