Barbell Shrugged - Risking it All for a Simpler, Happier Life: Valentine Thomas on Why She Quit Her Job as a Lawyer to Become a Professional Free Diver, Spearfisher and Conservationist — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #2

Episode Date: February 14, 2019

Canadian-born Valentine Thomas (@valentinethomas) is a trained lawyer who worked in finance in London for six years before leaving it all to travel the world and spread the word about eating and fishing responsibly. She’s a Freediving Instructor with PADI, professional traveller, accomplished chef, TEDx speaker, entrepreneur and soon-to-be cookbook author.   Learn why a trained lawyer left her cushy job and life in London to live in her car before becoming a freediver, spearfisher, chef, and sustainable fishing and eating advocate. We discuss the risks and joys of working in the ocean; the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated profession; how she got over a near-drowning and subsequent fear of the water by becoming a freediving instructor; tips on how to hunt, shop, and eat sustainably and ethically; and why it’s important to spend your time doing what you love (even if it’s risky).   Episode Breakdown:   4-16 Why Valentine quit her lucrative career to become a spearfisher and free diver, and what it takes to learn these challenging and dangerous skills 17–25: Why hunting is a primal, and deeply respectful, part of human nature, and how to get people to care more about ethical eating– whether you’re vegan, carnivore, or anywhere in between 25-36: We talk about the realities and challenges of her life (despite the glamorous Instagram account), including sleeping in her car, having a voice in a male-dominated world, and maintaining relationships when you’re never in one place 36–54: All about risks: how Valentine overcame near -drowning and a deathly fear of the water (including severe anxiety and agoraphobia) to enjoy a life spent almost entirely in the water; a discussion on the inherent risks and rewards of stepping outside the box of what’s expected of you and doing what truly makes you happy 54: Helpful tips on the best and worst fish to eat as well as how we can all make the best food choices for ourselves and the planet ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/mmr-valentine ----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the second week, second episode of Muscle Maven Radio. If you're listening, I'm going to assume it's because you enjoyed the first episode, which makes me very happy because I enjoyed doing it. And I'm really having fun talking to all of these crazy, talented, dedicated people who keep me inspired and on my toes. And really, that's what I think this podcast is all about. So I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you're excited about this one. And I hope you're more interested in arm wrestling after last week's interview. Like, did you check out any of Devin's YouTube videos?

If you didn't already, you really should. This guy's so strong, so funny, super intense. I think I'm going to have to do a part two with him at some point, but I will keep you posted on that. Anyway, this week's guest has an equally crazy job, but she's kind of on the other end of the spectrum from Devin, I guess. Valentine Thomas is a Montreal-born lawyer. She was working a high-paying, high-powered job in London for six years before she quit and completely left her comfortable life to become a professional spearfisher and free diver. No big deal. Now she

travels the world spending time on the most beautiful beaches and eating what she catches. She's a chef and a sustainable fishing advocate. She teaches free diving courses. She's a TEDx speaker. And based on her Instagram account, it kind of seems like she's living the dream. But as always, there is more to someone's life than what you see on Instagram. And she had to overcome some pretty huge obstacles and take some really big risks to have the lifestyle that she currently has. And she still has challenges. She had a near drowning accident when she was younger. And while some people may use that as a very valid excuse to never go near the ocean again, she did the opposite and addressed her fear head on and now spends most of her life in the ocean doing a crazy, dangerous job, actually.

And she had to overcome a lot of uncertainty, a loss of income, family and friends thinking she was crazy. She had to overcome severe anxiety and even agoraphobia to have this job that still challenges her, but that she finds deeply fulfilling and close to nature and rewarding. So I think this is an interview that we can all learn from because even if we're one of the lucky ones who loves our job or feels very fulfilled and challenged in our life, we can all relate at some point or another to feeling stuck or maybe wishing that we could take a chance on something

in our lives and maybe not having the courage to do it or not even knowing how to start. So we talk about that a lot. And look, neither myself nor Valentine is saying you need to quit your day job and become a professional freediver, although that is badass. But what I'm saying is that it's worth having that conversation with yourself. If there's something that you want to do that you've always wanted to do, if you're feeling stuck or feeling restless or feeling unhappy, there are things you can do. There are always choices and there's always options. And sometimes the scariest decisions have the biggest and best payoffs. And I think it's also worth kind of looking at the situation from a different perspective, instead of thinking, what are all of the ways this could go badly, or all of the risks

in making a change, and instead thinking, what are the risks or bad things that could happen if I don't do this thing that I've wanted to do? So it's just another way of looking at the same problem. And I think it's worth a conversation. And I think that this interview is going to inspire people to do that because she's got a crazy story, guys. So anyway, that's enough for me. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Valentine. If you do like it, please reach out to me on Instagram.

I'm there at The Muscle Maven. And send me a message. Take a screenshot of the podcast. If you liked it, spread the love, share it, let other people know that there's something good here. Because that's the only way I know if you guys are enjoying it. And if I'm providing value to you, if you let me know, so leave a nice rating and review on iTunes, if you're like it. And yeah, let's just start a conversation. Hit me up. I'm on Instagram way too much. So I'll be there. I'll answer you. That's it. Enjoy my interview with Valentine Thomas.

All right, Valentine, thank you so much for being here for being on the podcast. I'm super, super excited to talk to you. So thanks for taking the time. Of course, thanks for having me. And I've been a fan ever since I heard your story on Joe Rogan. And the fact that you are Canadian also makes me extra happy because I am also Canadian. But the story that you tell is something that I think so many of us can relate to because we hear your story and we want to, we think about doing what you did, or we dream about doing what you did, but maybe we don't have the courage and maybe

hearing your story, we might have the courage. And what I'm talking about, of course, is you leaving a very lucrative job and going in a different direction and doing something that you personally found fulfilling, even if it seemed risky or maybe even crazy to other people. So I would love if you could kind of just give a quick synopsis for our listeners about what that was. And then I'm going to get into all the questions that I have for you. Of course. So basically I was, I was living in London and I picked up spearfishing while I was living there. And then, I don't know, I just kind of fell in love with that lifestyle. It was all of a sudden I passed from buying all my food at a grocery store to cash-nigging myself.

And it was very unusual. I'm from Montreal, so I'm not very... And I didn't used to be in that door easy person until then and then i just i just literally fell in love with that just the fact that i know where it came from i know he was harvested in a respectful way and then i i filmed a documentary in south africa and when i came back I just remember sitting on my desk and telling me why am I doing this why why why am I putting this on myself where I'm gonna have to be here for the next 40 years of my life even though I actually do not like it whatsoever so that was the click in my head and about a month later I was I was out did you prior to learning

about spearfishing were you interested or concerned with sustainability and food and where your food came from and stuff like that or did you not really think about it much I was always a little bit concerned but not too much too much. I never really give it a second thought when I was buying a fill of cud at a grocery store. I was always maybe trying to get the lion cub one because it seemed that it was the best options. But when I started this lifestyle, I actually realized how clueless we are when you're're not actually really into it we just have no clue there's no information and i think that sadly a lot of big companies like it like that yeah did it it doesn't seem like a likely connection that living in london you would come across spear fishing and learn about spear fishing how did that happen that happen? Oh, God, no, not at all.

I was actually completely petrified by the ocean. I didn't swim for about 10 years after an accident I had when I was 14 years old. So I almost drowned in the Stade de France when I was with my parents. And I literally didn't want to go swimming for a really long time after that. So spearfishing and freediving was definitely not a natural thing to me. So when I was, my first time I was in the water, I was just, I was so scared. And I didn't really enjoy it that much. Of course, I really liked the food catching part of it, but the freediving was very scary for me. I felt very vulnerable and just so tiny in this big, vast ocean.

And I just kept going and kept going and kept going. And at some point, my comfort was half an hour. Then my comfort was an hour. Then my comfort was an hour and a half. And then by working through it, my extreme discomfort became an absolute passion for me. Can you explain to listeners, and I don't really know, what exactly spearfishing and free diving and all of those things, how they come together and how they work,

like what exactly are you doing when you're in the water hunting what's happening um so free diving is like scuba diving with no tanks so basically what we do is we relax our bodies at the surface and then we take a drop and then we just explore the ocean for about a minute between a minute and two minutes it's a completely different feeling because you don't have any equipment which means that you feel very free underwater and the marine species around you tend to come closer because they want to check you out and they want to understand where you are you don't make big bubbles and things like that so it's you become a little bit more appealing to them so first first of all, while you're freediving, your interactions are way better with marine life when you're underwater.

So when you're spivvishing, you're doing the same thing, but you put yourself either behind a rock or the bottom of the sea or in a reef, and then you wait for fish to come to shoot it okay so i mean it sounds simple but i don't think it really is um so how um how do you like logistically when you first of all you've got to train to be able to breathe um or hold your breath underwater for a long time but how do you stay at those depths like how do you stay down there without equipment that's like weighing you down you have a weight belt okay okay all right so you're you're naturally born at 10 at 10 meter which is uh oh sorry i'm canadian so are you yes so that's 30 feet yeah so i'm i float perfectly at 30 feet

and then after that when i go deeper than that i i sink and then if you go of course um higher than that then you just you just float up uh with a weight belt and then your fins it creates a bit of proportions and then that's how you you manage to get yourself to the bottom the fins are very long they're about um between 75 and 90 centimeters whoa and um sorry for the metric system yeah that's all right and um that's sorry no i was gonna say how how do you get good at spearfishing? Like what kind of, what's the training process? What are the skills you have to have?

What are the things you have to, obviously, again, it's the breath holding, but how do you train to be good at this job? Okay, so basically we are, we're pretty much all made for this and this is gonna be sound surprising but your body as as something that's called the mammalian dive reflex which means that every time you emerge your face in the water it can be in your bath or in a pool your heartbeat is automatically going to slow down so your body's getting ready to be in the water and hold its breath there's different also type of reactions such as uh so your blood circulation is going to go

from its extremities all the way to the vital organs so it's kind of putting itself in and sleep mode in a way. So before you take it, so you, you breed up a certain way before you, um, before, before you actually take your job. So what you do is that you inhale for five seconds and you can exhale for 10 or 15 seconds.

So that way, again, you really slowing down your body completely. And then when you, you, when you take your dive, you as really slowing down your body completely. And then when you take your dive, you're as relaxed as possible, which means that you're using as little oxygen as possible. But when somebody tells me, oh, I could never do that. I could never hold my breath for even 30

seconds. If you spend 30 minutes with me, I can make sure that you can hold your breath for at least a minute. Nice. Okay. Do you do some of the breathing the training obviously i would imagine you do this gradually right like when you're doing it under the water you you start from very short periods and you kind of go longer and longer as you get comfortable but do you do any of this like breath work relaxation kind of training out of the water or does it all kind of have to be in that environment for it to to work no that's the out of the water there's a lot of exercises you can actually do and it's the only way you can do it by yourself um you can't train in the water by when you're alone because it's too dangerous so doing dry exercises

works very well um i do exercises at a gym also sometimes um so when i do so because you don't use your arms at all when you free dive you use only your legs so i go on machines where i'm working my legs and i'm holding my breath at the same time so it kind of simulates it simulates um a lack of oxygen at the same time as an acetylactic build-up so that's very good exercises there's a lot there's definitely a lot of training that you can do yeah I was gonna ask about your your workouts and I mean you're always like traveling and stuff too but are you are you doing stuff in the gym pretty regularly or is that just kind of as you get a chance and when

you feel like it uh not really when I feel like it is never so Well, I mean, you're pretty active for a living. I think a lot of us who love going to the gym, it's because our jobs entail something that we're sitting at a desk or not moving. Like you get to be in the ocean, you get to be in nature and moving your body in natural ways all the time. So maybe that's why you don't feel as inclined to get into the gym. Definitely. that's why you don't feel as inclined to get into the gym definitely and freediving is actually a sport where you can burn between a thousand and fifteen hundred calories an hour while you

freedive and spearfish so it's it's it's a pretty pretty good way to burn calories and you've got this amazing diet because you're eating fish but we'll get into that we'll get into that next but what about what about the spear fishing part of this process? Do you, how do you learn to be like, I would imagine just like people who hunt or use bows and arrows or guns when they're hunting, you know, not in the water. That's a skill that has to be learned too. How do you practice and get good at that? It's about spending as much time in the water as you can it's literally the only way to do it um it's of course especially the first time when you see a fish you get excited and you tend to to go towards the fish and and be a little bit frantic in the water but it's you actually have

to be as calm as possible and then this this kind of sounded a little wrong but you have to the fish has to trust you to come close to you you have to make them feel like they're safe before you spear them much yeah which is which is the same thing as bow and arrow it's it's all about putting yourself it's it definitely requires hunting skills and it's skills that of course i've never discovered that i had when i was living in london or in montreal but it's it's we have it as humans we have it inside of us and it's just a matter of finding it and managed to to to make it resurface i guess was it a challenge at at the beginning when you began hunting to kill fish, or was it always kind of you knew you were doing this to eat it

and it was a respectful process, or did you have a bit of an issue at the beginning? I know it's sometimes a little bit hard to understand for people, but there's actually a very big respect from the hunter towards its prey and it's that's that's the thing also about spivishing is that it's extremely selective so you pick the exact fish you want to eat which means that there's no bycatch and there's no it's if there's a fish which is in reproduction seasons, you don't get it. Then there's some species where you can't make a difference between a male

or a female depending on the season you know which one to get. So it's very, it's as selective and respectful as fishing can get. And I love to eat fish. So for me it was like this was the ultimate way to eat fish. It was either I eat fish or either I stop eating fish. So for me, it was like, this was the ultimate way to eat fish. It was either I eat fish or either I stop eating fish. I would think that people who are hunting their own food have much, a much deeper respect and understanding of what that food is than the people who are picking it up at the grocery store. Because we just don't, if we haven't put any work into, we haven't really earned what we're eating, it's hard for us to appreciate. I mean, that's, that's human nature,

right? That if we don't earn things, it's very hard for us to appreciate it in any circumstance. So I think, I mean, it's one of those things that maybe we'd all be better off if we, maybe we don't all have to become spearfisher people. But if we, if we had an experience in life where we were going out there and catching and hunting our own food, we might have a deeper appreciation for the sacrifice and the work and the quality of the things that we're eating. Exactly. I've never, before I started doing that, I've never even thought about a fish being something alive when I was buying it. It was completely out of my mind. And I think this is the biggest problem right now with the way food sourcing is handled is the fact that we

just don't know. We have no connection with nature whatsoever, which means that we don't tend to care or to want to make better decisions because we're so far away from it. And I'm not blaming people for it. It's just normal. It's just the way we're wired. And when I was living in London and Montreal, I wasn't thinking that way either. Now I'm forced to do it because when I'm in the water, I'm in the food chain. I'm with nature. I'm part of nature. So I don't have a choice to think about it. When I see the balloons and the plastic bags and the cigarette butts in the ocean, then I'm started to care about it. But if you're being told completely far away from it that you shouldn't do something

because it's destroying something, you get to see maybe once a year on holidays on a super beautiful clean beach because a resort cleaned it, it's super hard to care. And I get that right so how then do we as a as a world as a global community start to care about things that as you said we're not all um lucky enough or we don't all want I suppose to be as connected to nature as you are um but I think that most people, if you ask them, wouldn't purposely try to hurt the planet

or do things that are unsustainable or unethical. So what are some ways that we can sort of, I guess, educate people, but also convince them of something to change their behavior or change what they do when it's not directly applicable to them every day it's it's i mean right now we're realizing that we're at a stage that we cannot stop caring anymore it's we we have to realize that and of course spending time outside is definitely the

biggest thing that people can do um you know pick up diving that it's scuba diving or free diving or just go hiking or anything um first of all the connection gets way stronger when you do that but also we need to understand that in 2018 everything you buy is a statement is a statement regarding what you believe in and what you believe to deserve and how you think the planet should be treated so the the anything that you the salad that you pick to the kind of tomato that you pick it's all showing what do you want for yourself and what you want for the planet right it's it sounds so small but it's actually not yeah i mean it's one of those things that maybe it is a small thing you do every day but if every single one of us is doing that small thing

then that that's that's a huge thing globally right exactly but it's again we're so used to have a canned tomato that costs a dollar nobody wants to buy the one which is six dollars because it's organic and better for me either so we're kind of facing a very hard situation right now and the only thing we can do is just have discussions going and even though it isn't pleasant to talk about where you fill out of salmon was when it was a nice little fish swimming in the water, but we have to. It's an unpleasant discussion that we all need to have together. Yeah. Because right now...

Right now, there's three groups of people in the world. You have the vegans, you have the people who like to eat fish or meat, but like to source it in a very responsible way, and there's people that eat fish and meat that don't care at all where it's from.

And those are three groups of people that we need to learn how to discuss with each other. And we need to be working with each other and discussing with each other. Otherwise, it's never going to work out. And yes, I understand that when you're vegan, by example, you feel very strongly about killing fish or animals and things like that. And I completely get that and I completely respect it.

But we still need to have the discussion on meat sourcing and fish sourcing because it will not stop. So if we don't talk about the way it's done, then nobody will ever do it. And we have to find realistic solutions and saying like everybody should stop eating meat or fish is this is what is extremely respectable it's it's not a viable scenario for the entire planet right i mean a lot of the work that you're doing right now is is awareness building for people and and i think you're very concerned with sustainability and ethical fishing and things like that in

the work that you do who do you think which group is harder to deal with the vegans or the ones eating fish and meat and they don't care where it comes from it's actually the one eating the meat and the fish without caring where it comes from really it is because it's it's they're the one that are the hardest to have a discussion with i i have they don't care i suppose because they don't care yeah exactly and it's it's there's again there's this points to to be discussed in this in this subject subject, which are really hard. Can you ask somebody living midland that have five kids that works as a cashier in a supermarket to pay $30 for a chicken? No, you cannot do that.

It's such a complicated matter, but we are the power that drives the big corporations to do whatever they want. We are the ones trying the curtains, and we're the one that needs to demand more from them. When you first started doing this, you left your hedge fund job, and you started traveling and spearfishing and hunting for food for yourself and living this kind of completely different lifestyle. raising awareness and concerning yourself with sustainability and things like that? Or was it just like, I just want to live this life in this beautiful ocean and fish and do what I want and make myself happy? Did you think that it was going to evolve that way? A little bit in the sense that

this is what was passionating me. So I wanted a lifestyle what I was building something what I was building a company that I really cared about and that all the all the values that my company would have would be the same as I did so I did I must be honest though I didn't plan much when I quit everything I didn't even realize what I was doing because I literally pursued a path that didn't exist before. So I kind of made up my own career and it's, it's, but it was not, it's okay. Let's put it that way. I know that's sometimes, especially when you look at my Instagram and I'm often on a beach and very exotic and nice locations. It looks like, um, I'm on holiday all the time. But it's, I'm building something and I'm building, I'm building a company that I really believe in

that requires actually a lot of work. It's just, I managed to pick a job that would take me to nice places and where I would enjoy my day every single day, pretty much. Yeah, it's pretty smart to build that into your lifestyle. I have a couple of questions about that because I like that you raised that point. So often people follow other people on social media and they see a certain presentation and they think like, oh, your life's pretty great.

You're hanging out in beautiful places in bikinis and you look great and you're doing whatever. What are some things about your lifestyle or your job and your life on a day-to-day basis that people might not know? What kind of work are you doing? What are you doing on a day-to-day basis that's maybe more than the glamour that people see on social media? Yes, there was a lot. When I first, I've been working on this, on this, this, this career, I guess, uh, for the last three years. And it was really, really hard at the beginning. It was, I slept in my car. I had no money. It was,

it was really bad, but I still spend hours and hours every single day trying to research online what would be viable sources of income. And this is the biggest question I get from people. How do you make money doing what you do? I found ways. What do you spend at work every day? Eight hours a day? Yeah, maybe. So if you spend eight hours a day for a month or two working on a project that you really like and try to make money out of it, you'll find a way.

Right. It's just about sitting down and getting the work done. Like now I'm in a Y right now, but I'm spending the week. Yesterday I worked for between seven and nine on my computer because I had a lot of things to do. So it's not always just about diving and things like that there's also work to be done behind for it to be viable how much are you traveling and where are you traveling and why are you traveling to those places like what is your your kind of like yearly schedule in terms of travel look like and how

how does it play out um i always go somewhere if i have something to do there and if i'm planning to take something for a reason then i'm going to make sure that as soon as i get there i'm going to organize meetings i'm going to nice um dives i'm organized a lot of things so it's worth my while to go there but um out of the the cold generally as someone. Are you staying out of the cold generally? As someone who grew up in one of the coldest places in Canada, are you like pretty much avoiding winter forever for the rest of your life or what? Oh God, yes.

I don't blame you because listen, I'm in Ottawa right now. And you know, Montreal and Ottawa are kind of like, you know, neck and neck for like coldest place on the planet in January, February. So I can definitely respect that choice. Oh, it's bad. I went to Montreal last year in December for about three weeks, and we got minus 40. I went out left, I was like, never again. It really is the worst. So So do you have and you don't have to share, you know, personal details that you don't want to, but do you have a home base? Or are you like a completely nomad style like you're just living in different places

from week to month and you kind of settle in how you do or how does that work I have a house ish so I've been I've been kind of living ish in Fort Lauderdale for about three years. Okay. But I'm home maybe two, three days every month, every two months. So I wouldn't really call it home. I have a storage unit, which is where most of my stuff are. It's just I'm basically asking a friend of mine if I can sleep at his house a few days every, every two months.

And then if I could get my Amazon package delivered there and that's, that's pretty much what I call home. Yeah. That's important. You gotta have a, you gotta have a mailing address for Amazon. That's, that's crucial.

Exactly. Is the travel part, does that ever get tough and tedious? Like you are traveling to beautiful places, of course, but as someone, you know, I travel a fair bit too, and I'm very grateful to be able to do that. But there are still times where, tough and tedious like you are traveling to beautiful places of course but as someone you know I travel a fair bit too and I'm very grateful to be able to do that but there are still times

where you know I feel like my my healthy routine is messed up or I don't I don't know I don't uh take care of myself the way that I would if I was kind of in one place for a long time like are you good at going to different places and immediately establishing the routine that makes you feel good? No, not really. I'm a little bit tired of traveling, to be completely honest. I really, really love it. But, you know, when you go home after a long day of work and how happy you are to be sitting on your couch and be like, ugh, I'm home finally, and you feel relaxed?

Yeah. I haven't felt that in three years. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the hard part. And, of course, I travel so much that it's really hard to maintain relationships, too. It's a sport when I'm always with men and things like that, so that makes relationships pretty complicated. Top would have thought that. I'm literally with men and things like that. So that makes relationship pretty complicated.

Top of the flag that I'm literally never there. But for now, I'm focusing on where I want to see my company to go. And I'm happy for a little while. And then when I'm going to be tired of moving around all the time, I want to make sure that the day I settle down, I'm going to have traveled enough and met enough people. So I'm pretty sure that the value I'm going to be living by are 100% entirely true to the person that I actually am

and that what I've been told to be. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think knowing that there's an end, there's an end point to like, if you didn't know, like you're thinking maybe 30 years from now, I could still be traveling as much as I am now and still just have that, that spot for my Amazon packages. And that would be pretty disheartening. But knowing that you have,

you know, you've got goals, you've got a general timeline, and you're doing what you need to do to achieve that now. And that's kind of the way to do it, right? No, exactly. I mean, it's some I'm 31. And I do want kids. So the clock is like, tick, tick, tick, tick right now. I leave me. I can really do. Yeah, being a woman in their early 30 somethings. And like, you know, every year, you have your family or your friends saying like, Oh, you've got time to where you've got time. And then you hit like over 30 3132. And they're like, Okay, well, all right, like, you've got less time, like, you might want to think about it. So over it. Anyway. Yep. I did want to ask you about the relationship side. And you don't have to talk about if you're in or not in one right now, but, but more of the, the concept of being in a, either a profession or a lifestyle that is, first of all,

not super mainstream. Like you don't, you don't go to dinner parties and talk to somebody who's a professional spearfisher very often. So it's, it's, it's kind of like a niche lifestyle, but also one that is traditionally generally very masculine, like male dominated. Did you think about that when you were going into it? Did you have any concerns? Did you have any issues? Were there ever any kind of challenges feeling like you were the only woman around? Or was that not really an obstacle for you? I'm going to say it's a double-edged sword it's of course as as a woman you get attention sometimes for for different

reasons that men's don't or again invited to places uh just because i'm a girl but and in the other hand you know it's sometimes it can affect your credibility a lot so people are like oh there's no way you caught that fish for sure somebody did it for you and i'm like no nope or also i've been told like oh you travel so much you must have a sugar daddy no i'm a woman i can take care of myself. Thank you. I may eat crab dinner every once in a while, but that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. That's annoying. And I mean, being a young, attractive person too, right? Like people want to discredit somebody who looks good in a bikini, but they also want to follow you obsessively and comment on you and the way you

look and and make value statements based on not knowing you at all right so is it do you do you get a chip on your shoulder about that or do you just kind of try not to give a shit like you're just you're not concerned with other people's opinions it's i'm i'm really trying not to, but of course, as a human, sometimes it's – I got way better, but it's – I do what I do in a bathing suit, so I'm really trying to stay away from the bimbo thing as much as I can. Sometimes it's hard because, again, I do my job on a beach most of the time and the water, so of course I'm not wearing a freaking, I'm not wearing a burqa when I'm swimming, but it's people get, Oh yeah,

we know like, Oh, you're only doing that because like you're showing off and now you're just like an Instagram influencer and that's, that's, and you're just doing that because you're a girl and you look good. And I just, again,

it's people, but people, I know that people are reacting that way is because those people are extremely unhappy about their lives. So I tend to try to remind myself of that. Yeah, it's got it's, it's difficult to navigate your way through business and also sharing yourself personally on social media. Because like you're saying, you're kind of like screwed either way. It's like if you're an attractive woman who does a job in a bathing suit, and so you're showing that on the internet, people kind of love it and hate it at the same time. But you want to show what

you're doing. I mean, do you ever, how, what's your relationship with social media? Like, do you find a lot of value in it? Do you enjoy any of the interactions that come from it? Do you enjoy, you know, showing what you're doing to the world? Or is it kind of like a necessary evil? Like I kind of got to be on Instagram to like, you know, do what I do. I love it. And I hate it. Of course. I don't like the fact that when I'm having a super amazing great moment somewhere, I have to take a minute to take a freaking Instagram photo or video.

But, again, I'm happy to do it because I get so many messages from people telling me, oh, you really inspired me and I quit my job. And now I'm pursuing X or X passion that I always had. And I'm so happy I did it. And that makes me so happy because that's that's my goal in the end this if I can manage to convince one person out there to do the right thing about what makes them really happy at the end of the day then that's that's that's fantastic but it doesn't have to be spit pushing it's just I do not believe that people should spend the

entire life stuck in a situation that make them generally unhappy about their life and yes it's not easy to do yes it's a hard path to especially if you want to be especially if you want to do entrepreneurship that's really not easy to do but the reward is so great it's like think about the fact that you will spend 35 to 40 years of your life doing it and earning money that way. So do it a way that makes you happy. Yeah. It sounds so simple,

but why, why, why aren't any of us doing it? I guess is the question or so few of us doing it. Um, I guess it's not easy because there's a pat to it because it implies sacrifices and even though a lot of people dream about doing it they know willing to pay the price for it and what is that price first of all you you're losing as a

start a very stable paycheck and that's the scariest one for everybody you're losing when i gave up my apartment when i gave up my when I gave up my my Mercedes when I gave up my my my all my things that I cumulated in my in my kitchen in my my bedroom all my everything I had I had to give that up and it's it's not of course it's scary but I've never regretted it yeah I was just gonna ask you like in the first year when you were you know you you left all of these things and you were traveling and maybe you were by yourself and you were learning and all that stuff there was never a moment where you were like holy shit what have I done? Not for one simple reason because I was telling me you know what could be worse? I could be in my freaking office right now.

Yeah, yeah. That's for sure. Yeah, I'm eating mac and cheese, but hey, I'm eating freaking mac and cheese by the beach. Yeah, that's a good point. When you were doing this transition, what did your family and friends say? A lot of friends pretended that they were't bored with it when they were not um it's of course it's really hard sometimes to be to to make people accept it my parents are still working on it. But it's, at the end of the day, you know, like I knew my closest friends are extremely supportive

and extremely happy about what I'm doing. And that's pretty much what matters. Right. Do you think that it's like with your parents, because obviously you're making a living, you're doing something that you love, you're making a difference. Do you think that with your parents still kind of working on on accepting it it's more of a like worried about

the future or like well are you still going to be doing this in 20 years or what are you going to do or what do you think the the concern is um well i think the baby boomer generation is a little bit different than ours. It's kind of a generation that focuses so much on working hard and then making a good living and things like that. So I understand how it's harder for them to get it. Yeah. sometimes to discern the difference between friends who maybe weren't on board because they were jealous or they couldn't understand or they whatever, and then people who were genuinely just concerned for you because you were taking this risk?

Like how can you tell the difference? It's really hard. I completely agree. It's very unusual, even though it shouldn't be unusual, because spending your life working in something that you love should not be usual. It actually should be the norm. But it still sounds like an unusual, anarchist, weird path to take.

Yeah. So I guess one question that I had from the very beginning when you were telling about this traumatic near death experience you had when you were a teenager in the water. And so you were naturally frightened to start learning about spearfishing and get back in the ocean. But you did, you confronted your fear head on. And a lot of people, even people who are taking the risk of like quitting a super great job and doing something else, probably wouldn't go in the think that's something that you have always had? Do you think that's something that you learned and that you practiced or some combination of the two? Everybody can learn it.

And I'm going to explain to you exactly why I know them. When I was 18 or 19, I started having panic attacks, like severe full-blown panic attacks. I couldn't get out of my house for about a year. I couldn't go to the grocery store. I couldn't go to the corner of my house. I couldn't go to a movie. I couldn't go to a bar. I couldn't do anything. I was stuck at home, scared of my own shadow with an agoraphobia that was so strong that was literally ruining my life. And the first thing that a doctor did, of course, was prescribe me Xanax. And I didn't want to take it. My parents didn't want me to take it.

I didn't want to become that person that was always anxious and always relying on a pill to get better. So I refused to take it. And instead instead I just worked on my mental strength. So with the help of a friend, every single day was going a little bit further and a little bit further and getting out of my comfort zone and making sure that this discomfort, after doing it four or five times, became comfortable. So by doing that, I made sure that I pushed myself in a way that

was making me stronger mentally. And sure enough, after a certain period of time, my panic attacks went away completely. And they've never come back. And they never came back. So when I started finishing, even though my heart was was racing I was in

a situation that was borderline panic attacks and I didn't feel good I was like you know what just keep going every single day just keep doing it further and further and further and at some point it's gonna go away I'm scared of heights I went skydiving once and I hated it and I'm pretty sure if I go skydiving 30 times in a row, I'm not going to be scared of doing it anymore. Right. But what's the difference between the kind of person like you who understands the idea of sort of, I think what you're describing is basically like exposure therapy, right? It's like if someone's scared of dogs, and so they kind of let a little dog be in the room with them. And then they let a bigger dog and then they pet a dog. And so I totally understand how that works. But there are some

people who inherently understand that that will work and also are willing to do the uncomfortable, scary work of doing that to maybe achieve a goal or to live a more full life, like exactly what you're doing whereas some people would be like well i'm scared of heights so i'm just never jumping out of a fucking plane you know what i mean so like what do you think is the difference it's it depends what it is and depends what your goal is with it also so what i find out by doing all of that is that you will never discover the person you really are by staying in a comfort zone. So if you're staying in a Christian-y type of life, it can be anything.

It can be staying with a partner that you know it doesn't work, but you still want to stay there because you're scared of being alone or things like that if it's when you stay in those situations you're never going to learn the type of person you are the type of person you can actually become and this fear is just it's just restraining you from from becoming a person that is way stronger than you think you are first of all and then a potential that is completely limitless right yeah that's intense i mean but so are there ways that maybe people listening can do that um in a less um let's say big way that you've done it so maybe there are people who who like their job and they like their life and whatever they don't want to do any crazy like travel the world and spearfish, but they're

feeling maybe a little bit stuck or in a rut or feel like they want to try something new. And maybe they don't even know what that new thing is. They just are feeling stuck for whatever reason. What are some things, some ways or some things that they can think about to start doing this in small ways in their life, like putting themselves in uncomfortable situations, facing small fears? How, if people are just kind of thinking about this in like a general high level way, because they're inspired by your story, what are some ways that they can just kind of like start kind of introducing that into their life well first of all you need to tackle down what makes you unhappy what makes you feel stuck is it your job is it your partners is it your friends is it it can it can pretty much be anything you know and it makes you unhappy i know a lot of people they're completely in love with their jobs and that's more fine it's you doesn't have to do something completely crazy in order to enjoy it.

There's a lot of people that love office work, and that's fantastic. But as soon as you tackle what you don't like, then that's when it gets easier to make the changes that are required. And when it comes to outside of your comfort zone it's getting rid of those aspects in your life that are bad is going to put you outside of your comfort zone and you may not like it for a little while

but it's by doing that you're going to put a mirror on yourself and you're going to realize exactly what kind of person you are and there's aspects you may not like and there's aspects you're going to really a mirror on yourself and you're going to realize exactly what kind of person you are. And there's aspects you may not like and there's aspects you're going to really discover and love about you. Have you, do you feel like you have, or do you have examples of in your life, people kind of being inspired by what you're doing and making changes? Like if you had friends or family who have been inspired to,

I don't know, maybe go travel somewhere or pick up a new hobby or leave a partner that sucks or whatever, just because of their exposure to what you've done? Yeah, I know a couple of people that may change their life based on what I told them. And this is kind of what I've always been doing with my friends anyways I was always the friend I would come at you when it wasn't real advice yeah like the truth yeah exactly not just being one to be pet on the back and be totally fantastic um so it's kind of a natural path for me to to kind of do what I do, I guess. But it's when people, first of all, the discussions I had with people,

and the first question is, oh, are you so lucky to do that? I really wish I could do it. So I'm like, okay, so what's stopping you? He's like, oh, yeah, but I have a job. I was like, okay, well, I give up my job. Yeah, but I have an apartment it's like okay well i give up my job yeah but i have an apartment okay you didn't rent it or i have it's there's literally no excuse not to do it the only the biggest excuse is having kids of course that's that that idea that no i don't want that to be an excuse i don't

i don't like it i mean look i get that we can't just like live on a beach and roll around and do whatever we want all day when we have like a living thing to take care of. But like, I hate the idea that when you have a kid, you have to change. I think that's like the biggest hang up for me not not having one is I'm like, I'm just so into being selfish and sort of being able to do whatever I want when I want like are you are you mentally prepared as someone who has done all of the this amazing stuff with your life and the traveling and the you know being so independent are you able to get your head around what that's going to be like to have a kid and to the whole world now is revolving around someone else I mean I I do not believe that you have to stop moving you have to stop your life just because you have kids.

I have a lot of friends that have kids and they move all the time and they just, my best friend has decided, just decided with her husband to go live for a year in Paris and they brought the kids and everything is fine. I think that sometimes it's, even though there's a lot of truth in it, a lot of people are using the kids as an excuse.

Yeah. Yeah. We've all got excuses built in for why we can't do the stuff that scares us right yes exactly it's it's your kids are definitely going to benefit more in living somewhere cool that they don't know about than playing xbox all day long absolutely yeah is there is there anything, uh, Oh, first of all, I just have to go back to, um, you being the, the blunt friend who will tell it like it is. I just, my, my entire, one of my goals in life as a podcast host is to, um, debunk the myth that Canadians are overly polite and accommodating because I have been proving throughout life too. I think I was voted

in university in my undergrad as most blunt. So we are single-handedly going out there and challenging the myths that, that Canadians are just overly polite and we'll just like say, you know, whatever to make you feel good because that's not always the way it goes. So anyway, I appreciate that. Well, we are polite. We're polite. We deserve it. Don't you mean a dick? We're going to tell you. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're polite to're probably deserving don't you be a dick we're gonna tell you yeah exactly i mean we're polite to people who earn it which means i think we're just like civil human beings

which really shouldn't be something that's so special but i guess in this world it is sometimes yeah if you bump into me in the street and you don't turn around to apologize i'll be pissed yeah yeah oh yeah, just be reasonable. Is there anything that's sort of on your bucket list right now that scares you that maybe you're planning to do or you're waiting on doing or maybe you're kind of hung up on doing? Is there anything sort of in the future

that you're thinking about that scares you? Settling down. Yeah, yeah. It's more than about picking a place. that you're thinking about that scares you? Settling down? Yeah. It's more about picking a place. That's what scares me. I don't think I'm going to be picking the place. I think that somebody's going to end up grounding me

more than an actual geographic location. This is what is going to's so cheesy and it's ridiculous but you know that movie into the wild at the end when he says like happiness is never true but sharing blah blah blah it's so true i've been to the maldives to french polynesia to the most incredible landscape and when i'm by myself sitting there looking in, I'm like, this sucks. Yeah, if you don't have anyone to share it with. I mean, it's corny,

but it's a cliche because it's true that your home is where you are happy with the people that love you or the person that loves you. Like, yeah, you can be in the most beautiful place in the world. But if you are missing someone or you wish someone was there to share it with you, then who cares? Exactly. And it's detaching yourself from everything also really makes you realize what what really matters to you. And I so when I put everything, I was like, Oh, maybe like, I just wanted to become a big lawyer, just because I want to impress people. And then I realized with time that no, actually having ambition is something that I really believe in. And it's something that is really important to me.

So I was like, okay, so then building a company career that I'm proud of that I think is ambitious is something that is crucial for me as a person. So then I know that now I'm working my ass off because I know it's a value that I actually generally believe in. But also I know that I do not want to

build something where when I'm going to have a family, when I'm going to be working 18 hours a day, I also don't want that. I want my weekends. And I'd rather make a little bit less money to have the freedom to do whatever I want more often too. Yeah. Valentine, can you And I'd rather make a little bit less money to have the freedom of do whatever I want more often too. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Valentine, can you come back closer to the mic? Because I think you're multitasking right now. But it's a lot more clear when you're closer. Oh, sorry. I thought my mic was on my headphone. No, that's okay. No, that sounds better.

I'm like, I can tell. This is why you're a good businesswoman because I can tell you you're like uh you're always kind of never just doing one thing at a time right yeah that's okay um I'm making a sound by the way well okay so this is another question I want to ask I want to get I love the conversation that we're having but there are a couple more like sort of topical high level questions that I want to ask I want to get I love the conversation that we're having but there are a couple more like sort of topical high level questions that I want to ask um about food and fishing so what what kind of fish are you mostly catching and where and like are there specific fish that you that's kind of like your expertise like these are the fish that you're going out to get um I'm going to the best tasting was it's as simple as that um it's some of them are of course fun to catch but i i got to a phase where yes i'd like i like to get big fish and

things like that and i like the challenge and things of it but now i'm really in the like i just want to catch dinner and then i'm happy with it and that's it most of the fish i actually eat or fish that i never even heard of before i started spearfishing like what so my favorite one is hawkfish which is found in florida and the caribbeans which i've never seen in Montreal or in London sold anywhere. Yeah, both of those. My family is from Bermuda, so I'm familiar with both of those fish. But yeah, you don't get them in Canada too much.

No, you don't. But they taste amazing. Did you have to learn the whole like butchery part as well? Because if you're fishing for yourself like you're you're finding them you're hunting them and then you have to kind of prepare them yourself too right yes this is what this is the part that i prefer actually i like i do all of this for the food i'm i completely obsessed with food and this is what made me fall in love with spearfishing i fell in love with a food sourcing side of it and then i learned how to fall in love with spearfishing also but so for me just

to have the fish and to get to clean them and make nice fillets and then bringing them in my in my little tupperware and bringing them home and cook them this is what i'm completely crazy about just to know you know that like nobody tampered with my fish. It's mine. I know that I got it in a respectful way. I know that the ocean has been respected also. I know that I was very selective. And I know that nobody put chemicals in it.

So I know that it's mine. I know it was nicely done and I'm super happy with it. Do you eat other meat as well or are you mostly into fish? I eat meat. I try to – I have a lot of friends who are hunters, so I like to trade venison for fish. Nice. When I can.

I try to avoid commercial meat. Sometimes when I travel, it can be hard. But I'm going to try to make the smartest decision as I can, especially in a grocery store. But if I'm invited at somebody's house for dinner, I'm not going to be like, no, I'm sorry, you chicken is organic enough. Of course, I'm not going to do that. Right.

And you said when you were obviously trying to save a bit more money you were like into the craft dinner which i think is also a canadian thing i don't know if americans are gonna listen and be like what do you mean mac and cheese what are you talking about anyway i love it um but are you so generally you're pretty much like protein vegetables like pretty healthy or do you still are you not overly like you'll eat junk food every now and then or like what do you how do you feel about that very rarely i rarely i rarely eat junk food because i just don't really like it um the only junk food i'm a big sucker uh for is poutine it's the only thing i cannot stop myself so canadian so beautiful i mean who listen i can't trust somebody if they don't like poutine

honestly like i'm more of a sweets person personally, but poutine is like the perfect food. There's nothing wrong with it. It's so weird to like poutine. Yeah, yeah, it's perfect. Okay. So can you tell me a little bit more about the company that you're building? Like what is the work that you're doing right now and your goal, what you're building towards? So I'm working on different projects that I all equally like.

So that's what's good about it. And this spring I have a recycled bathing suit line coming up. Cool. And pretty much at the same time, I have a cookbook slash adventure cookbook coming out this spring also. It's going to be in French for now, but I'm working on English too. Okay. So it's kind of like a brand based on the things that you love and the things that you know and the things that you use. And is there is there sort of like a i know you've done like a ted talk too is there like a bit of a sustainable

um fishing um element too where you're trying to teach people about what's going on in the oceans yeah so i've been working um a few times and um different locations to try to create pressures on governments to change the commercial fishing laws, which I think is the starting point of everything. Even before telling people to change their eating habits, the big corporations really have to make their share. And Canada is actually really bad. canada is actually really bad um the eu is actually really bad and um i think it's it's we just need to create that pressure and i really would like to be involved and to um helping drafting those modification and try to try to create change that's actually going to make sense and create an actual difference.

Right. What do you see as being sort of the biggest issues right now? So there's a lot of overfishing. There's a lot of fishing that is extremely careless. But sadly, most of it takes place in foreign countries. So Canada and the United States have very big commercial fishing vessels and terrier-dwelled countries, but our coasts are very well

regulated. That's extremely unfair. Smaller countries need to find a way to defend themselves, which is very hard corruption. The issue is so deep and so terrible, but we need to start thinking about about changing things because right now it's not working at all

in terms of conservation and ethical eating and hunting all of that stuff what are some things that you'd like the average person to know so i know you're talking about changing laws but for the average person who is living in north america and who just wants to make the best choices health-wise but also for the planet what are some things that we should know that maybe we are not aware of when it comes to eating fish always always read the label when it comes to fish um you really have to see where the fish is from no what no when it comes to fish. You really have to see where the fish is from. Not where it's canned or packaged, but where it's actually fished. I was just on a trip with an organization called the Marine Stewardship Council. And they have a little blue fish with a tick on it.

And that's a proof that it's actually sustainably caught. So you just basically have to make research before you buy something. You can learn a lot of things just by doing that. And what about, because i think this was something you mentioned on the um joe rogan podcast and i literally kind of just learned about this fairly recently which i'm pretty ashamed because i like to think that i'm a pretty informed uh educated consumer when it comes to food but a lot of even like you think when you go to like high-end quote-unquote high-end places to get your fish like you go to Whole Foods and you get some

salmon from there and most of it almost all of it if not all of it has added dye because people won't buy the salmon if it doesn't look the color that they expect it to be so they're they're injecting dyes into the salmon like stuff like that that people would not think to look for you wouldn't even imagine that it's a thing but that i mean it almost it's like disheartening to me because i i do i am lucky that i have a um like a fish market close by that's bringing in local stuff and it's really good quality but i mean people who are thinking they're making the right choice by going to a more expensive place to get their fish and it's still bad choices i mean some some of the dyeings they're not all bad so some of the dyeings are actually not bad for you it's just so you just

but i guess it's more like it's almost like misleading because tuna is brown tuna is not red i mean it's red it's red when you when you catch it but after it's frozen after it's been transported tuna is not red is there a hierarchy in just thinking about like a general grocery store think about whole foods is there a hierarchy of like best to worst kinds of fish that we should be buying for again for the planet but also for ourselves for our own health um i would definitely never eat tilapia ever again in my life if i was you okay why is it so bad i've heard this but why is it so bad? It's farmed, and a lot of those farms are in China, and I would not trust anything coming out of China. I apologize for Chinese people who are listening,

but I would not trust any seafood coming out of China right now. Not right now. And is that just because regulations are different, rules are different? Yes, it's because there's a gigantic lack of regulations, and it creates – they're so free to do whatever they do, and it's – they're not really caring about us. I mean, the United States and Canada are sort of blamed for importing all of that too.

This is why I love spearfishing so much and this is why I love taking this type of lifestyle too is that I feel we are not taken care of in a very good way. So you're kind of taking it into your own hands. Yeah, like you're taking care of yourself. Exactly. I don't want to buy fish that have been ejected with a bunch of stuff i don't want to buy chicken that's been eating the poop of his buddy living on top of him i i don't want to do that and i think it's normal i don't want to eat cereal that have into freeze products in it it's and nobody would and it's it's outrageous that

government still allows that to do things like that but now it's happening so it's outrageous that government still allows that to do things like that. But now it's happening. So right now, the best advice I can get to people, I've always been a big city person, big time. And the more I grow up right now, now I want a freaking house with goats and I can do my own goat cheese. I want a garden. I want chicken. I want to get my own thing because I don't trust anybody else. And it's sad. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I guess for those of us who are trying to kind of live in both sides, like we want to educate ourselves, and we want to get the best quality food, and we want to be good

to the planet. But we're also, you know, we have, again, quote, unquote, normal jobs, or we're living in the city and stuff like that. There's, There are ways that we can minimize our negative impact. There are ways that we can minimize our footprint on the earth. And so we just have to kind of educate ourselves. And I think some of it, too, like you were talking earlier about the $1 can of tomatoes versus the $6 one. Some of it maybe is priorities to like, we don't, I can't say that I understand people's lives and the challenges and obstacles and restrictions that

they have. But I've read all these things about, like in the past, our grandparents, great grandparents, whatever, spent proportionately way more time and way more money on food on their meals on preparing them on sourcing them on, you know, just buying their groceries and things like that, because that was a massive part of their life and their culture and the way they spent time with family and things like that. And I think that today in our world, we're so obsessed with everything being done immediately and easily and quickly. And so maybe it's sort of a reframing of our priorities that we should want to spend a little bit more money on our food and that experience because it's worth it, because

it's what we're putting in our bodies to nourish ourselves and because it has a reflection on how we take care of the world, right? Definitely. I think Will Smith talked about that recently. He was like, how can you call it treating yourself when you're eating a donut full of chemicals? It doesn't make sense. Yeah, because we've got that instant gratification, right? We want to go to the fast food place because it's cheap and it's hot and it's immediate. But so often, you know, the idea of spending a lot more money

on something that maybe immediately we don't sense that it is better for us or that it tastes better or whatever. Although I do think generally better quality food tastes better too. But yeah, we have that sort of immediate gratification kind of culture now. And it's something that we almost have to consciously try to retrain around you know yeah yeah so if people are listening to this and thinking actually no wait that's a question I want to ask at the end first I want to go back to your bikinis can you tell me more about these the recycled material bikinis yes of course so my sister um my sister just graduated from fashion design in london and we wanted to work on a project together we want it to be something that would be meaningful

so of course because i'm always in the water it kind of makes sense to have um to have a bathing suit line so we started to do that and try to find a way that could be basically as... So when I'm buying bathing suits, first of all, I struggle so much because there's not a lot of them that are good for the environment. And I don't know if you see the documentary True Cust, which is very shocking. And again, to keep going with what you taught about fast food is also fast fashion we need to slow down everything

we need to take our time and take our time for food take our time for clothing take our time for everything this fast thing is just destroying everything so we're making a slow fashion recycle bathing suit line to be able to tackle those issues.

That's very cool. Are they available now or is that still in progress? No, it's just received a first sample. So it's going to be this spring normally. Okay, cool. Yeah, the documentary you mentioned, it's about like fast fashion, right? And how, yeah, the abuses and the, how bad it is for the planet. A lot of these like fast, cheap, again, this goes back to that, that instant gratification, right? Like we think we should be able to buy a t-shirt for six bucks

because we can, and because it's easier for us, right? Instead of thinking about the implications of not, not investing and spending money on things that are made maybe more locally or more thoughtfully or more ethically we just want things that are cheap and fast exactly so fish is the same if you're paying 50 cent for a can of tuna how do you expect that it's good quality tuna that has been cut in a difficult way it's just it's just wrong right yeah somebody has to pay the price down the line if you're not paying it somebody else is paying for it it's either with with terrible laborers or the ocean if somebody's paying for that price yeah so is there anything you've you've done a bunch of uh

talks i think you did a documentary right were, you were part of a documentary, spearfishing documentary? Yes, it's called Agua Negra. Okay. And where, where can people watch that if they want to? Is it like available for download or can people check it out online? Yes, you can buy it. I think it's $12. You can buy online. You just type Agua Negra, the spearfishing documentary and you'll, you'll find it on Google. Okay. You've talked a lot about the work that you're doing with the business and the cookbook and the bikinis, which I'm very excited about. Is there anything else kind of new or exciting coming up?

Like any travel to somewhere that you haven't been or anything kind of fun and different that's coming up? I haven't made my schedule for 2008, 19 yet, but, uh, I, I like to do everything last minute. Nice. Yeah, that kind of adds some added spice to it, right? If you're just like doing everything last minute. Yeah, pretty much. It's more like, okay, so next week, I'm not booked next week. What am I going to do? What can I do? What are my options?

And then I make a plan like that was the cheapest place to go. Right? What do you do when you travel? Like when you're in Hawaii? Like do you do Airbnbs? Do you stay with friends? How does that work? I stay with friends mostly. That makes sense. And what do you do on your days off? Like if you're not if you don't have any dives planned, if you don't have I mean mean I guess when you work for yourself you kind of could always have work to do but what do you do when you have days off do you just like chill do you read do you exercise you still go back to the beach and go in the water I cook all right okay very nice yeah maybe you'll have to I don't know if you do this already on your social media but you might have to start adding like some cooking with Valentine, like, you know,

tutorials and stuff for us. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I definitely want to do some tutorials, especially when it comes to taking care of the fish and all of that. Yeah, cool. All right. So I won't keep you too much longer. I really appreciate the time.

But the last kind of just to cap this off for people who are listening to this and are totally in love with what you've done and are excited and inspired to maybe implement some of this kind of attitude, at least into their life, and wanting to take a risk and take a leap. What is some just some general words of wisdom you would leave with them? Maybe some things that you wish someone had told you when you were making the transition or something you could go and tell yourself that that woman who's sitting in the office and thinking, I don't want to do this for the next 30 years. What are some things that you could you can tell our listeners? It would be very simple. It would be you have only one life.

Take care of yourself, that it's mentally, physically, emotionally. You deserve it. You deserve to be treated nice. You deserve to be happy, and you deserve to have this life that you enjoy. Don't lose it for anybody or any job or any boss that doesn't make you happy. Yes, you need money, but your happiness is worth way more than that. It sounds tacky, but it's just so true. No, it doesn't sound tacky at all. It sounds very, very good to me. And I think it's something we need to hear it and not think that it's

a cliche. We need to really kind of take that in. And I think it's so important that there are people like you who are being their true, authentic selves, no matter how crazy other people think it is, because you're allowing other people to kind of be brave and do that too, which I think is important. Because like you said, there are too many people living their entire lives on autopilot or consciously miserable when they have it. They are empowered. They have the power within themselves to make the change. They just don't quite know how to take that first step. And I think that listening and hearing about people like you is going to

help. So thank you for that. I really hope so. I mean, it's super simple. Your boyfriend is a dick, leave him. Your friends are assholes, find new friends. Your boss is mean when you get a new job. Yeah, yeah. I know it's oversimplifying, but. But sometimes that's what you need. You need a little bit of like tough love and you need to, I think, I think too, people need to have a little bit, maybe more of a sense of urgency about their life. Like you said, you only have one life. So you're going to spend the whole thing with an asshole or with friends who are dicks. Like when you look back at the end of your life, and you think like, I had all this time, I had all this opportunity, and I could have just walked away from that and walked into something else. And I didn't because I was afraid. So I think that having that kind of foresight

before that, that entire life has, has come and gone. I think that's the key. Like have a little urgency, do it, do what makes you happy because you only have the one life, right? Exactly. And don't take advice from people.

They're always telling you you're right. Yeah, that's a good one too. That's a very good one. Yeah. I like it. All right. All right,

Valentine, I will let you eat your salad. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's been awesome chatting with you and enjoy Hawaii. And if you ever make your way I know you said you used to like big cities. If you ever make your way to New York, which is where I am, a lot of the time, maybe you can take me through one of those crazy lower body breath holding workouts because I would love that. Okay, awesome. Perfect. Well, thank you very much for having me today. All right. Thanks, Valentine. Thank you. Bye bye. That's all folks. That's funny. Anyway, we're all done. I appreciate you listening. As always, if you enjoyed it, please reach out to me at the muscle maven on Instagram. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you didn't like.

If you have any suggestions for other awesome guests, let me know. I always want to learn and hear more from you guys. So please do that. Next week, if you join me, if you're still hanging in with me, I am talking with a functional medicine doctor and hormone expert who knows

more about sexual health, hormone health, men's health testicles than anyone I've ever met. And look, it's good. Somebody's got to know about test health, hormone health, men's health, testicles than anyone I've ever met. And look, it's good. Somebody's got to know about testicles, right? So why not Dr. Ralph Esposito? He knows what he's talking about. And look, it's a topic that we really, none of us can get enough of, can we? Like the hormone health, sexual health thing, especially people who are hashtag fit. You got to worry about these things. So I learned a lot and I think you will too. So join me next week and thank you for listening.