Miquita Oliver: 'The secret to long distance friendship is effort'
Life is full of ups and downs - but it’s all part of the job description for Miquita Oliver as she reinvents herself as a skipping entrepreneur.
The 40-year-old broadcaster has thrown herself wholeheartedly into her new venture, Ropes, and has vowed that this time next year, picking up a skipping rope on your way out of the front door will come as naturally as grabbing your phone and keys.
She told Women’s Health: ‘Skipping has this incredible power to take you back, like a portal. It takes you back to childhood, because jumping up and down makes you feel free.
‘When you hand someone a skipping rope, it unravels them and opens them up to who they used to be. It unleashes the child in you, and makes you dream again.
‘Ropes is something I built in lockdown. I was going through hell, like we all were, I was incredibly heartbroken and scared by the state of the world. The only thing I could do to feel in control of my day was knowing that I was going to go and have a half hour skip in the park. It became my lifeline.’
The daily skips reminded Miquita that not only was she an able skipper, but most importantly, she really enjoyed it. Soon she was bringing her cousins out to skip with her, and footage they posted to social media was shared wide and far.
It sparked an idea in her: It was time to give skipping a face.
Miquita explains: ‘Skipping is fantastic, it's archaic - there’s evidence of ancient Egyptians jumping rope with vine - this isn't a new way of exercising. It's something that everyone is familiar with, but I realised that we didn’t have a port of call for it, for what it looks like, and what it supplies.
‘I started Ropes to give it a face, to give it an identity, but also because I just don't think the skipping ropes available at the moment are good enough.
‘We will be launching products next year, which is very exciting, and it’s going to change the way skipping ropes look and exist. I want to give them a sense of identity, a bit of a vibe, make them aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic, sexy, aspirational, all these things that they're just not. I want to make a skipping rope something that you see as part of your daily armour. You have your phone, you have your headphones, and then you will have your ropes.’
Working on Ropes has unleashed an entrepreneurial side of Miquita which she never knew she had - and she’s finding creating a new lifestyle brand from scratch equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.
‘Building a business is really hard, and I've never done anything like this in my life. But it's exciting, and I am very clear about what I want Ropes to be and the gap in the market for it,’ she explains. ‘And every time I go out of my house feeling like, “Oh, God, it's so much work. What am I doing this for? Who cares about skipping?” I see like, 12 people skipping in the park.
‘My motto is “dream bigger, jump higher”. I swear to God, I've built the last five years of my career on the kind of courage that I've built from skipping. It makes you feel brave. It makes you feel like you can do anything. And I think that's a really great way to live, to be brave, to be courageous, to dream bigger, and to jump higher.
‘Every time I take my rope, I remember those things, and it changes the day I have, and it then changes the week I have, and it changes the life I have.’
Miquita is also eager to share the uplifting power of jumping rope with everyone who needs a boost. ‘We go to schools and do Ropes classes with kids, sessions with adults, and different parts of the community,’ she explains. ‘We’re giving people the support they need to just jump up and down, if that makes sense. Some people are just terrified to be that free. It’s just so rewarding.’
Perking people up is nothing new for Miquita. She will be forever beloved by Millennials after six years presenting the iconic T4 music show PopWorld alongside the most sardonic man on TV, Simon Amstell, in the early 00s.
And now, decades later, she’s gone from ‘soothing hangovers’ to making people howl with laughter on their commute, run and downtime with her BBC Sounds podcast, Miss Me?. Co-hosted with her childhood best friend Lily Allen, 39, it’s a no-holds barred jaunt down memory lane, with plenty of NSFW chit chat - like Miquita having sex on a chair - thrown in for good measure.
With Lily now living with her husband, Stranger Things star David Harbour and her two daughters in New York, the pod - like their friendship - is conducted long distance. What are Miquita’s top tips for nurturing such a crucial connection across an ocean and multiple time zones?
Miquita says: ‘We check in with each other a lot. I think you have to look after your friendships and not expect them to just be nurtured. I make sure I ask Lily a lot if she's okay, because Lily can be quite closed off, and she can find it quite difficult to tell someone or to speak up when she isn't okay. So I know for that friendship in my life, I need to make sure I ask a lot.
‘Interestingly, with Miss Me, we did not expect it to be this massive hit.
‘When people come up to me and say “I love Miss Me?” I think, “oh my god do they know I like having sex on chairs?” I have said so much, but that's the only way me and Lily know how to speak to each other, because she's my sister, basically. So to try and not be honest with each other, or a bit closed off, or it just wouldn't work. We don't even know how to be like that with each other.
‘I think I knew people would love it, but I didn't realise it would be what it's become. So actually, we're sort of holding each other's hands and going along the ride together, which has been really amazing, because we've both had such amazing careers, but we've never done it together or experienced and shared something together.
‘In our relationship at the moment, there's a lot of support for each other, but we’re also really remembering to enjoy the moment and this ridiculous, crazy thing that we've created that everyone loves.’
Miquita is also committed to making sure that Lily feels the love - even if she is thousands of miles away.
‘I call Lily a lot to say, like, “you know, 50 people came up to me this week and said they were listening to Miss Me”. I get so many people showing me their phones going, “I'm listening to Miss Me? right now”. That's an incredible feeling, but Lily's not here, so I try to let her know the impact of Miss Me? so she feels it and understands that all our hard work is paying off, and it's worth it.’
Miquita has also made a conscious effort to be as present as possible in her best friend’s life, and went to stay at her New York home and meet her American friends - without Lily.
‘I think it's important to go there. I went to New York, unfortunately, Lily was away, but I stayed at her house, and I think it meant a lot to her for me to go and see her life there. It’s not just about me and her. Our friendship is about her children, her daughter Marnie is my god daughter. I love her husband. My family in London are all her family as well.
‘We have a very big unit, and it's about making sure that that's remembered, because if it was just me and Lily and this friendship, we would probably drive each other nuts and kill each other. But it's so much bigger than us. We have an incredibly close, big, connected family, and me and Lily are just kind of two organisms in the middle of that. So it's reminding ourselves that we're family, and she can never get rid of me and I can never get rid of her. We love each other.’
Proving the theory that sometimes taking some time off is the most potent way to come up with new solutions, Miquita first had the idea for the podcast last year when she found herself asking if her professional life was still fulfilling.
‘My career is really important to me, and the work I do is really important to me. Last year I realised I needed to do something that excites my brain. It's been a real lesson in what work I actually want to do. I love making stuff that people are listening to and are connected to. I can't just be prancing about on Instagram. It's just not enough.
Turning forty also proved to be a catalyst for change in Miquita’s life.
‘There is no time to waste. And 40 is a really interesting moment of youth and age, because you're not old old yet, but you're not a kid anymore and it’s where those two things mix in the same way they don't really at 50 and they don't really at 30.
‘I think that's why a lot of people do a lot of great stuff in their 40s, because, while it's not time is running out, but you do realise that time is of the essence and I think that's quite exciting in a way. None of us can escape death, but what we can do is live as much as we possibly can.
‘I had a good five years of just lying around in my early 30s, and then I spent my last half of 30s working like a maniac to get my career back and get my life moving in the way I wanted it to.’
Miquita on her other passions…
Gardening
‘I've started growing leaves and two types of parsley, and that has changed my week. So now I'm eating salad from my balcony, I go out with a little bowl, cut everything and then bring it in to eat. I feel like I'm living off the land, but all I'm doing is growing my lettuce. It makes a real difference.’
Racquet sports
‘I love tennis, badminton, squash, and these are all games and sports that I wanted to play as a kid, but we didn't have any money. A lot of people I know train and exercise, but to play sport, I find it one of the most kind of unused forms of fun and meditation, because it's not training, it's a game you actually play, and I think it's really good as adults to remind ourselves to play.
‘I think people have their barriers to sport, which is race and class, but then also believing that you have to be excellent at something. It's like, No, you're just playing. You're playing a game and you get better.
‘Tennis really makes me feel young and sprightly. And around me are 60-year-olds, who've been playing for like, 40 years, and they all look brilliant. It's a longevity game.’
Super salads
'I really like to dress a plate, and my mum [chef Andi Oliver] taught me how to season. I make a great salad. You have to season it like it's meat or fish, so give it oil, give it salt, give it pepper.
'I don’t eat breakfast because I train in the morning, and I prefer to do it on an empty stomach. When I come home at about 10am I make a big salad - I have salad for breakfast and then I eat it throughout the day.
A typical one has lots of lettuce leaves I’ve grown on my balcony, herbs like fresh dill, and two types of parsley. And then I usually do tuna, white beans. I then also cook carrots and broccoli and cut them up and put those in the salad. Lots of spring onion and then salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, bit of mustard.'
Living magically
‘Nothing is too woo-woo for me. My house is full of magic areas. I have Buddha and magic books. And I pray a lot. I do a lot of tarot. Me and my friends literaly have magic nights where we do some magic. And it's about intentions and releasing, letting go of a lot of old shit.
‘Gardening has really taught me that if you cut off the dead heads and dying flowers, 10 more buds come to bloom, which is the biggest metaphor for life. Holding on to the past, holding on to mistakes or heartbreaks, it just stops your bloom. You've got to let stuff go.
‘When you have physically and properly emotionally let something go, reward is right around the corner, suddenly the world is your oyster, and the world is magical and beautiful again. So I do a lot of magic work to kind of support that way of living.’
Miquita Oliver is co-presenter of Miss Me? available on BBC Sounds and founder of Ropes. For more information visit @ropes.bm
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