Life Switch
How to Experience the Power of Living On by Discovering Your Potential, Passion, and Purpose
Leading by example, the memoir-cum-self-help guide Life Switch nurtures a sense of self-determination in those looking to change their lives for the better.
Joel Steele’s motivational self-help book Life Switch advocates for intentional, passionate living, with Steele’s own life and business ventures serving as a blueprint.
Proclaiming that he has always spurned mediocrity, Steele covers childhood delusions of grandeur, a failed nutritious restaurant, and his eventual prosperity as a financial advisor. Across all of his ventures, he says, he sought money, success, and an above-average existence. Along the way, he developed the idea that people can control their own destinies if they have the will to do so. Part memoir, the book explores Steele’s life and business as a series of “life switch moments,” or epiphanies that enabled him to shape his life. Encouragements to others to do the same amplify this work, as with prompts to harness their potential, chase their passions, and find their purpose.
The prose is energetic, urgent, and infused with infectious optimism: “Anything is possible!” It nurtures a sense of self-determination in those looking to change their lives and includes visualization and planning exercises in addition to mindset shifts. For example, it introduces the idea of pursuing a “streak” to maintain one’s habits and reach goals and warns against becoming a “busy bee” with no real sense of direction. Productivity isn’t the goal; intentionality is.
However, too much of the book’s guidance is vague, as with its tips to adapt or create a mantra for yourself, learn from challenges, and take a chance. Further, too many of the chapters focus on Steele’s youth, which is seen through the lens of wasted potential: The period from age eight to sixteen is described as “a funk of average existence,” about which Steele worries, “Was I just like any other kid, or did I possess above average attributes within me?” Anecdotes from his teenage years, as of trying out for the high school football team and striving to make stellar grades in college, prove less applicable than stories about his forays into restaurant ownership and his ten-year transformation from being half a million dollars in debt to having a seven-figure net worth. The extended focus on Steele’s failures as a restaurateur proves most engaging and instructive, well illuminating messages about perseverance and passion.
Still, the recommended methodology comes across as flimsy; its recommendations boil down to “liv[ing] with purpose.” And while some of Steele’s life switch stories are convincing examples of the method at work, others do not proffer clear life lessons with outward applicability. In the end, the guidance is too overshadowed by Steele’s larger-than-life experiences.
Life Switch is a memoir-based self-help book about following one’s passions and fulfilling one’s potential.
Reviewed by
Hannah Pearson
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
