At 24 years old, Joel Steele was buried in what would be roughly $800,000 of debt in today’s dollars – the wreckage of a healthy fast food restaurant chain he had poured himself into since college. He had three locations, media coverage, and a fourth lease in his hand. What he didn’t have was a team, a mentor, or a profit.
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In this conversation with Mark Graban on My Favorite Mistake, Joel takes apart what actually went wrong. It wasn’t the concept – healthy fast food was ahead of its time. It was that he had set the wrong metric. He was measuring growth instead of profitability. He was doing every job himself. And when warning signs appeared (literally, as sewage backing up four feet high in the middle of a lunch rush), he kept going.
Joel shares the moment he finally took off the blinders, the catatonic stretch that followed, and how he rebuilt – first into a successful financial services firm, and now as the author of Life Switch: How to Experience the Power of Living On. He explains what it means to live “on” versus “off,” why he designed a $1 million charitable commitment into the book itself, and what he tells high achievers – including pro athletes – who are trying to figure out what comes next.
A thoughtful conversation about founder blinders, the trap of confusing growth with success, and the psychology of coming back after a public failure.