The Rosie and Roula Show

How Rosie Met Roula: A Platonic Love Story

• Roula Abou Haidar and Rosie Burrows

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From the archives — a classic conversation from The Rosie & Roula Show, reshared while we take a short break 💛

Rosie and Roula share how they met, why their friendship worked, and how a casual conversation turned into a daily podcast. A feel-good origin story about connection, friendship, and finding your people.

friendship podcast, podcast origin story, platonic friendship, women talking, Rosie and Roula

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Rosie (00:00)
I like your hair today

Roula (00:03)
and when it's really hot there's no point to do my hair because it's gonna go crazy and i'm going to train yeah but it doesn't doesn't doesn't look good every time it really needs to be really really hot you know this is the middle eastern hair kind and there it's hot and humid so my hair would curl here it's cold and humid

Rosie (00:09)
I like it though.

Hmm.

Mmm... Mmm.

Roula (00:27)
It looks crazy.

Rosie (00:42)
What are you drinking today? Coffee?

Roula (00:44)
Mm hmm. It's coffee with my protein powder. Yes. And cinnamon, a pinch of cinnamon, pinch of vanilla sugar and pinch of honey. Pinch of honey? Drizzle of honey. With the... Yes. Yeah.

Rosie (00:51)
Interesting. ⁓

Wow, drizzle of honey. Wow.

I've never thought of having protein powder with coffee, but I guess it makes sense. Why not?

Roula (01:11)
I have it with coffee because if I have it with fruit, it's going to be carbs and protein and I'm not doing this. I'm sticking to carbs with carbs, protein with vegetables or coffee.

Rosie (01:20)
Mmm.

There you go. I think it's cool doing things differently.

Roula (01:33)
There you go. Yep.

Rosie (01:36)
I had a follower yesterday. I was on TikTok live streaming and they asked Rula how we met. And it occurred to me, like, have we spoken about that on the podcast? Did we explain it in our intro episode? Yeah.

Roula (01:36)
Yeah. ⁓

Not really.

I'm not sure anymore. You know, it's 100 episodes plus, so I don't remember what was our intro.

Rosie (01:59)
Well,

should we talk about how we met? What's our love story?

Roula (02:04)
Let's tell the people. Yes. Yes.

Rosie (02:06)
Okay, alright.

Okay. Are you starting?

Roula (02:12)
No, you're starting. I'm still shaking my coffee. Drinking my coffee.

Rosie (02:15)
Right,

well maybe you ask me the question then.

Roula (02:20)
Alright, alright, so Rosie, do you remember how we met?

Rosie (02:25)
Yes, I do actually. So there's this guy called Pat Flynn and he's pretty big in the podcasting world, okay, and he educates people on how to do it. And he put on this free challenge. I don't even remember what it was called, but it was free. And I, for years had been wanting to start a podcast and I thought, what have I got to lose? Let's, I'll join this challenge. And you happen to join this challenge as well.

because you wanted to start a podcast. I don't think you'd started or you'd just started something like that. And everybody in this challenge was put into an online community with like a forum board. And I posted, I decided to get brave and I said, I'm looking for guests for my podcast. I hadn't, I didn't even have a podcast name. I didn't know what it was about. I just wrote something. I don't remember what. And you were one of the people who commented on it to be a guest. And that ruler.

is how we met.

Roula (03:25)
Rosie, thank you for reminding me because I have no idea how the conversation started between us.

Rosie (03:31)
For once I've remembered!

Roula (03:35)
Yeah, I do remember Pat Flynn workshop, of course, because I was following him in his workshops and lessons about podcasting and also about passive income, financial passive income, something like this. can't remember. And I focused very much with him on the podcasting parts. Join this workshop. I don't remember anything of the workshop. I do remember we.

Rosie (03:39)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Neither do I!

Roula (04:01)
connected and the rest is history. I did not even care about the workshop. I don't know.

Rosie (04:07)
No, neither. I don't remember if

I got anything of value other than, I met you and this was early 2023, I think. So it's been over two years. Oh, it's 2022. Sorry, 2022. Yeah.

Roula (04:17)
No, in 2022, because in 20. Yeah.

Because then we started our podcast and then I guessed it on yours. You guessed it on mine. Yeah. Hold on, hold on. And then you build a community, the free spirited community. You contacted me asking if I want to join, because at that point we were in contact. I.

Rosie (04:24)
So it's been three years. It's been three years, Rula. What? ⁓

Yes. ⁓

Every now and then,

hey, yeah.

Roula (04:45)
every now

and then because we recorded the episodes together. I was checking on you for your van life. I don't remember for what you were checking on me. I wasn't having any exciting time. You were having all the exciting time and moving in your van. And then I joined the community. And this is how our friendship and relationship took off through the community. Yeah.

Rosie (05:08)
Yeah. Mm, I feel like we

talk most days. Probably not every day, but most days there'll be at least one little message.

Roula (05:17)
Yes, yes. And then, you know, from a message to deep conversations to a lot of laughter and jokes and it became kind of ⁓ the go-to moment sometimes just for fun. what's Rosie doing? What time is now in Australia? Can I contact Rosie? And sometimes I used to contact you and think, it might be after midnight. She wouldn't answer your answers. Yeah.

Rosie (05:19)
Mm. Mm.

Yeah!

no, I'm up, yeah.

So I'm curious, are you like, are you a cougar and you like having friends that are 20 years younger than you? Or am I an exce- I'm the exception.

Roula (05:54)
Not 20 years younger, no. No.

You're not the exception because I'm surrounded by friends and partners who all just turned 40 or 40, some of them, few of them 45. It means that I've been around people that are much younger than me.

Rosie (06:09)
Mmm.

Roula (06:21)
But my circle of friends, my close friends, the girls that I have, they're, all in our fifties. Some of them just turned 50, other, like mid-50.

Rosie (06:30)
Yeah, yeah. But see, okay, let's go back.

You're just, everyone's gonna think I'm older than I am. You said you know people in their 40s. I'm in my 30s. I'm your youngest friend. Am I your youngest friend?

Roula (06:41)
Yes, that's true.

I think so at the moment, yes. Yeah. 51, yes.

Rosie (06:48)
Cause how old are you? 51. You're 51? And I'm

33. Also not quite 20 years, not quite 18 years difference.

Roula (06:57)
18

years. The other day, well, Liam at school, because he's 10, and his friends, have young parents in their mid-30s or younger even. And he was having a play date and the mom came to pick the daughter up. And I don't know how she mentioned that she's 34 and already have ⁓ five or six children. She started early.

Rosie (07:08)
Yeah.

my god,

wow.

Roula (07:25)
And I looked at her and I was like, my goodness, she's 34. That's so young. And she's standing in front of me. She's Dutch, so she's two meters tall. ⁓ And I was looking at her thinking, yeah, I can see it on her. I kind of forgotten how everything is so vibrant and different in mid-30s. And I love mid-30s. Now I'm going to ask you the question.

Rosie (07:31)
Mmm.

Yeah

Roula (07:55)
Rosie, do you have more friends except your neighbors who are 70 plus? I'm not going in there. Do you have other friends than me who are in their 50s? Good friends.

Rosie (08:01)
Ha

Not like you. I do have a friend who's in her 50s, but I wouldn't say we're as close as you and I. We message maybe every couple of months. It's not the same. But I do tend to connect better with people who are older than me. People my age are just stupid.

Roula (08:16)
Okay.

Yeah.

No, we don't want to generalize. don't think they're stupid. People your age ⁓ have so much to offer. They're only scared.

Rosie (08:30)
You

Mmm.

You are such a different person today. Let me just pull up. And I have not asked your permission for this. but we're... Ah yes, because. Let me find the message. I do. Let me find the evidence. Hang on.

Roula (08:46)
such a different person today?

because you want to confront me now with something.

Rosie (08:57)
Where are we? Hang on. You messaged me in an absolute rampage and it was about your generation. Where is it? You were basically saying, fuck Gen X's, they're all a bunch of whatevers. And you were saying how my generation is much better.

Roula (09:01)
⁓

Rosie (09:20)
Millennials. said we need more millennial topics. And I went, what the hell? Who are you? You're being so like vicious and this generation sucks. And usually you're like you were just before. Don't general, generalize. Like we've all got things to offer. ⁓ so you said you were menstruating. So I think that's what was going on. The stats of Gen X's listening to the podcast is quite low. Gen X's you're letting the team down.

Roula (09:35)
I must have had a day on that day with GenX people. ⁓

Rosie (09:49)
I think it's 4 %? Yeah! Come on!

Roula (09:49)
GenX is the lowest.

And the highest number of listeners, age of listeners is between 25 and 34.

Rosie (10:02)
So that would be a crossover then of Gen... What's the one after Millennials? Yeah, so it'd be a mixture of Gen Z and Millennials that are our biggest audience, I think, yeah. And I think...

Roula (10:08)
Gen Z

Yes. But this also

tells me that Gen Z and millennials are looking for more meaningful conversations and Gen X are still stuck with their old thinking and don't want to change or look at life differently.

Rosie (10:27)
Maybe.

Maybe. Is that how you find most people in your genera- Really? See, I feel the same about my generation.

Roula (10:32)
Yeah.

Wow.

Rosie (10:40)
We see what we want to see, don't we? It's a confirmation bias. Maybe, if we go back to your viewpoint on Gen Xs, maybe they don't know where to look.

You guys didn't grow up with podcasts. Maybe some people don't know where to find amazing women like us and find these conversations. So maybe we need to shove it down their throats.

Roula (10:55)
True. Could be.

There are two things that are for sure, all right? Millennial and Gen Z are mentally struggling because ⁓ they haven't had true hardship.

So whenever things becomes difficult, they don't know how to deal with it. And they decide either to quit or it's too much, I can't do it, et cetera. What they're bringing to the table is the changes that we ruined it for them as GenX. That is, for example, the 60 hours week work, the no life after work, ⁓ I think mostly of work.

Rosie (11:50)
Mmm.

Roula (11:50)
Because

I think in times of romance and fun, Gen Z and millennials are not having as much fun as Gen X did. And there are factors for that, of course. Gen X, on the other hand, I say that Gen X are so stuck in they want to change, but they don't want to do the hard work to change.

Rosie (12:02)
This is interesting.

Okay, hang on. This is a deep topic. I want to dedicate an episode. Okay, we're gonna pause and then next episode everybody go tune into that because this is a very important conversation and this would turn into a very long episode if we don't just pause. But remember pause! The initial question was how did we meet? So was my story true? That's how we met? I didn't make it up.

Roula (12:25)
Alright.

Bose.

Absolutely 100 %

Rosie (12:48)
100 % I made it up.

Roula (12:50)
No, no, 100 % correct.

Rosie (12:54)
And by the way, you're new, I'm very expressive, aren't I? If you're new here, because we've mentioned this before, but you might be new here. This is whatever number episode we are. Go to Roula's podcast and my podcast, because we each have our own podcasts and listen to the episodes we've recorded with one another. I think they're both great. They're both very different. There's links to our podcasts in the show notes.

Roula (12:54)
I love how your eyes go round when you're like, what?

Rosie (13:22)
Go check it out.

Roula (13:22)
We'll put specific

link to these episodes in the show notes.

Rosie (13:25)
Okay cool, we'll make it easy for

you. We'll hyperlink to the episode. Okay, see you in the next one. Bye!

Roula (13:31)
Bye!