And what did you bring to Lulu that perhaps could never have existed without you?

I absolutely love learning new things, so when we decided to open a hotel, suddenly I had this enormous new world to explore.

I basically started learning the hospitality business from scratch. I even joined an MBA in Hospitality. I built our website myself, connected the booking systems, and naturally, with my background in finance, I took care of the financial and business side as well.

I also handle most of the communication with our guests, and that often starts six months or even a year before they actually arrive. By the time someone walks through our door, I may already know that they have a special request, an anniversary to celebrate, a marriage proposal I helped to organise, a particular experience they would like to find in Malta, or simply something that would make their stay more personal.

So if Clive brings much of the visible soul and atmosphere to Lulu, I’m probably the person behind the scenes making sure everything connects and actually works.

You could say he creates the magic, and I make sure the magic is planned in advance and organised!

What is your secret to being husband and wife, creative partners and business partners without allowing the business to consume the relationship?

Honestly, I’m not even sure what is supposed to be so difficult about it! For us, it has always felt quite natural.

If anything, having a business together brings more variety into our family life. Hospitality blends into life so easily anyway — cooking, entertaining people, organising events, meeting interesting guests. These are all things we would probably enjoy doing even without the hotel.

One thing that definitely helps is having boundaries. We each have our own areas of responsibility, and we try not to interfere too much in each other’s territory.

And then, of course, there is my exceptional ability to plan everything and understand people perfectly! I’m joking, of course.

But jokes aside, I think one of our real secrets is assuming good intentions. If one of us does something the other doesn’t understand or agree with, we try to start from the assumption that the intention behind it was good. Maybe something went wrong along the way or didn’t come out as intended — but it wasn’t done to hurt or undermine the other person.

That small assumption can change the whole way you deal with a disagreement.

When two strong personalities disagree, who normally has the final word at Lulu?

Well, Clive obviously thinks he has the final word!

I’m joking… although perhaps only partly.

A lot of the rules we have at Lulu were actually created through experience. Something unusual happens, or we have an experience that doesn’t go particularly well, and afterwards Clive becomes very firm: “Right. We’re never doing that again. No more hen parties, no more this, no more that — this is now a rule!”

And once he reaches that point, he can be very difficult to move.

But I’m usually the one who wants to experiment. If I come across a new concept, an unusual event or simply something I find interesting, I want to try it. And if I’m excited enough about an idea, I can normally persuade him to at least discuss it.

That’s how we ended up having a Spanish week with a guest chef from Barcelona, wine tastings, unusual photoshoots, yoga and wellness retreats. We even hosted the TV show “Married at First Sight” twice at Lulu. It was great fun organising activities for the couple and watching the whole process from behind the cameras.

What I like is that once we agree to try something, he really gets involved. Then it stops being just my idea or his idea and becomes something we create together.

So I don’t think either of us really has the final word. We have our own areas where one person naturally takes the lead, but there is always room for discussion — and occasionally for me to convince Clive that one more experiment is an excellent idea!

When did you begin feeling that external achievement was no longer enough and that you wanted to understand yourself and life on a deeper level?

For me, it happened quite naturally. I don’t think there was ever a moment when I suddenly decided that external success wasn’t enough.

I had always been interested in psychology, but that interest became much deeper when I had children.

Children are incredible teachers. I think as parents we somehow expect them to be like us — and then you discover that they are absolutely not! They arrive as complete individuals, with their own personalities, interests, preferences and ways of seeing the world.

And suddenly your job is to respect this individuality while somehow still guiding them and helping them grow into independent, fulfilled human beings. Psychology helped me enormously with that, because very quickly you realise that in order to understand your children, you also have to understand yourself.

Later, the timing in my life simply changed. Lulu became more established, the children grew older, and for the first time I had more space and time to explore these questions seriously.

I started going much deeper into self-development. I studied regression practices and completed several transformational programmes with Katerina Prokhortseva, which gave me new ways of understanding and accepting myself, other people and the way we experience life.

And then, somewhere further along that path, Leela appeared in my life.

Which philosophies, teachers, practices or ideas have affected you most recently?

I come from a Christian background, but I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly religious. Throughout my life I’ve been curious about different traditions, philosophies and thinkers. I’ve explored Buddhism and Kriya Yoga, and I’ve been interested in the work of Carl Jung, Irvin Yalom, Eckhart Tolle and Erich Fromm, among others.

I think what I’ve been looking for is a way of understanding something we all experience but cannot necessarily touch or measure.

We live in a very material world, but at the same time we constantly use words like soul, soulful connection, soulmates, atmosphere, energy. We recognise when we have a deep connection with someone. We can walk into a place and somehow feel something about it. We may not always know how to explain these experiences, but they are part of being human.

I sometimes compare it, jokingly, to Wi-Fi. You can’t see or touch Wi-Fi either, but you’re very aware when it disappears!)))

For me, spirituality is not about choosing a religion or rejecting the material world. It’s about recognising that a human being has different dimensions. We have a physical body, a mind, emotions — and I believe we also have a soul.

And I think a good life comes from finding some kind of balance between all of them, rather than developing one while completely ignoring the others.

That is probably the philosophy that resonates with me most today. And I try to make it practical rather than theoretical. Breathwork, Pilates and yoga all help, but so does finding a balance between work and rest, family time and time for myself, learning new things and simply connecting with nature.

Has this inner work changed the way you react when life does not follow your plans?

Oh, absolutely. Although when you say, “life doesn’t follow your plans,” the first thing I would say is that I don’t really have one big master plan for my life!

So when the route changes, I’m often more curious than frightened. I think, “Okay, interesting… where is this turn going to take me? Which way do I want to go at this crossroads?” I actually enjoy that uncertainty. It adds variety — and a little spice — to life.

And when it comes to spirituality, I’m really not interested in theory for the sake of theory. I’m a very practical person. Whenever I learn something new, I want to take it into real life almost immediately and observe: does this actually work? Does it change the way I react? Does it help me understand another person better?

That’s where these ideas become meaningful to me — in conversations with guests, in running the hotel, in my relationship with my husband, and especially with my children.

For me, being conscious doesn’t mean knowing all the right spiritual concepts. It means noticing yourself while life is actually happening — your reactions, assumptions and choices — and then having a little more freedom in what you do next.

Otherwise, knowledge is just something you take from a shelf, read and put back on a dusty shelf again. And where’s the fun in that?

Where do spirituality and everyday business actually meet for you?

I think one of the simplest examples is our cancellation policy.

Years ago, I had an experience myself when my visa was delayed and I had to postpone a trip. I missed the hotel’s free-cancellation deadline by literally a few hours, even though the stay was still two or three weeks away. I explained the situation, but their response was basically, “Those are the terms.” They charged the full amount and weren’t interested in hearing anything else.

I remember thinking that perhaps they were completely right according to the rules — but it didn’t feel very human.

So at Lulu, we have cancellation terms, of course. We are a business and we need them. But I always try to look at the person behind the reservation. If someone has a genuine family situation, an accident, a medical emergency or a missed flight — life happens. I would rather understand the circumstances than automatically say, “These are the rules, goodbye.”

In six years, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually charged a cancellation fee. Usually it was when people simply didn’t bother to contact us at all and we were waiting until two or three in the morning before finally realising nobody was coming. Then yes — I charge!

And there is something else I find fascinating. Very often, when I decide to let a cancellation fee go, those exact dates get booked again almost immediately. I’m not presenting that as some universal spiritual law — it’s simply something I’ve noticed happening again and again.

I think the same philosophy applies to our team and our guests. We build relationships with people as people, not simply as employees or clients. We’ve had virtually no staff turnover; people stay with us for years. The same goes for our guests. Some have become friends over the years, return to Lulu regularly, and sometimes we even visit them. You could say we’ve been lucky — and perhaps we have — but I also think it’s about a genuine connection with people.

So for me, this is where spirituality and business meet: in everyday decisions where you can choose between simply being right according to the rules and also being human.

How did Leela first enter your life, and what made you want to share it with other people?

I discovered Leela completely by accident. I heard about it in an interview and immediately became curious.

Leela has its roots in an ancient Indian game of self-knowledge. The version I discovered has 72 spaces, each representing different states and experiences that human beings encounter throughout life.

And that was what fascinated me. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re a professor, a pilot, a plumber, a shop assistant or a business owner — underneath all those roles, we experience many of the same human states: fear, attachment, anger, jealousy, compassion, joy, purpose, clarity. They appear in different forms, but they are part of all our lives.

So naturally, I wanted to try it.

My first experience completely amazed me. I fell in love with the game almost immediately because of the way it helped me hear answers from within myself.

Nobody was sitting opposite me telling me what I should do with my life. Instead, the game took me through a particular sequence of states and questions, and I kept recognising myself and my own life in what was appearing.

In everyday life, when an answer comes from somewhere inside you, you can immediately start questioning it: “Did I imagine that? Is that really what I think? Am I just telling myself what I want to hear?”

During that first Leela experience, something felt different. I could see the connections unfolding in front of me, and the answers felt surprisingly clear.

That was the moment I thought: I really want to understand how this works. And eventually, I wanted to learn how to guide other people through the same experience.

For someone hearing about Leela for the first time, what actually happens during the game?

The simplest way to describe Leela is probably as a board game for self-discovery.

You come to the game with a question or an intention — something in your life you would like to understand better. It can be about a relationship, work, a decision you’re struggling with, a repeating pattern, or simply a feeling that you’re stuck and don’t quite know why.

The board has 72 spaces, representing different human states and aspects of our experience. You move through the game by throwing a dice, and wherever you land becomes the next point of exploration.

Some cells have arrows that take you forward, others have snakes that take you backwards — but what I particularly like about Leela is that neither is really “good” or “bad”. Sometimes going backwards is exactly where you need to go in order to see something you’ve been avoiding.

My role as a facilitator is not to interpret your life for you or tell you what your answer is. I explain the meaning of the cell, ask questions, sometimes challenge you to look at something from a different angle — but the recognition has to come from you.

When we talk about our own lives, we naturally tend to follow familiar paths. We tell the same stories, explain why things happened, defend our decisions and often arrive at conclusions we already know.

In Leela, you don’t choose the next subject. The dice does. Suddenly the game may place you in front of a question you would never have thought to ask yourself — and yet somehow it connects to your original intention.

Another thing I love about Leela is that, in a sense, it is an experience without an intermediary. You throw the dice with your own hand. You land on the different states. And ultimately, you are the one who recognises what they mean in the context of your own life.

Of course, I’m there as a facilitator, but I’m not there to give you my interpretation of who you are or what you should do. I try to keep my own projections and assumptions to a minimum.

The experience belongs to you. You make the connections, you find the meaning, and you decide what resonates and what doesn’t. You remain the author of your own insights.

There are no winners or losers. Leela doesn’t give you advice or predict your future. It creates a structure in which you can see yourself from a different perspective — and sometimes recognise an answer that, somewhere inside, you already knew but perhaps needed to trust.

What kinds of questions or moments in life bring people to Leela?

People come to Leela with incredibly different questions.

Sometimes they’re at a crossroads — considering a change in career, a relationship, a move or another important decision — and they want clarity about what is really holding them back or what they genuinely want.

Sometimes there is a repeating pattern: “Why do I keep ending up in the same kind of relationship?” “Why do I know what I want but never actually do it?” “Why does this particular person trigger me so much?”

And sometimes there isn’t a clear problem at all. A person may say, “Everything in my life is actually fine, but something feels missing. I don’t even know what my question is.”

I really like those requests too.

You definitely don’t need to be in crisis to play. Curiosity is enough.

And Leela isn’t only for adults, which is another side of the game that I find fascinating.

There is a special version for children, with a slightly different board and adapted rules, and I’ve played it with my own children. It’s a completely different experience because children often approach the game with much less analysis and fewer preconceived ideas than adults do.

It can also be very interesting with teenagers, especially around questions of identity, studies and future direction. My own fifteen-year-old daughter, for example, is currently facing all those decisions about which subjects to choose and what direction she may eventually want to take professionally.

At that age, everyone has an opinion about what you should do — parents, teachers, friends. Leela can create a space where a teenager can put some of that outside noise aside and listen to their own doubts, concerns and interests.

I think that ability to hear yourself is valuable at any age.

What do you hope a person will leave with after completing a Leela experience with you?

I think everyone leaves with something different, and that’s part of what I love about Leela.

For one person, the game may simply confirm something they already knew deep down but were afraid to trust. Someone else may suddenly notice possibilities they hadn’t considered before. Another person may leave with a sense of calm or confidence about a decision.

Sometimes people discover emotions they didn’t even realise were there, simply because they had never looked into those hidden little corners of themselves before.

And what is also fascinating is that you don’t necessarily have to be the one playing to recognise something. Sometimes people observe another person’s game, hear their reflections, and suddenly something resonates with their own life. Someone else’s journey can unexpectedly become a mirror for you too.

So I don’t have one particular result that I hope everyone will achieve. I don’t think that’s how Leela works. Each person takes from the experience what is relevant to them at that particular moment.

But one thing I do believe: nobody leaves empty-handed.

Could Leela represent another turning point in your life — and where do you see Ludmila five years from now?

If I look back, almost every major change in my life happened quite suddenly — and none of them could have been predicted five years in advance.

Five years before moving to Malta, I could never have imagined that I would one day live on this island. Five years before Lulu, we had no idea that we would create a boutique hotel. And Leela was the same — it appeared unexpectedly, caught my curiosity and somehow became an important new part of my life.

So could it be another turning point? Absolutely. But I have no idea yet where that turn will lead — and I think that’s part of the fun.

What I can see is the direction of my curiosity. Leela isn’t the only thing I’m exploring. I’m also interested in deep interviewing and personality typology — different tools, but all connected by the same fascination: understanding ourselves better. I’m not particularly interested in telling people who they are. I’m much more interested in creating questions and experiences that help people discover something about themselves.

So I genuinely don’t know where I’ll be five years from now. And actually, I’m quite comfortable with that.

What I do know is what I’ll take with me wherever life goes next: my positive attitude, my curiosity, everything I’ve learned along the way, my love for people and, most importantly, my love for my family.

And I hope they’ll be there with me as we continue this journey through life.

VISIT LULU BIUTIQUE HERE
BOOK YOUR LEELA EXPERIENCE HERE