LIFE SWITCH

Steele sounds a call for businesspeople (and everybody else) to turn up the power levels on their lives in this motivational guide.

In his nonfiction debut, the author, a financial expert, entrepreneur, and motivational speaker, encourages readers to find purpose and passion by flipping the “on” switches in their lives. “I’m not talking about going from good to great,” Steele writes, referring to the 2001 bestselling book by Jim Collins. “I’m talking about going from lost to found. From wandering to wonderful.” As he discusses various aspects of conceiving, starting, and running a business, the author touches on everything from motivation to strategies for long-term sustainability. Steele fills out his practical observations with plenty of mini-motivational passages designed to fill his readers with the kind of enthusiasm he himself obviously feels—though, at times, these cheerleading sessions stumble a bit. “Even if you only feel like you’re at 70 percent of your best, you can still be worth 100 percent at some point,” he writes. “A one-hundred-dollar bill is still worth a hundred dollars regardless of its state” (damaged or even overly soiled U.S. currency can be refused as legal tender, but presumably readers will get the point). Nevertheless, Steele’s sheer energy as a storyteller as he relates his own experiences is both consistent and invigorating throughout, though some of those stories call the author’s judgment into question (at one point, he hired a man he met at the gym as a manager for his restaurant because he seemed cool…and fired him almost immediately for dating an underage employee). Quibbles aside, Steele, on the page, comes across as the ultimate upbeat manager, even when he’s addressing more quotidian matters, reminding his readers of the workaday aspects of keeping a business going.

A bracing and companionable personal consideration of the attitudes needed for success.