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Speaker 1: Hi, welcome back to Bounce Forward with me, Tir Paul.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land

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Speaker 1: in which I'm recording this podcast, the WERENDR people of

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Speaker 1: the cooler Nation.

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Speaker 2: I pay my respects to elders past and present.

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Speaker 1: Sophie popped up with a great question, Hey, Tif, I'm

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Speaker 1: wondering how you actually got started in health and fitness.

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Speaker 1: What did you study? How did you end up on television?

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Speaker 2: Also?

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Speaker 1: Would you ever go back to TV at all? I'd

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Speaker 1: love to see you on our screens again. Oh Sophie,

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Speaker 1: that's so lovely. But I'll just answer the TV part.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.

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Speaker 1: I no interest in doing TV anymore, not with the

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Speaker 1: little kids. And TV is intense. It's long hours. It's

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Speaker 1: usually for a stint of time where you just completely

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Speaker 1: Like for Biggest Loser, I was on set from five

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Speaker 1: am sometimes called ten pm at night. I just couldn't

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Speaker 1: do it around the kids. My husband works in TV

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Speaker 1: and it is intense, long hours, and you know, I'll

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Speaker 1: let him do that. One parent on the telly is enough.

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Speaker 1: Arnold's already going to school and he tells everyone I

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Speaker 1: was a gladiator and I wore wings and things like that,

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Speaker 1: and I have his little friends coming up to me

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Speaker 1: and it's just.

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Speaker 2: Like it's cute.

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Speaker 1: But also I'm like, let's forget about it now. That

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Speaker 1: was a long time ago. You know, It's just a

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Speaker 1: little blip in my life. And I feel like my

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Speaker 1: focus now is definitely on coaching and helping others to

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Speaker 1: be strong and fit and feel amazing through my business

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Speaker 1: tich So, and I just love that so much. And

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Speaker 1: I could never sacrifice any time to go on television

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Speaker 1: and do a program or host a program or do

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Speaker 1: any of that.

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Speaker 2: Ever. Again, I don't think.

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Speaker 1: I'm just so loving what I'm doing with Techso now

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Speaker 1: it's a great question is how did you end up

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Speaker 1: in healthy fitness? What did you study? Okay, So, I

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Speaker 1: started teaching taekwondo when I was about twelve. I was

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Speaker 1: assistant instructing my father, who was a fitness instructor and

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Speaker 1: a martial arts instructor, and my mom was also a

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Speaker 1: fitness instructor and a martial arts instructor, so I could

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Speaker 1: assist them in classes. When I was sixteen, I became

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Speaker 1: a full time instructor. I could take classes on my own,

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Speaker 1: and by that time, I had earned my black belt,

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Speaker 1: which is a certification for teaching classes, and I had

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Speaker 1: gone through the training program at Hall's Taekwondo, which teaches

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Speaker 1: you how to instruct how to be a good instructor. Then,

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Speaker 1: funnily enough, when I was about I don't know, I

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Speaker 1: think eighteen, I turned eighteen, I would have done my

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Speaker 1: sirt three and cirt four, And in my early twenties,

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Speaker 1: I did my Diploma of Sports Coaching as well, and

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Speaker 1: I also earned my sixth them black belt, which then

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Speaker 1: sort of took my coaching, taekwondo coaching and taekwondo instruction

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Speaker 1: to the next level because it's the highest rank you

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Speaker 1: can be for a female for my age at that time.

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Speaker 1: And then I'm currently about to start my pre and

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Speaker 1: postnatal certifications for training. But funnily enough, I didn't go

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Speaker 1: to university and do anything related to health and fitness,

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Speaker 1: and I kick myself now. I kick myself because I

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Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write novels.

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Speaker 1: I loved creative writing. I did every creative writing course

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Speaker 1: there is under the sun. I won a scholarship at

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Speaker 1: my school for creative writing, and I got an ETA

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Speaker 1: score of ninety nine point ninety five, just with all

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Speaker 1: straight fifties in literature, English, you name it, all the

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Speaker 1: writing subjects. I just nailed it at school. So for me,

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Speaker 1: I thought, I'm good at writing. I should go and

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Speaker 1: do writing at universities. I went and did a journalism degree,

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Speaker 1: and I also did an arts degree as well, and

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Speaker 1: I did all creative writing subjects no help, and journalism,

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Speaker 1: which has changed so much now to what it was,

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Speaker 1: you know, twenty years ago, and we studied you know,

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Speaker 1: audiences and there was no social media back then.

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Speaker 2: It's just changed so much. And I also.

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Speaker 1: Did a diploma of Modern Languages at Melbourne University in French,

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Speaker 1: so I was speaking French back then.

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Speaker 2: Can't anymore. I forget most of it. It's terrible.

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Speaker 1: And I did languages and creative writing and journalism all

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Speaker 1: at Melbourne UNI.

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Speaker 2: It was a really hard course.

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Speaker 1: It was something like five years and I earned my degrees,

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Speaker 1: came out and just kept going with fitness. And the

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Speaker 1: weirdest thing is I had started boot camps and I

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Speaker 1: was a Lesmils pump instructor and body pump instructor and

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Speaker 1: body combat instructor, and I was teaching taekwondo and teaching

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Speaker 1: in gyms and personal training and doing boot camps and

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Speaker 1: doing all of that stuff before UNI, and I did

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Speaker 1: it all the way through UNI. I went to UNI

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Speaker 1: in my active war, people would look at me like

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Speaker 1: I was crazy. I was in like bike shorts and

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Speaker 1: a singer and my runners. And you never wore active

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Speaker 1: wear anywhere like in two thousand and two, other than

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Speaker 1: when you were training. And I was there in tutes

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Speaker 1: and in lectures in my full active war, and people

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Speaker 1: thought I was nuts because I was always coming or

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Speaker 1: going to training or training someone or coaching or taekwondo

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Speaker 1: or something. And my love for fitness was all the

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Speaker 1: way through my degree. And as soon as I finished

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Speaker 1: my degree, I pretty much ditched it and kept going

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Speaker 1: with the fitness stuff and I did an internship at

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Speaker 1: the Heralds, but that was short lived because then this

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Speaker 1: little advert came up in the paper for a fitness

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Speaker 1: test and it was a huge Everyone come down for

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Speaker 1: this free fitness test and let's see how fit you are,

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Speaker 1: And I thought, that's me. So I dragged my boyfriend

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Speaker 1: along at the time and we did the fitness test

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Speaker 1: and he didn't make it through. He got kicked out,

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Speaker 1: but I made it through. And when I made it through,

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Speaker 1: the actually said, this is actually an audition for a

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Speaker 1: TV show called Gladiators, and you have just got through.

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Speaker 1: And I was just so shocked, and my boyfriend was

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Speaker 1: so mad that I had got through and he didn't.

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Speaker 2: We broke up. I didn't hear from him again.

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Speaker 1: But I went on to do Gladiators on TV and

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Speaker 1: that was the first thing I had ever done on television,

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Speaker 1: and then from that I started to do some morning television.

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Speaker 2: I was asked to do the morning.

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Speaker 1: Show, which was The Circle back then with Chrissy Swan

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Speaker 1: and you Miss Steins, and I would do little morning segments,

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Speaker 1: which was so great because I was living near Channel

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Speaker 1: ten at the time, so I would just walk over

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Speaker 1: in my tracksuit and then do like a morning segment

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Speaker 1: on you know some best exercises or you know, fun

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Speaker 1: ways to exercise, whatever I could think up, and I

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Speaker 1: do that like once a week.

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Speaker 2: And then.

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Speaker 1: From being on the morning TV. I think I was

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Speaker 1: on a treadmill one day and I was on the

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Speaker 1: treadmill tape and talking about the benefits of cardiovascular exercise

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Speaker 1: or something, and I was doing the segment whilst I

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Speaker 1: was running on the treadmill and I think a producer

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Speaker 1: from the Biggest Loser saw me and thought, who is

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Speaker 1: this nutcase running on a treadmill doing a TV segment?

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Speaker 1: And they called me and it was a cold call

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Speaker 1: and they flew me to Sydney for a chat and

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Speaker 1: I was hired on the spot as a fourth trainer

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Speaker 1: for The Biggest Loser and I did like four years

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Speaker 1: of the show. It was a great time in my life.

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Speaker 1: It was really good fun. I moved to Sydney for

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Speaker 1: the show. I live in Melbourne with my family, and

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Speaker 1: I moved to Sydney and Ed stayed in Melbourne. We

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Speaker 1: were a boyfriend girlfriend then and cute and he yeah,

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Speaker 1: I missed him heaps. And I lived in Sydney and

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Speaker 1: just did the show and that was like the TV

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Speaker 1: part of Tiff. But you know, it's as soon as

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Speaker 1: that show ended and I finished my stint on it,

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Speaker 1: I decided to open my own business. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: know whether to do like an online thing, or to

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Speaker 1: do a little studio in Melbourne, or to open up

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Speaker 1: a taekwondo school. Because my parents have very successful, big

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Speaker 1: taekwondo schools in Melbourne. I thought maybe I could open

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Speaker 1: up a taekwondo school. I didn't know which direction to

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Speaker 1: turn in, but the one thing that was certain was

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Speaker 1: many people wanted to train with me all over the

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Speaker 1: world and all over Australia. I didn't know how to

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Speaker 1: do that unless I got online. So I joined Instagram

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Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. I was very late to the party

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Speaker 1: and I started my online business in twenty sixteen and

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Speaker 1: it's been a wonderful you know, eight nine years of

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Speaker 1: running ticks and training women over nearly a million women

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Speaker 1: around Australia. I've trained online and I'm just so proud

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Speaker 1: of it. So it all began with fitness, and it's

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Speaker 1: always been my passion fitness. I think I got distracted

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Speaker 1: with the creative writing and the journalism. But funnily enough,

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Speaker 1: something people don't know anything about me like this in

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Speaker 1: this domain. With my creative writing, I've actually published four

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Speaker 1: novels and I've published a Roxy Rand series which is

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Speaker 1: a young adult series, and Max in the Money Tree,

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Speaker 1: which is a young adult novel. And those four books

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Speaker 1: are still in circulation at shops now. You can still

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Speaker 1: get them White Ninja, Red Samurai and Black Warrior and

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Speaker 1: Max in the magical money Tree and all up of

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Speaker 1: published thirteen books, health and fitness books, recipe books, and

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Speaker 1: children's fiction as well as young adult fiction. So I

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Speaker 1: do love writing and I still do. And my beautiful agent, Claire,

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Speaker 1: rings me all the time saying, my writing agent saying, TIV,

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Speaker 1: have we got a book? And I'm like, you're joking, right,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing my podcast, I've got my business to run,

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Speaker 1: I've got two kids. I haven't had time to write

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Speaker 1: a single word Claire, but she's so gorgeous. She checks

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Speaker 1: in with me, have we got a book? And the

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Speaker 1: answer is always no, Claire, I don't. But maybe one

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Speaker 1: day I'll write the great Australian novel. Maybe one day

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Speaker 1: I'll sit down and write something, but not yet. So

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Speaker 1: thank you, Sophie. If you're interested in getting into health

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Speaker 1: and fitness, then I say, you know, find your speciality,

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Speaker 1: find that thing that you're passionate about. For me, my

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Speaker 1: speciality was always martial arts, and I doubled down on

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Speaker 1: that and I really specialized in it in self defense

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Speaker 1: and in fitness, in high in.

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Speaker 2: Tensing martial arts.

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Speaker 1: I really did focus on teaching taekwondo as my seciality

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Speaker 1: in personal training and in fitness and stuff. So just

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Speaker 1: find your speciality and you will.

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Speaker 2: Just do so well.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Bounce Forward now. I

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Speaker 1: love having your company, So please DM me all of

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Speaker 1: your questions on Instagram at tiphaul Underscore XO and let

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Speaker 1: me know what you'd love me to cover. Don't forget

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Speaker 1: to rate and review me on your podcast app.

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Speaker 2: Please speak soon. Happy days,