What we've learned so far - from relationship tips to avoiding sextortion scams!

The Little Things is coming back for Season 4 next week, but before the new season gets underway, Francesca and Louise are catching up on what they learned last season, including improving their family relationships, getting more protein into their diets, and how Francesca avoided being caught in a sextortion scam! 

New episodes are back from March 8th.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Francisca Rudkin and I'm Louise Area, and we
are back for season four of our New Zealand Herald podcast,
The Little Things, a podcast where we talk to experts
and find out all the little things you need to
know to improve all areas of your life and cut
through the confusion and overload of information out there because
we know how overwhelming it can be. To kick off
season four, we wanted to look back at what we've

(00:28):
learned in the first three seasons of this podcast and
how that information may have changed our lives. Has it
changed our lives for the better, and what do we
still have to work on? So it's the moment of truth. Louise,
would you like to start? Did you have a favorite
We shouldn't have favorites, but did you have a favorite
episode or guests from last season? Well? I think because
we're quite intentional about what we want to achieve with this,

(00:48):
I do love them all. But there's always something that
surprised me and I thought Ester Perium, I thought talking
about how to care for the older people in our lives,
was it was particularly relevant for me at the time
with a neighbor, but also just so I don't know,
heartfelt and beautiful. I really enjoyed her. Joe Cribb I
loved about women in the workforce. Brad Leeper was crat
on the hair episode, and obviously, you know, I'm sure

(01:11):
we both would have picked Stacy Simms as one of
our favorites too for nutrition and exercise. Oh yeah, you know,
I've been a huge fan of Stacy's for a long time,
so it was great to have her on the show.
I thought Jeremy Cribs was really interesting talking about ozm PEC,
and it's something I still think about actually quite a lot.
I think about that conversation we had, and I think

(01:32):
about how amazing it could be for our health industry
and how it could change people's lives, and how it
could also just be abused by people that don't necessarily
need it anyway, since there's going to be a lot
more of those compass yeah no. And he was just
so great at explaining it all to us and things,
so I enjoyed that too. I also loved our chat
with Esther about how we approached conversations with elderly family

(01:54):
and friends about you know, how to look after them
later on in life. I think it's one of those
episodes you don't know until you need it. You didn't
know you needed it. Yeah, right, And then I think
a lot of us were going okay, there's quite a
lot there to take on board. I also loved talking
to Joe robertson I always leave a podcast after listening
to her going okay, there's some very simple ways I
could go home and have a better relationship with everybody

(02:17):
in my household. So I really loved that as well. Look,
I love them all. Yeah. Was there a piece of
advice that you would that you would take away well
that resonated with you on any of them? Yeah, I
think Well, going back to Joe, she spoke about the
bidden bite, which I thought was fascinating. And that's such
a simple thing. I know a lot of people are
familiar with that term. You know, if someone asks a

(02:38):
question or they throw something out there, and we might
be tired and not particularly interested, and it's really easy
just to kind of grunt and response instead of sort
of saying, oh, no, tell me about that or what
was that about? And actually, you know, biting and getting
and having a conversation and communicating, And that was really
interesting and it wasn't just with my partner, but I
did with my kids as well. You know, there'd be

(02:58):
times when, you know, specially when you have a daughter
with ADHD who likes to deep dive into topics which
you don't really need to know all about, but you know,
I'd say to myself, actually, you know, tut, let's bite,
and then we'd end up having this really interesting conversation
and she would feel like, you know, she was listening
to Well, it was that whole lessen scenelessen her, doesn't it.
Actually that's right. That was great advice. So that, and

(03:20):
also I just love the way Joe said that it's
okay we can get intimacy from lots of different people.
Doesn't have to be your partner. It can be good
good friends, close friends, things like that. I thought that
was really interesting. I really loved Aaron and the episode
that we did with her on just creating good habits.
It was so practical and it was all about being

(03:41):
really simple and picking one thing and habit stacking. I
am habit stacking things people, I'm habit stacking everyone else
in my house. Now I'm saying, well, when you do this,
just do this. When you do that we just do this,
and I thought that was that was a really great
tip that resonate with me. Oh, she was great. Her
tip when you say simple, really really simple, right, Like

(04:01):
you know, she noted with all the clients that they
make an effort to make really lovely dinners and if
that's the only meal you've got time to make and
eff it with, make more of it and then you've
got a really great lunch the next day. Just little
little life hacks that are not crazy. Like it's not
like eat all the cotd of cheese in the world.
It's a really simple, easy thing to do to acrease
of joy in your day. I think I liked Joe

(04:24):
crib talking about value when you're worse and telling us
to put our big girl pants on. And that's stumondous
for me. Actually, I feel more valued in my workplace
just from having articulated what I need. And I really
liked Matt Heath and Doogle Southerlands or they were great?
Would they so good? And I just that whole thing.
I could just literally go home and say, I've heard

(04:45):
it from two men who've done all the research that
being grumpy in midlife is just a little lazy, So
not advice from me, per se, but vice I was
happy to pass on. Well, I think you ended that
podcast by saying you they just to get on with it.
Does that I did home? Did you go home and
do that? But I'm not sure. I suppose the question

(05:06):
is like we always find every podcast fascinating that there's
lots of things within them that we go, oh, that's
a nugget, that's a bit of a nugget. Actually, what
have you taken on board and implemented? Like I mean,
we had this conversation every season. You're such a good student.
You go away and you try things out and you

(05:26):
trial them, and then I'm always sort of the one
going you know, I'm meaning to give that a go.
So you're quite good at implementing things. This reason I
wanted this reason I wanted to do this. I need
to talk to the source. I need to go to
the source to get the information, and once I have it,
I will use it. Yes, as I say, Joe, I
updated my sea being shocked myself with the new skills

(05:47):
and experience I've had thinking I was sort of stagnating
in a place for ten years, and then actually reflected
on it I really recommend people do this, and AI
is actually really useful for doing it to get the
layout sorted and then adding skills, and I was really
gosmacked at what I had learned and I'm not stagnating
at all. And then that led to a renegotiation of
my salary, which has been great. And also as we

(06:09):
talked about protein, protein protein, with Stacey adding that has
definitely helped with my satiety and not eating between meals
and things like that. I don't know, you know, I'm
not lean and mean yet or anything, but yeah, just
actually just accepting it. I think you are getting leaner
and miner and fitter and stronger, all those things. I

(06:29):
think the last three seasons have oh yeah, you know,
working towards that well consistently. Yeah yeah, So what about you?
What have you implemented? Well? I am very excited to
say that I took some of the information out of
some of the information that we received in a podcast
was hugely beneficial to me when I got six storted.

(06:51):
Oh lord, yes, I don't know if I've really told
you about this. So we did that particular, we did
an episode on sixtortion and especially how it is impacting
young adults and men in particular a lot overseas, not
just not just young girls. And it's not about sex,
and it's not about shaming you about sex. It's about money.

(07:12):
So I received I hadn't really noticed, but I was
in my junk box one day and I was like,
there's a title subject this is You've been hacked, And
so I went what And the A in the hacked
was like an ad like it wasn't sort of spout
correctly or anything. So I opened the email and basically
it said, we've hacked your computer. We've been following you
for about three months now. We have noticed that you

(07:33):
watch porn. We have recorded you watching porn and masturbating.
Apologies the conversation here, that the lowering of the time
of the conversation, and we have this on video, and
if you don't give us two thousand dollars now, we're
going to release that. You can click here for proof.
So I immediately thank you so much to Netscape and
the information we got out in our sex tution episode.

(07:55):
I immediately went, I don't think so well, actually, okay, truth,
I panicked. I felt sick. Even though watching I felt sick.
I felt you know how everything stops and the adrenaline
just bursts through the body and you're sitting there going,
oh my godness, what's going on here? And then I went, Francesca,

(08:16):
you are so boring. You're not that interesting. You don't
watch porn, so watching when you watch porn because you
don't watch porn, so you're bored. So then I went, okay, okay, okay.
And the email there was sort of gaps in the
in the in the paragraphs, and it was really badly
put together, and I went, this is a fishing exercise.
This has been sent to Goodness knows how many emails

(08:38):
from that have been retrieved from some hack somewhere, and
I'm not and I just went, I know what to do.
Thank you to the episode. I blocked them, I deleted them,
and I didn't think about it again. But Lou I
did think how an eighteen year old boy may be
when that comes through, would have that same feeling of

(08:58):
sick feeling, and then they're going to click on that
show me the proof. God knows where that gets you.
But you've shown some interest and you're probably locked in
and it's so easy to do. So that was hugely beneficial.
To me, who would have thought? And then I got
that excited that someone had tried to well, I know,
that is really really good, real life example of how

(09:19):
awful these things are and how easy it is to
get sucked in. And as you say, as an adult
female not watching porn, you can safely say, but I
do love that you said, but I don't watch porn,
and then but it wasn't that was it also spelled
badly and the paragraphs went right, you don't watch one.
You could have clicked out at any point. Never mind, well,

(09:39):
but you're not thinking clearly, no emails like that. You
just don't think it's followed by the police. I think
that was very beneficial. Have there been any fails on
your well, anything you wanted to achieve that you haven't.
The funny thing is that in six stortion episode I
went home and talked to my kids immediately, and they
were just so blase about it and like, oh, yeah, mum,
we know when well you don't. And I actually, thinking

(10:02):
back on it, I do need to talk to them
again about and maybe do my own research a little
bit more about literally every type of thing, because you're
saying that gives me the Willies. You know, it's like
that could happen to any one of my kids. And
I don't know what they do when they're, you know,
not downtime, but I can imagine it'd be pretty easy
to convince them that they've done something naughty or something
that they were ashamed of. The Other thing is, yeah,

(10:23):
the Joe Robinson stuff. I mean, you know, there's a big,
big list of things on our plates, isn't there, Francis
scat And perhaps I could just keep making sure that
I am biting on those bids and also just showing
some more physical touch as well, because it's all too
easy to leave the house and just yell from the
dork front door that you're leaving and not actually say goodbye.

(10:44):
We can have a hug after this, you'll get your go.
We could do that, Yeah, we could, What about you?
I loved our conversation with Stacy Simms, and I've definitely
increased a lot more protein into my diet and that
is definitely helping with me not wanting to have a
nap at two o'clock every day. But I'm still not
great at getting the protein in before exercising. I'll grab
a banana and eat a little bit, but I'm just
sort of working on being a bit more. I've got

(11:05):
to work still on being a bit more strategic about
when I eat around my exercise. Yeah, it's that thought
of if you're already exercising early, that thought of having
to get another fifteen minutes earlier again to eat something.
But there are lots of quick fixes to that, protein balls,
protein cookies, stuff that you know, you don't already thinking
about it. You just stuff and any god and getting
on with your day. So yeah, I'm sure lots of

(11:27):
us would find that a bit of a challenge, but
it's worth doing. What are you looking forward to with
the season four? Well, you know, like I say, we've
done what we've done Skinky, and we've done here, and
I've gotten a lot out of both of those, and
we're going to be doing makeup, so I'm quite excited
about that surprise. You've literally got a shopping list, just
sort of a pen and paper, really what I need

(11:47):
to get. We're going to talk about midlife metabolism and
insulent resistance and stuff like that. That's definitely something that's
been on my radar for a while. What about you,
We're also going to talk about being active in menopause, yes,
and perimenopause and middle age and things. We're going to
talk a bit about gut health and both of those
sort of come back to me talking about you know,
I've got to still working out how to improve on

(12:08):
both of those things. And we're going to have a
conversation about grief as well, and also being an empty nester,
because at this time of the year there's a lot
of kids leaving home heading off to university. Might be
your first, your second, or your last child leaving and
that can be quite a full on time for parents,
and it can kind of creep up on them and
take them by surprise at how emotional and sort of unsettling,

(12:30):
or how it can be, or even how easy it
how exciting it's been. Anyways, again, lots of that. So
we're going to be back with season four and a
whole new range of experts on Saturday, March eighth, and
you can catch a new episode every Saturday. Just search
for The Little Things on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
your podcasts.