Power of positive energy can improve your life

Interview by Amy Lanza

With a huge smile on his face, Ovie Soko is most renowned for his skills on the basketball court, but 2019 saw him take his chance at love. The North Londoner captured the nation’s hearts as one of the 2019 Love Island contestants whilst inspiring his fellow islanders with motivational words of wisdom and his positive mental attitude. 2020 saw the beginning of another big chapter in Ovie’s life, as he’s turned his hand to writing his first book: You Are Dope.

Exploring his own journey which has seen him live in multiple countries, Ovie pours his heart and energy into this book - soon to become your own personal road map to dopeness. He encourages us to lean into our vulnerabilities, take chances and be ready for what life has to offer in search of ultimate happiness and fulfillment.

“I hope that this book will be the beginning of a journey for a lot of people. I know from experience that it’s only once you start to value yourself and the power you have in being yourself and embarking on that journey that you see the necessity of taking the leap of faith and starting to live to the beat of your own drum.”

So where did the idea from the book come from? What inspired Ovie to create such an open guide to positive mental health? After all his support on and off the court and TV screens, Ovie wanted to “give something of value... that can hopefully help the reader whatever situation they’re in ''. He also saw the huge gap in the market for such a book to inspire individuals in this age of social media and remind them of their own "superpower". When "what we don’t have is often pushed in front of us and held up as our measuring bar", don't we all deserve a little loving boost from this 6ft something professional?

That's exactly what you get while turning the bright pages of You Are Dope. The book explores his travels overseas and draws on his own experiences of living in numerous countries, their cultures and their viewports which have helped him "grow as a person". The toolkit provides all the tricks we need to be dope - a word he uses a lot. "I wanted to let the reader know from looking at the cover, this is about you, your being unique, you being dope exactly how you are."

Being authentically you isn’t always easy and, as he points out, “it’s important to be inspired by but not empowered by people who you find dope”.

Ovie admits to having struggled with being his authentic self in the past and it's something a lot of us also battle with each day. He notes that it is often out of fear of "not being accepted for who they are, [that] can ultimately drive people into professions and jobs they hate, relationships they don’t want, and just a world of lies ultimately." A life in which "ultimately the juice isn’t worth the squeeze."

“I didn’t know whether being myself would result in success in life. That’s a scary place to be in when you don’t know whether your genuine thoughts, your genuine feelings, your genuine outlook on things, are good enough to be accepted.”

Finding fulfilment is one step on your journey to acceptance and positivity is key. So how does Ovie stay positive in trying times? He believes that it is a mindset - one that you choose each morning to "find the light in all situations". Yet he is realistic about it and admits to also having off days “where I’m in a mood, or not positive, but it allows me to work out of that state of mind and get back into a productive one much faster." He pulls on the common cliche to get him through: “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you can stand up again”.

You Are Dope is full of similar motivational messages (Love Island fans will remember his catchphrases) and the one piece of advice that sticks with him is how "comparison is the thief of joy". He reminds us to not compare our current situation to someone else's as we don't know their own journey: "you could be comparing your level 3 to their level 10." Which serves as a great reminder to be open and honest with our mental health.

He talks openly about his own battles with mental health and reminds us, and men in particular, that we are not alone. "One of the silliest assumptions is that men don’t need help, we all do, and the help is there. Trying to always do things yourself is like giving yourself an extra handicap in life that you can choose otherwise. Life is hard, and there are so many challenges we already face, don’t make it even harder for yourself."

Hardship often brings with it lessons of hope, every cloud has its' silver lining after all. Ovie draws on his past to teach him to count his blessings, and appreciate that life is the biggest gift you have, as he reminds us that we should try to love our lives and those in it to the best of our ability.

We can't talk about our everyday lives without talking about social media - and one way to sky-rocket your following is being the nation's heart-throb on reality TV. Despite never being "a huge social media guy", he learned to adapt after leaving the villa. Albeit overwhelming at first, he shares the "same kind of quirky habits most of us probably have" on his channels and he is pretty mindblown that we are all so interested.

"I tend to take a break from it every so often to make sure I don’t confuse filtered reality and the life that is in front of me", he admits. This time away allows him to take a step back and avoid falling into the comparison trap that is oh-so-easy to do "when you become obsessed with what is happening in everyone else’s life" even when you are in a mentally good place.

And there has been plenty of time for soulsearching over the last few months in quarantine! Ovie believes that this time off has been a "much-needed break" and has allowed him to "hit the reset button, spend some quality alone time, and refocus for the journey ahead." This leads Ovie back to his passion and calling. While this last year has been a whirlwind of opportunities, appearances and new work , he believes true fulfilment "comes from things I work for and skills I have acquired over time such as Basketball" . Who knows where we will see him pop up next.

One thing is for sure, whether Ovie is shooting hoops, finding love, working hard or taking part in celebrity Bake Offs, You Are Dope will, for a long time to come, lead us all down our personal paths to dopeness.