The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Valentine Thomas - How To Quit A Job You Hate To Pursue A Career You Love, Sustainable & Ethical Eating, Spear Fishing, & Using Social Media To Build A Career

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

#171: Valentine Thomas is a Canadian born lawyer who worked in finance in London for six year before quitting that career path and pursuing her new career path of Spearfishing. Yes, Spearfishing! She is now a professional free diving instructor, spear fisher, TEDx speaker, & soon to be published author. On this episode we discuss how to quit a career you dislike, spearfishing, how to fish, shop, and eat sustainably and ethically, and why it's so important to pursue what you love. We also discuss how social media has helped individuals in ever profession shed light into professions that may have lived in obscurity.  To Connect with Valentine Thomas click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) For Detailed Show Notes click HERE This episode was brought to you by Fabletics. Your new go to for all athletic wear.  Fabletics is offering our listeners an incredible deal you don’t want to miss: Get 2 leggings for only $24 a ($99 value) when you sign up for a VIP membership. Just go to Fabletics.com/skinny to take advantage of this deal now. International shipping is available and there is absolutely no commitment when you purchase your first order!  Fabletics.com/skinny Terms and conditions apply.  This episode is brought to you by Robinhood. For a free stock visit skinny.robinhood.com  and start investing today with this easy to use mobile platform. 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Aha! My first years were not very easy, I guess, because I was used to living in London when I had a brand-new Mercedes and a very nice apartment, and I just quit everything and sold everything, and I got stuck living in my car at some point because I was making a job for myself, a job that didn't exist before. Even in those times when it was harder, I never regretted it because I was waking up

every morning by the beach eating the best food I ever had in my life. We are back. It's Friday. Happy Friday. You have just me, Lauren, today. Michael is out of the office. He's running around in a suit and tie, which is kind of hot. This morning he came in all hot and bothered in his suit and tie and I was like, meow.

Anyway, that's off on a tangent, but you just have me today. Taylor's in studio with me. He told me that this is the time for me to podcast because I have energy. Taylor, write it down. 1131 AM. I had two cups of coffee with inulin and cinnamon, so I'm like off to the races. Anyways, so today we have Valentin. She is going to talk about spearfishing, and we'll get into that. But before we get into that, I wanted to tell you five very niche productivity hacks that have really been working for me. I think it's important as we, you know, interview a bunch of guests to check in with you guys and let us let you know any tips or tricks that are working for Michael and I. And even if that just means, you know, 10 to 15 to 20 minute

intros that have a couple of valuable hacks for you, I'm very much about it. So over the last couple months, I've been writing down niche productivity hacks that have been working for me. And some of these are ones that you guys maybe have heard over and over again, but I think it's important to keep going back to them because they really seem to be working for me and a bunch of you. I'm always checking in on DM or in the secret Facebook group and to see these hacks working for you guys and also working for me really showcases their value. So some of these tips are even tips that I picked up from other podcasters too. So the first tip that I think everyone should do, and this is going to sound

maybe counterproductive, but it's not, is reading. Reading to me is life-changing. I've been a big reader ever since I was little. I remember when I was little, my mom used to say, you need to go outside and play with your friends because I would be reading a book on the couch. And so reading something that I've always gone to as an outlet, you know, as I grew up and experienced any kind of adversity, I would always turn to a book. There's something about being immersed in a book and someone else's life and reading about it and getting lost in that that just really does it for me. Sometimes I go through seasons with reading, though, like I'll read so many biographies or, you know, so much fiction or whatever it is, and then I'll stop for a month. And I notice when I stop reading that I'm not as sharp.

So while reading takes up time, and a lot of people are going to say I don't have time, it also adds so much value to your life and keeps your brain sharp. When I don't read for a month, I swear, like I said, I'm not the same. I'm not functioning at the same level. I now make it a point to read every single night for 30 minutes. So if I like to be in bed at 10 o'clock, then I'll get in bed at 945 and read till 1015. There's also something about reading that puts your brain at ease right before you go to bed. It's so nice to be done with your checklist in bed. Your emails are done, whatever it is, and you can just open a book and get lost in it.

So I believe that you have to get interested outside yourself and not just be completely interested in whatever you're doing. To me, it feels selfish if I'm not interested in other people. I'm constantly wanting to be curious and that's what reading makes me more curious. It gives me so many ideas. It inspires me of people to interview. It inspires me to ask certain people on the podcast. For instance, Michael's reading a book on sleep and we reached out to him on Twitter. So reading gets your wheels spinning. So yes, it does take time. But in the end, I believe reading makes you more productive. And Taylor, I hope you're reading

those crickets. Okay, the next productivity hack is time batching. You've heard this one from me, but honestly, it's life-changing. Like, I can't even imagine not time batching. What time batching is, is it's essentially doing the same task for a big amount of time. So I've been scheduling all my photo shoots on Fridays. I know on Fridays that I am going to be in a photo shoot all day and creating content. So I need to be fresh, contoured. You know, the facial massage needs to be happening like a lot the night before. I need to be hydrated. I need to be ready to play. Like really, I think of my business as a sport. And when it comes to Fridays, when I know I'm shooting and I'm going to be on camera, I've got to be clear headed. I can't be

hung over. I don't want to have a lot of salty foods the night before. I want to get a workout in the morning. My morning routine is so important. So I know Fridays is like a game day. Another day of the week, and you guys, I've talked about this before, is Wednesdays. I do all my conference calls and interviews on Wednesdays. So I know Wednesday is going to be a day of talking. So in knowing that, you can prepare yourself for the day and time batch all those tasks in one. I used to do my conference calls throughout the week and what ended up happening is I would be doing something and immersed in a project and then have to take a conference call. So it actually ended up creating like ups and downs throughout the whole day. And I couldn't concentrate on one task.

So conference calls are on Wednesdays. Mondays, I try to clear because I know on Mondays, there's going to be all these different fires that I have to put out within the business. So Mondays are more of like, I want to call it almost a reaction day. Like I'm reacting to different things. I'm making sure that systems are in place to get the week all streamlined. I have a call with my team. Everyone sort of knows what the goals of the week are. So Monday, I would say are like getting the goals of the week ready to go. And then Tuesdays and Thursdays are open for creation for me. My business is creative and I

need to be able to scale the business and grow the business. So those are days that I clear off for content creation. And that could be anything from ideas for the podcast, reaching out to guests, you know, building a media kit, you know, working on a potential product, whatever that is, those are Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I really try to move meetings off of those days because it can be a lot when you're going from meeting to meeting. So time batching, try it. You could, and just like an example, if you work nine to five, maybe you return all your emails on Mondays and then Tuesdays is a day of, you know, setting goals and creating the systems to get to those goals. Or maybe Wednesdays

is the days you take clients out to lunch. I don't know whatever it is, but I do notice that doing the same task within a block of time is incredibly helpful. And also, of course, you know, the time blocking cube really helps with time batching too. If you don't have one of those, I'm telling you, it's life-changing. Do not use your phone for time blocking. You will get distracted and start scrolling through Instagram. Third productivity hack is spending money on time. This is weird. Okay.

You're going to be like, what? I believe in spending money on my time. So wherever that is, I, I utilize it. For instance, if I have to post some Instagram stories, I'll take an Uber instead of driving. That $6 that I spent on Uber allowed me 10 minutes to post all my Instagram stories and the fonts and colors that I wanted it. You know, maybe I go get a blowout at Drybar. I can take my computer and work on blog posts. Or maybe I have 100 emails to return.

Then I can go get a facial and, you know, get my skin all tight and glowy and dewy. Whatever is important to you. It could be even getting your nails done. I would use that time to listen to a book on tape, to listen to a podcast. I'm always looking for spots where I can be better, do better, be the best version of myself. So, you know, if there's five minutes of walking to coffee and I can listen to an Ed Milet episode, love him, I'll do it. This morning, you know, literally five minutes I walked to coffee, I'm listening to a podcast on Ed's morning

routine. People ask me, who are your mentors? My mentors are whoever the fuck I want them to be, because you have access to all of this on the internet and all of their podcasts. So to walk to coffee with Ed Milet while he talks about his morning routine is super powerful. Those five minutes of my day really kickstarted the day. I'm really cognitive about whose content I'm consuming too, even if it's just for five minutes. So the point is, utilize your time. I like to pay for time. It's just, it works for me. If I have have an event I'll get my makeup done so I can spend an hour on emails or an hour on slack or even conference calls I'm walking I'm moving maybe I'll go get like a moon juice whatever it is I really evaluate my time and my energy I think

that that's really important to sit back and look at the fourth productivity hack that's really been working for me is to write stuff down we've've talked about this. I write the first seven priorities of the day down on a piece of paper. I start with the most important one and then go down to the least important one. I do not move on to the second one until the first one is done. I do not move on to the third one until the second one is done. That's called the Ivy Lee method, I believe, and it's by Charles Schwab. And it really, really works for execution. Just that simple practice of writing those seven things down every single day is a game changer. I have this notebook that I use. It's hot pink and very cute. And I have my specific pen that you can find on the Instagram account and the skinny was like. And what I do in this

notebook is on the first page of this notebook is my goals for 2019. So the second that I wake up, I open that notebook and I see those goals every single day. I flip the pages and I get to my page where I write my seven things down. And each day, sometimes those seven things will roll over, roll over, roll over like a tumbleweed. But the point is, is that I'm focusing on the priorities of the day. I used to be that person that was like crossing off my to-do list and getting an orgasm every single time I crossed something off. And then I realized that I was working in my business and not on my business. So now I really, really apply a huge chunk, 80% of my energy towards scaling my business and those big priorities of the day.

The little stuff is going to have to wait until those priorities to get done. It's just, it's mandatory for me. And I think to continue to grow a business, it's so important to be working on the big picture and not just on the micro, if that makes sense. The last productivity hack that's been life-changing for me is to completely take control of your calendar. Spend five minutes before you go to

bed on your calendar. This was a tip from my friend Steve. He is major and he said that he spends at least five to ten minutes every night before he goes to bed evaluating his calendar, making sure that there's driving time in there, making sure that, you know, the important urgent things are in red. I color code all my beauty appointments in pink. I color code my workouts in yellow. I color code the blog posts in red. I color code meetings in orange. You get the drift. So I have like a whole color coded situation that when I look at it, my brain automatically knows what I'm doing when I'm doing it. I found that to be extremely helpful. The color coding on Google Cal is insane. It's just the Google Cal app. And I think you can even like

pick the pinks and the different stuff that you like. Shout out to Mimi for showing me that. So I just think that having full control over your calendar and actually scheduling in email time and scheduling in time to relax. I have a reading time in there. I have my morning pages in there. I even have my 10 minutes of meditation in my calendar. I know exactly what I'm doing for each day and it just gives me this feeling of control. The word control can sound negative, but I mean the control over my day. I mean, that's so important. You can also have empty spaces on your calendar and use those for opportunities to rest, relax, rejuvenate, work out, whatever it is.

I know Michael creates space in his calendar, like I said, for just reading. I hope you guys enjoyed my five productivity hacks and just some other ones that are really quick for you to think about. I'm going to fire them off are cut your meeting times by 25%. I used to take meetings for an hour. Now I do 30 minutes. I used to do conference meetings for an hour. Now I do 30 minutes. I used to do conference calls for 20 minutes. Now I do 10 minutes.

Cut it in half. That's really helped. Another one is to know when to delegate. You got to know when to outsource. You got to know when to delegate. It's hard to give up control over certain things, but you will get overloaded if you don't delegate. Another thing that I've done is the app Unroll.

So unsubscribe, unfollow, unroll. Get that shit out of your email box. Unfollow people that aren't serving you. Unsubscribe from emails. Get it out. Move it. And then the last thing I would say is always have a no strategy. No is really important. You have to know when to say yes, and you have to know when to say no. If something is taking your energy, I tend to say no. If something's giving me energy, I tend to say yes. But yes, there are going to be things where you have to get uncomfortable to get comfortable, but it's important to know there is such power in saying no, and it clears space off your calendar for you to do something that's productive. With that, those are my hacks. I hope you guys like them. Let's meet Valentin. Okay, hold on. Before we get into that,

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She's been featured on everything from the Daily Mail to Joe Rogan. And today we pick her brain about her story of spearfishing. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Telling you that we discovered you through Joe Rogan, you're saying you reached out to him, and he probably was like, what a unique perspective, right? It was, well, I was looking for a podcast to listen to, and my friend suggested me to check out the Rogan one,

and I saw he was following me on Instagram, so I was like, oh, hello. And he just... Invited you on. I was like, hey, by the way, if you ever need a guest on your podcast, he was like, yeah. I was like the 27th of August. I was like, even if I was getting married,

I would cancel to come. So yes. Yeah, who cares about the groom? Leaving for Joe Rogan, I wouldn't care either. Exactly. Later. Well, I can understand why you got such a quick invite because you have a very, very unique story, which is why when we heard about it, I was like, I have to figure out what's going on here. So let's get a little background.

You're from Montreal. From Montreal. Had a legal career. Let's go way back. Let's hear how this all began. I studied law in Montreal and then I did my master in law and I just I want to move so I have a French passport so I had a chance to move to Europe. I moved to London when I worked in finance for six years and when I moved to London I discovered a super weird sport

that was spearfishing. I'm not a swimmer, I'm not an outdoor person. I've never had this side of me. But I've cooked. I always cook. Cooking is one of my passions. And I just fell in love with the whole process of catching my own fish. And I got hired to do a documentary in South Africa in 2015, 16. And when I came back to my desk, I just remember telling myself, like, all right, I'm out. So I sold everything I had. But wait, how do you just fall in love with the process of catching your own fish?

Is it because you wanted to have clean fish to eat? Yes, it's that I was like the day is you go out on a boat from the shore and you spend the entirety in the water and you get to interact with dolphins and sharks and whales and a lot of super cool stuff and you come back home and you have fresh fish that you just got and you know it's caught in a responsible way at the same time yeah there's more of a connect there's like a connection to the food and also there's a connection to nature it's probably you know how they tell you when you're stressed out to go walk on the beach and do grounding and get all those ions in you're out in the middle of nature interacting with the animals.

There's something probably therapeutic about that. Yes. And also you bring, you burn between a thousand and 1500 calories an hour. Sign me up. Where the fuck do I spear fish? There's a lot, there's a lot here that I want to go over. Let's, let's back up a little. So you were in law and you, you're maybe, you weren't happy, right?

You didn't, it wasn't like something that was firing you up. And so all of a sudden somebody invites you on a spearfishing trip and you said, you know what? Screw the law stuff. I'm done. I'm sure. Were your parents involved? Were they happy about this decision? No, they were not.

I can't imagine what this conversation looked like. I started spearfishing about a year after I moved to London. And I kind of liked it, but it was not. Again, I was petrified of the ocean. I almost drowned when I was 14. So I didn't swim in the ocean for about 10 years after that. So when I took my first free diving class, I was like, yeah, no, like, I don't really want to do it, but my friends kind of forced me to do it. And then I really liked it, but it was, it's not, I didn't fall in love with spearfishing for the diving part of it. That took me a good two, three years to really like that part for anybody that's thinking about

spearfishing what do you need to know about swimming and diving i know like there's probably a lot of breath work right because you're you're not down there in scuba gear you're you're free diving right yes but the human body is actually made to hold its breath so there's you have natural reactions um happening in your body as soon as you emerge yourself in the water. So the human body is made to hold its breath. There's just tricks to trigger that. Okay, so what are those tricks? You have to slow down your heartbeat.

It's one of the biggest ones because you want your body to use as little oxygen as possible so that way it can function for longer without breathing. So how do you do that? You just go into like a meditative state? Yes, it's very close to meditation and yoga. That's a freediving part of it. Walk us through what a day in the life of a spearfisher is like. I want to get so specific what equipment you wear, what you do when you wake up, how you prepare yourself, what you do while you're doing it and what you do after. A typical spearfishing day is you get up pretty early, you go out on a

boat and you fish all day. And what I do is at the end of the day, already have my little ingredients chopped up and we do ceviche right on the boat. So we just eat fresh fish that we just caught and we're just having a few beers and then we go on our way back. We clean all the fish, we bring it home, and we make a massive meal with everybody. This sounds pretty good. Oh, Michael. Take this fucking headset off and get out there and start spearfishing. But then you go out different where, but it depends where, but in certain locations it's so fishy that you go back and you fill your freezer for the next two weeks.

And you have basically free food but for someone like me that doesn't when you say spearfishing what i'm picturing in my head is how i don't really think it is what are the tools you're using how do you do it what are you wearing like give us the whole like picture of it so you have a wetsuit because it's too cold otherwise especially in cal California. And you hold your breath. So you take one last deep breath, and then you take a dive. And then you go down. With as little movement as possible, you're going to go down. There's two types of spitfishing.

You have the reef fishing, and you have the blue water hunting. So in a reef, you go down to the reef, you hide yourself a little bit, and you have a speargun with a trigger on it. And you hide yourself, and then you wait until something shows up. When you're out of air, you come back to the surface and you do that again and again and again and again. Why can't you wear, and this might be a dumb question, but why can't you wear a tank that has oxygen in it while you're down there? You have to be mobile, right? You can, but it's front upon.

Let's put it like that. It's kind of cheating. I guess a lot of people feel that way. It's not pure for the sport. Yes, but also, personally, I don't mind. Because I think if you're already risking your life and going in the water to catch your fish, you're already deserving it. But also, the problem with a tank is you make so many bubbles that you just care to fish off. The reason I love stories like this, though, is because you've basically defied the odds and quit a typical, let's say, like a legal career and created a completely brand new career path for yourself. And something that is so nontraditional that nobody would think like, hey, you know, I guarantee when you were growing up, you never thought, hey, this is what I'm going to be doing for a living and having a cookbook and all these different things.

It's so amazing the path that people can take, you know, a little bit of social media. We're going to pull up your social a little bit because it's crazy in a career you can build in something that's just so nontraditional. It's definitely different. It's it's a type of entrepreneurship, I guess. And it was, my first years were not very easy, I guess, because I was used to living in London when I had a brand new Mercedes and a very nice apartment and a lot of shoes. And I just quit everything and sold everything. And I was, the first year I got, I got stuck living in my car at some point, because I just have, I was making a job for myself and a job that didn't exist before. So I was kind of creating something. But even in those times when it was harder, I never regretted it.

Because I was waking up every morning by the beach eating the best food I ever had in my life. I mean, I eat better than Nobu. Well, you're eating right there. I eat better than Nobu. That should be your tagline. That's amazing. Taylor, pull up some of this pull up the social accounts i want to go some of this stuff i was looking on here out there with these some of these fish you catch are massive they're bigger than you

yes some of them some of them what is the most dangerous situation you've encountered while you're looking at this thing look at this it was a swordfish uh that's a marlin holy shit wait hold on hold on this is how like i thought it was like a little fish this is a big fish we are not this listen we are in the that's my biggest one we're in the big leagues here at spearfishing this is the size of you when i first met you when you were 12 like this is a 4-1 fish that fish is larger than me but so let me let me ask you this so you you go you catch these things and you can make a living now do you sell them to restaurants or like how do you no i don't sell my fish so all of my fish i use it and i share it that

fish that marlin by example i got in mexico and i brought a lot of it back with me at home in florida and i made a post on instagram and i said okay who wants to get fish i have fish for a lot of people and something like about 80 people showed up and i just distribute fish as many people as i can so i don't believe in selling it okay but that's what i eat so is that what's the reason behind not selling is it not like i don't want to use the word sustainable in fishing yes it's like sustainable fishing of course spearfishing is the most sustainable way to eat fish and seafood because you're on the water and you catch only the fish that you want to be sure you're going to eat for dinner so we inform ourselves a lot on what's in reproduction season what's

endangered how do you you're really picky about what you're going to eat and when you buy your fish at a grocery store you don't know where it's from you don't know how it's been cast you don't know the bycatch that came out of it so it's a pretty it's the best way to eat so if if you're like me and you can't go spearfishing, how would you make educated decisions when you're in a restaurant or in the marketplace? Well, you can just be friends with me. That's a good story. Okay, I'll come support it.

I'll just give you fish. There's some organizations. One of them is the Marine Stewardship Council. And it's like a blue thick on the fish. And that shows you that it's been caught in a sustainable way. So there's what you need to know, and you need to inform yourself, and don't be shy to ask at a grocery store, where is that? How was it caught? And everything like that. You know what?

This is interesting to bring up. I'm sure with social and some of the images that you have on here with spearfishing, I'm sure you've gotten some flack, right? People coming out, animal protecting people, being upset that you're spearfishing. But I think that this is one of the most responsible ways to eat, especially because, like you said, you don't know how a lot of these other fish are caught or how animals are fed. I think that kind of human to nature hunting connection where you're actually going out and responsibly searching for food and catching your own food and then responsibly cooking up. All of these things, I believe, are much more,

I don't want to say humane, but in a way, much more humane than a lot of the practices that we have as just a general person shopping in a superfood store. All right. Before we get into that, let's talk about Robinhood. So Robinhood is an investing app that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, cryptos, all commission-free. While other brokerages charge you up to $10 for every trade, Robinhood doesn't charge any commission fees, so you can trade stocks and keep all of your profits. Plus, there are no account minimum deposits needed to get started, so you can start investing at any level. The simple, intuitive design of Robinhood makes

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That's skinny.robinhood.com. With that, let's get back to Valentin. I get a lot of people that are asking me, well, how can you be for ocean conservation if you kill fish? Well, the answer to that is I eat fish. But when I eat my fish, I risk my life. I take time and I go out at sea to catch exactly what I want. And I know that that fish is being caught in the right way.

And it's, I just don't know why people can't see that. Because if you eat fish, there's no way you're against pivots. It just doesn't make sense. Yeah, I mean, there's some horrendous stories you hear about like a lot of, you know, like international waters, people throwing these massive nets and just scooping up dolphins and fish and whatever they're scooping up throwing the nets back in the water and like that is not anywhere near as responsible as what you're doing yes and if if you know if we go even more in details of that even people that go line fishing what they do when they catch their fish you throw in a cooler

and it slowly dies why did you decide to stop catching octopus can you tell our audience oh yeah because they were so smart it was like um i had like a weird connection when we look at each other in the eye and i felt i felt intelligent so much and it's it sounds like weird like it's discriminating i guess the words of their species but it's i don't know there was i just felt something that didn't make me want to eat that anymore octopus are one of the freakiest things on this planet i mean they're they they they're like from another planet wait i still have to know what the scariest stuff you've seen underwater is is it like a shark what yes it was a shark that was the time i was just most scared i said there's two times that i was very scared the first one was a shark it was

in i mean shark are part of the sport as part of his lifestyle i mean we hunt in the territory and they're very lazy so if they know that you're catching fish they want to be there and they want to grab your fish before you do so i was in tampa and we were in very shallow water and we were a little bit spread around which you should do normally, but the water was so shallow that I would get a little bit cocky. And this baby tiger shark just comes towards me and I had a fish clipped to my gun and he just charges me. So I was poking it back with my gun and I was trying to aim for like its eyes, the gills or everything.

They would try to hurt it enough so it would leave. But he was very skinny and he kept charging and charging and charging you wanted a fish that i had on me but he was charging me so often that i didn't have time to take it off so i was screaming to my friend to try to get somebody to come and at some point you roll his eyes back which is when a shark is ready to eat and that's when i told myself okay that's it that's that's that's the end of it and at that time, my friend arrived. So he's like, oh, why are you screaming? Do you have a fish?

I'm like, there's a giant freaking shark behind you. He's like, put your bag against mine. Cover your head. I cover mine. And the shark, because we were two, he didn't really like that. So he finally left. Wait, how are you talking to your friend when you're underwater? We're in a surface.

Surfacing up and down. Got it. I was looking down. But as soon as he frowned, so the shark backed out a little bit because they don't like being outnumbered. Got it. This is the thing. I don't think I could. Hold on.

She said there's another scary time. I need to hear the other scary time. Well, the biggest danger in spearfishing is what we call shallow water blackout. So it's passing out. And it's why it's a team sport, I guess. You always chew when you dive. And I was in the Bahamas, and I took a drop at 85 feet and I just shot a fish and I missed it and I chased it. And I just realized, oh, I'm actually in very deep water and I should probably come back up. And I came back up and

I felt, I felt that I was about to pass out. And if my buddy was not watching me, I would have died. So I was coming back up. I could feel I was starting making weird movements because that's when your brain sort of shut down. And I just, I was spinning as fast as I can. And I was like, okay, if he's not watching me, I'm dead. So I'm just, I'm just hoping that he does. And he was because he actually lost his brother a few years before to a shallow water blackout. So he was looking at me very well. And you go back for more. And you go back for for more there's got to be this this is some crazy relentless i really like fish

yeah i mean you gotta really like fish how can you scale a business in this and how have you been able to not only monetize but just become really successful at this career? I get a lot of gigs. It's very varied. So, yeah, I have a cookbook coming out this April. It's going to be in French first, but it's going to be in the U.S. after. I have sponsors. I have just so many things. I do a lot of branded content for different brands.

I just recently filmed for Forbes and NowThis and different type of media platform. And with my sister, we have a recycled bathing suit line coming out this spring. Perfect. I just work on different projects and I have pots in different... Of all the countries that you... That makes sense, but whatever.

You're doing a medley of things. It's not just one thing. No, exactly. i'm trying different things so i have a lot of lines in the water there you go of all the different countries you've spent time fishing i guess fishing in which ones do you think have the most sustainable practices or like laws which ones do you think are being the most responsible which countries honestly we're all bad it's i'm not gonna lie it's like the united states is very good at protecting his water it's we have the coast of of the united states is very fishy it's very well maintained

and it's very protected and everybody can go out there and catch their own dinner it's it's very very easy for that there's a lot of illegal vessels in other countries when it comes to different species and the u.s is part of it so is canada so is so is the eu so there's a lot of countries but it's there's a problem right now it gets weird into a weird space like with the oceans right like who controls what there's it's get these international waters the laws are like not a lot of laws exist out there nobody's really paying taylor what are you doing back there i can hear you've been clicking around this guy's always this guy's always clicking you do you mean something back there no he's eating a haichu and you can like hear it it's like you're look at this guy i can look at

he's creeping around no he is clicking through her instagram but i also hear an haichu ask your question what is the long cable that's usually in the photos with you when you're deep sea diving this if you look on the screen here there's a photo of her on her instagram and it looks like it's some sort of i'm'm not certain what that would be. So when you are fishing for bigger species, you have an elastic or a rope which is attached to the spear of your gun. So when you shoot a fish, you don't have to fight it underwater. You go back to the surface, and then you fight the fish. Yeah, that makes sense.

It's attached to a buoy at the surface. Okay. the fish yeah that makes sense but also it's attached to a buoy this surface okay what advice would you give to someone that's listening that's absolutely miserable in their job that knows that they have a niche passion like you have where would you tell them to start you know when you have a job it's you have to try as many things as possible and it's it's not easy it's not it's not an easy path it's not like you're gonna wake up one day and you're going to quit everything and you're going to start being a millionaire. It's going to require a lot of work. But again, if you work 40 hours a week in a job, if you spend that working on your job and your business and yourself, something is going to work out at some point. And it's just about, yeah,

it's about exploring as many avenues as you can. And we're so lucky these days. We live in a generation where with social media and stuff like that, you can reach And it's, it's, we're so lucky these days. We live in a, in a generation where with social media and stuff like that, you can reach so many people. How have you utilized social media to sort of enhance your career? I try to be as authentic as what I believe in. And it's, it's, that's not been easy because of course I kill fish. So sometimes I get a lot of people that are not happy about that, but it's, it's whatever. This is what I wanted to touch on. Like, what is, what is the general consensus or the general messages that come in with people when people aren't unhappy like what are they saying are they mad that just you're just at the general

fact that you kill fish are they mad that you display the like what is it what is the general consensus about what they're they're upset about i can understand like high level like maybe people just disagree with this practice but i stopped posting photos of when i'm holding fish in his blood and things like that because it was distressing people. And yes, it's part of what I do. But there is right now a very thick curtain when it comes to food sourcing. And a lot of people still eat fish and still eat meat, but they don't want to know where it's from. Well, that's the problem I have with it, right? That's a big problem.

Well, it's like ignorance. Because people will complain about this. People will sit here and they'll complain and they'll say, I can't believe she does this. And then they'll go to Sugarfish or they'll go to Nobu or they'll go to Katsuya and they'll order massive sushi dinners and they'll eat and they'll spend all this money. But then they'll point fingers at people like you that are doing it maybe more responsibly and sustainably. Or they'll wear leather. Or they'll wear leather. Or fur.

Listen, or yeah. Or eat avocado, because apparently that's bad now too. Listen, there's a big, there's kind of a big resurgence of people out there hunting for their food and killing their own food and butchering their own food sustainably

and getting a lot of shit for it. And then people being mad that they did that. It's like, listen, you're eating steaks and you're eating burgers and you're doing the same thing. I can understand people being mad about, you know, going down to Africa and killing rhinos or herding elephants or just hunting endangered species. But fuck those people. I don't agree with that.

But for what you do, there's a really big argument to me that this is a much more responsible way to eat fish if you're going to. Yes. And last year I had a pretty weird experience so i was in new caledonia and i saw pacific and my friends took me hunting so i was like yeah okay why not you know i'll try it i eat meat so why not so i go in the hills and everything and i shot a deer from pretty far and i started crying crying i couldn't stop crying i was like i can't believe i killed bambi this is so horrible and i felt so bad and i just i just couldn't stop crying I was like I can't believe I killed Bambi this is so horrible and I felt so bad and I just I just couldn't stand that that whole thing and so we got to get

animals and I was like I was so distressed I was like this is terrible how did I do that and then I carried it back because I was like you know like I killed it I'm gonna carry it back and we went back to the camp and my friend just cut it and when it looked like pieces of meat i started getting hungry and all my guilt went away so i was like okay this is actually very hypocrite of me so now it's living in this looking cute on land i don't feel bad but the second it looks like a burger i really want to eat it but this is what i'm talking about this people the same thing happens right you people hear that story and they relate to bambi and they're so sad and they're like i can't believe this but they'll go to a nice restaurant and they'll order a steak or they'll order a burger and their mouth will start watering like oh this is so good on my plate and

it's hypocritical and i can understand like listen i'm almost like we're all hypocrites so like everyone but this is what i try to but it's hard too because you know we all see the the meat farms and we all think it's disgusting we're all sharing those videos but then you go to whole food and you have the chicken at six bucks and you had a one at 35 and you know they yeah everybody wants to get the nice chicken that was running away and that was like running in grass and was having a good life but it's you know it's it's not everybody that has 35 dollars to feed five kids at home so we're being used to all of that. I went to see a sustainable tuna fishery near Marshall Islands

and the can of tuna is $3. So when you have another one at 50 cents, it's really hard to convince people to change their habits. We're so used to that. No, I mean, I think these types of conversations are important because it maybe gets people to question their own thoughts and beliefs around.

I mean, when I first started looking into a lot of the stuff and what you do and what some hunters do, I was like, you know what? That makes a lot more sense. There's a connection to the food. You've had to work for it. There's a connection to the animal. You know where it came from. People, human beings have been hunters, gatherers for a very, very long time. Really?

This is how we this how we've evolved over time. It's not normal that you would just walk into some butcher shop or some grocery store and say like, okay, I'll take those eggs. I'll take that fish. I'll take that chicken. I'll take that beef and not question. And because you haven't seen the process of how it was butchered or caught or whatever, you don't question and you think it's, you think it's responsible. But like you said, you don't know where that came from. You know exactly where you found your food, where it came from, what you had to do to work for it. And there's, I think it's the most responsible way to eat meat or fish if you're going to. 100%.

And when I was living in London, it never even crossed my mind at a grocery store to ask myself, oh, I'm wondering how that cut has been cut and if it was good. I've never even think about it. We're not, it's kind of, again again there's a thick iron curtain behind food sourcing is what we eat and if that keeps going that's and we're never gonna solve anything and so yeah we have to look at the dirty stuff we have to look at a gore stuff because if you don't take the time to interest yourself to where you feel this from that's what allows to be company to keep doing what

they're doing they're happy that we're like oh no I don't want to see that I don't want to know all I want is my little stick keep doing what they're doing. They're happy that we're like, oh, no, I don't want to see that. I don't want to know. All I want is my little stick in my pocket. They're happy for us to do that. What would you tell people, like maybe the other side of the coin, people that are hunting or fishing irresponsibly, right? And I don't know if you can think of any examples, but people like, let's say the vanity hunters that maybe go down to Africa

trying to hunt rhino horns or people that are trying to get like a trophy. Do you? africa trying to hunt rhino horns or people that are trying to get like a trophy do you it's that is such um it's it's a very touchy subject because i i personally do not understand why you would want to kill elephant or giraffe like for me you're freaking dumb ass if you get trilled out of that well a lot of these like um you know there's some of these like rich asian guys over there they think if they drink rhino tea with the ground up rhino horns that they're going to get. What's a nice way to say this with two women? What's a nice way to say this with two women? They think they're going to get a harder.

Harder dick? Yeah, harder dick. They think that it actually. Taylor, don't try to do that. The vitality. And they, you know, so these guys go, OK, I need to have this rhino horn tea. It doesn't. Listen, that's not proven at all. It this whole thing but people think like that and so i mean

there's a lot of reasons they do it i under the market that's that's why but it's a gross market though but the the thin line with the africa thing is that a lot of reserves depends on that money so it costs i don't know something like 150 000 to kill a giraffe it's a ridiculous amount of money oh my god and it's it's it's i don't understand why those people just don't want to give the money instead of just wanting to kill something for it but there's some those reserves they need the money they need that and they often what they do is that they they sell an older animal that needs to be taken of the reserve because i don't know he's too protective of the female so he's preventing i don't know like the population to breed or they explained it to me in that in south africa but that was a while ago and it's he was he was telling me it was like sometimes

we don't have the choice to sell those permits because we need the money we need to get three new rhino in the reserve so the population can thrive and if we need to get rid of one well we're going to have to sell it to an idiot that is getting excited by shooting one in the face. If I took 10 pieces of fish from all different walks, some from the supermarket, some from Sugarfish, some from Nobu, your own fish that you caught, and I mixed it all up and lined it up and you tasted it,

would you be able to tell the difference between each one or no? I don't know. You have to do that. That's an Instagram challenge. I'm challenging you to do that. I want to know if you can tell the difference just by taste. Well, that nobu looks very good. So probably we know that's not mine.

Okay. Lauren, don't fuck up nobu for us. Okay, don't. Can you tell by color sometimes? Often tuna, definitely. Or maybe another question is when fish that's been processed into the, not necessarily processed, that's not the right word, but brought into supermarkets. Are there things that would be added or in that fish that would maybe not necessarily be in the fish that you catch? Like you should always go for wild, right?

Not farmed. Is that right? Or is that just propaganda? That depends. Okay. There's some farms that are very responsible and there's some farms that are horrible. So, and it is same thing about, there are some commercial fishing boat that are very respectful and there's some fishing boat that are terrible. It's all about sourcing everything smartly and responsibly. You just have to make sure that the farm is doing their job well.

If you saw a beautiful fish that you've never seen before, just lustrous colors, would you see it and go i'm coming for you no i don't shoot anything that i don't know what it is and if i'm allowed to shoot it it's really part of if you want to be an ethical spivishing person um you have to make sure that you know the area when you go fishing where you're allowed to shoot where you don't allow to shoot and it's. And you have to inform yourself. You just don't go around and shoot anything. This is what I'm saying.

You're informed about this. You're not just some guy jumping in the water and shooting something or some guy going to the forest and shooting. You actually are doing the research and looking into what makes sense to hunt for. Yes, you have to. And if you have a doubt, you don't shoot. And if you want to get into spearfishing, take a free life class. That's step one.

Take a free life class. That's step one. Take a free life class. So if Taylor was dressed as a stingray and he was coming toward you, you wouldn't shoot him? No. You might have to shoot him. I didn't even shoot his shirt. It was trying to eat me. Thank you for doing the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me. Very interesting. Hey, guys, what's up? It's Lauren. I hope you enjoyed that episode. That was super interesting and off the cuff for us. I would love to know your favorite part of this episode. Could be the productivity tips,

could be something from Valentin on my latest Instagram. And if you let us know on my latest Instagram, I will send you a TSC meal plan. We'll drop into your DMs. We really appreciate your feedback and it helps us grow as a podcast. If this podcast has brought you any kind of value, please rate, subscribe, and review the podcast on iTunes. It takes two seconds and it helps us grow as a community and a show. Hopefully we'll eventually be able to do a live tours. With that, we will see you on Tuesday. Thank you,

thank you, thank you see you on Tuesday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening as always.