Episode 008 - Punching Away The Pain with Tiff Cooke

“I just had these walls up, these really big walls, relationships with people were challenging for me and I just knew they should have been better” 

Tiff made the call to jump into the boxing ring and start fighting! She loved it but she didn’t realise at the time, that decision and her love of copping a whack to the chin was closely connected to numbing a whole heap of pain from the past.  

Tiff Cooke is tough in a lot of ways but she also lives what we are all about on Talkin Tough as she talks openly and honestly about it. 

Talkin Tough is proudly brought to you by Ski For Life, an Australian charity dedicated to promoting mental health, wellbeing & suicide prevention. You can find out more at https://www.skiforlife.com.au/ 

If this Talkin Tough episode has struck a chord with you and you could do with some extra support, please reach out to a trusted mate or professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. https://www.lifeline.org.au/

listen to the full episode:

EPISIODE TRANSCRIPT:

Ben: Welcome back to another episode of Talkin Tough. I am absolutely pumped about today. As always, we are proudly brought to you by Ski for Life, and we are here to have a chat with the average Joe.

Have a laugh and redefine what it means to be tough. How are you, mate?

Mike: Yeah, I'm going great. Thanks Banjo how's everything in your world blinder?

Ben: Oh yeah. No, we're going all right. Going good, but I'll tell you what, just I need to get it off my chest.

Mike: Yep.

Ben: Dogs.

Mike: Yeah.

Ben: Dogs are by far.

Mike: Yep.

Ben: Some of the worst things and the best things for your mental health, and I've got two of themas you know mate, I have an old dog, Ozzie, he's 11 years old. He's been bitten by two snakes and he has lost his mind. He's gone. That's senile. It is giving me the absolute shits.

Mike: He's a good dog though. Great dog Oz.

Ben: He's testing me. I'll tell you what, like he can't do a lot now though.

Mike: He goes outside and he literally walks out and I reckon I could count to 32 seconds. He'll look up [00:01:00] in the sky and just go oof oof. And I go out the door and I go, mate, what are you barking at? And he looks at me and he goes, I don't know.

I go get back inside and I've gotta tie him up inside cause otherwise he goes and eats the daughter's toys. I put him outside and all he does is bark. Doing my head in and then I've got the young dog. That's one of the best things for me mental health and mate, I'm telling ya. We have got an awesome guest on today that I know she's got a dog, Tiff Cook.

Coach, facilitator, Boxer, podcast host. Mate, welcome to Talkin Tough.

That's my vent and spiel about my dogs. How are you? How are your dogs?

Tiff: Mate if you think a dog's bad, you should get yourself a cat awwww, they've got nothing on Bear the cat!

Ben: Bear the cat?

Mike: But you've got a dog as well?

Tiff: Yes. Yeah.

Mike: What's your dog's name?

Tiff: Luna, Bear and Luna. And they wrestle.

Mike: And when you said Luna, you smiled then. So I'm picturing Bear being a bit of a prick and Luna be-

Tiff: they're both lovely, but Bear is [00:02:00] a prick, but it's, she's very much like me, except that she's also very lovely too. The other day she opened up the wardrobe

I shut her out when I'm podcasting, I go out to my bedroom, she's opened the cupboard door, she's pulled all of the clothes off of every shelf.

Mike: Yeah right.

Ben: You don't need children then

Tiff: no, I don't.

Mike: And what'd you do? Do you discipline or do you just sit there, yell, scream, rant?

Tiff: I'm trying to put 'em away and then she's jumping back in back and I'm putting her away. She's jumping up and back in and I try fold something up and she wrestles me for it.

Mike: Unreal. That's why I can never have a cat. So welcome Tiff, it's so good to have you as part of the Talkin Tough as you would've heard just a moment ago, Benny said that... the, When he said the word 'average Joe'

Tiff: I nearly fell over backwards.

Mike: You almost sat up your right up in your chair mate. It was-

Ben: did you get your back up?

Mike: It's true. We've gotta no, we've gotta no, Dickhead policy. Do you pass for that or?

Tiff: No, I'm all for, I'm all for it. I'm all for it.

Mike: Okay. Yeah. Beautiful. Yep. So average, Joe we wouldn't consider you an average Joe in our eyes.

You're an absolute champion. That's why we've had you to come on and, have a bit of a chat today and open an honest conversation about

Ben: an average champion.

Mike: An average-

Tiff: I'm a pretty average, let's be [00:03:00] honest, but more, more importantly, we're here to, as Ben said, it's called Talkin Tough, and it's all about redefining what it means to be tough.

In the modern world and taking the old school of thought where it's... we've got a few grabs and we've spoken about in other episodes about being tough, showing a tough exterior don't, show your emotions, just suck it up and get on with it. That type of toughness, throwing that out and talking about what it actually means to be tough resilient, and how to get through day to day in the modern world.

I, spoke to Ben and I said, 'Hey, We've been on Tiff's podcast in the past. She's an absolute champion'.

Ben: Dunno why she had us on.

Mike: I'm sure our listeners, have you got many listeners on our poddy?

Tiff: Yeah. You were like,

Mike: it's about three and a half.

Tiff: So loved by everybody.

Mike: We, actually came back and did a repeat episode, so I must have, we must have,

Ben: must, we must have gone alright.

Mike: People mustn't have hated us, which is good. So, Tiff, welcome. It's a real pleasure to be here. We would love to start off by, as we always do, asking our guests when you were growing up [00:04:00] what was your definition of what 'Tough' meant based on what you had heard, seen, what you've raised to believe, what did tough mean to you?

Tiff: Yeah. You know what's funny is I, had a real tough attitude and a lot of attitude for 29 years, I always say 29 years. I had my first boxing fight at 29, and over the next two years of delving into that sport, my self-awareness around myself really went deep. So I was a, tough, certain, self-assured kid.

Ben: I was very independent and I thought that was just life. And I thought that was just me being awesome, but I, and it was,

they're right though

Tiff: and it was, right? But when I reflected on some of the things that I did when I stepped into boxing and started to question things that made me redefine what is tough, and I to have a lot of conversations these days about resilience and what is resilience and asking a question, is [00:05:00] it resilience or is it dissociation?

Is it resilience or is it trauma?

Ben: Yeah.

Tiff: So yeah, I dunno if that answered your question or was it just a tangent?

Ben: Yeah no, it absolutely does. But I'd love to go back sort of one step. Where do you reckon that, like you said, for 29 years you had that tough attitude, where do you reckon you got that from?

Tiff: Independence. Independence.

Ben: So tell us about growing up.

So I grew up in a from my first memories were in a shop, so I, at about three years old, my parents bought into a seven day week shop. I had a brother that was seven years older than me, and so they were very busy and I was very busy too, but I was not surrounded there was not a lot of interaction with my family at that time in terms of them having time to spend. And so it was really-

Mike: So you're forced to entertain yourself?

Tiff: Yeah. Forced to entertain myself. And we weren't an overly communicative family, so we weren't one to, when I think back of childhood now, and I think about maybe reflecting on how other people interact and are in families and [00:06:00] relationships. I don't have that in my memory banks. Like I don't have memories of being, talking about feelings and, being close and sharing how we felt. So it was very much go and entertain yourself. If stuff scares you, find a way to be impressive,

and people think like... showing people that you're tough, showing people that you're okay. because it doesn't really matter if you're not, because no one's around. So I think that, Upon reflection it wasn't my- how I felt at the time, I just, it's when you're a kid, you adapt. You just, this is the world you're in and you adapt and you have coping mechanisms and it can really develop who you become.

Ben: Yeah. A hundred percent.

Mike: Absolutely. And you said that you weren't a communicative family.

Ben: It's a hard word to say.

Tiff: I know! Go me for saying it

Ben: could you have picked an easier word?

Mike: Tongue twister

Ben: for people that are simple like me, the average Joe's on the on this podcast-

Tiff: Work chatty.

Mike: Yeah. So you weren't a, and I'm not gonna say the word again, family. But now I've had [00:07:00] chats with you, Ben's had chats with you you, have your own podcast. What you do is, communicate and very well for that matter. At some point in time you had to learn those skills, right?

Tiff: Yeah, And if I look back, there's been a long time in my life, I've always been trying to do better, be better, learn better, and change my mindset and, be deliberate about what I know and how I do things.

The podcast, so there was the boxing ring that opened up the kind of the self-awareness door and that what are these traits that are such strengths for you and are they really strengths did they really come from a, healthy place? Or what are you running from? So there was a long a few years delving into all of that and getting comfortable with it.

And then I started the podcast in 2020 and just the boxing ring became this metaphorical playground for me to observe me and learn about feelings and emotions and cause and effect and commitment and dedication and the things that you say. The thing about boxing is, [00:08:00] or any combat sport is when you're in an environment like that and you need to respond and you are fueled by the fight or flight chemicals in your body, it doesn't matter what front you put on,

you will behave before you have a chance to step into a story. So you react to the punch, you'll either hide or cower or you'll fight back and you'll have those reactions. And I get goosebumps when I talk about it because they were the, things that I got to observe in there. And that's what made me question hang on, what are you scared of?

And why don't you feel, why don't you feel this or that? Or why don't you feel punches? And the word vulnerability came up for me personally, I was like, oh, I'm not scared of a punch in the face, but gee, don't try to get too close and get to know me.

Mike: So physically felt very tough and you could take anything emotionally, maybe not.

Tiff: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a big thing to, to question that because sometimes, because we tell ourselves stories for so long and then like, I believe [00:09:00] the story, it wasn't that I thought it was a story, it wasn't that I thought I was putting on a facade, but I remember going back to Tassie in I'd lived here.

So I moved here when I was 20? 19? Turned 20.

Mike: And what, caused the move?

Tiff: Oh, Tassie is small mate. I had bigger fish to fry.

Mike: Yep. So, straight over to Melbourne.

Tiff: Yes. I remember going back and realizing one day, Observing myself put on this front, like talk differently, like show, like being a little show pony, like 'Oh yeah'.

And I was like, why do you talk like that when you are in front of your family? Because I was putting on the front of look what I'm going and doing. And I remember being, so I had the boxing and then from that, obviously I went into a lot of self development and reflection and did some therapy.

I remember sitting in the therapist's room one day and talking, and then all of a sudden [00:10:00] mid-sentence realizing, like I was telling her about coming to Melbourne, and how and why I came to Melbourne and I just burst into tears. I was like, I came to Melbourne to show everyone what I could do and that I was good and that I was worthy.

And what's actually happened over those 10 years, first 10 years of being here is. I'd distanced myself more. I'd broken the relationships. I'd become less relatable. And realizing that my actions and what I deeply was wanting to get out of everything would, like worlds apart. I was running in the opposite direction.

So it was really interesting.

Ben: Where do you think that came from? Like that realization, sitting there in therapy, bursting into tears and realizing that you've come over to one, probably escape in a way, but also to prove a point distance yourself by doing that. Why do you think that was like in that first 20 years, if you don't mind me asking, what do you reckon happened?

What caused you to have [00:11:00] that deep, innate desire to prove to people that you are more than what you were?

Tiff: I think for myself, when I think about it, I think it came from a feel feelings of unworthiness or not shame and unworthiness from whatever I might be holding onto, but I don't, I think I wouldn't be the only person, I wasn't aware of that. It's not like I walked around going, oh, I'm ashamed and unworthy. I'm not good enough. There was that part of me, there was that facade that I believed that was, I'm going to do this, I'm really confident, yep, we'll go kill it. I never explored the stuff underneath. And when you go to therapy or have conversations like this and you start speaking, it's amazing what can come into your realization.

And you go... and you know it because your body reacts. You go, shit, I've never thought of that before. I've never thought of it that way, and that just landed with me and oh my goodness, that's what I've done.

Ben: Were you able to pinpoint a [00:12:00] moment in therapy looking back then that sort of caused that?

Or do you think it was just this underlying thing of shame and unworthiness and you can't really pinpoint a reason why?

Tiff: I'd say an underlying thing. I think, like for me, a lot of the like therapy over the years and is... it's such... it's a journey. It was like I thought when I first started therapy, I was like, okay, this thing's come up, this memory's come up in the boxing ring.

This happened, I thought for my whole life that putting it in a box and pretending that it never happened would make it go away. And it didn't exist. But now in my early thirties, I'm thinking about it all the time and it's coming up and it's causing me, and then I was researching what are the effects of holding on to this experience that's happened, Yep.

Mike: in a health setting yep.

Tiff: And does that correlate with some of my personality traits? And I was like, it did. And I was like, oh, okay.

Mike: So this so is a big journey of self-discovery, right? And in terms [00:13:00] of if we talk a little bit about, you said earlier that at 29 you discovered boxing.

That's a really interesting sort of thing. And had you ever done any boxing before? Had you done fitness or anything? You sit across the table from us now and you're, pretty ripped mate, so you're looking like you're ready to go.

Ben: Doesn't look ripped to me

Mike: In the ring...

You need to work a little harder. But, in all honesty, you look like you're ready to roll so, you're 29, you discover boxing. How did that happen?

Tiff: I'd done a few, I'd started doing a few boxing sessions at PCYC, which is funny cause that's where I train. I'm a trainer now. That's where I train my clients.

And I remember pink gloves like flailing around and thinking to I want, like I'll try really hard. And I want the trainer to come and tell me like that I should fight or I should learn, or I wanted to be told I was special, wanted to be told that I-

Mike: Acknowledgement

Tiff: Yeah because I didn't feel in the mindset and that I had at that time 'was, you'll be told if you're good enough at something, you can't just go and learn it'.

And there's no way I would've said, [00:14:00] 'oh. Can you teach me to do this?' I just didn't have the mindset for it

Ben: And goes back to that worthiness piece, aye?

Tiff: Yeah. Yeah. But then I went to a talk on resilience and we, it was above the PT Academy and downstairs was the basement boxing gym and there was a big post, they took give us a tour.

So we get to talk about resilience for 90 minutes, get all fired up, go downstairs, see this poster on the wall that says Zero to Hero Executive Fight Club, dudes in suits. It's like zero to hero. And I was like, Big show off me, 'I'll do it, I'll do it'. So I loved doing stuff that girls didn't do. I wanted to do it to stand out.

I wanted to do it to be different. I did a lot of bold things. And for me, I look back now and I go, that was because I didn't have the confidence to use my voice to be me, to speak up, like I will show.

So 16, 17 dying my hair bright pink. Like I had to have this bold look. I had to have this bold personality.

[00:15:00] I had to be loud, the loudest in the room. And really that was just making up for the fact that I really wasn't that personality on the inside. Or I didn't have the confidence to really-

Mike: just hiding something maybe?

Tiff: Yeah. Yeah. Just creating the facade. I'll be really bold. I'll be really loud. I'll do this.

Mike: So something happened.

And so you've found, boxing and then someone's obviously given you that acknowledgement because you had your, when you, obviously went on to have you had

Tiff: I saw that poster and, it was like any nuffty is allowed to do this.

Mike: Yeah. But then you had a fight right?

Tiff: Yeah!

Mike: So how long until you found, you saw the poster to then you were in the ring fighting somebody?

Tiff: So it was a 12 week challenge.

Mike: Oh yeah.

Tiff: So 12 weeks

Ben: Wowe!

Tiff: And me in my big mouth, I'd told everybody I needed to sell tickets. So in order to participate, you gotta sell 10 or 20 tickets, I can't remember for people to come.

So I'd rallied. Sold all these people $250 tickets to come and watch me I'm like,' I'm fighting!'

Mike: All your mates first then first fill fill the the arena.

Tiff: Oh, absolutely, mate.

Mike: Cheering you on

Tiff: Yeah, that's the way. But [00:16:00] it was terrifying. I remember three weeks in training and we're starting to put gloves on your face and with, your partner in front of you and you're just floating the gloves across and you're learning the concept of blocking punches. I got a knot in my throat.

Mike: You've got a fight in 12 weeks.

Tiff: Yeah.

Mike: And you are learning at the three week mark.

Tiff: Yep.

Mike: How to block first, first time ever. How to block punches. Were you nervous?

Tiff: We sparred once or twice before the fight. We'd only sparred once or twice before that first fight. It was crazy. I was terrified standing there with the knot in my throat, thinking as soon- because I wasn't, I would not cry in public at that point was I'm holding back tears and as soon as this class ends, I gonna sit in my car and cry.

And it was so confronting and I just thought, I can't keep my eyes open. I've got a knot in my throat. I've told all of these people I'm fighting and I can't even keep my eyes open when someone's pretending to throw a punch at me.

Mike: Were you close to quitting? Were you close to just walking away and saying, this is a bad idea?

Ben: Or, you're too proud?

Tiff: I don't think I ever... it was terrifying the whole time. And I wonder, [00:17:00] I never want, I never, no, I never considered quitting. But I very, I always talk about how loud that the two versions of voices were, and one was the version that knew in no uncertain terms that I was pretty useless. I was uncoordinated, flailing around and I know that my trainers didn't have a lot of faith in me either at that point and, I knew that. But also when I'd go for walks and I'd, I was just obsessed. I would think about training and I would be going for walks and I'd just be, I knew I had this knowing and it was just determination I will win this.

That's the only way and it was, that was the determination. It was like letting that speak louder. Just letting that voice in all of the time because the other one's gonna come in. Like every time I go to training, that other one's gonna be there with me. So when I'm alone and I'm thinking about stuff, I'm just letting that other voice in.

But it was interesting to...

Mike: So you got to the ring. Tell us about the fight.

Tiff: Oh mate. So we're sitting there. I didn't [00:18:00] sleep the night before I decided to get nervous. Just the night before. No sleep.

Ben: Hang on. Who were you fighting? And did you know that from the start? So when did you find that out? I wanna be able to picture the opponent here.

Tiff: It's a good story that my opponent was a girl. She was a, and I wasn't a PT at the time, remember I was just an office worker, used to drink on every bloody weekend and eat all of the chocolate in the world.

And the opponent of mine was the personal trainer at the gym. She was ripped with a six pack and she wasn't training with us, she was training with the boys. So she wasn't training with us. So we didn't see her a lot, but she was, yeah,

Mike: you guys get along? Or was she pretty scary?

Tiff: No, she was nice. We got along. She was nice. She was nice, but she-

Ben: did that make it harder to wanna punch him in the face?

Tiff: No, I'm good with that, mate.

Ben: You're happy to punch people you like?

Tiff: Yeah, exactly. It's not a, it for me. It's not a, I don't connect it with a person in the ring. It's very clinical to me and it's... yeah. [00:19:00] I've never, there's been no, there's no emotion. There's no anger, there's no animosity about it.

Ben: That's a good way of looking at that because when you picture boxing, you have that concept that you've gotta g yourself up to hate the person on the other side of the ring. Yeah.

Tiff: And you don't wanna do that.

Mike: You had one of those bloody things where you had a, pre-match like media conference where you start having a big,

Tiff: I don't reckon I'd be very good at UFC, hey. I don't like that part of it.

Mike: That's a huge thing now.

Tiff: Yeah. I'm not a fan of it and

Mike: I, yeah, I just, it's so brutal. There's no- the map turns a shade of red as the day progresses and you just see these people getting the suitcase punched out and them every-

I, can't watch it. I'll be honest with you. It's, yeah, I struggled a little bit.

Ben: I also can't watch it for other for, other reasons, if you know what I'm saying.

Tiff: It took me way too long.

Ben: Yeah way too long. So talk us through fight one! Let's go back to fight one.

Tiff: We haven't slept. I had to get up in the morning. I had to go to the airport and pick mum up. I was socially inept all day. I was, so I'd never felt anything like it. And I remember saying in no [00:20:00] uncertain terms, I will never, ever do anything like this again in my life, because the way I feel right now is there's nothing that could be worth this.

I'd never felt anything like it. Probably because I wasn't good with feelings, guys, just quietly, 'what are these feelings I'm having?'

Ben: Yeah. Because the self-awareness comes after this hey?

Tiff: Yeah. And I remember sitting there, my, my best mate she was the first fighter of the night and she gets in and she wins.

And I was like, yeah, the winning team. And then they hand her a microphone. And back then I was terrified of speaking.

Mike: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Tiff: So I was like, I don't wanna win because I don't wanna speak in front I don't all these people. And then next minute someone's tapping my shoulder, going your opponent's outdoors doing sprints warming up like you are on in a minute. And it was just a whirlwind. I remember-

Mike: and you were just sitting there watching your mate?

Tiff: Yeah, I'm just watching a mate get taken out the back gloves thrown on mouth guard in. And it's just, I remember being quite feeling just, you're just dazed by it.

Just go out and then you're in the corner and then you go in and I [00:21:00] remember probably it was 20 seconds and I thought, Do you really wanna do this? It's 20 seconds. I'd never felt so gassed. I was like, you can't keep up this work rate. Because I push a high work rate and I was like, maybe you just slow it up and think about defense while I got hit a few times and I had to go back to plan a

Ben: Back to punching hard.

Tiff: Yeah, back to punching hard. I remember going back to the corner and my coach was like, what are you doing? I'm like, what? I'm like, I don't know because I don't know what-

Ben: I only started this 12 weeks ago.

Mike: Mate, I haven't slept for about a day.

Tiff: Because when she would, he's like, do not stop hitting until the ref makes you stop hitting.

But if she, when she covered and coward. I would stop automatically. Like it was just a, oh I'll wait to-

Ben: nice thing to do.

Tiff: Yep. I'll just wait till we're doing this again. And then I won it in the third round, so I got-

Ben: after coach kept telling you when 'when she cowers',

Tiff: technical knockout, so

Mike: Oh, unreal.

Tiff: Yeah, it was amazing. And I remember-

Mike: What was that feeling like?

Tiff: [00:22:00] Oh, I didn't get, I was like, Looking around and then, realized that the fight was over and then it was just like, you could not get that microphone off of me.

Mike: Oh wow. So that something,

Tiff: Oh my goodness. It was-

Mike: and then you were like, yo, I just wanna thank this person. I just wanna thank- There you go! And yeah, all shout out to all my homies, back in Tassie, all that stuff.

Tiff: And I just think of the feeling I had the day before of not being able to fathom anything being worth that. And that paled into comparison to how I felt.

And then just the,

Mike: just totalization.

Tiff: Yeah. About like it changed everything about what I believed about how I processed our, mindset, our ability to do anything. And the work, I was gonna say, work, rest ratio. I get like the ratio of I remember standing in front of the ring looking at the next fights afterwards and just thinking.

I just did all of that for 12 weeks. I just socialized different, I have to eat different, I had to train a lot. I had to put up with all that [00:23:00] negative self talk and fear and all of this. I had to change everything for 12 whole weeks for that, just between four and six minutes in the boxing ring for under 10 minutes in the boxing ring, and I took that as a lesson on anything in life.

It was like that tiny thing, that four, five minutes meant nothing to anybody else. So it has to mean something to you. And this is like that whole 12 weeks of discomfort and work is what you gotta be willing to put in. And it, that really changed me a lot.

Mike: Would it have been worth it if you had a lost the fight?

Tiff: Yeah.

Mike: Yeah.

Ben: I I love love the way you translate that to life and go like that is the same as anything in life that sometimes you gotta put yourself through some of the hardest, most rigorous, consistent put yourself out essentially. And then even those, like you say, 10 minutes in the ring didn't mean anything to anyone else but you.

I didn't care. I didn't care that you're in the ring. I didn't even know you were in the ring.

Mike: And, no one sees all that stuff, do they?

Tiff: No one cares if you win. They do, [00:24:00] but they don't deeply get, they want you to win on the night, but they're all there for you whether you win or not.

But you gotta understand what it means to you, what you're really getting out of it. Otherwise you can chase the wrong bouncing ball.

Mike: And I'd imagine jumping into a ring is not something you want half ass either.

You wanna make sure you, you're absolutely ready, right?

Tiff: Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. A hundred percent. No I love that story. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that.

Ben: We didn't plan this, but obviously this podcasts is called Talkin Tough, Mate, and we've got the tough cookie on here.

Mike: Yeah, we do.

Ben: And I have to ask this question because we ask everyone, and you've alluded to it a little bit, but is there a moment when in your life, whether it was in the boxing room, wherever that you feel like shit hit the fan?

Tiff: Yes. There's probably been a few really, but I, guess

Ben: one that you're comfortable sharing.

Tiff: Yeah. We'll go for the big one. We'll go for the big one.

Ben: Why not?

Tiff: So I guess it was realizing and working through, [00:25:00] and it wasn't a moment like it was a journey and it was a... and it still is. And it was realizing when that trauma came up in the boxing ring, and that was related to this years of being sexually abused as a child and not having told anyone or shared it or, and just kept that inside, realizing that how much that had shaped my personality and my ability to be vulnerable and connect and be seen and communicate all of the things and that's a journey. And I think for a lot of people it can, when you make that realization and then see that, oh, this is because of that, you can, there's a real danger of getting stuck there. And there's a real danger of making it a label and going, I can't do this because of that.

So yeah, I think that's ebbed and [00:26:00] flowed. And that's been like I said, not a moment, but a challenge. But it's also been, I remember journaling before I'd spoken about it to anyone. I remember writing, just writing stuff and midway through journaling about it, midway through a sentence. I just started writing I think I'd, maybe I should thank this guy because I was aware of the strengths, like I would not change, I would not give back the silver linings of how I've developed because of that. So you just need... you can't get rid of the bad stuff and keep the good stuff.

Mike: And that, that'd be hard. That's a hard thing to get your head around. To get to a point of saying maybe I should thank

Tiff: I had one of the best trauma therapists on my show, Dr. Bruce Perry, and he wrote the book with Oprah Winfrey. 'What happened to you?' and I, I said to him about that story. I said why did... why did I fall into that place? What's the difference between people who [00:27:00] get post-traumatic growth and people who develop and... an, And it becomes an anchor post-traumatic disorder or injury we Will like to call it. And that's still, I'm still so curious about that.

We surround ourselves in good people, but until we're ready for something, Look, I always think about if someone had to come and said to me in the beginning, before I'd made those realizations come and said, you're actually not tough. You're actually scared of vulnerability, and you've got this, and this going on. I would've told 'em to get stuffed. I wasn't ready to hear that. And you think about, you can look at other people and hear a story and see where they are at with it. And they might still be resistant.

And I'm just so curious about what, is, how we all take our journey and find our way through the stuff. How we make our... we can influence people, but we can't tell them. Like I sat in that first [00:28:00] therapy office with, which wasn't too far from here. And I remember sitting down with this, guy, and it's like, all right, this has happened.

These are the problems. All right, I'm ready. Here you go. Take my 200 bucks, tell me what to do. Fix me because you're the expert.

Ben: It's what's that easy!

Tiff: Tap and go. It's that easy I remember session four with him. He goes, Tiff normally by the second or third session I'll have a real sense of who someone is and what they need from me and I just don't get that with you. I was just sitting there going,

Ben: how'd that make you feel?

Tiff: Yeah I, was like, you are the expert. I was like I don't know. Then I just-

Ben: so what was he getting at with that? Sounds to me like he was just saying, Hey, I need you to be more honest and more open. You were just giving him surface level stuff?

Tiff: I think so. I think... I still was so if I look back, I just, yeah. I wasn't...

Ben: It's a timing thing hey? You gotta be ready. I'd love to know, like

Tiff: I'm very analytical.

Ben: What made you want to go to therapy in the first place?

Tiff: Because I could see that my [00:29:00] relationships weren't, they weren't deep and they weren't as good as they should be and could be. I knew that relationships were challenging for me and not just intimate relationships like family and friends, and I just felt like I had walls up, really big walls up.

Mike: Ironic that you said before that you had no defense when it came in the boxing ring, but in the life it sounded like you had the most impenetrable sort of defense ever and just got these huge walls up, no one can, get inside. Until obviously you've done some, work on yourself and self-awareness and understanding, and then all of a sudden those walls started to come down. What was the, apart from obviously therapy, You would've got some advice and tips and tools and you would've had to get out there and actually work on yourself. What sort of things did you do?

Tiff: It's just continual learning and self-awareness, and for me, the biggest part of that's been in the boxing ring because it's everything is evident in that space. If you look hard enough, like how you do one thing is how you do everything. [00:30:00] What is your self talk like when you're in the middle of stuff? How do you react to things? How do you manage yourself in the middle of things? Do you feel when things are going on? I took a three year break between about 2016, I think. 2019. And I'd done a lot of therapy and I knew I'd shifted a lot of the emotional stuff in that time and I went back to my old coach in 2019 and I wasn't planning to fight straight up.

I was just going for a session a week and then we did the first session and I said hell I might come every day, but I can't fight.

Ben: When's the next fight?

Tiff: Yeah. I can't fight because I'm about to open gyms. He didn't care about that. He, by the third or fourth session, he was like, you're fighting in three weeks.

Mike: Yeah, other plans.

Tiff: But the thing is, that first session back, I thought to myself who, am I gonna be in the boxing ring? because when I delved into therapy, I was well aware that you're pulling levers that span across your whole life. So if I'm gonna work on this [00:31:00] emotional lever, And not feeling and being a little bit dissociated in the boxing ring.

And not having access to emotions in the present moment in crisis. If that's a strength there, but it's not really a strength in life, is it? But if I wanna grab hold of it in life and invite it in, it's gonna change me in the boxing ring.

Ben: What was different? What was different about 2019 to when you started 2016?

Tiff: So I translated the idea of just more self-care, more self-love. Like I cared about getting- it was harder for me to walk into punches cause I didn't wanna get hit now. So I'm willing to, walk in and commit, but also not at the cost of getting hurt. And so when you pick that apart and go, oh I'm, so much more tentative now, and I'll advocate for myself and, if you ask something in training that I think is just unnecessarily brutal. Then I'm gonna stand up and say no now. [00:32:00] Because I can do that, but I'm not gonna do that at the cost of what's needed.

Ben: But you wouldn't have said no early days.

Tiff: Oh God, no. Yeah.

Mike: So there's a big element of recklessness in your life early days. And all of a sudden.

Ben: And do you reckon that was looking back connected with your past?

Like you talked about the sexual abuse and things like that and trying to release some of that emotion that built up stuff that you probably hadn't dealt with of going, you know what? I don't care.

Tiff: Yeah. And I think, look when I was doing at that stage of doing the journaling, I was trying to pick apart what... because I'd never stuck at anything.

So to stick at this boxing thing that I, wasn't a natural- I mean I had wins, but I definitely didn't feel naturally good at it. I felt like I was very hard. It was the first thing I'd done that with and so I looked at the aspects of it and looked for what was landing with me. And for me it was like this metaphor of I'm standing in this space and there's a person in there in front of me and they're trying to hurt me. And so there's a [00:33:00] familiarity with that. But in this scenario, I'm standing in front of all these people and they can see, so I can be seen. Everyone can see what's happening here, and they can see that I can look after me, that I'm looking after me.

They can see me doing that, and everyone can wish me the best, but no one else can help me but me. So it was these little ideas of that the honesty of that. There's no secret here when you are not pretending to be my friend, you're trying to punch me in the face. And so I think all of those little things became somewhat therapeutic for me.

Ben: Before we finish Mike, we do it with everyone. We've got some quickfire questions.

Mike: Look out, you ready?

Tiff: I'm not quick.

Ben: Mike, you've got these ones today mate?

Mike: I got 'em. So Schniity or steak mate?

Tiff: Steak

Mike: Beach, bush, or city?

Tiff: Beach.

Mike: Yep. Summer or winter?

Tiff: Summer!

Mike: Book, Poddy or tunes?

Tiff: Poddy

Mike: Poddy, of course. Yep. Your own potty.

Ben: Little bit biased.

Tiff: Your episode!

Ben: Shout out to 'Roll with the Punches'. [00:34:00] Check that out.

Mike: Worst advice you've ever got when it comes to your mental health?

Tiff: Oh. Yeah,

Ben: They were easy to start with, weren't they?

Tiff: Yeah, no, you threw that. That's not a quickfire question.

Mike: That's just quick enough.

Tiff: I don't think I've ever listened to anyone's bad advice.

Ben: I love that.

Mike: You talked to earlier, Tiff one of the things that I'm, we always love to do on our podcast Talkin Tough is to talk about your perception of what 'Tough' meant when you were growing up. And obviously you had those that extended period of time when you built up this big tough exterior in the walls, you wouldn't let anyone in. And that was your version of tough back then. I'd love to hear with everything that you've been through and the self-development journey that you've been on, which is really admirable and I commend you for being able to recognize it, but also to, to benefit or to get better in spite of it.

What does tough mean to you these days?

Tiff: I think it just means honesty. Like it's really, I think, the toughest thing is to be honest, and with both yourself, but with people. [00:35:00] Because that means hard conversations and hard, having difficult conversations is something that I was terrible at always confrontation or conflict. Not good with it. I had this real kind of, I would automatically just, oh, I can't think of the word for it, just to be whatever the person needed, was asking of me before thinking. So I would often agree to things whether it be in work or anything. Agree to things.

And then quite a while later reflect and go, actually that's cause I was so quick to be like, yeah, I'll be whatever you need. Whatever you need. I don't-

Mike: I can handle it.

Tiff: Don't need to come into this. Bam. And then later on we're like, what would I say yes to that? So having difficult conversations and just being open, I think we we place judgment on things before really unpack like whatever our response is to something to a degree, it's okay, but if we unpack the why around it, like [00:36:00] why do I feel, why do I feel a certain something when I interact with Mike. And Mike, you make me feel, like, you make me feel like this.

To be able to say that to people... I was talking to one of, one of my mates, Bobby, and we're saying the same things like he has Tourettes and I was talking about a client that I had that was really challenging. They had were... had autism and some other things going on, and it was a young kid and it was really, it was really confronting working with him.

And when I was talking about that interaction, Bobby was saying the same thing. He was sharing how with Tourettes and some of the things that goes, on for him. When he first started dating his wife, she came back from the bathroom. She sat down and she goes, 'are you violent?', Because she came back and she, he was sitting there doing weird things and talking to himself.

And it was like, he goes, I was dating other people around that time and no one ever said anything, but she asked., And it's [00:37:00] it's okay to ask if the intention's okay. Yeah, it's okay to make mistakes, like we're in such a precious world these days. You might have the same experience.

There's a girl that's had a similar experience to me that turned to boxing. I had her on my show. Her experience with fighting was the polar opposite to me. Boxing training was amazing, but she was completely disempowered because the story and the experience is different. So yeah, we don't know that until we're just honest and we have an open mind and we have conversations and I think it's hard.

Mike: I love that.

Ben: Love that definition.

Do you wanna tell us about the show? Tell us a little bit about what's going on. What's it called? We know what it's called, but tell the listeners out there, what's it called, what's it all about? Where can they find you? And give us a bit of insight.

Tiff: All right. It's called Roll With the Punches. It started out of lockdown, lockdown boredom, and became a thing. I decided, I was in the fitness industry, and the gyms got shut down, obviously, and I thought It would be the [00:38:00] greatest disappointment in the world to spend this time doing however many PTs you were allowed to do a day, which wasn't many to earn money.

yeah. If Because I can't, if I'm gonna financially implode through this, I'm not gonna spend my time trying to make money. So I'm gonna spend my time doing something that cannot be taken away. So skills network and the podcast just rolled outta that. You can find it anywhere you're probably finding this.

Unless it's YouTube, I don't put many on YouTube. And what else?

Mike: How many episodes you up to so far?

Tiff: Oh, Nearly 600. I've recorded 600 episodes.

Mike: And it is very good. Listen to it. You've got a great way when you are... as, you said earlier you are being interviewed today but as the interviewee.

Ben and I, know that we've been on twice and we've had an absolute blast every time.

Tiff: So she must have been running outta guests when she asked.

Mike: I know.

Tiff: You were, so good.

Mike: Yeah so Legless, Blind and forgetful. So we go, yeah, let's do that one. That sounds great. Yeah. [00:39:00] Sweet. Let's get on that podcast. Yeah.

Tiff. Look, to be honest with you, today's gone exactly as I expected it to. You're such an easy person to talk to. You're very open, you're very honest. I really appreciate you and we really appreciate you coming in and sharing some of the darkest side but also what an extraordinary journey of growth, hasn't it? Benny?

Ben: Yeah, mate. Absolutely. And I wanna thank you. And the reason I wanna thank you, and you might, argue with me about this and I'm happy to argue about it now. But I could tell at the start that you didn't want to tell what you told halfway through or you were in your head thinking about, should I, do I go there?

Yeah. How do I say it? Can I say it? And I just wanna say a massive thank you because that in itself is courage. That in itself is tough, And that in itself is your definition of tough. And that's the ability to be honest. But mate, thank you so much for that.

Yeah, get him talking. Yeah.

Mike: [00:40:00] Tiff Cook, thank you so much for joining us. We absolutely loved having you on, and we wish you all the best for the future. We know that you're just heading from strength to strength. But mate, thanks so much for coming on.

Ben: Yeah, appreciate it.

Tiff: Thanks lads. Had a ball.

Ben: And as always, if today's episode has hit you in the feels, has made you wanna pick up the phone ring and make check in with them, reach out to them.

And if they don't pick up, you can also always call Lifeline 13 11 14. Catch ya next time.

OUTRO VOICE OVER: Thanks for tuning in. Everything you've heard in today's episode will be in the show notes below where you click to play this episode. While you're there, why not chuck us and subscribe or follow, catch you next time!