Grazora Life

Episode 30Most small business owners are negotiating from a position of weakness and they don't even know it. They think they have one client. One key employee they can't afford to lose. One offer that has to work. And the people on the other side of those relationships can feel that desperation, even when nobody says it out loud.Brett Adams and Jason McKenzie unpack what Donald Trump's longtime real estate attorney George H. Ross wrote about why "you cannot let the deal be your only ticket," and why that principle applies to a young couple stuck in what amounts to a slave contract with their main client, a business owner being held hostage by one disrespectful employee, and the small business owners they keep meeting who think they have no other options when AI can generate fifty in five minutes.They also wander into the weirder territory: what if you could just talk to your body and ask it to optimize for strength instead of survival, instead of forcing it into compliance through stress? And what if that same principle applies to how you communicate with employees, vendors, and customers?Things they get into:What Trump's "I have a great relationship with everyone I negotiate with" really is, according to the guy who wrote his real estate contractsThe young couple running their business on verbal agreements for three years while their main client slowly bled them dryWhy one bad employee being kept around to avoid losing a good one is usually costing the owner more than they realizeHow AI just generated a list of 50 alternative clients for a couple who thought they had only oneThe guy whose mental faculties shut down completely the moment any conflict appears, and what to do about itWhy marketing, sales, and promotion are useful distinctions, but emotion and intellect might be a false oneChris Voss's "Never Split the Difference" insight that you cannot reach the rational brain until you've moved through the emotional brainWhy we make every decision emotionally first and then rationalize it, even when we hate hearing thatThe "fog burning off the mountain" moment when a business owner finally sees the path forward they've been ignoringChapters:00:00 Welcome to Grazora Live (and who's actually the host)01:21 What if you could just talk to your body instead of stressing it?03:11 The same question applied to employees, vendors, and customers03:55 The owner held hostage by one disrespectful employee05:53 The young couple in a verbal-agreement "slave contract"07:54 George H. Ross, Trump's negotiator, and never letting the deal be your only ticket10:01 AI generated 50 alternative clients in minutes11:24 The young entrepreneur whose mental faculties shut down in conflict13:23 Strengthen your weaknesses, or leverage someone else's strength15:03 The event and the fog burning off the mountain18:11 Mental stats and the false distinction between IQ and EQ21:34 Pushback: the cold and calculating person vs the basket case22:53 Training falls in when emotion takes over25:18 Chris Voss and getting through the emotional brain first26:13 NLP, Tony Robbins, and reprogramming the loops that hold you hostage28:01 The hardest truth: every decision is emotional first29:13 Why finding new truth matters more than being consistentGrazora Live, helping small business owners build businesses that propel them, not crush them. New episodes weekly.#smallbusiness #entrepreneurship #negotiation #leadership #grazora

Episode 29

Most business owners are playing their business on hard mode without realizing it. They take on every offer they can possibly deliver, they refuse to copy proven models, they cram everything into kitchen sink SOPs nobody can actually use, and they quietly believe that if something feels easy, they didn't actually earn it. Then they wonder why they're stuck.

Brett Adams and Jason McKenzie unpack all of it, with stories ranging from a six foot eight basketball professor who refused to apologize for walking with a cane, to Dan Kennedy's client who turned a 60 Minutes hit piece into four years of "As Seen on 60 Minutes" marketing, to a real company that plowed snow and answered IT tickets at the same time and called itself something that might as well have been John Smith Enterprises.

Things they get into:

Why writing your goal down once a year and never again means you probably will not hit it (and what Brett's mob-breaking story has to do with it)

Jason's own coined line: "every undocumented process is a future hostage situation, and you are the hostage"

Why a process for everything is its own form of self sabotage, and how to tell the difference between a real process and a kitchen sink mess

What the fast food industry got dead right about process design, and why most small business "SOPs" violate every rule of it

The customer who called Jason demanding he do work he did not offer, because "you can do it so you have to do it for me"

Why your scattered side offers are usually a scarcity reflex, not a strategy

The identities you have to let go of to grow, and why the mindset that got you started is also what is keeping you stuck

Brett's sons' battlebot competition, the one who used AI to do most of the work, and the other son who tried to argue that it did not count

Why "destructive innovation" is almost always just perspective, and the candlemakers who got obsoleted by the lightbulb

The big idea: stop offering everything you possibly can, stop reinventing wheels somebody else already turned, and stop assuming easy means wrong.

Chapters:

00:00 The professor with the cane who refused to apologize

01:21 The two roommates wearing the exact same clothes

02:18 The Dan Kennedy 60 Minutes story

04:16 Lean into the mess (the cake at the dinner)

05:09 Why writing your goals down once a year does not work

06:21 The uncle who broke up mobs because he never wrote anything down

07:56 "Every undocumented process is a future hostage situation"

09:30 Why you don't actually need a process for everything

11:00 The kitchen sink SOP problem

13:08 What the fast food industry got right about process

15:17 Welcome to John Smith Enterprises

17:21 "Just because I can doesn't mean I will"

18:35 You can fire your customers

20:35 The scarcity mindset behind every scattered offer

22:13 The identities you have to let go of to grow

23:35 Stop reinventing wheels somebody else already turned

24:12 "If it's too easy, we didn't earn it"

25:18 The battlebot competition and the brother who said AI didn't count

27:33 Destructive innovation is just a perspective

29:42 Candlemakers, lightbulbs, and the rising tide

Grazora Live, helping small business owners build businesses that propel them, not crush them. New episodes weekly.

#smallbusiness #entrepreneurship #focus #grazora

Episode 28

The emperor in Emperor's New Groove was blaming others else for throwing him off his groove. Most business owners are doing the same thing, except no one is actually throwing them off. They are doing it to themselves.

Brett Adams and Jason McKenzie unpack every form of self sabotage they keep running into with the entrepreneurs they talk to. The owner whose month got "chopped up" by his own calendar. The one who is terrified to grow because he keeps chasing shiny objects instead of doing the basics. The body that manufactures stress chemicals and then drives a person to drink to escape the feelings the body created in the first place.

Along the way:

Why a 20 minute conversation with a lawyer can wreck half your day, and the phrase Jason uses to short circuit the panic before it starts ("it is not a threat")

Bart Miller's trick for thanking your body for trying to protect you so the stress actually melts away

Why A students become professors, B students get jobs, and C and D students end up hiring everyone else

Jason's sword fighting analogy for business: most owners are just blocking the attack, which is exactly why they keep getting stabbed. You have to block AND threaten at the same time

The entrepreneur who built wild success because nobody had told him yet that what he was doing was impossible

The billionaire who drove a $200,000 car, and the religious friend who called that the only thing he did wrong (spoiler: it was not)

The Catholic priest and the pie: a tiny parable about whether you are doing good for its own sake or for the reward

Why family is the reason you can grow a business, not the obstacle

The closing invitation: cut out the people who want to keep you small, and surround yourself with the ones who push you to be bigger than you think you can be.

Chapters:

00:00 The Emperor's New Groove lesson

01:18 "My month got chopped up" by who, exactly?

02:37 Why a 20 minute lawyer call wrecks half a day

04:07 Your body manufactures feelings it then tries to escape

05:13 "It's not a threat" reframe

05:59 Thank your body for trying to protect you

07:06 Why school doesn't teach any of this

07:30 A students teach, B students get jobs, C and D students hire everyone

09:25 The U.S. military's cowboy advantage

11:35 Sword fighting and what most entrepreneurs get wrong

13:55 Why a four pound sword raises your heart rate

15:31 What most business owners get wrong when they're getting attacked

18:30 "I tried everything" usually means "I didn't know what to do"

19:05 Business as a vehicle for personal growth

19:28 Marriage, kids, and business push you into new territory

21:30 The man who succeeded because nobody told him he couldn't

23:50 The billionaire's $200,000 car

27:15 The Catholic priest and the pie

29:31 Cut out the people who want to keep you small

Grazora Life, helping small business owners build businesses that propel them, not crush them. New episodes weekly.

#smallbusiness #entrepreneurship #mindset #selfsabotage #grazora

Most entrepreneurs feel like they're being chased — by bills, by clients,

by competitors, by their own calendar. A few are doing the chasing.

This episode is about the difference.

Brett Adams and Jason McKenzie dig into why so many business owners get

stuck in a comfortable rut that quietly becomes the constraint holding

them back. They cover the 69-year-old with a thriving business and zero

transition plan, why doctors are practicing 40-year-old medicine without

realizing it, and why the same trap catches entrepreneurs every day.

Along the way:

- Jason's two-word reframe for shutting down the negative self-talk that

stops you from taking the first step ("thank you, not needed")

- The Boise State coach who told a room of teenagers that adversity is a

springboard, not an obstacle — and why that line still hits 20+ years

later

- Why a Tony Robbins client realized "I tried everything" actually meant

"I tried it twice"

- The med student who refused to study on Sundays and watched his

classmates burn out around him while he kept his edge

- Why dirt biking, scuba diving, and hobbies that have nothing to do

with your business might be the most valuable business investment

you make

- The brutal truth about overestimating what you can do in a week and

underestimating what compounds over a year

The big shift: if you're not actively chasing the future you want, the

present is chasing you. There's no neutral.

00:00 - The comedian, the guitar, and why daily practice beats weekly grinding

01:40 - The bad brain science doctors still believe

02:30 - Your doctor is practicing 40-year-old medicine

03:20 - The 69-year-old with no plan

04:30 - Building a routine that forces you to grow

05:30 - Why comfort becomes the constraint

06:30 - "What's your go-to place to learn right now?"

09:20 - When change is forced on you vs. when you chase it

11:10 - Predator or prey: which one are you?

13:00 - The language we use creates the reality we live in

13:40 - "Adversity is a springboard to success"

15:30 - Jason's reframe: focus on intention, not the negative voice

17:30 - "Thank you, not needed"

20:00 - Tony Robbins and the lie of "I tried everything"

22:00 - Why hobbies outside your business make your business better

24:20 - The med student who took Sundays off — and outlasted everyone

27:00 - 1% shifts that compound into a completely different life

27:40 - You overestimate a week. You underestimate a year.

Grazora Life — helping small business owners build businesses that

propel them, not crush them. New episodes weekly.

Episode 27

#smallbusiness #entrepreneurship #mindset #businessowner #grazora

A small business owner told Brett she was stuck because she didn't have enough capital. After one conversation, she realized capital had almost nothing to do with it.

In this episode of Grazora Live, Jason McKenzie and Brett Adams explore one of the most expensive mistakes small business owners make: blaming a single missing ingredient for problems that are actually rooted in their existing operations. They unpack focus vs. systems, the difference between discipline and clarity of vision, and the "Wizard of Oz" moment that changes how you see your own business.

You'll learn:

→ Why ChatGPT calls combined treatments a "shotgun approach" — and why that framing is wrong for businesses, too

→ The "trigger vs. firing pin" question that reframes what "the most important part" actually means

→ Why hyper-focusing on one thing past the point of diminishing returns quietly hurts your business (the cookie problem)

→ How to process the flood of ideas that hits you after a vacation, a seminar, or a Sunday at church — without losing the big rocks

→ The discipline vs. clarity debate: is willpower a real thing, or just a symptom of a vision that isn't clear enough?

→ Why "I need more capital" is usually a smokescreen for an operations problem you haven't looked at yet

→ The inventory turn question that revealed a business owner had been living in Oz the whole time

Brett shares the conversation that helped a distribution company owner realize 200,000 SKUs and the wrong terms were the real bottleneck, not cash. Jason and Brett also disagree, on the record, about whether discipline is a tool or a sign that something earlier in the chain is missing.

If you've been telling yourself you just need more money, more time, or more discipline to grow — this episode is going to make you stop and check whether you're chasing the wrong thing.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The shirt and freezing cold Idaho

01:15 Focus vs. systems: ChatGPT's "shotgun approach" reaction

02:51 The trigger vs. firing pin question

07:03 Diminishing returns: when cookies become a problem

08:12 Processing the deluge of ideas after time away

09:09 The Sunday note-taking story

10:10 Picking the biggest rocks first

11:06 The discipline conversation begins

12:12 Brett's pushback: lack of discipline or lack of clarity?

14:59 Pavlov's dogs and the willpower question

20:22 The natural man, the blanket, and the gym

21:07 Discipline as the decision made ahead of time

23:47 Upcoming: May 13 Boise event for stuck business owners

25:29 The distribution company question

27:30 200,000 SKUs and the real bottleneck

28:28 The inventory turn question that changed everything

29:59 The Wizard of Oz moment

ABOUT GRAZORA

Grazora helps small business owners move from being crushed by their business to having a business that propels them toward their goals. New episodes every week with Jason McKenzie and Brett Adams.

📅 May 13 Boise event for business owners stuck in their own cage — comment below for the link

🎯 Subscribe for weekly episodes

💬 Drop your biggest "I just need more X" assumption in the comments — let's see if it holds up

🔔 Hit the bell so you don't miss the next one

#SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #SmallBusinessOwner #BusinessStrategy #Capital #BusinessSystems #FocusVsSystems #BusinessCoaching #SmallBusinessTips

Your social media isn't a megaphone. It's a trade show booth — and most small business owners are working it wrong.

In this episode of Grazora Live, Jason McKenzie and Brett Adams unpack a paradigm shift that changes how you think about every post, every ad, and every marketing message you put out: social media works exactly like a trade show floor. The right hook pulls in your ideal customer. The wrong setup repels them — or worse, fills your booth with people who'll never buy.

You'll learn:

→ Why "boring and consistent" beats "novel and inconsistent" — and where 15-year-old ad campaigns go stale (Geico, Chick-fil-A, and the Utah billboard company that's still using the same line)

→ The Dave Ramsey playbook: same message for 20+ years, fresh stories every day

→ Why specialists win — and the law firm story where one specialized attorney resolved a six-figure problem in two hours

→ The trade show booth mistake Brett made that quietly repelled his real customers (and why your social media might be doing the same thing)

→ How to design messaging that attracts the right people AND repels the wrong ones — on purpose

→ The critical distinction between brand, marketing, and promoting (most owners conflate all three and it costs them)

→ Why you'll get sick of your message long before your customers ever hear it

Brett shares the moment he watched ideal customers walk past his booth because the wrong people were crowded around it — and the changes he made to fix it. Jason breaks down why marketing's actual job has almost nothing to do with posting content, and everything to do with defining the soul of your company.

If you've ever wondered whether you're doing too much marketing, the wrong kind of marketing, or whether your message even matters — this is the episode for you.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The Geico Gecko and the 15-year billboard

02:55 Why Chick-fil-A's "eat more chicken" gets stale

05:14 The A/B testing answer most companies skip

06:10 Beer ads, "Drink Responsibly," and core message

08:07 You'll get sick of your message before customers do

09:18 The Dave Ramsey playbook

10:20 Can you describe what you actually do?

11:37 Brett's trade show booth mistake

14:53 The specialist law firm that solved a six-figure problem

16:11 The "right hook" framing

18:33 Repelling the wrong customers on purpose

21:43 The reframe: social media IS a digital trade show

25:07 Brand vs. marketing vs. promoting

28:30 Cast, measure, adjust the lure, repeat

ABOUT GRAZORA

Grazora helps small business owners move from being crushed by their business to having a business that propels them toward their goals. New episodes every week with Jason McKenzie and Brett Adams.

🎯 Subscribe for weekly episodes

💬 Drop your biggest marketing question in the comments

🔔 Hit the bell so you don't miss the next one

#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Branding #SocialMediaStrategy #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusinessOwner #MarketingStrategy #BrandStrategy #SmallBusinessTips #ContentMarketing

You can't unsee these logos. And once Brett and Jason get going, youprobably can't unsee this about yourself either.The episode opens with two logos so bad they derail the whole intro —Primary Health's accidental evil Halloween pumpkin and KFC's stick-figureColonel Sanders with a head half the size of Texas. Brett is cryinglaughing. Jason is trying to keep the show on the rails. Neither of themsucceeds for a while.But the real conversation is about something most people genuinely cannotsee about themselves until it's almost too late: the most valuable assetyou have is the one that never shows up on any statement, any balancesheet, any scorecard. Every owner starts with it. Most are quietlyburning through it. And by the time they notice, they've already lostyears of it.It's their health. Physical. Mental. Emotional. Spiritual.In this episode:- Why "I'm healthy enough today" is the most dangerous sentence an entrepreneur can say- What finally made exercise stick for Jason after years of falling off the wagon (it wasn't willpower, and it wasn't a new program)- Why mental work wrecks you differently than physical work — and why six hours at a desk can leave you more depleted than fourteen hours on a job site- The actual biochemistry behind "dad bod" (yes, it's real, and no, it's not just mindset)- Why the motivation to fix any of this almost never comes from you — and where it actually comes from- What would change if your health statement sat next to your financial statement every single weekStick around for the opening. You genuinely will not be able to unseethese logos.

Are your skills helping your business grow or quietly holding you back? In this episode of Grizzora Live, we explore how the habits and abilities you build as an entrepreneur can either accelerate your success or keep you stuck in place.

You will learn:

• Why not all skills are beneficial for business growth
• How perfectionism, procrastination, and avoidance can become hidden liabilities
• The difference between being busy and being truly productive
• How to identify which skills to strengthen and which ones to let go
• Why taking action beats waiting for perfect timing

If you feel like you are working harder but not making progress, this conversation will help you rethink how you approach your time, habits, and growth as a business owner.

Watch now and start building the skills that actually move your business forward.

If your service business is busy but still not growing, this video breaks down what may really be holding you back. Instead of chasing more leads, it explores why the real constraint is often the owner becoming the bottleneck.

In this episode, you’ll learn how overloaded decision-making, inconsistent scheduling, and too many responsibilities on one person can stall growth, cash flow, and stability. The conversation also covers why better delegation, stronger admin support, and clearer systems can unlock capacity before you spend more on marketing.

Watch to learn how to scale a service business by removing bottlenecks, improving consistency, and creating more operational freedom without simply adding more leads.

Discover how the Theory of Constraints can change the way you grow your business. In this Grazora Live conversation, the discussion explores why many business owners stay busy without making real progress, and how identifying the true bottleneck can unlock growth.

You’ll learn how to prioritize the work that actually moves the business forward, why owners often become the biggest constraint, and how delegation, process flow, and better systems can help you scale. The conversation also touches on replacing low value tasks, improving efficiency, and using an investor mindset to evaluate your business.

If you feel stuck working harder without getting ahead, this video will help you think differently about growth, capacity, and operational improvement.

Watch now to learn how to identify the weakest link in your business and strengthen it for long term success.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to business growth and overwhelm00:17 Why social media is not always the priority01:16 The danger of working hard at the wrong things02:41 The replacement ladder explained03:29 Why the owner is the bottleneck04:17 AI, delegation, and replacing low value tasks06:09 How strong CEOs replace themselves over time07:13 Evaluating a business like an investor08:57 Vision alignment in business leadership10:00 Looking at profit, value, and business health11:03 Operational expertise and process improvements11:40 The artisan trap in production13:13 Turning custom work into process flow15:14 Hidden inefficiencies inside a business16:32 How owners make themselves hard to replace19:51 Finding the next level after delegation20:03 Why specialized roles beat all in one employees22:04 Introduction to the Theory of Constraints23:06 The key question that reveals your bottleneck24:34 Why most owners work on the wrong problem