The Take Down
Issue #005, Where did we leave off?
Hi, it’s Caroline.
Last issue ended with Mother’s Day brunch, and somehow we are now a full week later and I genuinely have no idea where the time went. This week moved at a pace that I cannot recommend, but also cannot stop. So buckle up.
(Also, advance notice: Jon’s birthday is next Wednesday, May 28th. Mark it down. If you’ve been a Ticker Take viewer for any length of time, throw him a “happy birthday” online when the day comes. He pretends he doesn’t care. He absolutely cares.)
The video this week: 8 Stocks for a Bull or Bear Market
This week’s Ticker Take is the episode we filmed at the NYSE with Jay Hatfield, all about taking a barbell approach to investing, balancing low-beta and high-beta stocks to give yourself coverage in both directions of the market. 8 stocks for either a bull or a bear market. It’s the kind of episode I always learn from, and I think you will too.
(Yes, this is also the episode where we shot in Studio 2 with the NYSE floor right below us. Still doesn’t feel real.)
The Week
Monday: kickboxing, then a home studio shoot with a great guest. Smart, and had a strategy that genuinely impressed me. The kind of conversation where I walked out thinking this episode is gonna land.
A call for something coming up. Cannot say more yet, but I think our community is really going to love this one.
The new teleprompter. We invested in a proper teleprompter for our long-format scripts, and this was the week I actually sat down to learn it. Setting it up, calibrating it, figuring out the speed, mounting it, the whole production. A reminder that running a media company means you’re constantly learning new gear, software, and acronyms you didn’t even know existed two weeks ago.
And a gimbal. I also picked up a gimbal recently for an upcoming shoot, which is going to open up a whole new set of visual possibilities. It’s the kind of purchase that, three years ago, I would have asked someone else to operate. Now I’m the person operating it. Funny how that happens.
Ticker Take taping, plus AI Under the Hood production. A full week of filming, scripting, and editing. The AI Under the Hood short on Micron and Samsung was a fun one to put together because the story is moving so fast in real time.
Tuesday: bookkeeping and a new firm meeting. Accounting really is the gift that keeps on giving. We met with a new firm this week, the kind of behind-the-scenes founder grind that doesn’t make for fun content but very much makes for a functioning business.
Huron night at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre
We went to a really special event this week, the launch of the Fairfax Center for Free Enterprise at Huron University. (Jon’s alma mater, if you remember from a past issue.) The room was intimate and full of important leaders and CEOs, with wonderful speakers and the kind of smart conversations that leave you walking out feeling a little more optimistic about the world than when you walked in. We also got to see our friend Wes Hall there, who’s been on the Ticker Take podcast and is best known to most people from Dragons’ Den. Always a joy to catch up with him.
The location made it even better for me. It was held at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, a venue I have a very layered history with. In another lifetime, while I was at Ryerson (now TMU), I worked there as an usher and used to operate those old hand-cranked elevators. Later, when I was living in New York and working as a celebrity correspondent for Entertainment Weekly, I would fly back to my hometown of Toronto every September to cover TIFF, sit-down interviews and red carpets, including the red carpet at the Elgin, where I once interviewed Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Standing in that lobby this week, in a different outfit and a different life, I had a major flashback. So many versions of me have walked through those doors. The elevators, somehow, have not changed.
There’s something about returning to a place that was once part of your everyday routine that recalibrates your sense of time. I was 20 in that lobby as an usher. I was a little older, holding a mic and waiting for celebrities to come out of a screening. Now I’m building a media company with my husband, and I have two kids who can do their own laundry. (Theoretically. They do not.)
AI Under the Hood this week: memory, Micron, and the Samsung workers threatening to walk out
This week’s AI Under the Hood short is all about the memory chip corner of the AI story, the part nobody is talking about but should be. I get into Micron, why memory is suddenly one of the hottest constraints in the AI build-out, and the Samsung workers threatening to walk out, a development that could ripple across the entire global memory supply.
I dropped it on Instagram, TikTok & YouTube. Plain English, no jargon, the way I always try to do these.
A small confession: the skin tag saga
(Heads up: this one gets a little gross. If you’re squeamish, skip ahead. No hard feelings. I’ll meet you in the next section.)
I need to tell you about my week medically, and I genuinely don’t know if any of you signed up for this. But Jon says I’m basically Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm on a daily basis, so consider this your warning; this is one of those weeks.
I had a skin tag. I bought a Dr. Scholl’s skin tag remover from Amazon. I figured: how hard can it be?
Reader, the answer is: hard.
Attempt one: I roped my 15-year-old into reading me the instructions, because she is good with rules and instructions, and I, full disclosure, am not. I also could not see what I was doing. I increasingly need reading glasses for close-up work, and even with them on, the print and the skin tag itself were a blur. I basically needed a flashlight, a magnifying glass, and a younger person reading to me out loud, which somehow is now my reality at this stage of life. She read them out loud. She supervised. She did her job perfectly. I still missed the tag entirely and somehow burned the skin next to it. A clean miss.
Attempt two, one week later: I got the tag this time. Victory! Sort of. The outside of the tag died and fell off cleanly. The inside, however, was very much still alive, exposed, and unhappy. I will spare you the gory details. It hurt. A lot.
At this point, in a moment of true desperation, I considered cutting it off myself. I should mention here that my dad once removed a bump from my shoulder in high school using sterilized surgical scissors and an alcohol wipe. He told me to look out the window, kept me distracted while we talked about whatever was out there, and quickly did the whole thing before I knew what was happening. It healed without a scar. He should have been a surgeon. I am not him.
I did not cut it off.
Enter Ozonal. I ordered Ozonal (a balm apparently created by a Ukrainian doctor, which my dad informs me is relevant because I am part Ukrainian) and some round Band-Aids. Within 24 hours, the whole thing was healing beautifully. By the time I got to my family doctor, she looked at the spot and said it had healed so well it was almost as if nothing had ever happened. I have been a walking Ozonal commercial ever since.
While I was there, she also flagged a different small bump on my chest and wondered about basal cell carcinoma, so I’ll be checking in with a dermatologist in July. Probably nothing, but worth the visit.
The whole experience reinforced one of my core life principles: if you’re going to be a chaotic DIY person, at least know when to stop and call in the professionals. (Reader, I did not call them in soon enough.)
The rest of the week
Cali’s softball. More games, more cold nights in the bleachers, and a school team win that means she’s headed to the playoffs. So proud of her.
Early birthday celebration with Jon’s parents. Cake, family, the works. We celebrated a little ahead of the actual day because life is busy and gathering is more important than calendar accuracy.
Family dinner at my parents’ house. I’m heading to my parents’ for dinner with my sister and her family, which means cousins together, all the cross-table chaos that comes with that, and a few hours in the backyard of the house I’ve called home since I was 11. There’s something about going back to a house you grew up in that resets you in a way nothing else does. I’m looking forward to it.
A long weekend. Fireworks. A pause. The kind of stretch where life slows down enough to actually notice what’s in front of you.
There was lovely, simple time with the kids: a grocery run that turned into a haul of beautiful fruit, homemade banana strawberry pancakes, an afternoon of baking together, a wonderful steak dinner (with steak from Bruno’s, naturally), and a long walk to the beach with my 15-year-old that turned into one of those rare unhurried conversations you don’t see coming and don’t want to end.
We also set up the backyard for the season, which is its own small ritual. Patio furniture out, flowers watered, a trip to the garden centre for palm trees, tropical plants, and a few more blooms. By the end of the afternoon, the yard felt like ours again. Jon and the kids started a volleyball rally that somehow kept going, and I watched from the sidelines (I am a terrible volleyball player, this is a known weakness; basketball is more my sport, and I can hit a baseball but cannot catch one to save my life), glass of Chianti in hand, great tunes playing (Led Zeppelin Radio on Spotify, courtesy of a text from an old high school friend this week, a perfect suggestion), completely content. Today, Jon took Cali to the park to toss the softball around. The kind of weekend that doesn’t make it onto a highlight reel and somehow ends up being the highlight anyway.
Jon’s AM vs. Caroline’s PM
Jon this week: still up at 5, jogging, writing, filming, scripting, shooting for Global X, taping more Ticker Take, prepping for a birthday week he barely has time to acknowledge. The man does not stop.
Me this week: kickboxing, Ticker Take taping, AI Under the Hood production and editing, learning the teleprompter, learning the gimbal, bookkeeping, doctor’s appointment, skin tag aftermath, softball, brand calls, thumbnails, file management, this Substack, and roughly seventeen tabs open on my browser at any given time.
The Wins This Week
Cali’s softball team is going to playoffs. Proud mom moment.
New video live: 8 Stocks for a Bull or Bear Market with Jay Hatfield. Watch it.
New AI Under the Hood: Memory chips, Micron, and the Samsung walkout story. Watch it.
The skin tag is gone. Pyrrhic victory, but a victory.
Ozonal: the unexpected MVP of my week. A cult product I will now never shut up about.
My family doctor approved of my self-healing. I am taking the compliment.
New teleprompter, set up and operational. Long-format scripting just got a serious upgrade.
Gimbal in the kit. Ready for the next shoot.
A beautiful night at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, complete with a Wes Hall catch-up and a flashback to my usher and my red carpet days.
Early birthday celebration with Jon’s parents. Family time we’ll keep.
A long weekend. Fireworks. Pause. Required.
The Losses This Week
Sleep: Still none. Still shocking. Still tracking.
Skin tag attempt one: Wrong target, slight burn. A learning experience.
Skin tag attempt two: Right target, wrong execution. A very learning experience.
Pretending to be Larry David in real life: A daily occurrence, per Jon.
The takeaway
This week reminded me that running a business is not just running a business. It’s learning new tools at midnight, going to events that take you back to who you used to be, sitting in waiting rooms with bandaids on, cheering at softball games, celebrating birthdays a little early because the calendar won’t cooperate, and somehow producing content along the way.
The work weeks aren’t separate from life weeks. They’re the same week. The teleprompter and the skin tag exist in the same 168 hours. The Fairfax launch and the bookkeeping meeting too.
That’s the deal. You stop trying to separate them and start letting it all be one thing. The business and the life. The marquee moments and the medical adjectives. The Elgin and Winter Garden and the squirrel-flashback surgical scissors.
It is all the week. And I would not trade it.
Big things coming. Stay tuned.
Thanks for being here. See you next week.
Caroline
P.S. Save the date: wish Jon a happy birthday next Wednesday, May 28th. He will pretend he didn’t see it. He saw it.