I’ve been thinking about something lately that I didn’t expect to connect with AI—or business, for that matter.
Grief.
Yeah, grief. That heavy, subtle thing that sneaks in when something changes or disappears. And I’ve come to believe that a lot of us are carrying around a kind of unspoken business grief right now. We just haven’t put a name to it yet.
It’s not about losing a person—it’s about losing the way things were. The playbook we used to rely on. The feeling that we were in control of the systems we built. The way we used to win.
When I built our furniture business years ago, we grew it from scratch to $165 million across 13 states. Back then, I knew what worked. The systems made sense. The people knew their roles. I’d walk into the warehouse or the sales floor and feel the machine humming. Not perfect—but predictable.
But that playbook doesn’t work anymore.And that’s what this is really about.
1. Denial: “This AI thing? It’s probably not for us.”
I remember back in the 90s when we were just getting our arms around the idea of websites. Some folks thought the internet would be a phase—something for techies and early adopters, not for “real businesses.” The same thing happened with smartphones, with e-commerce, with digital advertising.
Now here we are again.
If your gut is telling you that AI feels overhyped, overdone, or maybe just not for your business, I get it. It’s a natural first reaction. When I first started hearing about GPT and LLMs, my instinct was, “Alright, let’s keep an eye on it—but we’ve got more urgent things to focus on.”
But here’s what I’ve learned: AI isn’t a trend. It’s a tectonic shift. And waiting for things to slow down is like hoping the tide will stop rising while you build a sandcastle.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a contractor in Red Deer or a CFO in Tampa—if you’re still in denial, you’re losing time you can’t get back.
2. Anger: “I’m tired of this. Why does everything have to change?”
Change is exhausting.
Even now, helping to lead a company like Studio98, I still get frustrated. You build systems. You train your people. You think you’ve got things dialed in. And then the ground shifts under your feet. Again!
I see frustration and fear in our clients, too. Owners and operators who’ve worked decades to build something solid now feel like they’re being forced to start over—learning tools, rewriting SOPs, trying to stay ahead of a wave they didn’t ask for.
And some days, yeah, that just plain ticks me off.
But here’s the upside: anger is a sign that you care. You want to stay relevant. You want your business to thrive. You want your people to win. That’s what makes the change feel so personal.
So don’t bury that frustration—use it. Channel it into something productive. Because staying mad at the future won’t keep it from arriving.
3. Bargaining: “Let’s just do a few AI tools and check the box.”
This is the stage where you tell yourself, “Maybe we can get by with a chatbot or some automated email responses and call it good.”
This story plays out too many times: bolt-on solutions that look shiny on a sales call but crumble under real-world operations.
The truth is, AI isn’t something you add to a broken system—it’s something you build into a healthy one.
That’s what led us to create Studio98ai —not to chase the latest shiny object, but to build a real execution framework that lets small and mid-sized businesses get the most out of AI without losing their soul in the process.
This isn’t about automating for the sake of it. It’s about creating a business that runs with clarity, speed, and alignment—so you can focus on what actually matters.
4. Depression: “This is too much. I don’t know where to start.”
I’ll be straight with you: this is the hardest stage! The one where good people get stuck.
I’ve seen it in business owners, project managers, even our own staff: the overwhelm, the decision fatigue, the sense that maybe they’re not cut out for this new chapter.
You know what it reminds me of? When we hit our first big plateau in the furniture business. Revenue had stalled, systems were breaking, and I remember thinking, “I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes.”
But the truth is, we’re all reinventing ourselves all the time. The world doesn’t stop moving just because we want a breather. And the only way forward is through.
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s okay. But don’t park there.
One step. One use case. One simple automation that saves your team an hour a day. That’s how the momentum builds.
5. Acceptance: “Alright, let’s get to work.”
This is where things get good.
You stop resisting. You stop waiting for things to go back to how they were. You roll up your sleeves and say, “Let’s figure out how to make this work—for real.”
That’s the posture we’ve taken at Studio98. After 18 months of watching and learning, we made the single biggest investment in the company’s history. We now have 35 Black Belt trained staff! We’re not chasing fads. We’re not trying to be the smartest folks in the room. We’re just focused on building systems that work. Helping SMBs move from reactive to strategic with the right AI tools baked into their core operations.
We’ve already seen the fruit: $750k in productive gains have been identified since the 1st quarter, and implementation of these identified gains are underway throughout our company.
We have established cleaner workflows, faster response times, better customer experience, and teams that actually have time to think again.
This isn’t magic. It’s just the result of doing the work.
Final Thought: AI Isn’t About the Tools—It’s About the People.
Grief is a strange thing. It doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it just shows up as fatigue, resistance, or a quiet sense that something’s off.
But once you name it, you can move through it.
I believe this moment—right now—is the most exciting time in business history. But only for those who are willing to lead with clarity, not cling to comfort.
Let’s stop grieving what was—and start building what’s next.
We’ve got the tools. We’ve got the people. We’ve got the conviction.