I get a team. Welcome to another installment that you projector taps. It's jumbo, it's me, it's it's well. It's an interesting collective. I have here today because we are operating at a sixty six point sixty six recurring percentage of TIFFs. There's three people in the show. Two of them are called Tiff. I'm feeling outnumbered. I'm feeling marginalized. We'll go to Tiff with two e's. You'd be happy as a pig in shit, wouldn't you.
You're out tifted, You're out Yeah.
I am definitely out tifted now before we go to our guest. The actual the reason we're here not that you're not important. TC.
I you.
I was talking to you yesterday and one of my mates says this expression, flatter than a shit Carter's hat. Now you sounded listener, TIFs She's like, Tiff Fall's like, oh fuck, they listen to how they talk on the show. Oh my god, this is nothing. This is not Channel ten. FU. You need to say at least one fuck today, Tift. Otherwise you don't. Otherwise you don't get your typ tick. So you were flat yesterday, TIF cook, what is going on?
I was You know those days where you're just tired and you're a bit miserable and you just want to There are those days where actually the best thing would be to get out and be around people, but the hardest thing to do is get out and be around people because you feel like a misery gut. So that was me yesterday, dragging myself around going come on, TIF make a good decision.
Well, so if yesterday were what were you? What were you out of ten emotionally and mentally yesterday? Give yourself a score maybe three? And what do you reckon? You are today?
I reckon I'm on the upward and I'm rocketing to a solid seven and getting better as the day goes on.
Well, I to talk about this, but let's introduce our actual guest, Tip All. Hi, tiff Aall, welcome to the You Project.
Thank you for having me.
I'm bloody super excited because you're a big deal. I mean, I didn't know which T shirt to wear? Do I wear the black one with Lonsdale? Do you wear?
Oh You're funny?
No one with everlast? I mean, fuck, I was holding up T shirts standing in front of the mirror.
Look gorgeous.
You look. Thank you fucking liar Pants on fire Welcome back, It's Tiff Pants on fire Hall. Now everyone knows who you are you of course, Well, you're an athlete, you're still an athlete. You're a presenter, a journalist, you're an author, you're a mum, you're a wife, you're an ex gladiator, you're a host. Like your busy as fuck, I think in science. So thanks for taking an hour out of the busyness. What are you doing today? What's taking other than this? What's taken your attention today?
Run a business? So it was a meeting with our CEO, and I did some training this morning and that's pretty much where I've got to But yeah, the business does take up a lot of my time.
Yeah, hey, I'd like to put you two in an octagon, not a boxing ring, because well, TIFFs a boxer and you're a fucking fifteenth dan black belt in is it taekwondo?
Yeah? Taekwondo? Yeah yeah, So I would.
Like to just lock that cage, shut, stand, get myself, I get myself a protein drink, jump in a bean.
Bag, and I don't think what would do any good. I don't know, Although I have seen some UFC fighters use the taekwondo very efficiently. They're kicks and things, but I think a boxer would win.
I don't know. Yeah, once you kick her in the head.
Oh yeah, but you've got to get that kick and you've got to have the distance, right. Oh, it's tough.
Well, arguably arguably the biggest UFC personality in the world, although not a competitor, but strongly tied to the UFC, of course, Joe Rogan. He's a very famous taekwondo black belt and that was his That was the roots of his martial arts, wasn't it.
Yeah, it's a good foundation. It is actually a really really good foundation for all other martial arts. It is. I've loved it.
Just explain to our non martial arts listeners the difference between say, karate, you know, taekwondo. I mean, well, obviously it's vastly different to jiu jitsu and all of those things, but just kind of the snapshot of what is. And of course we've had Lauren Burns on my Yes love laws.
My dad goes straight at the Olympics, so really yeah, yeah, she's like part of the family. Yeah, I love her.
She's a fucking gun and also a brain yak too.
Yes, isn't she? Oh, she's the best.
Annoying. Isn't an annoying when things drew foul?
Threat? She's amazing at everything.
You go, okay yourself. So what's taekwondo?
So, taekwondo is a Korean martial art, whereas karate is a Japanese martial art, and it is a dynamic kicking sport. So if you look at the sport of taekwondo at the Olympics, it's not really using your hands at all. You're just kicking. You can throw a body punch and get a point, but it is predominantly kicking martial art.
Although the sport of taekwondo is very different to the martial art of taekwondo, and the martial arts still has the patterns or the karters they're called in karate, and we do a lot of self defense, and we do a lot of grappling, and we do a lot of everything, a lot of mixed martial arts within it. But the sport of taekwondo is predominantly kicking, so it's very different to other martial arts.
Yeah, do you see yourself? And I mean this is just a matter of perception, so no right or wrong. But do you see like you do a lot of things. You're an author, you know, putting aside the mum and the wife thing, but in terms of just like the stuff that you do so author present a journalist. You know, you went to UNI bah blah blah. Do you see yourself or do you feel first and foremost like an athlete who does other stuff? Do you feel like you
know the other thing that now does taekwondo? I feel like you're at your heart an athlete.
I am at my heart. It's such a good question, and I think you know, I was quite brainy at school and I love school and I love studying, and I almost got a perfect ATR like you're, you know, in year twelve, and because I got basically ninety nine, I felt compelled to do something with it. And I was like, well, I could do law, I could do medicine.
And there was a journalism degree and you need a ninety eight point seventy five to get into that at Melbourne University, and so I sort of felt compelled to do that. And my father, being an Olympic coach who is also a world fighter, that was his job. He went around the world fighting. He has always said, don't be an athlete, don't be a fighter, don't do that. You get one injury and it's all over. There's no you know, you're done in your thirties, blah blah blah.
So I was very much of I've got to get an education, I've got to go to UNI. I've got to get a job other than the personal training or the passion stuff that I was doing at the time. And I was teaching body pump, body combat, doing boot camps, doing personal training, doing all of the fitness stuff. But just felt compelled that I had to go and do the university. And I did. I got my degree, and
I got diploma in languages as well. And I did it but only for a heartbeat because as soon as I saw a little article in the newspaper to do a fitness test, me and my boyfriend at the time said we've got to go do this fitness test with everyone else in Melbourne. And I passed the fitness test.
He didn't. And that was actually the audition for gladiators, but I didn't know it was an audition for TV, and so I just accidentally got through this grueling fitness test and they said, ah, hired as Gladiator Angel and I was like, what what is this? And I just gave up. I was at the Herald Sun at the time, doing like an internship and stuff and was very much wanting to do journalism. But then I just started doing more fitness stuff and fitness on TV, and then I
just have gravitated towards it. I think my parents being fitness instructors too. It's just in my blood. I just love it.
Yeah, but now it's like you have almost this synthesis of writing and media and creativity and sport, and it's like you've brought it all together to make your own bloody casserole. Anyway.
Yes, yes, very much so. And now that I run the business, which is an app, my TXO, and it's got you know, your fitness, your workouts, your mindfulness, your meals, your recipes, all of that stuff. It's a home of women's wellness. It I'm always writing a blog or you know, doing some kind of media to and using these skills always. And you know, whether it's doing my own podcast or I'm always writing, I'm always using that doing ad copy or even you know, social media. It's a lot of writing,
and I really enjoy bringing it all together. But I'm very happy that I've always followed my passion and that has always been movement. And you know, I'm forty this year, and I am having a lot of issues with injuries. But my husband said to me, it's like you've been an athlete and you've had a career into your forties. That's pretty good. You know, it's pretty good. And now my my athletic pursuits are just being able to record
the many, many fitness videos for the app. So I'll do like forty a day, and there it's quite ruling on the body. Forty videos, forty videos a day over like three or four days. Yeah. Wow, it's like it's
a huge load on the body, big volume. And I used to do it easily in my twenties, but now I'm carrying up righters in my knees and I've had rist reconstructions and I just I really have to modify, and yeah, I have to change things around a little bit nowadays because I am noticing that I am I'm struggling. I'm at that time in my life where every athlete gets to, you.
Know, how long are those videos?
Tips they can be anything from five to twenty minutes. Yeah.
Wow.
So and I do take breaks and think forty a day yeah yeah, because you know, I'm a business and we need to be cost effective and we hire the crew and we need to get it all done in a matter of one or two days. And I train for it and I make sure that I'm ready. But it's huge on the nervous system. It's really huge on the nervous system. And I do crash afterwards. It's very hard.
Yeah, it's literally like prepping for a tournament or something. Yeah, like a two day huge tournament. Right.
Yes, absolutely, this is my you know event now, and I do it, you know, every couple of months. And I really do have to train and make sure that I'm doing all the right recovery protocols and things like that to make sure I can get there. But I have I do carry a lot of injuries from combat days, gladiators things like that, and the injuries get to me. It's really really hard. It's really it's getting harder. And plus I had two babies, which I count as major injuries.
Being pregnant as a fitness person wasn't easy. And then I put on a lot of weight and then you know, I had to get fit and strong again, and I wanted to get fit and strong again, but it was it was just two of the biggest things I've ever happened to my body. You know, my body is my work, so it was tough.
Give the app a plug. Just while we're talking about your app and your business, yes, tell everyone what it is.
So it's my TXO and it's available in all app stores and things at soft launch. At the moment, we're still tweaking things. But the website is mytxo dot com. That's where everything's available and you can read about it. And yeah, it's my heart and soul and been doing it for now eight years in business, which is big because there's a lot of a lot of competition in the fitness app space, a lot of free workouts on YouTube, and if I can hold my own against all of that, I'm proud of myself.
Well congrats, that's amazing. So my TXO, everyone go check that out. That'd be awesome. A couple of things, like things that I'm genuinely just curious about. So according to my notes, you know, I do extensive research TIF sometimes one to three minutes today I would have done too well. Actually, there's a strategy in my lack of strategy, and it is like I like to have an organic conversation and find stuff out there as we go, rather than I
know all the answers to the questions I'm asking. Yeah, I did read that you are a sixth STAN black belt. Maybe still is that correct?
Yes, that's correct, And I'm Cookie one official, which means the World Typeweter Federation. In Korea, there's the Cookie one World Typewonda Federation, So you can get you could get any instructor to just grade you and just say I'm
a sixth stand. But I had to send off videos and go write a thesis and go through all all of those things and submit it to Korea, and hey, thousands and thousands of dollars in order to go through the process to become certified as Cookie one sixth STAN and the problem and it's really hard because you need to be certified as a fifth, the fourth and third, second, first, and so this is something I've been working towards since
I was, you know, in my early twenties. Yeah, it's taken twenty years and it's one of the highest ranks you can have as a female martial artist at my age, so you know, it's it's a big deal. But yeah, I now focus more on coaching, not so much competing, and really really do love the coaching and the self defense and that side of things, which I think is so important, especially with everything that's going on now with
violence towards women. I think, you know, we're taught first aid in school, and we're taught, you know, sex ed. Why aren't we taught a bit of self defense that can save your life. I just don't get it. So I've been in schools doing a lot of self defense stuff.
One hundred percent I agree, and I think it's amazing that you're doing that. Tell me a little bit about navigating media, public attention, fame, all that kind of stuff that comes with and body dysc morphea, not necessarily you, but body you know, Like I've always had body issues. I would say I'm a lot better these days, but you know, eating issues, fucking eating disorders, disordered, like not like identifying getting my sense of self through my body and the fuck even like I think a lot of
people think it's just a female thing. It's a fucking everyone's Yes, I've always been insecure about my body. What about you know, as much or as little as you want, but what about navigating that mental and emotional mindfield of having to look a certain way and be a certain way? How had that gone for you young?
When I was younger, in my twenties and I was doing the Biggest Loser and it was tally and a million viewers every night, four nights a week, we were, you know, always being photographed and recognized, and you know, it was hard to I felt pressure back then, but one way I've always dealt with it, and something that comes back to my parents. They put me into taekwondo. They put me into the dough boc, the white pajamas
that you train in, and that was it. I wasn't in a ballet litad or anything, and you were covered and it wasn't about what your body looks like. It's about how your body performs. And I'd always say to myself, Okay, if you're fit, if you're healthy, your body's going to look and reward you and be a certain way. So I did focus on that health and that fitness, you know, throughout those years, but I felt enormous pressure and it all culminated when I had my first baby and I
had a sick pregnancy. I was eating a lot of salt and fat because I was vomiting all the time, and the salt and fat made me feel better than eating like slimy veggies and fish and protein, which made me feel like vomiting more. I put on forty kilows and all of a sudden, I had the baby and I was a trainer like I was forty kilos overweight.
I went from a size six to a size twenty two, and I had this huge thing happened in my brain where it was like, oh my god, if I don't look like a fitness professional, if I don't look fit and look like a trainer, will people trust me? Will I have members? Will this business go down the gurgler? Because I have lost my body, which was a billboard for health and fitness and looking after yourself and all of this. Fair enough, I'd had a baby and being pregnant and all of that, but I had put on
the weight, I had eatn the food. I had not exercised because I'd been sick, and i'd nine months later, I was in all sorts and so it was a really hard time, and I didn't deal with it very well, and so my dealing strategy, my coping mechanism, was to come out to people publicly and say I put on weight. I posted a photo of myself in my underwear, overweight with the baby, and was like, Okay, this is a postpart and body, right, I'm going to get my fitness
and strength back. I'm going to take my time. And at the time, I was already being contacted by magazines to do covers and I hadn't even really even gotten out of hospital yet, like I hadn't even you know, finished having the baby, and people were asking me to do the bounce back photos. So I kind of hook the photo I'm underwhear and I was like, I'm not bouncing back. I hate the bounce back culture. I think
it's toxic. And I'm going to bounce forward and take my time, and I'm going to do it properly and build that foundation of strength and conditioning that I know you need and pelvic floor and all the important little muscles that get forgotten and neglected, and I'm going to do it right. And it took me two years to lose the weight and to get strong and fit again,
but I did. And I was then contacted by Chris Hemsworth to be his director of training for his app center, and I flew around the world with him with my baby in peak condition, you know, breastfeeding, then training with Chris, then filming, and it was just one of the biggest We went to London when he was doing Men in Black, we were following him to Byron, all the time, to New York. We're going everywhere, and it was a really
good experience. But it just taught me to, hey, you know, don't get caught up in pressure, but go back to the foundation of who you are, which is, you know, really respecting the process of fitness. And if you are fit, then you're going to look good. So you got to focus on that fitness. Man, you can't focus on the weight loss.
Yeah, do you know what you said? Some well, all of that was amazing, but I'd never thought about the bonus of you know, the white pajamas, the gee whatever. H Like, I'm like, that is so true, and it's so good that you kind of covered from neck to so relieving, and it's like, oh yeah, there's no objectification because everyone's just wearing the same shit.
And it's always the same as girls.
Yeah, it's all about function. It's not about look or fashion or bullshit. No, yeah, that is that is a good Yeah. Sorry, I reckon. If I was a parent, I would that would be one of the things that might tip me to get my kids into a martial art. I think that is such a nice idea.
It's so lovely and it's great. I think it's great for girls and boys. But for me, I felt such freedom. And I didn't grow up with social media. Hey, I was on TV before social media, like TV was a thing, you know. And then my manager said to me, oh, you know, we've got this person. They're interested in an ambassadorship with you, you know, a client. Oh, and they're not interested that you're getting a million viewers every night on the Biggest Loser. They want to know your Instagram followers.
And I'm like, what is Instagram? Like, I wasn't even on Instagram. So I joined late and now I go to the gym and everyone's got a tripod and they're taking selfies of their butts and they're doing all that stuff. And I just wasn't. That wasn't fitness to me growing up, Like it was wasn't about your body, So it's it's all changed so much, and there's so much social media pressure on young people and it breaks my heart and I just that's why I'm so passionate about martial arts.
I really do think it gives you a good foundation of strength and conditioning, self defense and also positive body image.
Wow. So what does the pendulum swing from crazy, busy, mayhem, focus productivity? What's the opposite look like for you? How do you switch off? How do you how do you be the calm and the chaos? What's your go to?
Well? I try and be smart with my work and I have like Monday Fridays that are pretty quiet and I bulk record a lot of stuff so that I can have days off camera and days off my phone, days not engaging at all. And that way I'm with the kids and I'm present and I chill and I'm like anyone else and love just to watch Netflix and relax or I play the piano that I find very
relaxing as well. And you know, I have days off training and I just recover or I sauna or you know, I do make sure that I have those mental health days, which I call the mental health days because I know that if I keep going at a certain pace, I just burn out. So and I say that to my team, I say, I'm having a mental health day, Like, don't contact me. I'm just with kids and people. They respect that, you know.
Do you ever like one of the things with I don't know if you're a type a personality, Yeah, yeah, you are. Of course you are. Yeah, And I think so is Tiff and maybe so am I to a point. But like I put up a post this morning. I can't remember exactly, but it said something like climbing a mountains great as long as you're climbing.
The right mountains or that yes, And I'm like.
And I feel like for me, and it's not necessarily that. It's like I was climbing a mountain. I had, you know, multiple gyms and all this stuff, and I built all this shit and it definitely wasn't bad. But I think sometimes you get to the top of the mountain and you're like yeah, yeah, and then a day, lady you're like and then a week lady, you're like yeah, and then lady you're like, what the fuck am I doing
on the top of this mountain? Or do you know when you know, it's like you've written books, You've done all this awesome shit, a million viewers, and I biggest loser, fucking farc everyone from the outside looking in, it's Disneyland. It's amazing. But I know and you know that when you're in the middle of what appears to be a super success story, it doesn't always feel that way, right, Like there's the there's the the appearance of success, and
then there's the experience. Yes, about that for you, like do you feel like are you ever satisfied? Are you calm? Are you content? Are you insatiable? Like with all this shit? How do you navigate that emotional stuff within within? You know? Like this, but I reckon, I know, I definitely know a disproportionate number of wealthy, successful, high profile people who are more anxious, more depressed, and more medicated than that vert Ofcomma's typical normal people that I know, yeah about a bit.
Well, I think the experience. I think in my twenties, when I was on TV and I was writing What's of books and I was always looking for the next thing and it was all about profile, I definitely was insatiable and it was always the next thing, the next thing, what's next, What's next? And I wasn't really happy when I had kids. I had to slow down and I had to prioritize, and it just taught me that I couldn't have it all, not at one time. And now I only have two things I focus on. It's the
business and the kids, and that's it. And I don't want to do television ever again. I don't want those intense months and periods of time where you have to give up your life and just do that, and you know there's no balance, and you know, TV is intense. And I'd start at five am and I'd finish sometimes at nine or ten at night, and that would go for seven days and there was pressure of weigh ins and all of that stuff, and you know, it wasn't normal, and then it finishes and it was like, oh now
what like was? I felt lost? But I don't feel that now because I think with social media, with the way my business runs, it's all about connection to women. And I get contacted all day, DMS, emails for our help desk, Facebook community group. People are always chatting to me, and I feel very much part of this safe space and this nice little tribe and cult where we can, and you know, just try and be better together and feel well and do things that make us feel good.
And I feel like I'm taking them along the ride with me through bad days and good days. And as long as I keep honest with the conversation and you know, really honest and I am about my bad days, then it kind of it's healthier for me than trying to be perfect and you know, a certain body fat percentage, and you know, on tally, I try and really keep
it real. And that's been saving grace these past few years for me, because if it's just too hard to try and keep your Instagram curated and perfect and you know, and have that be the perception for people, I like to try and keep it more real and that I'm just juggling everything as a mum like anyone else, and that I just did some TV back in the day. My husband still does television, he does radio. He's very comfortable in that space. He loves it. But I couldn't
think of anything worse. Let him do it.
Yeah, it's a big he's a big funny bastard. Yes, if you listen to this, you're a big funny bastard. I have a man crush on you. But anyway, you probably have a lot of those. You know. It's interesting Tiff and Tiff once again, everyone, it's a two third tip ratio. Today. I feel very fucking I feel like a minority on my own show because I am Tiff Cook. Feel free to jump in. I was chatting yesterday. It's not up. By the time this goes up, it might
be up. With Josh Lenardowitz, the bodybuilder. You know him big?
No, I don't know, I will, okay.
So Big Josh is Big. Josh is arguably Australia's best ever bodybuilder. One.
He's really handsome, yeah.
Real good looking.
Yeah I do you know him? Yeah?
Yeah, so not me? Yeah. So he competed twice in the Mister Olympia all this stuff, and anyway, he's been through some shit lately and dealing with a couple of health issues. This is documented. He had a like a tumor inside his skull, a bone tumor, so not a brain tumor, but so it was benign, but it was anyway, there was a few. Anyway, he's been battling some shit. But we were talking about which is why I was in to talk to Tiff Cook at the start about
just having bad days. And we were chatting and he wasn't having a great day, and we had this podcast book, and I said, good, let's have a chat on a day that's not great, because guess what, lots of people have lots of shit days, and we don't all need to be love and light and unicorns and pumping our fists and winning every day. It's like, the practical reality is that life service. Life's a bitch and sometimes like beautiful and amazing, and you know, we're just all trying
to figure shit out. But something that you talking about being on Gladiators and we were talking about the idea of standing on a stage tip, especially in twenty twenty four, when the overriding messages, hey, it doesn't matter what you look like. Yes, then you go stand on a bodybuilding stage and that's all that matters.
Are you being judged, Yeah, like.
You're literally being judged, not metaphorically.
Yes.
Yes, And I guess I don't know, did you. I'm assuming and my assumption could be wrong, but I'm assuming that as Angel the Gladiator, you needed to look a certain way or you would get the ass.
It was a real problem because I was very small and the smallest gladiating history in the world, according to all the the big fans that have all the gladiators statistics and things. I'm only one hundred and sixty four centimeters five foot four and I was under fifty five kilos so light. I couldn't even see over the gauntlet like and I couldn't even get up the pyramid because I was so short. So they put me in the
on the aerial games up in the sky. I did hang tough and pendulum and all the aerial games, and it was very good at that because I could break fall with all my martial arts experience, I could look after the competitors and they never got hurt. And I
love the aerial games. But they said, okay, if you can't when we don't have time to bulk you up, because I wasn't a bulky big person, but they wanted to lean me up, so I had to lose more weight in order to have more definition in order to look bigger on camera, because camera does make you look a bit bigger, and that to me was a bit hard. So I was on a diet and they Channel seven provided the food. It was like just fish and vegge
and very dangerous. And I remember getting into that disordered eating kind of mentality where I was only eating what Channel seven gave me. I was super scared to eat anything outside of the little plastic containers they gave gave me. I was very underweight, I think, especially for a contact sport like it's contact. I was getting hurt and breaking ribs and stuff like that easily, when usually with a bit more padding in taekwondo and stuff. I never experienced that.
So it was very tough and I just didn't have the time to build the muscle, you know, it takes a long time. And this was TV. Everything has to happen yesterday, and so I just went on this diet and I looked shredded. I had abs on abs and veins in abs, and like I did get shredded. But yeah, I was just too light for it. Crazy times.
It's so funny because like, as an athlete, it is all about performance and function. Yes, like what you look like is irrelevant. I mean, you're probably going to look pretty good if you're an athlete anyway, but that's not the point. Like it's all about performance, it's about functional physiology. It's about can you do what you need? It's about strength, power, speed, agility, coordination for you skill of course, but then they're not
worried about that, they're worried about what you look like. Yeah, it's so fucking ridiculous.
It's so ridiculous. And we weren't playing on the games and we didn't have access to them, so we had to train. I trained on monkey bars for Hang Tough because I thought, well, that makes sense. I'll get my hang strength and like my grip's strength going. And I was just trying to work it out myself. And then on the day, literally audience TV cameras rolling, first time trying the games myself. Oh it was a mental time.
It was really mental. And I was young and I was, you know, in my early twenties and impressionable and really struggled coming off gladiators, thinking I had to maintain that look, you know, I was a gladiator, should look like a gladiator. When I went back to being a healthy wait healthy for running and puck wandoing and doing all the things that I loved doing strength training, and yeah I did, I struggled with that kind of body image stuff, you know.
And it wasn't until like I met my husband, and you know, I kind of was like snap out of it, like that's not you weren't actually performing and at your peak of fitness and strength back then, you were weak, you know, because you were under eating, you know, so you got to have a stern word with yourself. Sometimes it's very.
Hard just out of interest.
Oh six ' five, Yeah, we look ridiculous together.
That's well. I hope you got some serious bug and high heels.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Do you guys ever work out together? Do you train together?
No, we have a rule we're not allowed to because I end up trying to coach him or saying he can do one more set, or like you can live heavier than that, or giving him a technique tip or something like that and he corracs it. But he's very good. He actually has his personal training qualification. He did that early on. He's very proficient in the gym. He will take my advice. But we don't train together. We just
get a little bit, I get under his skin. I just like try and make him do something better or showing him something new, or he just doesn't want to hear it. So you know, we have separate gym memberships are different gyms.
Oh really, that's hilarious. That is hilarious.
Yeah, it's that hardcore.
Do you have a parenting style in Inverted Commas that you could describe as a freestyle? Is it strategic? Is it organic? Do you? Is it something you developed? Like do you attention to any of the experts in Inverted Commas?
I do pay attention to I like Maggie Denton Connected Parenting, and I do pay attention and I feel like I need to learn. I really do. It's something that's developing. I don't prescribe to a type of parenting, although I do like routine, and I think routine gives my children safety.
They know what's coming next, and like they have a time that they go and have a nap, and they have a dinner time and a bath time those kind of simple things and a bedtime And it's not like I just let them be up all night and they'll tell me when they're tired and go to bed. I do have a routine with them, but I don't know. I am just learning. I mean, my youngest is one, Arnold is six, and I feel like I'm failing on a daily basis with them. Our family pet died our
dog yesterday. Talk about bad days, Yeah, very bad. He had terminal cancer. We had to put him down, so very tough. But that's where I was challenged because the kids were so upset and I had to deal with that and explain about let you going over the rainbow bridge to pet paradise and where he was going to be happy and maybe come back. You know, he was ready as another puppy or something. And it was just all really hard thinking, oh gosh, are we religious? Do
I bring in religion? Or do I is this heaven? Or like what do I It was really hard in managing trying to coregulate Arnold's emotions, and there was heavy sadness and heavy topics I just and also the thing of do I let him say goodbye to the dog before we put him down? Or do we put him down and then say the dog has gone over the rainbow bridge? Do you know what I mean? Like, all those decisions are really hard. I did let Arnold have make the choice would you like to say goodbye to Fletcher?
And he did. He went and gave him a pat and a kiss and a cuddle and they had to play. And I think that was healthy for Arnold, But I don't know. I don't know if I'm stuffing him up every day. I honestly don't. It's the hardest gig in the world.
Yeah, I think you're doing a brilliant job.
Oh thank you.
If that just hit you, didn't it typical?
I mean, yeah, yes, yeah, jes a dog.
We're kind of dogaholics here.
Yes, okay, you understand because I never know. It's such I've felt flat, all weak, like like you tif, like, just really not performing. I had to cancel a few things I had. I have just it really knocked me, could not stop crying. Terrible when you have to make the decision whether they live or die. As well, and he was very ill and we had amputated his leg, so he was on three legs to try and get the tumor off and save him. But he and we went through the trauma of amputating his leg and then
he died. Anyway, it's really sad. It's horrible. You just think, did I make the right decision? And every days like that, I think with kids, you just think I did I Did I fuck that up? You know, honestly, And there's my f word for the day, Did I fuck that up? Because honestly it is. I go to bed most nights thinking geez, I did not nail today as a parent. And it's the biggest load I think, mental load.
How long ago tiff Cook was did coach pass away?
It's two years now?
Wow? Yeah, because that feels like I don't know, four months. I know it's not it feels like four months ago.
It feels really recent. It's crazy.
Yeah, it doesn't get easy, does it? And no, it hangs around like, yeah, because Arnold was asking me today on the way to school, when will I feel better? And I thought, wow, not for a while. And it's a process. There's a process to grief. And you know, we're in the crying tiery, can't talk stage.
You know.
Well, I think like nobody's really trained for parenthood, are they. It's like when you do anything for the first time, whether it's go on gladiators, start a business, write a book, become a parent, go do a degree, like you just you know, of course people can advise you, but you can only really really learn experientially in the middle of it.
Like, yes, you're going to funk some.
Things up, You're going to get some things right, you know you're going to have a slightly different approach with number two than you did with numbers.
Yes, you know, it's really hard. And I couldn't believe that I had a baby. And then they said at the hospital, okay, off you go home. I was like, are we going to do a class? Are we going to have like give me notes? Because I love notes, I love studying, Like, give me some notes. I don't know what to do with this baby. And then you know, we're struggling. How do you get a newborn to sleep?
That was that really did me in. It just that was such a hard time, you know, and they do eventually sleep, but learning beating and breastfeeding and all of that stuff, like it was it was pretty hardcore, Like, yeah, really need a manual for a baby.
Okay, So I'm going to ask you a few philosophical questions. Okay, we'll see where we go. So you are forty on July the eleventh, just off the top of my head.
Oh no, not really off the.
Top of my head. I've got notes. So one day you're going to be forty five if everything goes great on Planet TIF, what will life look like when you're forty five. What do you think if everything goes according to plan and you're winning life, what will you be doing when you're forty five?
Do you think forty five, I would love to still be doing the business. But business is hard, and I've had a few components of the business not work, and like I had an active wear line for example, that I just could not keep going with and it pulled my focus from the fitness stuff. And you know, I've had a few hard times with business. It would be really nice if at forty five I could be earning a living for my business and be really happy just doing that. And my goal is to earn enough to
relieve the pressure of my husband who has that. You know, he's very grateful for his TV and radio work, but it is contract to contract work, and he can have everything this year and on the first of January next year have nothing, and then financially, what do you do? What do you do? So I would love to say, hey, baby, it's okay, don't stress, I've got this. You know, I would love for the business to prosper enough for Ed to just chill and do his passion projects. You know,
at the moment it's not at that level. But that's what I would love in the next five years. Yeah, good for you.
It's a grind, that's for sure.
It's a grind, all right.
Next question, what is something significant, tiv Hall that you have changed your mind on. It could be in the last six months or in the last ten years, or a belief that you have that got challenged and now you have a new belief. There's something that did a one at on.
I came from taekwondo and it was all about speed, and I always did like lightweights and I never touched the heavy weights. And then I think that in my twenties I was a cardio bunny as well, and I have just changed my attitude on the power of strength training. Odd yeah, And how transformative it is for your hormones, for your metabolism, for your body, for your mind. It's something that you don't have to rely on your mood.
Like cardio, you go, I feel great, I'm going to go for a run, but when you feel flat, you don't really feel like doing cardio, and then you blow off cardio. But I feel with weight training you can do it no matter how you feel. I just I always, I never never really believed in the strength training enough to do it, but now I since having injuries, it
is the most important thing that I'm doing. And especially because I'm going to hit perimenopause and move into menopause territory over the next ten to fifteen years, I'm trying to train for that and build strong muscles that are you know, fat factories, and you know, just really work hard for my body and look after it, especially because I've got arthritis in my knees. You know, I'm really trying to build muscles around my knees to hold them up.
Vm O fastest, absolutely, so you know what, I love.
Fat fat factories. Like people don't understand having more muscle lean in listeners, Having more muscle helps you burn more fat at rest because muscles what we call metabolically active, which helps you stay lean. So one, you're improving bone density and cognitive function and functional strength and movement and capability, but also lifting weights, which doesn't seem like but it actually helps you stay lean, which is fucking amazing. I'm super proud of you for lifting heavy shit. Well done.
Yeah, I'm trying. I don't live very heavy, but I try.
I'm sure you do. Okay, I'll tell you who's pretty strong. The other tip, she's a fucking unit.
Yeah, she also girl girl power.
She got me covered. But that's not hard. I'm a hundred. So here's my next somewhat philosophical question. Have you had I'm sure you have or maybe you haven't, but in your life like a almost like an epiphany moment, I reckon, I've had in my life for maybe like moments where I went oh fuck, like like somebody pulled back a curtain and I just had this revelation or this recognition of something that I needed to know or be made
aware of or change. Have you had any epiphany moments over your almost forty years?
Yeah? Yeah. So in two thousand and nineteen to twenty twenty, through COVID and all that, I got burnt out. But I was clinically diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which felt to me like a life sentence because they're like there's no cure, like just that's it's the end of you. And I'm like, hang on a minute. I do fitness stuff like I need to move an exercise, and they said, no, no, no, that's the worst thing you can do for your condition. And so I came out publicly and said, I've got
this chronic fatigue thing. I can't work. The business is going down the toilet, and I need to recover. I don't know how I'm going to do it, and I don't know when I'll be back, but I'm going to go do it. And it was a big moment in my life where I had to stop. I was doing too much and I had to really look at recovery. I had to really look at my mental health. I had to really look at the way I was doing stuff, and it was pulling back to bare necessity and basics
and the basic stuff of drinking water, sunlight. Like I was so fatigued, I couldn't even walk to my mailbox, you know. And I would just stand with my feet in grass, trying to just ground myself and get some sunlight. And I had a trainer who would physically move my body into a stretch position, and I remember being moved into like this thoracic kind of stretch and just be sitting there in the sunshine, going, oh my god, my
life is over. And they test you for depression and your heart and all this stuff, and nothing came up. It was just my nervous system had gone. I've had enough. And I learned so much about nervous system back then, and I think that that is everything. Now I don't train. I don't train my nervous system anymore, you know, with sprint training and cardio and high intensity and big volume days and things like that I don't go back to
back with filming days and things like that. I've put rest days in between now and I make sure that my sympathetic nervous system is stimulated all the time, and you know, I make sure that the vegas nerve is stimulated. And I just I just really am looking after myself because you can't pall from an empty cup. But I was pouring from an empty cup for a long time. And that's not health and fitness, and that's not being healthy, and that's not what I need to help other people do.
So it was a huge moment and it took me. Well. I think I'm still recovering, to be honest, I still can't do the exercise and train at the capacity that I did before I had that nervous system breakdown. I reckon, I'll call it. I still can't. I have to have rest days. I have to go to bed early. I still have to do things that I've never recovered from it,
but I am still very functional now. But it was definitely a moment where it was like, if you keep going, you seriously are not going to ever be able to walk like it was. It was so bad, It was really really bad.
That's so interesting. Look, I think for people, I think probably all three of us on this particular episode, you know, there's have a propensity to overdo shit. There's fucking oh, there's a revelation, you know, like there's a fine line between discipline and obsession. Yes, you know, discipline is in control, obsession is out of control. And you know, you know, when I was a kid, I was you know whatever,
fat fourteen year old, all that bullshit. But I ended up starting to train, and when I trained, all of a sudden, life got amazingly better, you know, like socially, emotionally, mentally, physically. And then you get all this approval and all this recognition and all this acceptance because you're not the fat kid anymore. You're the athlete now, and all of this great shit happens. And then so that's like a drug.
So I went, well, if X is good, then two x's fucking twice as good, and five X must be incredible. So I'm doing five X and then you know there's no logic in that, but there's kind of just this emotional kind of story. And yeah, i'd same. I just got to the point when I opened my first PT center tip, which was in nineteen ninety when you were six. That's annoying anyway, When when I opened my first one, there was none right, there was none in Australia, and
I had no staff. It was just me. So I had this fifteen hundred hundred and fifty fifteen hundred foot square space. I spent all the money in the world that I had, all of the money in the world. I sold everything that I could sell I got, took all the money out of my bank account except two hundred dollars, and I basically created a small commercial gym. But it was only for me and my client anyway, the first week that I opened, because I already had a business, but I was based in I was based
in public gyms, training my clients. But the first week I opened, I did over sixty hours of PT. But then on top of that, you know, I'm cleaning the gym.
I'm changing your running a business.
I'm trying to fucking do admin. I don't know what
admin is. I'm trying to you know. And then anyway, so I was, you know, within the first four weeks, I was completely fucked because I was working eighty nine hours a week and getting getting to the gym at four am and cleaning and and I just I got to this point where I thought I'm going to have a breakdown, and my training was going backwards, and I thought, all right, I'm going to so I in a rare moment of clarity and logic, I said, right, I'm going
to train Monday, Wednesday, Friday for three months. So I'm going to go from seven days to three days. And in my mind, I'm like, I know that I'll go backwards, but I won't go too far backwards. And that will that means I'll be you know, I won't be overtrained, i won't be under recovered, i won't be so exhausted. I'm just going to focus on my business and my clients, building knowledge, skills, all that shit, and just do three workouts a week and whatever will happen will happen. Fuck it,
I'll cope. Yeah, and of course you know what I'm going to say. And over three months, I got bigger and stronger, like a motherfucker because I was having four days a week of recovery and my body loved it because I had zero days. I went from no recovery to all the recovery and even though mentally and emotionally
I hated it, you know. So there is that real I think for people especially who are the type one perfectionist, you know, like to That's why I reckon it is good to have a trainer or a coach or a mentor that that isn't you, because it's hard for you to be objective about you because you're tiff you know. So it's that subjective thing, all right. So one more question. It's a two part question to finish. So one is what is your superpower? Don't overthink it? First thing that
comes to mind? What is your superpower? And part B is what is something that you need to get better at?
Superpower is I think I really am able to relate to women and women they meet me in the street and I get the whole life story and it's like we've known each other for ten years. But I've met her for ten seconds and there's a nice trust and I think I really value that and I love that and I think in connected to women in that way is something that I really cherish. So that's that's part one.
I think something I need to get better at. I think I still need to get better at listening to my body, because, like you said, I just will push and push and push until there's nothing left. And I'm still learning to pull myself up and still learning to say, hey, if you crush, then nothing that doesn't help your family, that doesn't help your business. You know. I'm I'm I just I just have to listen to myself because I am my worst enemy.
I think, well, I hope you listen to that body because it's smarter than you, just like my body smarter than me. Tiffany Elizabeth Hall. Tell people how they can how they can find you, follow you, connect with you and buy your books and all that.
Yeah, well, connect with me on Instagram at tiff Hall Underscore XO. My website is mytech dot com. I'll keep it simple and just leave it at that, and I just DM me, reach out to me. You'll find a way. Just there. I'm everywhere, Facebook, Twitter and anything, but I'm predominantly on Instagram. So just DM me and I'd love to hear your questions or yeah, just have a chat.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you. I know you're a very, very busy person and this is quite a chunk of time out of your day and I'm.
Very I've enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me.