Lujan Arguelles (Salas; Asturias; 1977) speaks at a thousand times an hour. But as a good announcer, she manages the pauses and laughs when she plays. Ten years with Luis del Olmo (‘Protagonistas’), Juan Antonio Cebrián (‘La rosa de los vientos’), Carlos Herrera (‘Herrera en la onda’) and running his own space, ‘Let’s see if you dare’, were her great school. Perhaps few remember her for broadcasting the fire at Windsor Castle or the death of John Paul II for six hours, but surely she does for being the ‘television matchmaker’: with the ‘Tróspidos’ from ‘Who wants to marry my son’‘Farmer looking for a wife’ or ‘A prince for Corina’.
-He is back twice, his own program on Netflix (‘Who likes my follower?’) and a book (‘Learning to live again’), in which he emotionally undresses.
-These are different themes. One is entertainment and the other is a book of reflection, of self-knowledge. But I have not stopped doing things even in a pandemic, I recorded advertising and programs with Santi Millán. The fact that you are not in ‘prime time’ does not mean that you do not do things. I also have a segmented ‘micromarketing’ company: we make absolutely personalized ads for companies. I’m a founding partner of Snipett. We have developed a code, with which we have won international competitions. And I have just presented an event called Club de Capitanas, which brings together women from industry, commerce and science…
-How did you come up with the idea of ’dating’?
-On television they decided that the programs that I presented no longer had a place. But he didn’t agree at all. The idea came to me in 2018, and then I was able to carry it out on Netflix. The program is seen in the 192 countries where the platform operates. A rush!
“The human being, when he is falling in love, vibrates with a very high energy, which is that of love, the highest of all”
-Have you signed for more seasons?
For me it is a finished project. I have thoroughly enjoyed him, but now God will provide. I’m already with another story, which we have signed, but I still can’t tell more about it, and I prefer that God doesn’t provide much yet [risas]. It is a television project that requires extreme dedication. ‘Who likes my follower?’ It’s a reality, there it is. It is the magic of Netflix, which will make its way there and reach diverse audiences. We will be able to analyze it with serenity.
-And, once again, she plays hostess-matchmaker again…
-Yes. I find it very funny, I have a great time. I believe that the human being, when he is falling in love, vibrates with a very high energy, which is that of love, the highest of all.
-Have you ever resorted to the networks to date, like the participants of the program?
-The truth is, no. But I have discovered that through the networks there are many people sending ‘little fires’.
-And in addition to promoting ‘matches’ in a new ‘reality’, he dares with a personal growth manual.
-It came up during a meeting with the publisher, La Esfera de los Libros. They asked me to write something. I told them that I had many things on my mind that I wanted to put into practice, and that a book requires a lot of concentration, and, furthermore, it is not my comfort zone. But if there was one thing I could write about, it was about the process I experienced after the pandemic, about how my way of understanding life has changed.
“Life speaks to you, it gives you signs. If it came from my daughter’s mouth, I had to react, she is my great teacher”
-Recounts the moment when he felt the ‘click’, when his 7-year-old daughter Miranda asked him “the most shocking and most accurate question” that he has ever been asked: ‘Mom, are you happy?’
-The summer of 2020 I separate, it is my first summer without my daughter, she goes on vacation with her father, I am left alone. That, added to the fact that I was not professionally where I wanted to be, made me feel in an emotional sewer of stratospheric dimensions. I thought ‘this far!’. Now I know, after six months of learning, and from everything I’ve read, and what I’ve been trained in, that life speaks to you, gives you signs. If it came from my daughter’s mouth, I had to react, she is my great teacher.
-Did you used to read self-help manuals before?
-No. During my adolescence I did have a period of reading in the field of psychology, but later, with the professional whirlwind and that of my daughter, I only read about current affairs, politics, biographies… My ‘coach’, Paz Calap, tells me that has had thousands of students, but none have made an immersion as brutal as me. It wasn’t easy, because when she began to teach me the ritual of meditation, of gratitude, of the morning pages… I said to myself ‘this lady is crazy in the head’. I felt very ridiculous. But it really has been something magical.
“There are scars under the chevrons that you see. The difference is that now I have changed my attitude”
-Has he been reborn as the Phoenix?
-Exact. I feel very different. I was very obsessive, very pessimistic, very anchored in fear, what happened is that I had overwhelming willpower and achieved my goals based on will. Not out of enthusiasm and optimism. Now I am tremendously optimistic and enthusiastic, not because I was born, no; because I work it. This is the same as when you must play sports to be strong. Now I embrace even my vulnerability, because that’s when I’m most receptive.
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-A survival ‘kit’ has even been assembled, for when things go wrong.
-We have to be constant, we cannot lower our arms. And you have to be thankful. We sleep on a great mattress, we open the tap, and water comes out, we have public health, schools… It is not a good or blind reading of reality. Of course there are things to solve, but that’s life: growth, accumulating experiences… Someone may think, ‘of course, from your position’ it’s easy. But beware, I came from a town of a thousand inhabitants, my father is a butcher… and I have had to travel through many very dark places. There are scars under the chevrons you see. The difference is that now I have changed my attitude.