Hello, everyone. I am your host, Shamus Madan, and welcome to the MDIT podcast in which finance and economic topics are broken down so that you can become a more educated investor. Today, we have a different type of s episode discussing how the economy is affecting businesses and what they can do to push through. To talk on these topics, I would like to welcome Jeff Wickersham, founder of the morning fire fire academy. How are you today, Jeff? Seamus, I'm great. How are you? I'm good as well.
So, would you mind explaining to the audience what morning fire is and what you aim to accomplish? Yeah. Absolutely. So, I'll start 6 a little over 6 years ago. I had a life event, which unfortunately kinda shook me to my core company at the knees. I I lost my mom to breast cancer. So I actually ended up leaving corporate America and opening up a gym locally, and then what organically grew out of that was high performance coaching.
Madan I knew I needed to up level my habits, my rent rituals since so much of what we do on a daily basis is driven through our habits and rituals up to 90 to 95%. So I went down that deep personal development rabbit hole, right, coaches, courses, podcasts, mentors, books, you name it. I absorbed it, and that's where I came up with. What's that last 30 minutes of the day look like? How do you plan for success in that next day?
And then what's that 1st 30 to 45 minutes look like in in your morning? That's where the forced that morning fire methodology was born. The rise, the fight, the love, the repeat, you're rising like a Phoenix born each day, new possibilities, new opportunity, you're fighting for your physical fitness, mental fitness, nutritional fitness, and especially that fight, that dog mentality, we needed to bring that that back, that aggressive kinda kinda nature.
The love loving yourself most importantly, then you can love all those around you. And then really where the the secret sauce is just is the repetition. Repeating it over and over again because once you do that a certain number of days and times, then it becomes hardwired and you don't even need to think about it. So my my mission is to impact 1,000,000 lives with the, with the morning fire methodology, and I I'm tracking that. I got it on a board.
So, yeah, that's that's what I eat sleep and breathe on a daily basis. That sounds great. Alright. Alright, everyone. Let's jump into it. Now before we begin, let's discuss, what has been occurring in the economy. Recently inflation numbers were nearing 2008 highs at 4.6%. And much larger than the normal 2%. Which is one of the reasons why stocks have been storing.
Since inflation is significantly higher than the target 2%, businesses are forced to raise prices resulting in a potential loss of customers. This, combined with the increase in the corporate tax rate, can be a struggle for businesses as economically, it reduces growth, although not all is lost. So, Jeff, what would you say are the top three things that businesses would miss, when growing? That they would miss when growing.
One would be being sure that you're you're following through on that client relationship, right, as as you're growing, things are are gonna start happening more and more. You're going to expand. You might able to bring on new new staff and ensuring that you fulfill that promise that you make to that customer. Is is vitally important. So that that would be, that would be number number 1. Number 2 is having focus on on your numbers as a business. Right?
And and if you're growing expenses can kind of grow with with your revenue and being very, very clear on what your numbers are having a a daily, weekly focus on that is is vitally important. And then number 3 is is staying true to your mission. Right?
True to true to your mission statement, true to why you got into business, why you why you are in business, and making sure that that focus on that never strays because it's it's very easy to do that when you bring on new people culture changes, all those all those pieces.
Yeah. Those are very well, explained points, especially when businesses just start to create and they start growing horizontally creating a bunch of different products instead of starting with the direct vertical growth can be a common, mistake across businesses. Okay. So from a mindset perspective, what do you think businesses should be thinking about when they're trying to grow and when they're just starting off?
So trying to grow, right, we've had a fundamental shift in how businesses operate. Right? Uh-uh. Last year when COVID hit, I was still operating a gym locally and and doing my my high performance coaching on on the as well. Well, COVID hit. The gym shut down. I decided to close down that gym and pivot fully into my business. I mean, business has gone through a fundamental shift where now everything can be done online. Right? So how do you manage that piece?
How do you expand your visibility to the potential customer base that that is out there because now it's everywhere. Right? You can have a Zoom call I I speak to companies and corporations, and one of one of the clients I I speak to, people are in North America. They're in South America. They're in Central America, and they're all on one of these sessions.
So thinking about how the shift in business has occurred and how are you gonna you know, manage that shift and pivot with it, I think, is is vitally important. Yes. It is, especially from a strategic perspective. So for some CEOs, or anyone who's extremely busy starting up their business, what would what so what is your go to morning routine? Yeah. So it it starts at night. Right? And and that's a vital piece. I feel like people miss.
How are you gonna prepare at night for your success in the morning? And that's laying out your clothes if if you're gonna get a workout right away. It's it's putting your phone away from your bed, so you're not hitting the snooze button, just rolling over, hitting snooze. It's preparing everything that you can the night prior. So when you wake up, your mind doesn't have to think about it because what happens and and I always, share the story of a glass of water. Right?
One of the first things I recommend to to all the people that I work with, all the clients that I work with is drinking a full glass of water right right when you wake up in the morning. Why? Well, we're made up so much of water and the longest stretch of the day you go without water is while you're sleeping. And I tell people, that glass on water should either be out ready for you when you come downstairs or next to your bed.
You know, if it's reusable, you know, water container having it filled up, ready to go. And and people kinda sometimes chuckle and they say, why? And I say, Madan if you go downstairs, you open up the cabinet, and there's no glasses clean. And then you go to the dishwasher and somebody didn't push the dishwasher in fully to clean the dishes. That's your mind's first opportunity to take the easy way out and say, you know what? This this routine is just too hard. Go back to bed.
So as much preparation that you can do the night before is is super super critical to you to your success then. When you wake wake up, it's grabbing a glass of water. It's working out. It's meditating. It's getting some good nutrition in. I always relate nutrition to the fuel that is the engine that that is your body. Right? If you you treat your body like a Ferrari a sports car, you've gotta put good fuel in it to to run very fast.
So, those are a couple things that you can do right away to get quick wins. And and I always love to tell people by getting quick wins, right, when you wake up, you build momentum. Right? You feel good. Hey. I'm making progress. So no matter what comes across your your day, and we all know life will throw a lot of curve balls at you.
Have you jumping through hoops, you know, jumping over hurdles, kicking down doors, by getting all that forward momentum in your day, you you can take on anything and feel so much more equipped and truly are you are taking care of yourself so you can show up better in every aspect of your life. Excellent point there. And to wrap it up, what would be your takeaway for the audience listening? That that time, right, when you wake up in the morning is so vital to your success.
I truly believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that that's your foundation. Right? And so many people are trying to build businesses or careers, and I relate it to building a house. How do you start to build a house? You've gotta have that solid foundation in Instead, people are building on top and and they're building on Quicksand and that no matter how hard they they work, how hard they try, They're always sinking and staying at a certain level. So you've gotta have that foundation.
So spending 30 to 40 minutes on yourself in the morning with no distractions, meaning no cell phone, no text message, no emails can just it's like jet fuel to to what you wanna do personally. Professionally. So give yourself that gift and, and everyone around you, and you'll you'll thank yourself for it. Fantastic. Yeah. Even major CEOs including CEOs of Apple major tech companies also wake up super early, and that's a big reason for it. Alright, everyone.
Thanks for joining us on the MBIT podcast, and thank you, Jeff, for taking some time to be on the pod. It was a pleasure. Awesome. Thank you. Alright. Follow the pod so you don't miss out on future episodes and there will be some exciting content coming up. Thanks again, Kath. We will see you in the next episode. Disclaimer, the MBIT podcast is reflecting the opinion of only the host. The podcast is for informational purposes only.
It is not a research report or recommendation to sell any stocks or securities. The podcast is also not meant to serve as the basis of any investment decision.