The Power of Not Waiting for Permission: In Conversation with Louise Hazel

1 day ago
8 min read

I first met Louise in 2019 while completing my final-year dissertation, which explored the barriers elite athletes face when building themselves as personal brands. At the time, she had just moved to Los Angeles to launch her boutique training facility in Hollywood, and I remember being in awe of her bravery - choosing entrepreneurship in a foreign country when London wasn’t ready for her vision. Writing this feature years later, her journey resonates so deeply.

At 19, during a gap year from university, I was training as a full-time athlete and relied on my mum’s car to get across London. I felt so guilty, like I was limiting her freedom, especially as I had younger siblings. She sacrificed her flexibility to allow my sister and I to chase our dreams. So, that year, I made a portfolio of my sister and I’s athletic achievements and went door-knocking at local car dealerships asking for sponsorship. No agents, no guidance, just belief and blind faith. Sometimes I wore my training kit in hope that I would seem more ‘legit’ as an athlete 😅😂. Eventually I walked into Jemca Toyota Bromley. What started as a shot in the dark became an eight-year partnership!

Louise’s story mirrors that same refusal to wait for permission; with no sponsors and limited support, she hustled relentlessly to make her dreams viable, both on the track and beyond - and that’s exactly why her journey feels so powerful. I hope you enjoy reading her story as much as I enjoyed writing it. And maybe, just maybe, it inspires you to knock on a door you’ve been waiting to open.

Louise Hazel has lived many lives. Olympian. Commonwealth Games gold medallist. Entrepreneur. A force in the global health and fitness industry. Now based in Los Angeles, she runs her own boutique personal training facility where she’s trusted by high-profile clients including Michelle Monaghan, Julianne Hough and Radhi Devlukia. A true multi-hyphenate, Louise’s success is underpinned by perseverance, an ability to lock in with visceral focus, and a rare talent for building systems that work.

But her story isn’t simply one of elite performance. It’s about what happens when ambition outgrows the structures designed to contain it.

Early Beginnings

Born in Southwark, London, Louise was “absolute mischief” as a child - restless, energetic, and always in motion. From netball, hockey and rounders to football and gymnastics, she did it all whilst balancing track training every Tuesday and Thursday after school. “Physical activity was part of my identity before I even understood it,” she recalls.

Around the age of ten, that boundless energy began to take shape by focussing on athletics. On the wall of her school sports centre hung a poster of Denise Lewis at the Sydney Olympics. Javelin drawn back, wearing an iconic one-sleeved one suit, Louise was inspired. “I remember thinking, I want to be that.” In that moment, female athleticism meant power, and that image alone was enough to ignite a lifelong pursuit to winning gold medals.

Sport First, Heptathlon Later

Louise’s path to the heptathlon was anything but linear. Her introduction to Track & Field came through distance running, though she quickly noticed the sprinters appeared to be doing “less work” and jokingly decided she wanted to “go over there.”

Despite starting in endurance events, Louise always knew speed was her strength.“Every sports day, I was zooming past all the girls and boys, and I loved it.” In her early years, she became a utility athlete for her local club, filling in across field events to secure points during inter-club competitions. That adaptability became her edge and later laid the foundation for her multi-event career.

“Throughout my career as a heptathlete, speed underpinned everything I did.”

Excelling in the 200m, long jump and hurdles, she later learned the throws and earned a reputation as a true all-rounder. After winning both the 100m and pentathlon at English Schools in the same year, and ranking top five nationally across multi-events, she made a strategic decision that marked a shift in her athletics career.

“I loved heptathlon. So I went all in.”

The Art of the Balance

From early on, Louise understood that elite sport is less about peak talent and more about longevity. “It becomes a process of elimination,” she says. “People fall away because of finances, work, or just life.” For Louise, though, there was no ambiguity - track came first. Everything else - education, work, income - had to flex around training.

As a non-funded athlete, the balance was brutal. GCSEs were manageable; however, A-levels and university were far less so. Despite this, she was clear about her goals for the future. “I always knew I wanted skills that existed beyond the track,” she says.

Studying French Studies at the University of Birmingham gave her that grounding and high-level communication skills. But her most formative business education came earlier, when her parents uprooted their lives from Thatcham, Berkshire, to buy a pub in March, Cambridgeshire.

The seven-bedroom property, which housed two bars and a chapel, became the family’s entire world. Louise was immersed in the mechanics of business: community-building, entertainment, cash flow, systems. Night after night, she learned a strong work ethic. Those lessons would quietly lay the foundations for her future as an entrepreneur.

When the System Collapses

In 2008, Louise’s final year of university, everything imploded. She lost her father. She failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. And her UK Lottery funding was withdrawn. What had once been a stable way of living came crashing down all at once. The emotional loss of her father passing collided with the financial uncertainty of not knowing where she would get her next paycheck.

“It was a complete reset,” she says. “Everything - emotional, financial, physical - had to be rebuilt.” Determined to protect her training base, she stayed in Birmingham and took on two jobs: one as a Sport Scholarship Administrator at the university, and one at Nespresso as a salesperson.

“Financially, I was still figuring it out, but weirdly never felt so empowered. Even though my lottery funding had been taken away, I was emboldened by the spirit of my father and being a fighter.”

That same year, Louise switched coaching groups to train under Julie Hollman. Within ten months, she qualified for the 2009 World Championships and eighteen months later, she won Commonwealth gold in 2010.

For Louise, the key to her success wasn’t necessarily resilience – it was agency. When institutional support vanished, she didn’t wait for it to return. She engineered alternatives to set herself up in the best way she could.

Twelve for 2012

Ahead of the London Olympics, Louise made her most radical move yet. With no major sponsors and dwindling resources, she created ’12 for 12’ - a grassroots funding model built on transparency and value exchange. She pitched twelve Birmingham businesses directly: £2,000 a year for three years, in exchange for one appearance and talk annually. After a year of relentless pitching, all twelve signed on. “That money fixed my problem,” she says. “It allowed me to focus.”

Within a year, she was winning medals. Talent needs infrastructure and belief needs backing. Waiting to be chosen is a losing strategy, so Louise created her own luck.

“It really comes down to doing everything in your power to chase your dream. You should be able to look back on your sporting career and say you left it all on the track.”

The Art of the Pivot

Knowing when to exit elite sport is one of the hardest calls an athlete can make. For Louise, London 2012 marked both the peak and the end. As rising stars like Katarina Johnson-Thompson emerged, she recognised that her body and her performances were no longer where they needed to be to remain competitive.

“You have to understand that your time in sport is limited,” she says. “You’re part of a cycle of athletes. It’s a privilege to hand that baton over.”

She was also acutely aware of her commercial value. In 2012, Olympic athletes weren’t paid for performance, and with sponsorship in British Athletics waning, she knew that “eighth in the world wouldn’t change my life.”

So, she made a choice - rebuild for another Olympic cycle or redirect that energy elsewhere. Louise chose the latter.

Slay and the Business of Strength

Long before retirement, Louise had been laying the groundwork for her first venture. Drawing on her coaching network and elite training principles, she learned about periodisation, progressive overload, systems thinking, and began writing her own gym programmes.

“As I built it out, I started questioning why the average woman doesn’t have access to this,” she says. “Then I realised...women were exercising, not training.”

“I wanted to take everything I knew about Track & Field, and put it into a programme.”

Initially launched in London as The Podium Effect, the programme struggled. “I spent so much money building the website, and virtually no one bought it,” she admits. However, the issue wasn’t the content, it was the positioning. Framed as elite sport rather than empowerment, it felt inaccessible to the people she was trying to target.

With this, Louise identified a gap in the market: a philosophy rooted in athletic methodology, not aesthetic aspiration. And that’s where Slay was born.

Inspired by Beyoncé’s cultural dominance, Slay reframed strength as ownership; ownership over your body, voice and identity. But the UK market wasn’t ready. Publishers called the name “too aggressive,” and executives failed to place the tone. “Everything was granola,” Louise says. “That wasn’t my world, and it’s not that the market wasn’t ready, it’s that the glass ceiling came crashing down on me.”

Through copious no’s, the message was clear: strength wasn’t palatable unless softened. So, in 2019, Louise left for Los Angeles - a city that offered proximity to culture, scale, and a greater appetite for risk. That move led her to owning a boutique gym on Hollywood Boulevard, running a digital training platform, and leading a global community centred on physical autonomy.

From Athlete to Entrepreneur

Louise approaches business the way she approached the heptathlon: multi-disciplined and systems led. Her advice to new founders is both pragmatic and precise:

1. Test demand – use landing pages, surveys and pricing signals to test demand.

2. Test cheaply – launch the simplest MVP possible and iterate fast.

3. Sell outcomes, not hype – shift mindset from focusing on what the product or service does to what it can do for your customers and clients.

She also emphasises the importance of team structure. “There are operators, engineers and visionaries,” she explains. “You need all three.” Operators execute. Engineers solve. Visionaries see the bigger picture. Sustainable businesses require all these functions to deliver excellence, at scale.

Beyond the Finish Line

Reflecting on her journey, Louise smiles. “I gave track and field everything,” she says. “And I’ve built something I’m proud of.” London and the UK will always have her heart, but Los Angeles is home now - not because she ran from something, but because she ran towards possibility, and is now reaping the rewards of betting on herself.

From an Olympian who chased medals to an entrepreneur building movements, Louise Hazel’s story is a reminder that waiting for permission is a losing game. Progress belongs to those willing to move first, to take risks, and to commit fully to the pursuit of what they want. Her legacy isn’t defined by podiums alone, but by the relentless conviction that strength - when owned - can create entirely new lanes.

Get to know Louise:

Born: London, UK

Ethnicity: Guyanese 🇬🇾 and English 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Songs on rotation: Alaska by Maggie Rogers and Have You Ever Seen The Rain by Arthur Gun