Just Enamoured Podcast

What does it take to build something that doesn’t just succeed, but genuinely changes people’s lives?

For Jose Ramirez, Founder and CEO of HOPR, the answer is simple in principle, but extraordinary in practice: whatever it takes.

Born from curiosity, humble beginnings and an unwavering work ethic, HOPR has grown into something far greater than an alternative to alcohol. It’s a business driven by an ambitious mission to help one million Australians rethink their relationship with drinking and take meaningful steps towards reducing their alcohol consumption.

And I’m one of the people whose lives it’s impacted.

As someone navigating my own journey of sobriety, HOPR has played a meaningful role in helping me build a life without alcohol. Sitting across from Jose, I have the opportunity to share that impact with the very person whose vision helped make it possible.

But this isn’t simply a conversation about entrepreneurship, products or building a successful business.

It’s about the person behind the ambition.

Jose speaks candidly about the influence of his parents’ journey, the origins of his relentless drive and the deeply personal foundations of a mentality that refuses to settle for anything less than giving his purpose everything he has.

We explore the early days of HOPR, the curiosity that sparked its creation and the responsibility that comes with building a business whose success is measured not only by its growth, but by the lives it positively influences.

And while Jose’s vision is enormous, his perspective remains grounded in something much smaller: the everyday victories, the individual stories and the moments that remind him why the work matters.

Because sometimes the greatest measure of success isn’t how big something becomes, but how deeply it matters to the people it reaches.

This is a conversation about ambition, gratitude, perseverance and the extraordinary things that become possible when the pursuit of success is inseparable from the desire to make a difference.

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What happens when you stop building the life you're expected to live and start investing in the life you actually want?

Ten years ago, I knew Nicole Tabuena as a teenager. A decade later, we sit down as two adults navigating our own journeys of identity, ambition and discovering what it truly means to pursue a life we love.

At 25, Nicole began questioning a future that seemed almost predetermined. The familiar expectations of stability, routine and following a conventional path no longer aligned with the person she was becoming.

So she made a decision to go all in.

Moving back home with her parents, saving relentlessly, taking on freelance work and eventually embarking on three months of solo travel across Asia, Nicole began investing her time, finances and energy into something far greater than a career change... discovering who she was and what she wanted from life.

And somewhere along that journey, she found the courage to pursue an ambition that many might dismiss before it even begins.

Becoming a full-time YouTuber.

But this conversation isn't simply about building a following, creating content or turning a passion into a profession.

It's about the uncomfortable reality of choosing an unconventional life when the people around you may not understand it. The financial sacrifices, the self-doubt, the judgement, the uncertainty and the vulnerability of publicly committing to a dream without knowing whether it will succeed.

We explore Nicole's Filipino heritage, her relationship with culture and identity, and how these experiences have shaped the stories she wants to tell. We also unpack the realities of content creation: building a personal brand, navigating the highs and lows and learning to appreciate the privilege of having the opportunity to pursue something meaningful.

Throughout our conversation, Nicole shares a philosophy that has come to guide her decisions:

Every decision is made from either fear or love. And she chooses love.

Not because choosing love guarantees success, but because she would rather wholeheartedly pursue something that matters to her than spend her life wondering what might have happened if she'd tried.

This is a conversation about reclaiming ownership of your own life, discovering who you are beyond the expectations of others, and having the courage to go all in on a future that hasn't been written yet.

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What happens when the dream you've spent your life chasing becomes about something far greater than yourself?

For over twelve years, Australian professional wrestler Paris De Silva has dedicated his life to an art form that has taken him around the world, earned him recognition as one of Australia's finest wrestlers and inspired countless others to believe in the magic of professional wrestling.

I'm one of those people.

Sitting together inside the Pro Wrestling Academy ring, where Paris has spent years developing his craft and where I continue to chase my own childhood dream, this conversation represents something deeply personal.

Years ago, watching Paris and his tag team partner Jude London perform one of the most extraordinary matches I've ever witnessed reminded me why I fell in love with professional wrestling and inspired me to believe that I could pursue it myself.

But this isn't a conversation about championships, unforgettable matches or international recognition.

It's about the person that twelve years of wrestling has helped Paris become.

Through an incredibly thoughtful and personal conversation, Paris reflects on how his understanding of success has evolved, how his purpose has grown beyond recognition and achievement and why the greatest fulfilment in life may have less to do with what we accomplish and more to do with how we choose to live each day.

We explore the difference between chasing a dream and finding meaning within it, the importance of contentment and what it truly means to live a life that feels worthwhile.

Because sometimes, the greatest thing our passions give us isn't the life we once dreamed of having, but a deeper understanding of the life we want to live.

Whether you've watched professional wrestling your entire life or have never seen a second of it, this conversation is an invitation to reflect on your own purpose, reconsider what success means to you and ask yourself whether you're making the most of the life you're living.

Follow Paris on @_monarchoffury

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What happens when two people who have dedicated themselves to championing other people's dreams unexpectedly find someone willing to champion their own?

Meet Robbie and Dom.

An musician/audio engineer and a photographer, both deeply invested in Australia's underground independent music scene, using their creativity to amplify emerging artists and give a platform to voices deserving of being heard.

Their shared passion brought them into each other's worlds long before their first date. After a series of chance encounters and an eventual match on Bumble, one refreshingly direct conversation became the beginning of something neither expected.

But their love story wasn't without its challenges.

Both entered the relationship carrying experiences and emotional baggage that required vulnerability, honesty and a willingness to confront parts of themselves they might otherwise have avoided.

Together, they chose to do the difficult work.

In this deeply personal conversation, we explore the realities of building a relationship between two passionate creatives, the long hours, emotional investment, sacrifices and relentless pursuit of meaningful work and what it means to find someone who genuinely understands the weight of those ambitions.

But beyond their shared creativity, this is a story about two people who once struggled to imagine finding the love they deserved, only to discover a relationship that challenged them to grow beyond what they believed was possible for themselves.

Because sometimes the most beautiful part of finding your person isn't simply being loved for who you are, but discovering who you can become together.

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What happens when two people in a marriage decide to chase their dreams at the same time?

After a hiatus from Just Enamoured, my wife Emma returns to the podcast and this time, she's stepping into the spotlight to tell a story of her own.

For the first time publicly, Emma opens up about the journey behind launching her skincare business, Radiance Tallow. Where the idea came from, the purpose behind the brand and the reality of turning something deeply personal into something real.

She speaks candidly about what happens beyond the excitement of saying, “I'm starting a business", the uncertainty, challenges, decisions, investment and enormous amount of work required to actually build one.

But this conversation also becomes something deeply personal for both of us.

We're currently in a season where we're simultaneously asking each other to take our dreams seriously. Emma is building Radiance Tallow while I'm pursuing my own ambitions and both require time, sacrifice, emotional energy and a willingness to prioritise something that matters deeply to us individually.

So how do you chase two dreams without losing sight of the life you're building together?

We talk openly about how we're navigating that question, supporting one another through the highs and lows, balancing competing priorities and learning that sometimes loving someone means giving them the space and encouragement to become who they're trying to become.

This is a conversation about entrepreneurship and ambition but, more than anything, it's about what it looks like when two people choose to build their individual dreams alongside their shared one.

New Episodes out EVERY TUESDAY 6:00am AEST. 

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What if one night you were never supposed to have changed the rest of your life?

Neither Lachlan nor Marcaela was supposed to make it onto a harbour cruise that night. Against the odds, they both did.

Then came one small moment of confidence: Lachlan crashing a photo, offering to take one for Marcaela and unknowingly beginning one of the most romantic love stories I've had the privilege of hearing.

Coming from different countries and cultures, their connection had every reason to remain a beautiful memory from one extraordinary night. Instead, after only weeks together, they made the daunting decision to attempt long-distance and spent years wholeheartedly choosing a relationship that asked both of them to take an enormous chance on love.

Now, finally living in the same country, they're building a life together while supporting each other's individual dreams.

As the first couple I've interviewed in months, Lachlan and Marcaela feel like the perfect love story for this new era of Just Enamoured.

Because while chance may have put two people on the same boat, chance didn't build their relationship.

They did.

This is a story about distance, sacrifice, commitment and the beautiful things that can happen when two people decide that love is worth the risk and keep choosing each other long after that first leap of faith.

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For a long time, I believed alcohol made me someone worth loving.

It gave me confidence. It made me louder, funnier and more uninhibited. It helped me create a version of myself that I thought other people loved and for a while, a version of myself that I loved too.

But maintaining that person came at a cost.

In one of the most vulnerable episodes I've recorded, I reflect candidly on my relationship with alcohol, the ways it negatively shaped parts of my life and the uncomfortable realisation that something I associated with confidence, connection and belonging was slowly pulling me further away from myself.

I explore the moments that forced me to reconsider my relationship with drinking, the imposter syndrome I felt around my own authenticity and what happened when I stopped relying on intoxication to become the person I thought I needed to be.

Because sobriety, for me, has become about much more than not drinking.

It's been about learning that I don't need to manufacture a different version of myself to feel confident, interesting or worthy of connection. That somewhere along the way, I realised this wasn't really a story about giving up alcohol.

It was a story about finally learning to love the person who remained without it.

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What if Plan A is the only plan you ever wanted?

Nathan Hamilton and I met at a professional wrestling tryout, two people throwing ourselves into something difficult, uncomfortable and uncertain but something we're both truly passionate about and we’ve been bonded by that pursuit ever since.

In this episode, we unpack the reality of chasing a life that offers no guarantees. Nathan opens up about his journey as an actor, the moments that pushed him towards this pursuit and why performing, storytelling and creating have never felt like career choices to him. They feel like home.

We talk candidly about the thrill and agony of being an actor, the rejection and uncertainty that come with choosing a creative life and what it means to keep pursuing something when the world constantly encourages you to find something safer.

And through our shared experience of wrestling training, the pain, setbacks, growth and strange fulfilment found in voluntarily doing something incredibly hard, we explore what relentless ambition actually looks like while you're still in the middle of it.

Nathan doesn't have a perfectly mapped-out destination. He just knows the kind of life he wants to live: on stages, in front of cameras, inside wrestling rings and wherever else he gets the opportunity to tell stories.

This is a conversation about refusing the back-up plan, embracing the possibility of falling and choosing to build your life around the thing that makes you feel most alive.

Follow his journey on @nathanhamiltonactor

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For years, I carried shame around the way my first attempt at becoming a professional wrestler ended.

I told myself I had moved on. I focused on my career, built a life I was proud of and buried a dream that I was too ashamed to admit I had given up on.

But five years later, I found myself asking a difficult question: how can I tell young people they can chase their dreams if I’m unwilling to chase mine?

As a teacher and someone who hopes to be a father one day, I don’t just want to give that advice. I want to model it.

In one of my most personal episodes, I unpack the guilt, excuses and self-pity that followed my first attempt at wrestling, what made me fall in love with it again and why returning this time means so much more than simply becoming a professional wrestler.

This is about confronting a version of myself I no longer recognise, putting myself in uncomfortable situations and refusing to let an old failure decide how the story ends.

Because sometimes the question isn’t whether you have a dream.

It’s how bad do you want it?

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For the last nine months, Just Enamoured has taken me around the world through conversations with extraordinary people over Zoom. I've loved learning their stories, but I've found myself hungry to get back in the room.

Back to face-to-face conversations. Back to the intimacy, vulnerability and unpredictability. Back to the grind of being a personal, introspective podcaster.

This episode marks the beginning of that next chapter by reflecting on the year that brought me here.

2026 has my wife and I in the middle of chasing our dreams. Emma has just launched her own skincare business and is discovering the realities of entrepreneurship, while I'm back training to become a professional wrestler, embracing the physical challenges, uncertainty and fulfilment of pursuing a childhood dream. I'm also one month away from becoming a qualified marriage celebrant, we've moved back in with my parents and I somehow came incredibly close to appearing on reality television.

None of these stories have neat endings yet. We're still living them.

And that's what this episode explores: what does it actually mean to take the things you love seriously while you're still in the uncertainty, sacrifice and grind of making them real?

Just Enamoured is going back to its roots, but it's evolving as I evolve too.

New Episodes out EVERY TUESDAY 6:00am AEST. 

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