Ep 1: Discovering the 'Juiciness' of Life: A Journey of Self-Discovery, Friendship and Conscious Relationships

Welcome to Juicy! The podcast.

In this inaugural episode we, your hosts Lola and Olivia, delve into the origin story behind this podcast. 

Get ready to uncover the  richness of living a juicy life as we unravel our own experiences with this transformative concept. From the UK prison system, where our paths first crossed, we embarked on a journey of self-discovery, building an unbreakable friendship that has guided us through life’s thick and thin. 

We discuss how to respect and celebrate our individual juices - our body, mind, and spirit. We also reflect on the pivotal role that voicenotes played in preserving our connection, feeding the growth of our friendship and our understanding of living a juice-filled life.

In this episode we talk about:

• Our close nine-year friendship which began through their work pioneering coaching programs in prisons.
• Our daily ritual of communicating through voicenotes, providing unwavering mutual support during both personal and professional challenges.
• The transformative Juicy retreat we embarked on together after parting ways professionally but before embarking on separate career paths.
• The call to collaborate again.
• The exciting decision to launch this very podcast, enabling us to share our inspiring conversations and cherished friendship with a wider audience.

About the hosts:

Olivia Lara Owen 

Olivia is a Brit living in Paris.

Forever a misfit, she’s an unconventional creator that has been leading communities and facilitating transformation for over a decade.

Olivia’s life has been well lived. After a tumultuous time in conventional education, she formed her own path. Her latest creation is a multi-disciplinary temple of transformation that offers long-term spiritual programmes, experiential ceremonies and in-person experiences.

At the heart of her work is leading people into the truth of themselves through sexual awakening, spiritual mastery & expressing themselves fully through what they create, how they relate and what they deeply desire. She's taught in prestigious schools, founded an international organisation, built a global coaching practice, and dedicated 10,000 hours to personal spiritual growth.

Time is best spent for Olivia on the dance floor somewhere all over the world, eating the finest of food and writing sensational pieces on the internet that cut through to the deepest part of her reader’s hearts.

Lola Fayemi

Lola is a first generation Brit of Nigerian heritage. 

She is an inclusive leadership coach and workshop facilitator with 15+ years' experience. She’s also currently writing her first book.  

Lola’s work takes place within the context of the world we live in. She acknowledges both the visible and invisible forces at play in our lives - the water that we swim in - that is often ignored.  All in service of more powerful, impactful and authentic leaders, teams and families.  She is passionate about her contribution to a world that includes us ALL and personal development being real, transformational, grounded and accessible. 

Lola also spent 6 years leading a project that successfully pioneered coaching programmes within prisons for young men (aged 15-25) in London and the South East of England. 

Lola was born and still lives in South London, UK

Transcript

Olivia: 1:18

Welcome to the Juicy podcast. This is our first episode and we wanted to do a little preamble To just give a little bit more of a context about what this podcast is. Where does it come from? Who are we? This is Live Speaking, also known as Olivia.

Lola: 1:40

And I'm Lola.

Olivia: 1:45

So this is a pretty special story. Where this podcast comes from is a really special place, interesting story and background. You're going to get so much of that in the experience of listening to the podcast, but we wanted to give a little taste up front so you could really feel okay, all right, like you can kind of buckle up and really get a sense of like what's? Who are these two women? Why are they doing this? So Lola and I have been really really, really good friends for the last nine years and we met each other in a really interesting environment. Both coaches, we were working in the UK prison system. You're going to hear all about that later on.

Olivia: 2:29

We really connected over our own commitment to our own development, the inner work, and I imagine many people that listen to this may also feel that resonance. That might be something that you know the listeners coming are going to feel that way too. So we met each other. We were like hello. You know, sometimes you meet people in life and you. It's very clear very early on that there's a very important journey to take with this person and we had no idea nine years ago that we would be where we are now. We're both super interesting people with really interesting backgrounds, and something that's been really unique to our relationship is we have had a daily exchange for nine years yes, nine years. We have had a daily exchange that we have called the Daily Podcast.

Lola: 3:27

They're actually WhatsApp voice notes. They're so long we call them podcasts.

Olivia: 3:32

Yeah, that's a long time. It's a long time and over the course of those nine years, these podcasts, these daily voice notes, are really us in a daily conversation and that conversation has been so rich and at so many moments both of us have been like, wow, if only other people could hear this, or wow, that was so good and wow. You know, this podcast has been such a feature of both of our lives that we knew one day there will be something born from this, and not a moment sooner than when it was the right time.

Lola: 4:08

Yeah, I was just thinking about when we, a lot of our voice notes will start off with one of us going mmm juicy note babe, and I'm just now thinking this podcast could have been called Juicy Note babe. But, um, yep, I back everything that Liv said. And, um, we, we always knew we would do something together. We always knew that there was something about the conversations we were having and the effect we were having on each other. We've very much been side by side with each other through so many things, professionally, personally big changes in our own lives, in our own um, identities and families, physical moves, relationships, breakups, makeups so many things right, Loads and loads and loads of things. And I don't know how I would have been able to do my journey for the last nine years, because it has been a challenging one. I seem to have signed up for um without you, Liv, and yes, we've often just said like, oh my God, this would be, like this would be so useful for so many people. And so here we are now, not finally want to make out, we want to make that clear. I didn't say finally, because it's just not our vibe. It's like everything at its right time.

Lola: 5:35

The episodes you are about to hear is the first one, which is all about our origin story of this podcast. We recorded that in May 2023. We're recording this kind of introduction piece in November 2023. And hopefully you get to hear it in November 2023 too, because we've published it. So, yeah, just giving you some context for time. We are very much committed to finding our podcast in feet and we are also kind of in no rush about that. So expect this like what you're hearing already, kind of raw and real, because it's kind of how we do. Right, Raw and real. Raw and real. Baby, that's how we do. And expect evolution, because that's also most definitely what we do. But we'd love to have you along for the ride. Hope you enjoy it. We would love to hear any feedback or any questions that you have, and is there anything else we need to say? Are we good?

Olivia: 6:42

Strap it, strap it, it's going to be fun.

Lola: 6:46

It just starts quite abruptly now after we go. So it's supposed to be like that. In case you're wondering, okay, enjoy episode one. Ciao, we met 2014. Is that right?

Olivia: 7:11

Yeah, I think. My calculation is we met at the end of 2014. I think at the beginning.

Lola: 7:19

No, at the beginning I think you would remember. You're more likely to remember it because you were the one that was going to come in.

Olivia: 7:26

Yeah, I came in. I came in. I was still at uni, I think I was still studying.

Lola: 7:35

Yeah, you was at Goldsmiths Fades. Yeah, I was at.

Olivia: 7:39

Goldsmiths and I was doing an internship to start with. I think I was doing like a day a week or a couple of an afternoon a week or something like that. And I remember our first meeting and I remember initially we were kind of in an office environment, office vibe and I wasn't there very much, it was like a kind of drop in in the afternoon, but it took us a minute, it wasn't like an instantaneous. I remember us talking about yoga actually, and then we started to talk and we started to realize oh, there's like some threads, there was a bit of a spiritual thread between us.

Olivia: 8:22

I think I was going through my first well, out front spiritual awakening in my practice and I was discovering a lot. And I mean, I think back to that version of me, oh my God, and you know, just so early, early, early days on the path, like really basic shit but like really curious, and I really could feel. I could feel that there was like a huge unfolding ahead. But I had no idea. I had no idea what come in and doing that internship and meeting you, especially meeting you, how that would change my life.

Lola: 9:09

I love it all, babe, because we are going to do a juicy conversation on friendship. That's the come. I think my challenge is going to be that thing of like there's plenty of time is do you know what I mean?

Lola: 9:25

It's not everything called in one. Yeah, that's my challenge, and so I think, for today's one, what I would love, I think, is almost like the setting of the scene of obviously there is some conversation about friendship in there as well, but that's the end of the scene of having a juicy conversation about juicy, the concept of juicy itself, right, and in that, because it's like the first podcast, it is almost like another thread of the introduction. So there's an introduction theme there. So that's the kind of and then I was thinking as well so I do like podcasts where the where we can just do talk here now and then things get chopped up and edited and stuff, and then we record an introduction Because afterwards then you know what it's about and it can be like this is about this. You know, I prefer it that way. Yeah, yeah, oh, okay.

Olivia: 10:25

All right.

Lola: 10:25

Juicy, juicy. So what's? I'm just thinking is a question here. Well, what brings us here at this time to have this conversation? There's a question like that, and then there's also a question around what does juice mean to you? You know what's that? I feel like those are the two kind of you write them down, actually, so I know what brings us here at this time. Just got this hit of like.

Olivia: 11:08

I'm in a dry podcast so I must be out there.

Lola: 11:12

Right, we just sprayed them with water.

Olivia: 11:15

We're dry fucking shitty conversations are out there.

Lola: 11:18

Yeah, I've heard them. All right, yeah, you go.

Olivia: 11:29

I think I think I'll answer the juice one first. What is juicy? What is juicy? So, for me, when I even just the word, saying the word juicy, like oh, that's juicy To me. When I connect to my juice, I'm connecting to my, it's like this aliveness inside of myself. I'm not doing it, I'm juicy, it's on, lights are on, Juices are flowing, Things are warm and hot and moist and it's like I feel myself inside of myself, my creativity is on and it's alive and I also.

Olivia: 12:16

It also feels like a really deep state of nourishment and I feel nourished and nourished. That word nourished has the same kind of energetic feel in it to me. There's, in the same way juicy does, like a state of being. I'm nourished, I'm juicy. That nourishment is is really the thing that keeps the juices on and flowing, Like I think of a nice, like well cooked piece of meat. It's got like a steam coming off juices running off flavors, textures, smells. It's alive. You know that kind of like feeling of being. It's like the opposite of, like a dry bone. Yeah, the opposite of a dry bone, I think. For me, why like juicy? Why have this conversation? I'm like, oh my God, does the world need more juice? Jesus?

Lola: 13:24

Oh, it does.

Olivia: 13:25

Yeah, and I think that is quite radical actually to be a juicy woman. Right, Juicy woman is.

Lola: 13:38

It's revolutionary.

Olivia: 13:41

I think it's also powerful and it's like as a juicy woman, I am willing to be seen in my juice, I'm willing to take a stand or choose, I'm willing to make other people uncomfortable. I think there's a power in that that can actually be a lot to hold, you know, yeah.

Lola: 14:10

It's so lovely to speak about juice as well, just even like the word. I feel like the word has a juice, just juices me up Juicy yes, I love the word juicy, like I love it. And it's so funny because I didn't realize how much I love the word and then it was one of those obvious, I mean literally. I reached out to you immediately when I had the hit of like, oh my God, I want to do this thing with you More details to come. I need to show you because I'm so excited. And then it was just like oh my God, how have I never seen this before? You know, because to me juice might even be one of my favorite words and I just didn't notice right. And for me it's lots of different things because, like, there's the juice of.

Lola: 15:03

Where this juice concept for me first came from consciously in the last couple of weeks or something, was that whole concept of when you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice, right. And I'm in a place in my life where I'm going through like the transition of my life and I'm also just never been so much in my creator creativity of my life. I'm creating a whole new reality for myself and my family, and I've been doing that for a while, but some, you know, we've invented some new groove of like I've caught up with. Oh, that's what's going on, you know, that's what. That's what I'm doing right now, and so when I was kind of riffing on this, I was getting this concept of juice kept coming up. I kept thinking I just want to create a life. That's what was the language I use. It was like I want to create a life that's based on my juice, right, and that's all I kept. It was the only thing I could think of. I want to create a life that's based on my juice. That's all I want.

Lola: 16:05

You squeeze an orange you get orange juice. You squeeze Lola you get Lola juice. You squeeze Liv you get Liv juice. Like, surely my life should be fueled by Lola juice, right? My life should not be fueled by Emma juice, you know, or whatever. Or Gerald's juice, I know Doesn't sound like good juice. No offense to all the Emmas and Gerald's out there, but basically it should be your own juice, emma should live a life based on Emma juice, right, and we should just be all happy in our own lives based on our own juices and respecting other people's juices, like that's the kind of dream, right.

Lola: 16:56

And then it became like creating a juicy life, just creating a juicy life, you know. And then I think one day I looked at what I'd written down and I must have used the word juice about 10,000 times in this paragraph and I just saw it and I was like you've heard a lot and I used it so many different ways. You know, there's the juice of we say it all the time as well like there's not a lot of juice in that, like if we're talking about something being not being interesting to us or, you know, engaging, like not enough juice or juicy. I like juicy bodies, yes, right, and I would describe I'm what you would call a plus size lady, but I call it juicy. I love a juicy woman.

Olivia: 17:38

I'm like give it to this girl.

Lola: 17:40

You know like I want to see those curves, man. I want to see the bumps and the fricking succulents, you know, the voluptuous and the succulents.

Olivia: 17:50

And.

Lola: 17:50

I think it looks great. I, you know, and this, yeah, this, all this different kind of, and I just it just became a thing of like juice, juice, juice juice. I even liked juice, and then, when I approached you, and then you were like, because the thought came to me of like I need to do something. This juice thing, this is a really obvious thing that I'm supposed to be doing, right, and then I could feel like this doesn't feel juicy to do it on my own though. So what's juicy? What's juicy to do to someone else? And it's like live, live, it's got to be live.

Lola: 18:21

Obviously, it's live, it's live, that's right, and then, you see something like oh, and just think you know that significant time in our life we went to juicy mountain and I was just like, oh my God, I didn't even think about that. She's like a juice retreat. So we went to one in Turkey and a really key time in our lives. It's actually even in the prologue of the book I'm writing Like it's such a when you said that I was like oh my God, more juice. This juice thing is everywhere.

Olivia: 18:50

You know, I saw. I think you should also say that it's also six years almost to the day that we both left the organization we were working at to pursue our juicy dream, which was to be entrepreneurs. Separately, we had like different dreams, but we were like leaping at the same moment.

Lola: 19:09

Yeah.

Olivia: 19:10

And to the day, six years later, after going to juicy and like marinating the dream in the mountains of Turkey, here we are doing this together, six years. You know I'm like that's juicy.

Lola: 19:24

Absolutely, and like you said earlier about our voice notes that we leave each other over the last way more than six years.

Olivia: 19:37

We've been sharing. You know we call it the daily podcast. We're like I'm going to say a podcast, babe, and then that's the exchange. When I tell you this, they cannot believe it. They're like you do this every day. You've done this every day since the moment you guys became friends and like yeah, we've literally done this consistently for that long. But that has been the foundation of our relationship and our relationship is incredibly juicy. We tell each other we're sharing everything is details of what's going on in our lives processes, our work, our relationships, our own personal insights about ourselves, like things are popping off, things are being created, things we're excited about, things we don't like, things we're sad about. It's a whole spectrum of like the journey of being a juicy woman on a daily basis. So the foundation of this conversation we're having now finally publicly and like for for for public enjoyment, is based off like eight, nine years of daily juice. So we're squeezing that baby. That's what this is. We're squeezing the things. That's already there.

Lola: 20:51

And we knew, didn't we? I think we've loads of times over the years we've known that like this juicy stuff right.

Lola: 20:59

We literally say that, do you see? No, babe, you know, and I've always felt like God, this would be so useful to so many people like this, it would be so cool to share. This would help so many people. And also, we haven't rushed to squeeze every single last piece of juice out of things like that, like okay, okay, let's do it. How can we do this? Because it's not juicy Now. It's not juicy when you're ripping and squeezing every single last piece of juice out of it. We've got to do it. We've got to do it now. There's nothing juicy about that.

Lola: 21:30

There's been a sense of trust of like it's enough to know that, yeah, this, this would be amazing for people to hear. Right, this would really help a lot of people. And yeah, there's no juice. No, juice is not turned on to do that. At that time we can feel that it's not, it's not ready, it's not time, when we're not going to force it.

Olivia: 21:48

Oh, that's it, and the hit that I get in. That is like it fed us first. Our relationship fed us first. Right, and that is the key to a juicy life, is you first like, allow yourself to be nourished by things in your life, good things in your life, things that work, things that are consistently there, things that you're devoted to, things that you feed into. And it feeds you back, like the kind of cultural relationship to a good thing is to to what's that word extract from it? Oh, it's a good thing. You've got to do something when they've got to make money off it, got to share it, got to let everyone see it, got to show off about it Quickly too, and if you don't do it quickly, you just have a terrible play living in your skin of your power and being invisible.

Lola: 22:37

No fucking grace. Where's the grace? That's right.

Olivia: 22:48

One thing I love about art is like they're and this is what I've learned from knowing you, you know so intimately over the years is there's all of these threads where I think we really value. We clearly value one of the biggest things is the life we're creating for ourselves. Absolutely the life we're creating for our families, or the way that we devoted to our work like that from day one, has always been a thread of deep resonance between us. But our personalities, our humans, live and live low. There's some beautiful differences between us and I'm excited for that to come out on this show and forever on to hear that the way that we think about things, the way we experience life, is different. We're at different stages in our lives, we've had different life experiences. Right, there's a difference here and I think that's also a beautiful part of the makeup.

Lola: 23:38

There's a lot of difference actually, yeah, there's a lot of difference. We're from different generations. We've got different backgrounds, different heritages of different races.

Lola: 23:47

There's loads of things that are different about us, and I think, yeah, that's the beauty, though, isn't it? And I do think there's something, because we have done a couple of Facebook lives in the past and stuff, and they've always been a really good, we've had a really good time and they've always been really well received as well, so we've always felt like, ok, we were in systems in case you were talking about the relationship as an entity in and of itself like the third is me, there's Liv and then there's our relationship, the third entity and our third. As we often said, we've got a really powerful, engaging fun. Third, and now we're ready to share it.

Olivia: 24:31

Yeah, that's right.

Lola: 24:35

I had a question for you then and we just I have ADHD, so my brain is very forgetful yeah, I think let's tell the people we want this episode to be very much like, to just set the scene, you know, and we have got a juicy conversation coming up on Friendship and we'll go deeper into that then. But, like, let's tell the people, I suppose, how we got here, what brings us here today to do this?

Olivia: 25:11

I'd love you to answer that first.

Lola: 25:15

I know I said that. I thought that's a really big question, though Can we just start? I didn't think about answering that Many things, but what brings us here today to do this is just thinking. So we met back in 2014. So I've been a coach since 2007,.

Lola: 25:46

Nearly 16 years this year and then 2012,. I joined an organisation which was setting up coaching in the justice system so leadership coaching in prisons for young event as institutions for young men like London and the Southeast area 15 to 25. And it was nobody asked us to do it right. No, prisons weren't like hey, you know, we need coaching. The chief exec of the company, bailey, had the idea and had got two young offenders institutes that were willing to run a pilot, and then they needed someone to actually do everything else really right, the actual coaching pieces on the ground. And so my background before coaching was in new business development, which I love. I like new things. I'm a startup girl, you know. I like I'm gone the minute it's not a start-up anymore. I'm like boring, I'm off. But I like the setting up things from scratch. I like to bring in the entrepreneurial. When I had a free reign, they were like do it.

Olivia: 26:57

I'm like brilliant.

Lola: 26:58

I'm just going to do this exactly as I believe it should be done, which meant mostly I had my bloody clue and just kind of being open and trusting, but I had the free reign to just do things the way that I believed in doing them. And so I was there altogether for about six years and it went from basically like nothing to something like the company still exists and it still does the work in prison and there's still like loads of people living through the program and it was amazing and incredible. It was an incredible time on so many levels, you know, for the people involved, not even just because of the work we were doing that's the obvious piece but it was also for me about the impact it had on all the staff and all the coaches coming through. You know, I got to design the program and train the people exactly how I believed it should be done and also then get to see the impact that then had, which was phenomenal. I had so many times where there were certain times where I couldn't speak because I was like, oh my God, I didn't realise, wow, you know, the impact of what was going on for many people's lives. I was watching everything because that's just going to have my brainwaves and I met Liv.

Lola: 28:18

Then, as we said, she came along quite early in the process. So, like I came along. Second, I was like the second employee of the organisation after Chief Exec Liv came along. Fourth, you're saying right, and then by the time we left, I think about 12 employees and about 20 coaches or something you know. So it become this thing and what brings us here to this point? I just want to make sure I'm not going off on track as I tend to. Yeah, we left, so we fought a friendship. So the friendship wasn't super clear to me how it started. Same, yeah, because I wasn't looking for a friend, I didn't know this existed, I hadn't experienced this level of friendship, actually, when I think about it.

Lola: 29:22

And then there was a few moments, as Liv said, there was that conversation where I thought I judged Liv totally and I thought this bitch coming in now, because you do meet, there were a lot of kind of like well-meaning dummits that kind of cross your path in that kind of situation, literally was just going to be enough. One of them, yeah, like oh, she comes, she comes, yeah. And then I think, yeah, there's a couple of conversation moments where I saw you. I wasn't even seeing you, I wasn't even interested in trying to see you. So there was a few moments where I was like, oh, I've judged this person completely and based on nothing really. And then, yeah, we just had some conversations.

Lola: 30:18

And for me there was a particular moment as well, because when you do that work, when you do that kind of work, it turns you inside out. You don't get to lead something like that and just be leading it. I'm just going to lead it, I'm just going to do the leadership of this thing. It throws your whole life into disarray. You're around a ton of trauma, all of your trauma gets activated, all the stuff you didn't even know was a thing in your life, something that's this whole dark underbelly that was revealed of like hey, I love it issues. And I think we went out for lunch one day and something you said I can't remember, something you said made me think like, oh, this girl understands, she understands the depth of things, and that was special. And then I think I feel like I remember the first voice note you sent me. I don't think I even knew about voice note. I don't remember what you said, but I think you might have been the first person to ever send me one. I didn't know this was a thing, and what's this? I'm a lady and I'm like, oh my God, this is great. You know, we could do this.

Lola: 31:31

And then those days, just to hold the ball and speak how we suffered. And then this became a thing of just like, oh, this is, this is really cool. I get to like listen while I'm doing stuff and and then talk it out, and so it was like each step we were just there was no expectation, there was no destination, it was just enjoyment in the moment, you know, and there were so many things we used to talk about and gossip about, and there was so much humor that used to go down in that place. It was like living in the middle of a sitcom. It was just so funny and we talk about things like that. But we'd also talk about the deeper things that were going on with us at the time, things that had been revealed, about our own deeper work that was coming to the surface and our own traumas that we were going through from doing that work together.

Lola: 32:30

You know, and then, when time came, we left. We left like a day apart. I mean, I stayed on for about an extra year as a consultant, but I wasn't like in there part of it anymore in the same way. Yeah, so I felt there was a distance and it worked and it was, and for me it was a legacy thing. Really. It was just because I needed to leave, I needed to go there, and then I also needed to and I mean needed for myself to ensure that the thing could continue without me, and so there was quite a lot to set up to make sure that could happen, and I'm really happy about that. Once that was done, I was gone.

Lola: 33:10

But, yeah, we had our leave and do together and then we went to, which was about now. It was around. You sent me something. Actually, you sent me a. I think you might have tagged me on something today. I'm guessing it's something to do with this. So it's either literally somewhere between today and the next couple of days coming up.

Lola: 33:29

We left and then we went to Turkey for the week on a juice retreat to recover and it was just fabulously timed. A friend was having a, had hired out the whole retreat for her 50th, and so it was just like hell. Yeah, just our people at this retreat and it was nice. We didn't eat anything, we just drank juices and saunas and lounged around and had walks, and you know what I mean? It was nice, wasn't it? Just to chill out in the gorgeous Turkish sunshine in the mountains, which was just healing us.

Lola: 34:06

Yeah, and then we just sort of said we've always just stayed. We've been through so much since then as well. And then we've had front row seats to each other's lives, right, and you're always there and it's like you, I don't have to because we've had the front row seats and because both of us have a lot happened to our lives, us in our lives, even in like a day sometimes, or definitely a week, every week is pretty epic in my life, right, and in yours it's like we're up today, right, we're up to date with what's going on and there's no backstory required. It's easy, it's not, doesn't feel labor intensive, it helps us process, it's generative, it's just the best, it's juicy, it's juicy man, you know, and it nourishes us and it feeds us.

Lola: 34:55

And then, like I said, I had a hit the other day of just like, oh, this thing, juice, live, juice. We're both actually in the place as well, aren't we, where we've fly solo for a long time, and then both of us in a place where, like what, I want to collaborate more, I want to do some collaborations on a, you know, and we kind of both hit that at the same time again, you know, and I've got other collaborations, I do other people as well and it was just obviously time and it was like okay, let's share our juice of the world. And and here we are, here we are, here we are.

Olivia: 35:31

Here we are, baby I love it.

Olivia: 35:35

I love it. I just was thinking about how divine this timing is. It is true that for those six years, both of us have really been solo and it's it has its challenges being a solo creator, being a solo entrepreneur and I really felt the desire. I'm ready to collaborate and I've been feeling a podcast for a long time. I wanted to do something on my own, I wanted to do something with someone, but I wasn't clear and this was such an easy yes for me. It was like that. I was like oh, that is it already? Yes, I don't even need to say yes. Like the moment you sent me the voice note in the text, being like I live, I'm feeling this thing. I'm like I'm fucking feeling it to me and I'm feeling juice. I'm feeling juicy and this feels like the time and this. The thing I love about how this feels and I think this is a gorgeous lesson in create the creative process is this is not about the product and what this ends up being. This is like let's commit to the process the pure enjoyment of the process, knowing that we have somewhat of a structure and we have an idea and some seeds we've thrown into the soil, but actually this is really a journey that we've decided to go on. Who knows what this is going to feel and look like and be at the end, and I haven't felt that for a really long time with someone else where it was like, oh yeah, let's start this thing. This is the moment. So, yeah, I just want to start my how did we end up here? I want to just name that piece because that's what I'm feeling how it feels to get here and how it feels to be here, and then how it what it took to get here, or like, how did we get here?

Olivia: 37:21

For me, like my parallel process alongside Lola was like when I came into the organization, I was fresh out of university, I was running my own organization, so I was running a nonprofit based in Haiti and I was running. I'd been doing that for about four years of time, so I was quite deep into that world Again. Running my own organization was extremely confronting and extremely challenging and I'd called it a day and I had this really deep understanding of what was going on there. But I really didn't have much connection to my homeland, to the UK, to what was happening, and so the thing that got me interested in my organization was that I was very, very, very interested in what was happening in the country. I was also very interested in the country and I was also interested in the world and I was interested in the world because I was interested in the world. What got me interested in the organization with the coaching in prisons was less the coaching at that stage and more the environment. I was really interested in the criminal justice system. I was like there's something about this that feels like I'm a creature of the underbelly, of things always have been. That's what inspired the work that I've gone to do in Haiti.

Olivia: 38:40

And to go back even further, I had a really tough time in the school system. You and I talk about that a lot your parenting a teenager. I was a really I had a really hard time as a teenager and the system never worked for me. I was like try in to be me and my full juicy expressed weird, eccentric, sensitive self in a school system and I had a really, really tough time and ended up failing school and having a big transformation and turn around, which I won't go into deeply now. I'm sure we'll touch it in later episodes.

Olivia: 39:22

So by the time I had ended up back at being hired and meeting you. I'd already run my own organization. I'd already had a huge spiritual awakening in my teenage years of dropping out of mainstream expectation entirely and then coming back and being like something's not right, something's not sitting right for me. Everyone's kind of I was this type of person that was like why are all these people fucking lying? Like why is there so much mask in the way we interact and what's expected of us? Why are people so not authentically themselves? And I think I arrived feeling hungry for the real thing but not knowing even how to name that, probably at the time and I was like probably 23, 22, 23 when I came and I'd already had quite a hard time. I don't have quite a hard life. A lot happened and I remember meeting you and you were introducing me to the work.

Olivia: 40:34

So the role that I had in the organization was eventually to we kind of collaborated because I was like community building around the work and also helping raise the money.

Olivia: 40:43

So I was really bought into the power of what we were doing and I always tell the story. I feel like you showed me upfront what real transformation was, but you were like I didn't know that there was really anything else, because I hadn't really been exposed to the world of, let's say, coaching, where there's just a lot of surface stuff happening. There's not really the real thing. I'd never met someone who this was just my introduction who was like hey, this is what it takes to do a process and lead very vulnerable people through a process that's actually going to offer them something that might change the course of their life forever. But it's not easy, it's messy and it's human and it requires courage and skill. And so that was what I initially kind of got from you, before we even kind of become friends. I had this like all of the work that you were doing, but I wouldn't even say I really had the words for it at the time, but it left a really big imprint. I think about it all the time.

Olivia: 41:56

Yeah, I do, I do and so our friendship came like a slightly later and, exactly as you described, it felt so organic. I felt like there was something that we I want to say we both needed. I don't know if that's even quite the right language.

Lola: 42:18

No, I totally say it was that and even as you're- speaking now, I'm sort of thinking that things are landing and I'm realising about I didn't know that then for sure. But yeah, that totally was true. But we both needed it.

Olivia: 42:35

Yeah, I think that we saw each other as like oh, we're here for the real work and that requires like a degree of transparency, honesty and ruthlessness in this kind of environment to like really be honest about what's really required of us to really be doing this work in the criminal system, in prisons, with people in general, and also what kind of works required behind the scenes. So so much of our relationship was like processing our relationships and processing like places where the environment we're working in felt like our family of origin and how it was like super triggering and we really found a lot of like companionship in the journey of like this is this is fucking a lot. It's hard, and I remember us just still being so committed. And then you introduced me to coaching. I went off and did my first coach training. I did a Mo, my Mo training, which is like so beautiful beginner intro to coaching. Like I think I did this in 2014.

Lola: 43:56

So just for Mo, is what's the sound from the Ministry of Entrepreneurship? Is that?

Olivia: 44:02

what it is.

Lola: 44:02

Foundation, if anyone wants to check that out.

Olivia: 44:06

Yeah and yeah. God bless Darren. He recently passed the founder of that. He passed yeah, yeah, yeah, very, very recently.

Lola: 44:21

Oh, my God, I'm glad you're babe. I didn't know that, I'm sorry. We didn't talk about this. No, I've nobody, I've, I mean I don't really. There's a lot of. I saw it. I would have on the things that would tell me, okay, yeah. It was just like actually he was one of the other people that was out there doing some work on the front lines when I first started, yeah, and he was involved in a process that led me to even do the work at Spark. Wow, yeah.

Lola: 45:00

What was that process A deep democracy? So there was a deep democracy. I wish it was like a large systems on a constellation, which we went on to then do in prisons as well, but it was a key part About a year before I started doing that work. That that's when I first met him Really. That's really Wow. Yeah, that's just, oh man, really lovely guy, really lovely guy.

Olivia: 45:35

Really hearted.

Lola: 45:37

Yeah.

Olivia: 45:37

So generous, very sad it's got little kids.

Lola: 45:42

Yeah.

Olivia: 45:43

Yeah.

Lola: 45:44

And it was like a big thing for him. Yeah, and it was like a big thing for him, yeah.

Olivia: 45:53

And the Moe community. That intro course that I did Not even sure we really paid anything for it. It was like very, very generous, like intro, and I think some of our clients went and did it, that some of the boys went and did it as well, but it was like an intro to coaching and time and it was like a big thing for him. And it was like a big thing for him Time. I remember that being such a gift, like bringing awakening to the fact that I could take responsibility in my life and ask someone a question or have someone ask me a question, and that's really like. You know, the potency of coaching is like brilliant awareness and brilliant questioning and really holding space for someone's process. It absolutely rocked my world and that was like a. That was the beginning for me of you showing me like, oh, there's like a whole path available for you here, like really, there really really is.

Olivia: 47:03

And then I ended up then going and doing the systems training and eventually, by the time we left six years ago, like this whole journey I'd had at the organization had hoped me enough internally to show me like, oh, this isn't my authentic path. There's like actually something else I'm supposed to do and you know it looks exactly like what I'm doing now. Right, those were the seeds from that time. So you know what that three years, whatever it was that we were in that environment and we were kind of crawling through the sludge and the trenches of shit and creating from that place and relationship. I mean, it's like set the stage for everything that we're doing now and we did always used to talk about, we used to go to these like charity networking events together and we would be the juiciest people in the room. We'd be like, all right, here we go and walk into these dry fucking charity fundraising things and it would be so dry and we'd walk in and we'd have the we had a blast.

Lola: 48:10

We always find the people, wouldn't we? We'd always find the people in the room who were like they would say it, but you could almost feel their energy going God you know rare and we would just have our little subgroup of like the rest can do their little performance, networking performance. I'm not interested in that, and some of those relationships have really lasted as well. So I love that. There was this constant realness in telling about us always being available for the real and I was choosing the real and I was standing for the real, even in the most fakest shit, is the environment sometimes. Something else that's coming up to me, as when you speak him, I remember him as a key time which feels like I'm just really feels like key time for me, but it doesn't really involve me, involves you was when I introduced Bob to you, and it was when you were having. So you had the education, the Haitian charity, and you were having a fundraiser, an auction maybe, and there was some things that were going to be optioned, and I don't know why. I don't know. I'm guessing maybe I forwarded it on.

Lola: 49:21

Somebody shared something on Facebook that you shared, or something, and then so Bob sent me a message and she said I think the message felt like it was something like tell me about Bob by the way, bob's a friend of ours and he's a coach really supported me through the work. I met him through the prison work and I don't think there was anyone else really on this planet that could have really supported me in those particularly early days. Most people just don't have the expertise of what's required to do it. And then since then he's become a really dear friend and like a brother to me and to both of us and yeah, so he sent me a private message and just said, like think about telling that live or something. And I just was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's real, she's the real deal. And I think he might have said like I'm thinking of doing something for this and I was like, yeah, go ahead, do it Like she's real. And then that became a well, it became like a coaching support package for you as well.

Olivia: 50:26

Wow, it's actually an incredible story. I didn't know that he'd sent you that message. I didn't know that part, which is beautiful. So I knew a Bob because of you you talk so highly of him and I met him in our work environment and we always had you know, give it a little wink, like you know, one of our soul, family kind of energy. I was a bit intimidated. Bob's like absolute jedi, you know the master coach of all the coaches, and he's like you're in the presence of Bob and you're not.

Lola: 50:55

He scares a lot of people apparently.

Olivia: 50:57

Yeah, nothing's fighting. Nothing's fighting in the presence of Bob, and this for me was like 2016,. The year before we left, I hadn't even found my sexuality path. At this time, I was in a relationship that was, quite frankly, really dry. I was in like a relationship that I was really stuck in.

Lola: 51:22

I had never reminisced about those days. I realized can you remember those days? It was so dry.

Olivia: 51:28

It was moldy. It was moldy, we were stuck and me and this guy were sort of in a relationship where there was something really healing between us. But my God, was it tough. Like we were stuck and it was dry and after many, many turmoil. You know, I was quite a kind of traumatized person in relationship at that time. I was very victimized by men. I was sort of in this sort of anger, of feminist era where I thought that you know, it was everyone else's fault, but mine and Bob had.

Olivia: 52:02

It was like the night before I was holding this gala, like black tie gala fundraiser that we used to do every couple of years for education. That was how we made our revenue. And he sends me this email at the auction's already closed. I think it's gone to print and I get this DM on Facebook from Bob basically being like hey, I want to offer six months of transformation to your auction. And I was immediately like wow, I don't know if I can even receive that. That is so generous. This is Bob Singer. He wants to offer six months of his time. Like what is this even worth? How do I even talk about this and give this? You know the stage and the credit that it's for.

Olivia: 52:48

So we did some last minute things. We put it out as like a special. We have made some announcements. On the night we had like a couple of bites of people interested, but it was kind of beyond what people could really invest. And I remember feeling like worried, like oh no, this, like man, I really respect it. I did this thing and, like you know, no one's gone for it yet. You know what we're going to do. And he is like oh good, it's like not worried at all. He's like why don't you and I meet for the first time?

Olivia: 53:21

So the day I meet Bob for the first time happens to be the day that I'm finally having the courage to end my relationship with my boyfriend, and we meet up in Westfield and in East London and we're talking about the first. So we're talking about the prize and we're like on the escalators going down and I remember us talking about it and he was like said something. And then he said something like well, I think that the price should be for you. And it pierced me. I felt so seen because I clearly had a desire for it. But as the leader of the organization I was like I'm not going to. You know I could never put myself in the ring for this thing.

Olivia: 54:13

This was supposed to be for other people. You know, there's kind of real like a hat of a nonprofit leader, like everything is all about everyone else all the time. And he was like is there something like you know where else in your life do you pass up on opportunities that I meant clearly meant for you? And I was like, oh, like I've really felt like nailed to the wall.

Olivia: 54:37

Anyway, we go and sit down and I'm kind of like recovering from this conversation where I felt like my face is melting off. And I tell him I'm like well, I've got go because I'm just about to go and break up with my boyfriend. He's like what? He's like why didn't you cancel our meeting? Like what do you mean? You're off to break up with your boyfriend? And I was like well, I didn't, I really wanted to meet you, so I didn't do this. And he goes to me well, how long is this conversation going to be? And I was like, oh, probably like three hours. He's like let's break up with someone. He's like let me tell you something about life. And anyway, he gives me this like gorgeous sermon on relationships, and you know how hard it is when you get closer to the wine and like he's got a gorgeous, amazing love story with his wife Pooja. So he tells me a bit about that and he's like, liv, this is a short conversation. This is a 10 minute, 20 minute conversation. What?

Lola: 55:28

was she going to be talking about? I was going to be just in the car.

Olivia: 55:34

I was going to be groveling. I was groveling, I was going to be like ready for some kind of attack.

Olivia: 55:39

So you guys, look Liv why don't you and I have dinner? You go and have this conversation and I'll wait here for you. Again, I was like I did not know whether I can receive this. You know this is such a generous bob thing to do and I just didn't know love like that at that time. I had never been loved like that by a male, you know in a kind of mentorship, in a mentorship role. So I got to have this conversation with this my boyfriend at the time. It was the first time in my life I had ever been truly honest with a man and not tried to sugarcoat and just been clear this is not what I want. And you know he had all kinds of feelings about that. And I was able to walk away cleanly and from that conversation without apologizing for the fact that I felt the way I felt and I needed what I needed and I wanted what I wanted, and it wasn't the relationship. It was a real moment for me of like stepping into responsibility and realizing that I could choose. So when I went to meet Bob for dinner, we had this like three hour conversation talking about our lives, getting to know each other, sharing stories, both of us in tears in multiple places you know, conversations with Bob so profound and I said, yes, that night, like I will, I will go on this journey with you. I will receive this incredible gift that you've offered my organization. And so those six months, that was like September, august, september I was also about to go to Burning man for the first time and that fucking changed my life.

Olivia: 57:23

Those six months with Bob was the last six months where I was working at the organization and it was like the first time that I'd ever had one to one like in the intensity that he had offered it to me.

Olivia: 57:36

We had like six, seven hour conversations. This was hardcore and it, you know, no rock was left unturned at that time. And again he taught me about capital T, transformation, right, the kind that is so uncomfortable to sit with, right, like someone's seeing you in a way where, like nothing else, is in the room that they see it, that thing you've been hiding your whole life. They see it and they're going to sit here and they're going to love it and they've got the like, range and toolkit and the skill and the experience and the love and the heart that they can handle it right. There was nothing I could throw and tell him and show him that was remotely even moved him from his post. You know, and so that really came from you, right, that gift. You know you had an experience with Bob that was also deeply, deeply life-changing, so it was like the train of generosity carried on.

Lola: 58:42

Oh, I loved it. Yeah, because I had. You know, I was really fortunate to have had so many conversations with him in so many different ways as well. Like I said, he was a mentor and a coach to me at first, then he became a friend and then he became my brother, but then I'd also had him support me in the organization of supporting the coaches and also just having him show up. Like I had him join the advisory board and I didn't do it myself because it just would make it easier for me, and some of those things were just like, oh my God, it's so awful, it's so dry, like, at least, if he's there, I know he's seen the same madness that I'm seeing. Right, I know that there's a sort of you know, after we look at each other like, yeah, they really said that. Right then, what was his juicy?

Olivia: 59:35

mother fucker.

Lola: 59:36

Oh, hell to the. I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be the juicy woman I am today without him, and nor would you right? Yeah, you know, like we go out of doubt, so we left him on. Actually, I'm just thinking that we have to have him on, but um, oh, we've blessed man, oh no.

Olivia: 59:58

By the yeah, We've been, I'm just thinking we've been through.

Lola: 1:00:02

We've been with each other through. You know, both of our families have also gone through such upheavals in the time of our friendship, like huge, absolute fucking earthquake, ground removed from underneath the feet and then the aftermath of that. We've been through that kind of stuff Big realignments, we've been through debt, like you know, deaths I've lost my father in that time and the impact of that. We've been, oh my God, so many things. So breakups, relationship breakups, makeups, you know, um, and I think for me you change the standard of what I was prepared to accept as friendship 100%, because that's me all over, like if I don't know something exists I don't know exists, you know, fine, ignorance is bliss, and as soon as I know, and I want it now, I'm not going to tolerate anything else, right? So it was kind of like oh, this is available.

Lola: 1:01:07

Oh well, then I want this to be the standard and I'm happy to go without if it's not you know, um, because I'm not settling, and I do look at my world now and I do see I have less friends, you know, than I used to. Um, but the quality, oh my God, the quality that I have in terms of what we, what we can be with, like, you know, we have a friendship where we don't do so much anymore. But I remember there was this stage where I think we would go both processing a lot of shame and you know we're very aware of the whole shame lived in the shadows and thrives there, and it was literally. It wasn't unusual to have a voice note that's like okay, I need to share some shame right now, you know, and share it. And to have that safe place to share things like that with each other is just incredible.

Olivia: 1:02:12

I can feel it Well, I'm loving so much about this conversation. It's kind of really helping me digest. I'm like, oh wow, it's really amazing to acknowledge all of the different chapters and seasons and you know, this is really my whole twenties and now 32. It was like a whole decade really of life that you've seen and you know the key players involved and you know, especially on a professional front as well, like on a career, work creation front, is really not anyone else that's really in my life that could even touch it. And I think that you know this period of life that we're talking about, I barely talk about it and as we kind of go in there today and thinking about Bob and thinking about, I'm like I'm a very rich woman.

Lola: 1:03:05

Yeah.

Olivia: 1:03:06

That's what I'm feeling.

Lola: 1:03:07

We are incredibly wealthy.

Olivia: 1:03:10

Yes.

Lola: 1:03:11

Yeah.

Olivia: 1:03:12

Yes, and I can feel the difference in how it felt like, certainly for me back then. You know I was a real sort of adrenaline junkie and you know I was like running my own organization. I was running communities in London. I was working at Spark with you. I didn't really make much money at the time, I didn't really know how to care for myself, I was really sort of always running myself into the ground. But I was also kind of a bit like I had that superhuman like energy, like I could just go, go, go, go and obviously I got burnt enough times that now I have a lot more reverence and respect for the cycles of juice but, I had that like juicy essence, but I didn't have an embodied juicy life at that time.

Olivia: 1:03:55

That has taken years to build years, you know, and in later episodes we'll talk about I live in Paris. Now I have the life that I always knew was possible, but it took everything to create it and it took everything to change in my whole world. Internally to you know, I did not come from a lineage of women who revered their juice whatsoever. I come from a lineage of women that gave it all away.

Lola: 1:04:22

Absolutely same, and they judge themselves negatively for having any juice.

Olivia: 1:04:28

That judge will shave the shame, the judgement of a woman that's kind of trying to do it all, always fucking it up and is, you know, not met and not treated very well. And you know, I love what you said, that beautiful thing just a few moments ago about how this friendship raised the bar. You know you didn't use that language, that's what I heard, right like. It was like, oh, if this is available, then I don't want to settle for anything less than this and I want that for everyone. I want that for everyone in their creations and career. I want that for everyone in their romantic lives, intimate lives, right to be met by their partners, where that bar is high and the same in friendship. I think friendships are such a sensitive one for so many people. I can't wait for us to go more deeply on this, like later on. I think it's a really deep wound. I hear us, I get a lot of messages online about this, about friendship and how much of a struggle it is for adults.

Lola: 1:05:30

Absolutely, absolutely. I think it's probably the next one. I have a feeling it's going to be the next episode. It feels organically like it makes sense for that one to be the next one, and I'm sitting here as well thinking that it might be. I'd like us to have space for questions as well. You know, for people to ask questions we don't have to answer them, but if we see questions that we want to answer, we'll answer those. You know, because I agree, I think the friendship one is such a wound and I don't think a lot of times people realise it's a wound.

Lola: 1:06:07

It's relationship, isn't it right? And I think often times we often only think about the romantic one. But relationships are relationships and the way I see it with the friendships is, if you aren't consciously creating or think of all you know, having some thoughts and reflection around what it is to you, you know what you want, what you need, then you're probably operating on some teenage girl level. Still, no matter how old you are, you're rolling with the same kind of idea of friendship you had when, because it feels like that's, when it kind of kicks in those kind of early teen years, like being like this friend and yeah, we need to talk about it more, because it's such a source of important support for us all. If you've got the right support in place, yeah, so I'd like us to have that one soon. Actually, that would be yeah.

Olivia: 1:07:03

Great. Well, it's also you know, I'm thinking about it a lot my. You know, I've always been a friendship person. I've always been a community person, but those definitions have changed and I'm really learning hard lessons around it, and it's a vulnerable one for me. So I would love for us to go there.

Lola: 1:07:21

Yeah, and I've rumbled, I feel out of the woods of the vulnerable aspect of it. But I was in the vulnerable aspect of it for years and just the confusion, just like I don't understand, I don't know what's going on and just kind of getting swept away you know. But it's such an important part of living a juicy life right, and living a juicy life is very much about. It's not about appearances, yeah, it's not looking juicy, it's not. I'm now loving this thing that I've just got today of the idea of having like a water bottle spray. You know, living a juicy life isn't like being on a photo shoot where you kind of like mist of the woman so she looks, you know, damp or whatever. Like I'm saying, yeah, Dump, I mean, that's the word. Yeah.

Olivia: 1:08:14

Now, to me it's like glistening coming out of the sweat of the pores. You know, like right, it's like that, like the skin is actually wet. Yes, yeah.

Lola: 1:08:24

As opposed to spraying it on.

Olivia: 1:08:25

Yeah, yeah, there's life in the pores. That's what I'm seeing.

Lola: 1:08:30

Yeah.

Olivia: 1:08:31

Exactly Nice.

Lola: 1:08:35

I feel like we're good. Yeah, I feel like we're good for the first time.

Olivia: 1:08:41

Yeah, all right.

Lola: 1:08:46

So I know how to end it.

Olivia: 1:08:49

Love is alive, love is alive. Thank you so much for joining us for episode one of Juicy with Live and Love.