Our Most Talked About Conversation: F*ck First — And Other Cheat Codes For Life

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Hey, out louders, it's Mia here, and I'm here to tell you about our hot pod summer. I know that you can't get away from us, because why would you want to? But you know where the friends in your ears? And the truth is, we didn't want to leave you hanging without our lovely tones and wise words over the holidays and just all our nonsense because you know, me,

What's your cheat code for life? The thing you swear by that opens doors makes everything easier and you wish you knew earlier. There is a Reddit thread going viral where people share their insights, and some are pretty obvious, from looking people in the eye to learning to say no to getting enough sleep. Here are some other popular examples I came across. Get everything in writing, So if you're in a meeting and your manager promises you something, then make sure you get them to email it to you.

That's very good advice.

I love that one. And no one stops someone carrying pizza. You can get backstage at concerts. Now we don't can don't trespassing, but think about it. If someone came to this off and they just had a few things of pizza and it smelt good, I'd let them in if you were backstage, if we were backstage at Out Loud, back to go on stage for our show.

Don't give people ideas unless they have pizza in which come on after the.

Show you're allowed. We asked people in the Mummeya office what their cheat code to life is and here's what they told us.

My life pack is don't put the email address of the person you're emailing in until you've written and table checked your email. It really saves any unedited or unfinished emails being sent accidentally.

The biggest lesson it was actually from my dad that my dad ever taught me was always admit when you've made a mistake. If you can do anything in life is always admit when you're wrong and when you've made a mistake, because that way, you're always going to reflect on your behavior and your role in something, and it also makes you look at the other side of things.

When I'm feeling overwhelmed, I try to take a moment and.

Take five deep breaths.

I think this helps me process what has happened and to not overreact.

When I'm talking to someone new, I try to remember one personal fact about them. If I know that I'm going to see them again, like the name of their dog or what suburb they live in, I can ask them about it the next time I see them. Then they know that I've listened to them and that I care what they're saying, and hopefully they can become more trusting of me after that.

So if I'm ever in a situation where I'm asked for my opinion about something that's important or a big decision or something that I just know is going to take a lot of thoughts just in the moment saying hey, let me just sleep on this and get back to you tomorrow. I used to think that I needed to sort of have an answer straight away ready to go, but sleeping on something just always gives me so much more clarity.

Okay, so my friend has this great cheek code. She always looks smart at the airport, and she reckons that's the secret to getting upgraded to business class.

One of the best things I got from a parenting book is just add water. So if your kid is losing their shit, you either put them outside with the sprinklers, throw them in the bath, or give them a drink of water. I've actually started doing that myself and it is a game changer. So if I've got a tough decision to make, or if i want to go and yell at someone, I'll take a shower first, I'll drink a glass of water. It always calms me down, and it always works.

How that is Hollywood's enthusiastically agreeing with almost all of those shoes, Like, yep, yep, that works, Yep, I agree, I do.

I don't do them all, but they're all very good.

I also asked the out louders if they had any and here are some that they came up with. I really like this one from Brooks. She says, I'm a big fan of don't put it down, put it away, So you're not allowed to, like just put your bag down. It's got a place, put it away. Another one from Kirby. Every Sunday I make uniform packs for each kid, so school uniform undie sox, roll it up and put a rubber band around it. They go in baskets in our buffet, and each morning kids go and grab their own pack

Yeah, because I have just doing that.

And then I also take a photo of if you're in the shopping center, the place that you enter the shopping center, because it's all very well knowing you're on C seven, but you can't remember where C seven is exactly right, And if you know that, you came in next to T two.

Then you're fine, Yes, yes, Maya. You had a birthday this week, so i'd hope that you'd learned a few lessons. What are some of your cheat codes?

I have written down four I could just think of off the top of my head.

Right.

The first is if you are someone who has to have daily medication but you sometimes can't remember if you've had it or not. I now have a pill box with the days, and I just dispense all my pills, you know, every couple of weeks into this pill box. But the other way to do it is to say out loud, I'm having my pill now on Tuesday. As you have it, I say it out.

You'd be so annoying to live with. I know you're annoying to live.

Yeah you did.

Where do you buy those pill boxes?

Chemist?

Yeah?

Or Amazon? Chemists?

You think you know, and then you get into bed and you go, no, no, I took that pill.

Ye was that yesterday? And it's like, I think I have a memory of taking that pill. I'm always living in my head and half the time I'm on an automatic pilot. I don't remember what I've done or what I haven't done. It might not be a pill It might be if you always forget to turn off your hair straight now and you know you're driving to work and you're like, did I turn it up? And you're like, so, like, I'm turning off my hair straightener today on Tuesday.

I love it. It's so weird.

Moving on my next.

To lie.

That's like how you tell come live with me, knock your head up three times on the pillow, and go, I will not have a bad dream tonight.

I've found another cheak code. If you don't want to have a bad dream, just before you go to sleep, imagine white color white, like white, like looking at a white sheet, like with your eyes closed, a white wall or something like that. If you just think white, white, white, and then you won't have a bad.

Scientific take away.

My next cheak code for life is when I'm feeling really emotional and I'm having big feelings that seem out of proportion to the thing that's happening.

That that doesn't happen very often, so I don't know why you would need a cheat code.

Thanks so much, happy except I always forget this cheat code, but please from mine. I had a therapist who used to do this and she would say, how old do you feel right now? Pet? She would say, and that sounds passive aggressive, but she was never being passive aggressive. She like, I didn't mind her calling me pet, but it was very clarifying. It immediately tunes you in or tunes me into, going, I feel six years old? What was going on in my life when I was six

So like in emails or like in meetings.

Or like I'm so sorry I'm late, it's like, thank you so much for understanding I've just had the worst morning, or yes I couldn't kind of part.

You've said as well. When I say i'm sorry, I then put some responsibility on you to make me feel better, which is really annoying for the person who's been.

Saying like I'm so sorry and they're just like yeah. But if you just go thank you so much for understanding or for not leaving or whatever, it is like it flips it and it gives the person a compliment and some status for being a good person and kind of tricks them into being less mad with you.

Holly, what do you have Okay, you have some cheakcakes.

I have no practical ones because my practical life is terrible. You know the people who are like like the lady with the school uniform. I wish I was that, but I'm never that, and I just can't get my shit together in that way. But I have like other ones this one. Who did we seal this from me? I'm always fuck first?

Oh?

Yes, that was from Dan Savage who has this podcast.

This is very good advice.

I find does mean that you should say with people all the time away.

What it means. So this is particularly good advice for a phase in your life. Right, So imagine this. You and your partner have got a date night, and it's rare that you've got a date night because you know, you've got kids and you've got whatever. But maybe you find the kids out to their grandparents for the night, maybe whatever, and you go, it's gonna be great. We're gonna go out for a meal, we're gonna have cocktails, and we're gonna come home, we're gonna have sex. Gonna

You feel bloated, you'll get sloppy.

Fuck first. Always getting ready for a wedding, it's a sauning date. Fuck first, then go out, got a dinner date, Fuck first, always fuck first. That is the best.

You got a big meal. You're not feeling.

No.

Late night sex is not it when you're not like it's different when you're in a different phase of your life. But when you're an established so they go you weren't expecting a sex cheek.

Because then you have an empty stomach.

Yeah yeah, And also about with the spring in your step, and then when you sit there at dinner, you're not like, it's just good. It's just always a good plan.

It's very sound.

I really like that one. You too, won't agree with me about this. Anyone who bitches to you is also bitching about you.

That is a fine bitchy words to live by.

You know how we often talk about how you need people in your life. You can bitch too, and you do right like generally, But people who always bitch to you about everybody. They are also bitching to everybody.

Okay, okay, without question, but I'm not bitching about everybody on my bitch about like two people to you, but I'm not bitching about you. Do you believe me?

Oh my god, she doesn't.

I realized that about when I used to get Brazilian bikini waxes and my waxa used to tell me things about her other clients. Yes, And I was a bit like, no, that's true.

Right in professional settings, this is particularly true.

I agree.

Like, sometimes you'll interview someone for a job when I've been a manager, and actually me is terrible this because she always tries to get people to bitch in job interviews. But like if the person that you're interviewing will bitch about their current employer, but it's a test hire them.

That's why I do it.

Yeah, it is.

It's a and forgossip pos Thank you for your understanding, but I love it.

Listening and changing your mind is a sign of strength, not weakness.

One hundred Every time strong opinions lose me.

Hell, people who are very much like you know, oh you used to think this, and no you think that, and you said that that time and all that stuff. They don't know what they're doing. Those people, they're silly. And if you don't have a better idea, shut the fuck up. That is something I was by a lot. You know, when you're just like I don't like that, that's wrong. Da da da da da, And you can get into a really negative cycle. You've got to ask yourself, have I got a better idea? Do I think?

How would I do it? And is it honestly better?

Yeah?

Is it better? Always?

Yeah? That's and can you be bothered to do it? Because you probably can't, in which case, forget about it?

Yeah, exactly.

There are some Okay, mine are weird. Good one that I have is about memory. I've said it before, years and years ago, but this is something I did when I was studying at school, and I read this fact somewhere and the fact might not be true. It doesn't matter. If you want to remember something, memorize something, whether it's like a speech or a fact or notes. I'll print it on green paper. I read it once. Apparently if you read off green paper, it's a trigger for memory.

Do you have green paper for that purpose?

I used to. I haven't needed it recently, But if I was like doing a speech where I felt like I needed to know this completely off by heart, I would do it on green paper.

I wonder if you can replicate that on your phone, because I mean, who's going to go out and buy green paper?

Oh?

See?

I always do paper. I think phones very very different. I think that my brain is wired to forget everything I look at that's on a screen. I think when it's on paper, it holds totally different.

So did you like print out all your school notes on green paper?

Yeah? Yep, and how green green that I'm still like, read it like that the black is still visible. But even if it's not, if I'm telling my brain this green paper means I'll memorize it, it's like pale green.

Yeah.

So that's always helped me. My rule for emails or messages or anything is do not open it until you can reply.

That's a really good rule because I always forget that rule, and that's why I'm very bad on email. I've got a minute, I'm going to read it. I'll go. I'll get back to that later. No, I won't.

Now, my memory is not good enough for that. I use the Pomodori method for just about everything.

Yeah.

So timing yep. I have a stop watch for everything I do. What it is, It's like, recently, I had this big ish project that I had to complete, and it was like pulling teeth. I just was not enjoying any I knew I needed to do it, but it was a job, and every time I sat down to do it, I would go, you're going to do twenty minutes. Look at the clock, time it now, and just get twenty minutes of it.

So it's like you almost have to sneak up on yourself. Yep.

Yeah, I do that. I set thirty minutes on my phone and then I put my phone in a drawer somewhere away yep. And then when my thirty minutes goes off, that I focus. I'm allowed to play with my phone for four minutes.

Then I have to put another timer on.

It actually makes you satisfied because sometimes when you're doing projects, you can spend twenty minutes doing something and you've got no more words, and you actually don't feel like you've got anywhere, but you always have. So it's a way of measuring progress. Another one I have is when you're speaking to someone and they're telling you something, say you're right, rather than I know, like if I'm really engaged and hoy, you're telling me about the substance and your analysis of it,

That's interesting. A tangent on that is that I found this particularly when I had little kids and everyone's giving you a lot of advice. Oh, and people like push it onto you, and I used to try and push back it, like I used to resent it, and then I realized they'll keep going until you say, what a great idea? Yeah, that will shut them up. Then they'll move on because they think that you're going to do it and you're not. But you just say that to

My last one is argue the point, not the person related to that, and never argue on the internet. But anyone I see, or even if I'm having a discussion or an argument with someone, there is a threshold by which they've completely lost me. And it's like any name calling, even in people that I really respect their opinion, it's like at that point, I've just write it off. And it's something that's really really hard to keep yourself accountable for. And I think I'm better at it now than I

So you mean, like the way the Internet's made everyone jump straight to you're a racist, you're a fascist, yere.

Or even like the vice presidential debate this week, Roundly people are generally saying Jade Vance won that, and all the leftist people don't like him, right, including myself. But rather than admitting that he won that, you know, like, but that doesn't mean we should all go out and vote for him. They're all going look at his stupid way he looks stupid, Look at his stupid eyeline. I look at his stupid and it's not eyeliner. But that's not the point. But it's like petty name calling. I'm like,

I also think that if we're having an argument and you say something that I don't agree with, and then I go, well, you would think that because and I bring up something from your personal life, I've clearly lost my either train of thought or my point, because if my point's strong enough, then I don't need to start character assassinating you or making assumptions about your life. Yeah, it's something that I try and hold myself too.

Smart, because by calling someone a name, you just immediately shut down any possibility of conversation.

Or making something personal that isn't personal. Do you know what I mean? Like, because then immediately just put somebody's back up and you don't. Yeah, I agree, good one. I've got one more sleep on it. Always, always, always everything I'm really really upset about. I nearly always feel better the next day. So unless you can't sleep on it because it's a decision that needs to be made right now.

How about but everyone says about not going to bed angry with your partner. What do you think of that?

Oh?

No, Sometimes I'm not a grudge keeper, so I couldn't be. Like I've got friends who cannot speak to their partner for three days and live in the same house.

I could never ever do that.

It's just not my nature. It doesn't mean I'm particularly not. It's just like I'm more of a goldfish, do you know what I mean? So that's not so much of a problem.

I think they sleep on it things interesting because I try to be that sometimes. But then I do sleep because you have to in the course of an argument, and then I just kind of lose interest.

Grudge. Maybe that's good, right, yeah, because it.

Can be frustrating when I want to hold it.

If it was worth holding, you maybe would hold it.

Out Louders, please jump in to the mummya out Louders Facebook group. We've got a thread in there that will pin with a whole lot of cheat codes for life. Please jump in and add yours. I am reading all of them.

Loud. That's actually a low pat There you go, out Louders. Didn't I say you'd enjoy that? And was I wrong? Maybe I was. If you fancy more from our Hot Pot Summer special selection, listen out for your favorite podcast wherever you usually get episodes ab out Loud, and don't forget to subscribe to Mumia to hear new subscriber content. So if you want some newness in your ears. There's a link in the show notes so that you never miss an episode, and a huge thank you if you're already a subscriber.