#1162 - Valentine Thomas

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Three, two, one, boom. You gotta appreciate a person who shows up with not just food, but booze.

You showed up, you brought whiskey and fish. That's very impressive.

Valentine Thomas (0:19)

That's exactly what my mommy taught me.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

Your mother taught you to bring food and booze everywhere?

Valentine Thomas (0:23)

Exactly.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

Well, you got a good mom. So, your name is, you would introduce yourself as Valentine, but your mom calls you Valentine?

Valentine Thomas (0:35)

Well, I want to introduce myself to English speaking people. I say I'm Valentine, but then when I speak to somebody that speaks French, I say Valentine.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Valentine. Because you're from Montreal.

Valentine Thomas (0:49)

Yes, exactly.

Joe Rogan (0:51)

So I found out about you online, and I've read your story, and it's a very interesting story because you were a lawyer, right?

Valentine Thomas (1:00)

Yes, I used to be a lawyer. I did my law degree in Montreal, and then I did my master in law before moving to London.

Joe Rogan (1:08)

And now you are a spearfisher.

Valentine Thomas (1:12)

Yes, full time.

Joe Rogan (1:13)

That's kind of crazy.

That's an interesting transition. I'm fascinated by spearfishing. It seems like a lot of fun. It seems very exciting and dangerous and risky. But how did you go from being a lawyer?

And that's a big jump. I mean, you had to pay for an education. You had to, well, in Canada, do you have to pay for that? How does that work?

Valentine Thomas (1:35)

It's kind of cheap compared to the US. Definitely, it's about something maybe like $3,000, $4,000 a year. So compared to the US, it's almost free, I guess.

Joe Rogan (1:44)

Oh, that's not bad, $3,000, $4,000 a year. But still, that's $3,000, $4,000 a year for many years that you decided, yeah, I'll just rather...

Valentine Thomas (1:52)

My mom definitely didn't get a good return on investment on that one.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

Now, how do they feel about you doing this?

Valentine Thomas (2:00)

She still sends me university applications time to time being like, hey, why don't you study something different or something? And I'm like, no, I'm not having a midlife crisis.

I just don't like what I was doing, so I just picked something else. Oh, by the way, I'm going to have to apologize for my English.

Joe Rogan (2:18)

Seems perfect.

Valentine Thomas (2:19)

I'm from Montreal, so French isn't my first language or something.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

Well, listen, you're way better than George St. Pierre. He was here a couple weeks ago.

And George is more hard to understand, and he was fine.

Valentine Thomas (2:28)

Yeah, I'm not going to speak like this, and I'm going to try to make enough out of it.

Joe Rogan (2:31)

Well, listen, I'm impressed with anybody who can speak more than one language. I was just in Thailand. It's just amazing that they speak English so perfectly. You know, and then, you know, their language is so oddly different than ours.

You decided when to do this, like, how deep into your law career were you?

Valentine Thomas (2:51)

It was about... I actually made a career switch when I moved to London in 2010 So I started working in finance, so I worked for hedge funds, and I basically decided on quitting law. I didn't like the part of law where I was stuck in one place.

So, you know, when you study law, let's say in Canada, then you... even in Canada, it's even worse because I was studying in Quebec, which is civil law, and then I was stuck in Quebec for the rest of my life. And I just got like, oh, that's not going to happen.

Joe Rogan (3:19)

So meaning that... Okay, so like if you pass the bar in California, you would also have to pass the bar in New York if you wanted to work in New York?

Valentine Thomas (3:26)

Exactly. So it's a long process.

Joe Rogan (3:28)

That's different then. Is that the same with...

If you were a doctor, would that be the case?

Valentine Thomas (3:33)

Country-wise, I would say. State-wise, I couldn't know.

Joe Rogan (3:37)

But state-wise, it is for law.

Valentine Thomas (3:39)

Yes, it is.

Joe Rogan (3:40)

So for you, you would have got stuck in Quebec, and Quebec is a very interesting place because it kind of doesn't want to be a part of Canada.

Valentine Thomas (3:47)

True. We're very different in Canada, but my biggest problem with Quebec is definitely not the culture or anything like that, is the fact that it's an eight-month-long winter.