What happens when a broken ankle turns into a global fitness empire? This week on That Digital Take, Michael Ramsey, co-founder and CEO of STRONG Pilates, shares how a frustrating recovery on the reformer sparked the idea for a workout with more strength and cardio, and how that idea grew from one Australian studio into an international brand with locations across Canada and around the world.

Michael gets honest about what it really takes to stand out in a saturated fitness industry, why the Pilates algorithm is such a volatile space, and what he makes of the viral "Men vs. Pilates" trend. He also shares the one piece of advice every entrepreneur needs before starting a business, how fitness marketing has completely changed since 2019, how to handle social media haters as your brand grows, and the "worst-case scenario" exercise he uses when things get hard. Plus, his biggest Pilates hot take and the wellness brand he can't stop talking about.

Whether you're a Pilates devotee, a founder, or a creator trying to build something that lasts, this conversation is packed with lessons on brand building, business growth, and knowing the difference between a trend and a movement.

Chapters:
11:08 – Plan A, Plan B, and the worst-case scenario mindset
13:22 – Classical Pilates vs. modern Pilates
16:28 – The "Men vs. Pilates" trend
20:39 – The #1 rule before starting a business
27:05 – Dealing with social media haters
28:57 – How fitness marketing has changed
36:09 – Why he loves Eight Sleep
38:33 – Michael's Pilates hot take

Anna Lambe, award-winning actor, filmmaker and star of CBC/ Netflix North of North, joins That Digital Take for an honest conversation about what a working acting career actually looks like.

Anna opens up about wanting to give up "all the time," the black box of self-tapes and casting, and why the glitz and glamour people imagine around film and television doesn't match the job. She also gets into shooting North of North through three straight weeks of blizzards, working with Inuit showrunners from the North, how she memorizes a script, why Emma Stone is a guiding light, her first TIFF back since she was a newer actor, and the boundaries she keeps around social media.

Chapters:
5:45 — Wanting to give up
8:33 — Auditioning before and after Covid
11:07 — The self-tape black box
12:22 — The Hollywood glitz myth
14:51 — Making North of North
20:34 — Blizzards and shooting in the cold
26:42 — Emma Stone and guiding lights
31:55 — How she memorizes
35:27 — Back at TIFF
41:40 — Social media and boundaries

Follow That Digital Take for new episodes weekly.

It's been a while since a solo episode, so this is a proper catch-up, and it ends somewhere I wasn't expecting.

First: D23 as a first-timer. Sneaking onto the grounds early thanks to friends in high places, the celebrity sightings, and Disney laying out everything they have coming. Then one perfect day at Disneyland with Adam.

Then the main event, the bachelorette. Thirteen girls, planned entirely by me from January on: transportation, villas, menus, every moving part. JSX down to Cabo to meet the bachelor party, a welcome day at a villa that genuinely blew my mind, private chefs, a boat day I negotiated from the living room, a BBQ pool day, Bagatelle in unreasonable heat, and a Sunday surprise that was not for the faint of heart. Huge thank you to Suzanne and the Creative Destination Events team for every balloon and custom detail that made it TORCHELLA, and to the Cabo Villas team for taking care of us on every level. Cabo as a bachelorette destination: land, sea, party, relaxation, you get a bit of everything.

From there, straight to New York with Moroccanoil to celebrate Aryna Sabalenka as the new face of the brand. Very glam, very spoiled.

And then everything stopped. After losing someone close to me, I took time off, and that's the topic of the week: leaning on creativity in times of grief. A Labour Day weekend spent alone, clearing out my home because moving energy matters, new shows (Homeland), and honest reflections on living in contrast.

If you're in a season of high highs and low lows, you're not alone. Holding space for you.

Love you all.

While Torri is off for Labour Day weekend, we’re pressing replay on a very special That Digital Take episode: Torri’s first-ever guest, best friend, and longtime content creator Jaclyn Forbes.

Before we’re back with brand-new episodes next week, revisit the conversation that helped kick off TDT’s guest era.

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Jaclyn Forbes has been creating online since the early days of YouTube — and in this episode, she joins Torri to unpack what it really takes to build a lasting career on the internet.

The best friends get into Jaclyn’s evolution as a creator, the iconic moments that shaped her career, and the lessons she’s learned through years of trial and error. They also talk about navigating genuine friendships in an industry that can sometimes feel anything but genuine, keeping up with the relentless pace of content creation, and staying authentic while growing online.

And, of course, they tackle one of the biggest questions in social media: can you actually crack the code to consistent virality?

Jaclyn thinks you can.

From embracing the weird, wacky parts of yourself online to evolving your content as you evolve in real life, this conversation is a throwback worth pressing replay on.

New episodes of That Digital Take return next week!

 

Most people in the creator economy build the audience first, then figure out what to sell. Mel Grauds did it backwards, and it worked.

Mel founded Melrose Training in 2020 with virtual classes, one-on-one clients and no following. Six years later she's running three Toronto studio locations, Yorkville, Rosedale and King West, plus virtual training and LIFT, her new small-group strength class. Along the way she's partnered with alo, Knix, Under Armour, Formula Fig, Revlon and Healthy Planet, and was chosen by Sporting Life to lead the official stretch at the Sporting Life 10K.

In this episode of That Digital Take, host Torri Webster sits down with Mel to talk about what the business actually looks like behind the Instagram version, and the bet she's making that's quietly rewriting the influencer event playbook: taking the production, the brand access and the budget, and pointing all of it at real customers instead of creators.

They get into the real barrier keeping women out of the weight room, the cost of building a brand on transparency, the structural risk of being the face of your own company, how motherhood changed what she's willing to say yes to, and how you prove community is real when brands only measure impressions.

Topics covered: creator economy · fitness entrepreneurship · brand partnerships · influencer marketing · community building · women's strength training · Toronto small business · motherhood and entrepreneurship · in-person events · personal branding

Mark Gaetano — Snarky Marky — is seven years into a career most creators don't survive two of. 4.9 million TikTok followers, 380 million likes, and he's doing it full-time from Toronto.

Host Torri Webster sits down with the creator behind the teacher POVs, the cafeteria monitor and "the volume inside of this bus is astronomical" to talk about what's actually changed in seven years — and what it takes to keep up.

Mark is refreshingly specific about the craft. When he started, a video was one continuous take, 15 to 60 seconds, no cuts. Now the hook is everything, and he explains what shifted in the last two to three years and what creators have to learn from it. He talks about working through creative resistance, why burnout is real once this becomes the full-time job, and how he handles the dry spells between brand partnerships after six years of relying on them. He also makes the case that YouTube Shorts pays, a fact he thinks most creators still misunderstand.

Plus: school was always Plan A, why posting on TikTok used to be considered cringe, the strange truth that no two For You Pages are alike, how COUCHella came out of a little FOMO and turned into 26 million views, and why he thinks the lifestyle niche might be in trouble.

In this episode:
(00:00) The bus video and the five years before it
(09:21) School was always Plan A
(19:28) When posting on TikTok was still considered cringe
(20:30) Why everyone's For You Page is different
(21:31) One continuous take to fast cuts — how the format changed
(22:32) Why the hook became everything
(23:40) Working through creative resistance
(25:05) Fight or flight, and going full-time
(26:41) Burnout is real — the strategy for managing it
(27:47) Six years of brand partnerships and the dry spells
(29:38) You can get paid on YouTube Shorts
(31:22) The hardest part: socializing with other creators
(40:13) COUCHella, FOMO, and 26 million views
(44:45) Why the lifestyle niche might be in trouble

Follow Mark: @snarkymarky on TikTok and Instagram
Follow the show: @thatdigitaltake 
Hosted by Torri Webster.

Follower count vs. craft. The three things she looks for before hiring a creator. The contract and rights mistakes she sees over and over. And why brands will keep paying humans as AI-generated travel footage gets better.

Every travel brand is now expected to publish authentic creator content everywhere — social, paid, web, email, booking platforms, partner channels. Almost nobody built a content operation designed for that volume. CrowdRiff calls it the creator content supply chain problem.

Abby Yew, Head of Growth for Creators at CrowdRiff, joins That Digital Take to explain how they solved it: a network of more than 900 creators across Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand who have completed over 12,000 creator-led shoots, built on ongoing relationships, fair pay, and perpetual usage rights included from day one. Creators aren't chasing invoices. Brands aren't re-licensing every time they reuse a shoot.

Drawing on more than twenty years in marketing, community and content, including leading marketing at Wattpad and YONDER, Abby breaks down the shift from being paid for your audience to being paid for your work — and what that means for anyone building a content operation right now.

In this episode:

• Why content creation stopped being a creative function and became an operational one
• The shift from paying for audience to paying for work
• Whether follower count still matters
• The three things Abby looks for before hiring a creator
• The contract and usage rights mistakes brands make repeatedly
• Why human creators hold their value as AI footage improves

Guest: Abby Yew, Head of Growth for Creators, CrowdRiff
LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/abby-yew
CrowdRiff Creators: https://crowdriff.com/creators/

Torri Webster goes inside the Ted Lasso Season 4 world premiere in Los Angeles with exclusive carpet interviews, plus a behind-the-scenes look at what covering a Hollywood premiere is really like.

This week on That Digital Take, Torri travels to LA with Apple TV+ for the world premiere of Ted Lasso Season 4, and this one's a hybrid episode.

First, exclusive conversations from the carpet with Hannah Waddingham (Rebecca Welton), Jeremy Swift (Higgins), and Juno Temple (Keeley Jones) about returning to the world of Ted Lasso, what fans can expect from the new season, and why the show keeps resonating around the globe. Torri also sits down with Canadian soccer icon Christine Sinclair to talk about her legendary career, the legacy she's built for the sport in Canada, and why Ted Lasso became such a cultural touchstone for soccer fans.

Then it's the solo half. Torri breaks down what covering a Hollywood premiere actually looks like from the inside: the 6 a.m. press day, the evening premiere, the after-party, the pressure of writing thoughtful questions when a celebrity has already answered hundreds that day, and a few Jason Sudeikis moments that never made it to social. Plus a catch-up on Osheaga, wedding planning, and that premiere look.

Ted Lasso Season 4 is now streaming on Apple TV+.

Follow That Digital Take with Torri Webster for weekly entertainment interviews, premiere coverage, and honest conversations about creator life.

This week, psychiatrist Dr. Lesley Kirkpatrick joins That Digital Take to unpack why our brains won't switch off, and whether the same technology that helped create the problem can be part of the solution.

Dr. Lesley specializes in OCD, burnout, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and is the founder of mindcomb, a psychiatry-led, audio-first wellness app built to support people between therapy appointments. She shares the story of building it, from spotting the gap in care to figuring out how a doctor becomes a tech founder, and where she draws the ethical line on what an app should never try to replace.

Then we get into the real stuff: how to tell actual burnout from a genuinely exhausting season, why anxiety gets louder the moment your head hits the pillow, why your brain insists on replaying a conversation from three days ago, and what OCD actually looks like versus the version people joke about online. Plus, a candid look at wellness culture, the pressure to journal, meditate, cold plunge and optimize your way to being "regulated," and whether we've turned healing into just another performance metric.

We close with a rapid-fire round covering AI as a therapist, the habit people swear helps anxiety but usually doesn't, and the free, unglamorous practice Dr. Lesley wishes more people would try.

Sarah Nurse is one of the most recognizable faces in Canadian sport, a three-time Olympic medalist, Olympic gold champion, and record-holder for the most points scored in a single women's Olympic hockey tournament. Today she plays for the PWHL's Vancouver Goldeneyes while continuing to represent Team Canada on the world stage.

In this episode of That Digital Take, we go beyond the ice. Sarah became the first hockey player to front a major beauty campaign with Revlon and has built a thriving business as a content creator and entrepreneur, turning her athletic career into a personal brand that reaches far beyond sport.

We talk about performing under pressure, redefining success after the podium, building a career that outlasts your profession, and why today's athletes have to think like entrepreneurs. A must-listen for anyone building a personal brand.

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Sarah Nurse, PWHL, women's hockey, Olympic hockey, Team Canada, Vancouver Goldeneyes, personal branding, content creator, entrepreneurship, athlete branding, women in sports, Revlon, creator economy, sports business, That Digital Take