Mike Minutes Mastermind 01/07/2025

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the Mic minutes. Mastermind. Let's go ahead and get this show on the road. Looks like we just got a few questions. If you have questions, feel free in the comments or in the form which is down in the description by the way, the link to that. Feel free to fill that out and we'll definitely get your question answered today. Happy Tuesday. Let's go ahead and present.

Boom. First question up is from Eric, Largo, Florida. Do the numbers assigned to the locations that are no longer operating for whatever reason become vacant? No, they don't become vacant. If they, if someone ever closes down, we just go back and refill the number when new locations come up. So that way the, the number of location, like the location numbers are always indicative of actually how many locations we have. So like I knew for example when we crossed 170 when I signed the legal documents for 17 0, that location. So we always backfill. We do not just keep going also because anytime Fitness kept going and so they're into like, like they're thousands and thousands ahead. And so it's very confusing for owners many times. So that's why I kind of backfill them. Mr. Anonymous, will you continue to send weekly emails to all of us about new updates or important things we need to know within the franchise? I'm wanting to take a break from social media a while. Yeah. So I don't do it weekly. I don't really have a cadence. What I do is I keep track of all the updates and then usually when I hit 5 updates I will send out an email. I haven't done that for like past month. Mostly just because I'm most the updates I'm keeping for conference. So that's the only reason why. But usually it's actually every two or three weeks or so. But yes, you can absolutely, you know, feel free if you are not on social media. Also if you want, you can subscribe to, to this playlist, this YouTube playlist. So you can just access YouTube. But if you're taking a break from social media, you don't have to access the Facebook, you can just go through the text email through the text message through to YouTube. So just an idea there. Now if you need a text message sent to you with YouTube link, we just need your cell phone number, put it in the comments on Facebook and then we'll put it on your account inside of copilot and you'll get a text message whenever this goes out. So Liz Kennedy for the copilot MVP award do we need to have in the video how Copilot specifically helped us make the improvements that we're going to be showcasing? No, you don't have to. No, we put like some of the things to list. Like if you use a certain feature inside Copilot, you can mention it, but it's not like every improvement in your life or business is going to come from using Copilot. So feel free to use if you're like, hey, we use the texting feature, upsell feature, or whatever, cool. But it's definitely not like, like people out in the audience are judging you based on those three categories. Business transformation, personal transformation, and the quality of the video. So I look forward to seeing yours though, Liz. That'll be great.

Justin Maiden from Deer Red Deer. Hey, Mike, we're all here to make money, so this is not a political question. What kind of effect will the proposed tariffs have on Canadian owners? Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So basically.

There'S a long standing kind of thing between especially the past like five, six years. So nafta, the North America Federal Trade Agreement that was I think struck down in 2020 and it was replaced by USMCA, which is the United States Mexico Canada Agreement.

And kind of just formalizing what the tariffs and trade policies of the North American three are. And so currently, once Trump got elected, he's proposed a 25% tariff to Canada alongside like a 50% increase to China, etc. I don't believe these are going to happen. First and foremost, these are bargaining chips and negotiation tactics, which I'm a fan of, given that we, we haven't had that kind of negotiation for a while. And for that reason our deficit has continued to like, get worse and worse, even the first two months of the fiscal year for, because the fiscal year for the government, US the government ends in October. So if you look the first two year, two months of spending, we are like the worst trajectory in terms of our deficit ever, mostly due to the fact that our costs in terms of insurance are insurance interest are through the roof. So we have an extra, I think it's two or three trillion dollars that this year needs to be refinanced because those terms are coming due and they're going to be renewing at much higher interest rates. So it's not a great situation for everyone. As much as I am, you know, positive about the cutting of regulation and that's going to happen with the new administration. I also see like, the debt numbers are stacked against us in terms of United States debt. And in Order to be able attract people to buy all of this debt, they're gonna have to keep raising interest rates in order to be able to attract people to actually buy the government bonds and Treasuries. And so.

That'S not a good situation. We are like, the last two months have been horrible. I think the first two months we spent, man, don't, don't quote me on this. I think it was 200.

I think it was $200 billion deficit extra more than usual in the first two months. So, like, we're on Facebook, really, really atrocious outside of like the year of COVID like our worst year ever. So anyways, outside of 2020.

So all of that to say these tariffs are negotiating tactics, I don't believe they will actually happen, but they are seeing, you know, downstream effects. And yes, most of it is political. So yesterday you saw the. The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he's stepping down or resigning. The way he's kind of doing it, he's basically lame ducking the government until March something. So that's going to be very interesting. Pierre Polyvere, whatever his name is, the new guy coming in is going to be much more aligned with the United States administration in terms of policy. So I believe this is a negotiation tactic. I do believe this is a political game to force that function. And so I think there was more pressure put on.

On the Canadian government once Trump came in, made that big threat. That would be a huge inflationary adjustment initially. Now, typically with tariffs, you have an initial bump in inflation, but if you have a weak economy, what ends up happening is people buy less, which then is the opposite of inflation. So usually in the long term, tariffs actually just kind of don't do a whole lot in terms of net change, usually in the upfront, because there's additional costs. In terms of tariffs, you have additional inflation. That's because the costs go up. But then as time goes on, because the costs go up, demand for that service will come down, demand for that product will come down, and then things will even out. So if you look at NAFTA, like the.

What happened with NAFTA and Even with the U.S. uSMCA agreement between U.S. and Canada, in the short term, usually it's a little bit inflationary. In the long term, it usually just plays itself out. I do think there are some really structural, big structural issues with Canada and the way that they've done several things around taxation and like, because now the Liberal Party has been in for 10 years, there's just so much structural deficit and, and policies that need to be changed the same as probably you could say with the United States. I'm just saying there are some big issues, but that's what's causing this big switch, I think.

In the overall party that will be in administration. And if you look across the entire world, this is happening in Europe, this is happening in South America, where all of a sudden people are waking up to the fact that debt is a big problem. It's a risk to our economy, it's a risk to our country, it's a risk geopolitically. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens, but it'll be likely that the party will change in Canada. I think that by that happening there'll be more.

Better relations between the US And Canada, probably going forward, unless rhetoric kind of pointing at each other, which has happened the past few weeks. Okay, we got a question. Boom. In your experience when attending conferences, what are key things you have down to get the most out of your time? Where your time, whether it is notetaking, networking, et cetera. First off, I think about to do lists instead of taking notes. So notes are fine, but rarely do people actually go back and read their notes. It's funny. So there's different levels. Like in my opinion, like note taking is good because it actually just forces you to pay attention. So like the workshop, for example, in part, the reason I'm doing the workbook is it makes you follow along with what I'm talking about and like you have to put information down from what I'm talking about. And I'm removing any sort of phones or devices during the workshop because like, I know that simply by removing devices and then requiring people to write things down, even if it's just literally on the screen, increases their, their absorption of the material. So first off, I'd be like, first off, focus. Like cut out distractions as much as possible. Devices just crush your retention. Secondly, I would say take notes simply so that you. It forces you to follow along, pull out key points. And then third, I would probably say make a to do list. So it is what changes do I make in the business? Because those you'll go back to. Most people don't read back their notes and most people don't even like if people take pictures of like the screen, no one goes back and looks to Those. You have 50 photos in your. On your device of, of images that you have no context to. And so you know, they're just. Yeah, people do not go back and watch. Look at, look at screenshots so that's why taking notes will increase your absorption and your retention of the material. And if you can, take it to the next level, and that is take, make a to do list. Like, what are the things I'm going to change when I leave here? So when we talk about the five tracks inside of the workshop, it's like I'm forcing people to get to the point of like making a to do list essentially at the end because the level of change is higher. So. All right, everyone. First off, to everyone out in the storm that's hitting kind of the big chunk of the US Our thoughts and prayers out to you. I know Connor Stead, he's out of power. They're going to be out of power for the next few days. So to everyone that's out there in that storm, thoughts and prayers with you. A lot of my family out in Indiana area are stuck in it as well. And so thoughts and prayers to everyone there and hoping that it is able to get mostly resolved by this weekend so everyone can make it out safely. Next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, out to Seattle. Good news in Seattle. It's wet and rainy per usual, and so we do not have any snow. We should be fine on our end. But I want, I want to make sure everyone can get out of the storm wherever they're at over on the east side of things on the US So our thoughts and prayers with all of you. Hope you stay safe. Please reach out if you need any help and we will stay in touch. Love you all and we'll see you guys tomorrow. Take care.