The Take Down
Issue #002, Bruised, battered, but still standing (the car edition)
Hi, it’s Caroline.
Last week we were celebrating 3 billion views, and Jon was ringing bells at the NYSE. This week, I spent an inordinate amount of my life on hold with the insurance company because one of our car lights decided to break in a way that apparently requires three phone calls, two emails, and a small human sacrifice to resolve.
Building a financial media network? Manageable. Getting a working headlight replaced in a reasonable timeframe? Apparently out of reach.
Which, as it happens, is a pretty perfect metaphor for this week’s Ticker Take video.
The video this week: bruised, battered, built to last
We sat down with Thomas Martin to break down 12 Stocks to Own, the names built to weather whatever the market throws at them. Not the flashy picks. Not the momentum plays. The ones that have been beaten up, doubted, and written off, and kept showing up anyway.
Honestly, it tracked with how this whole week felt. You know those stretches where nothing major is breaking, but a hundred small things are? That was us. Small fires, small wins, small expenses, small headaches. The kind of week that builds resilience by sheer attrition.
If you haven’t watched it yet, Bruised but Built to Last: 12 Stocks to Own is up now. It’s a genuinely useful one if you’re thinking about the durable corner of your portfolio.
The Week
Meetings. So many meetings. We spent hours this week talking about what’s next for the podcast, where our show is headed, and what the rest of the year looks like. The kind of meetings where you walk away energized and slightly overwhelmed, which is roughly our baseline state at this point.
The car fiasco. See above. I’ve aged three additional years since Monday.
One less eye-rolling teenager in the house. Our younger daughter was away on her Grade 8 grad camping trip, which meant a temporary 50% reduction in eye rolls directed at us. It was peaceful. It was also a little quiet. Funny how that works.
Huron night. Jon emceed an event for Huron University (his alma mater), and we had one of those nights you don’t plan for but remember. Great people, great conversations, and a reminder that Jon’s network is basically a Rolodex of every interesting person in Canadian business.
YouTube strategy session. We sat down with our YouTube strategy team to look at the next phase of growth. A lot of good questions, a lot of “let’s test that,” and a few ideas that made me want to start editing immediately (at 11 PM, obviously).
Another brand deal, signed. Can’t say who yet. But it’s a good one. Coming soon.
A weekend road trip to Prince Edward County. We went out to celebrate Jon’s mom’s 80th birthday, which was already going to be a special weekend on its own. Then the universe got weird in the best way: it coincidentally lined up with a friend’s 50th and my sister being in town, plus a handful of other friends. None of it was planned. We didn’t coordinate a single thing. The universe just put everyone in the same place at the same time and said enjoy. And we did.
My older daughter got a summer job! A small thing on paper, a huge thing in our house. Her first real job. I’m proud of her, and also strangely emotional about the fact that she’s old enough to have one. (Excuse me while I go look at her baby photos and quietly fall apart.)
Suddenly an accountant. Filed taxes this week, because running a small business means at some point you stop being a founder and become a part-time bookkeeper. Spreadsheets, receipts, expense categories, GST/HST. None of this was in the brochure when we signed up to make financial news fun.
Two trips on the calendar. Two cities. Two very different trips. More on both soon. For now let’s just say one of them involves NYC again (because apparently we cannot stay away) and the other is our first time down to Austin for work. That’s all I’m going to say, for now.
Jon’s AM vs. Caroline’s PM
Jon this week: up at 5, wrote his BNN Bloomberg piece, filmed Monday through Friday, emceed a room full of Huron alumni, and wrote his Trade Off column for The Globe and Mail somewhere in between. I’m pretty sure he also slept at some point.
Me this week: on hold with the insurance company, on calls with brand partners, on the YouTube strategy Zoom, on the couch at 10 PM answering more emails. Somewhere between hour twelve and hour thirteen of my average day, I remembered I used to have hobbies.
It’s fine. It’s all fine.
The Juggle
This week, in no particular order:
Insurance company hold music (I now know it by heart)
Podcast meetings, show meetings, general-direction-of-the-business meetings
Huron University event
Older daughter’s softball (and her new summer job!)
Younger daughter packed up and shipped off to grad camp (she had a blast)
Weekend in Prince Edward County for Jon’s mom’s 80th
Planning the logistics for our two upcoming trips
Recording, editing, scripting, posting, repeat
The Wins This Week
New video live: Bruised but Built to Last: 12 Stocks to Own with Thomas Martin. Watch it.
Another brand partnership signed (details soon)
Two exciting trips on the calendar. NYC and Austin. That’s all you’re getting.
Jon’s mom’s 80th in Prince Edward County, plus the universe-engineered reunion that came with it
Older daughter’s first summer job, a milestone in this house
Younger daughter’s grad camp, she had the best time and came home exhausted and happy, which is the whole goal of camp
The Losses This Week
Car lights: One broken headlight, approximately seventeen phone calls, one minor existential crisis
Insurance hold music: Still playing somewhere in my brain on a loop and doing the hold music dance.
Older daughter’s eye rolls: Up, to compensate for the younger daughter being away. The ecosystem always finds balance.
Sleep: Unchanged. Which is to say, insufficient.
The takeaway
There’s something to the Built to Last thesis that I keep thinking about this week. Those stocks aren’t the ones everyone’s excited about. They’re the ones that have been through something, gotten hit, stayed standing, and are quietly still doing the work.
Entrepreneurs are kind of like that too. Most weeks aren’t the NYSE week. Most weeks are the insurance-hold-music week. You get bruised by small things. You get battered by small fires. You keep going anyway, because the alternative is not going, and we didn’t come this far to stop.
But you also get the Prince Edward County weekends. The unplanned reunions. Your daughter’s first summer job. The reminders that the work is the point, but so is the rest of it.
Built to last.
Thanks for being here. See you next week.
Caroline
P.S. Jon’s Substack this week goes deeper on the markets side. Subscribe if you haven’t, you’ll get both sides of our brain.
🙌