Return from Absence

Hello everyone -

The Knicks won the NBA cup, MSTR sold BTC and The Giver has once again had an unceremonious Q2 for the 3rd year in a row.

What happened

Toward the end of Q1, I had been dealing with a mix of vertigo, lower back pain, headaches / elevated blood pressure, sharp stabs in my abdomen, and various aches & sores. My initial approach was to field small breaks - but regardless of the time period (1 day, 1 hour, 1 week, etc) taken and what felt like a reprieve - several ailments would return almost instantaneously. Around April, I started experiencing episodes of hypertensive blood pressure, and knew then I had to take a more serious approach toward improving my health.

I’ve been offline - fully phone and PC-less - recovering week-by-week, while building structure around exercise, sleep, posture and recognizing/processing stress. I’ve been working an average of 75-80 hrs/wk. through most of my 20s - and though I am thankful to have learned much from these experiences - they have contributed to an overconfidence in my ability to manage stress. I’ve learned first-hand that the ability to deal with acute stress (day to day, week to week on concentrated tasks/projects) does not necessarily synchronize with upgrading adaptation around chronic stress - the latter of which has very likely been lagging for me.

I wrote a memo back in Q1 detailing what I had felt when a lapse in performance took place last summer in 2025 (which will likely not be the last time by the way) - to recall, this was a uniquely powerful experience given that the main stakeholder in my professional life up until that point had largely been myself. And from mid-July and through February/March, I likely worked ineffably and unsustainably (too little sleep, too much caffeine) toward restoring not only the books of my subscribers, but also belief in myself. Upon “checking this box”, and adjacent to sudden grief that took place in my personal life earlier this year, I suppose this may have been the catalyst to releasing months, or even years, of chronic, pent-up abuse…

Could stress really cause all these things? In my and some professional opinions’: that is perhaps 40-50% of the equation. The other half is likely the lack of care toward my body. I assure you, the Reader, that I was just as surprised as you are now upon learning that a diet consisting of only Chipotle, and getting less than 1,500 steps a day with zero sunlight, is apparently not “functional living”…

Moving forward

Reflecting on the business since inception - the combination of working in high finance and creating content via Substack has been immensely rewarding. The experience of observing both traditional opinions from “in-office” peers and the eclectic snips of CT is a truly novel one. Unfortunately, this is likely a a hard-to-sustain path moving forward, given what I have detailed above -

And so, my plans are the following:

1. Former/current paid Substack subscribers should not be charged for the duration of my absence. I intend to approach each account’s status on a case-by-case basis (some may have unsubbed during, some may still be subbed, etc) to make-whole such balances.

2. I will be re-integrating with technology over the next week, and so this will not be a paid period.

3. Starting 8/10, I will be having a “free” period for existing paid subs. I will not be taking on new paid subs during this timeframe (effectively from the outside, TGT will not be a paid newsletter). I expect that given I have not been actively engaging in the markets over this last quarter, I will be rusty. Over this time period (est. a month, maybe more, maybe less), I plan to re-acclimate myself in the markets via i) creating new coverage tools, ii) reading, and iii) sharing thoughts but in a more informal manner.

4. Once 3) elapses, I will decide whether continuing to pursue Substack makes sense given my 2026+ goals of the dual-mandate, re: a) writing cross-assets and b) continuing to trace through the crypto universe

Last words

Apologies to my readers for not setting clear forward expectations. I understand some of you may be frustrated around the lack of visibility, and I empathize with that. I’ve historically been poor at sharing beyond the bare minimum when it’s come to “how I am feeling” when things aren’t going well emotionally / physically (I am a toiler) - and recognize I need to be better here.

Thanks for reading!