Roll With The Punches

I booked this chat thinking I'd be talking to an animal behaviour expert. Turns out, I was basically signing up for a gentle but very accurate psychological assessment via my pets.
Mark Vette and I talked dogs, cats, bonding, anxiety, routine, over-attachment, and why our animals know us better than most humans ever will. We went deep into why dogs feel like family, how cats absolutely train us without apology, and how so many behaviour “problems” are really mirrors we don’t always want to look at.
All things puppies, rescues, trauma, separation stress, why some dogs melt down when you leave, why some cats feel like emotionally intelligent sociopaths, and how animals live way more in the present than we do. There was science, evolution, Buddhism, oxytocin, teenage dogs, Whippet anxiety, boot eating Staffies, and the humbling realisation that none of us are top of the hierarchy in our own homes. (well, I'm sure bloody well not...)
This was funny, grounding, and wildly reassuring if you’ve ever wondered whether your animal chose you, shaped you, or both. Spoiler... yes.

SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: www.testartfamilylawyers.com.au
MARK VETTE
Website: dogzen.com/
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches
Website: tiffcook.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A hearty chat with Alison Bowen escalates quickly... I mean you can't escalate a whole lot more than the Mount Everest Summit, hey!?
Quite an understated lass, Alison has been in the midst of her Seven Summits journey, which started not with Everest glory, but with joining a Rover group, doing weekend hikes, getting curious, and slowly chipping away at bigger and higher mountains over nearly two decades.
What I loved most about this chat was how unromanticised it was. This wasn’t about chasing adrenaline, making noise or proving anything. It was about curiosity, patience, commitment, and sticking with something long enough to see where it might take you. Even when that something eventually takes you to the highest bloody mountain on the planet. She's got two more to tick off the list this year and next... now she's opening the door for you to follow along, so go on get inspired!
Oh yeah… we also had a full tech meltdown mid-chat, which honestly felt on brand. Mountains are hard. Zoom is harder.

SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: www.testartfamilylawyers.com.au
ALISON BOWEN
Instagram: @sevensummits_hyker
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches
Website: tiffcook.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Righto, Tony Pearce is back. And yep, he’s still head down, tail up, doing wildly wholesome and mildly unhinged things in the name of mental health.
We rewound to Tony’s Trek in 2023, when he looked at the brutal reality of mental injury and suicide risk in emergency services and basically went, nah, we can’t just keep talking about this and doing nothing. So he walked 1500km through fire-affected parts of northeast and east Victoria and raised serious money for early intervention wellbeing programs. The kind that step in early, before someone’s “clinically diagnosed” and completely cooked.
Then came Everest Base Camp in 2024. Casual. And now in 2026 he’s cranking the dial again, paddling 2400km down the Murray over 50 days. That’s 45 to 50km a day, about seven hours on the water, every day, to raise awareness and another 50k for more residential wellbeing programs.
What I loved most was the honesty. No platitudes, no tidy endings. Just real talk about emergency service workers, mental health, and how much still slips through the cracks. Tony doesn’t sugarcoat it. Sometimes people don’t make it, even with love, purpose, and community around them. And that’s hard to sit with. But it’s exactly why early intervention matters, and why these conversations matter.
SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: www.testartfamilylawyers.com.au
TONY PEARCE
Website: facebook.com
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches
Website: tiffcook.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This one is basically me and Harps doing what we do best. Taking the piss, accidentally saying something deeply meaningful, then laughing so it doesn’t get too serious.
We talked about goals, plans, and why ticking boxes doesn’t always fix how you feel. That weird moment where you get the thing you thought you wanted and realise it wasn’t the antidote. Identity, perceived value, and the stuff we chase without really checking the cost.
Then we went down a rabbit hole on perception. Same wine, different label, different brain response. Which is equal parts fascinating and mildly terrifying. Because it turns out we’re not just living our lives, we’re interpreting them.
The hill doesn’t change. We do. And apparently the solution is either adaptation… or a glass of wine.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicole Liddell is doing her PhD on coercive control, specifically how technology gets used to keep the control going even after someone leaves. And honestly, the examples are equal parts terrifying and ridiculously sneaky. Bank transfers with threats in the reference line. Smart home systems taken over remotely. A bloody robovac being used like a creepy little spy cam on wheels.
But the part that really landed was the human cost of researching this stuff when you’ve lived it. Nicole talks about going in 'eyes wide open', thinking she had it handled… then realising she didn’t. The immersion, the algorithms, the constant exposure, the nervous system never switching off. And then her body basically calling time on the whole thing.
From there, it turned into this really honest convo about hypervigilance, dating after dodgy history, rigidity, and learning to live in the messy middle instead of either fawning or fleeing. We talked self-respect, boundaries, communicating needs, and why 'fun' is not a cute extra, it’s medicine. And Nicole’s 2026 word is stewardship, which feels like the most grown-up, grounded way to say, I’m not sacrificing myself to the mission anymore. BOOM!!

SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: www.testartfamilylawyers.com.au
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches
Website: tiffcook.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.