Decision State with Joe Steele

Hosted by Joe Steele

Business Entrepreneurship

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Jun 2026

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About the show

Most of the decisions that cost the most didn’t feel wrong when they were made. They felt reasonable. Sometimes urgent. The cost shows up later. A hire that didn’t hold. A call that has to be revisited. A team that quietly stops telling you the truth. Decision State is conversations about what pressure does to judgment in high-consequence environments — business, sports, production, and leadership. No hacks. No motivational framing. Just real conversations about decisions that looked fine in the moment and became expensive later. joesteele.com

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60 recent

June 30, 2026Episode 6532 min

The Success That Didn't Transfer

She built one of Japan's leading organic food brands from a $2,000 investment at a Tokyo farmers market. Fourteen years later, she moved to New York with her daughter to start over — alone, in a language she taught herself, in a market she thought she understood. She didn't. To enter the U.S. market and position for an IPO, she hired three C-suite executives and built the structure she believed the next chapter required. Within a year, the overhead nearly bankrupted the company. The executives weren't the whole problem. The assumptions underneath the decision were — and she didn't see it until it had cost her a year. This conversation is about building in a market you don't fully understand yet, the cost of trusting a playbook past its expiration date, and the moment that actually kept her going. Better Than Butter: betterthanbutterusa.com Midori on Instagram: @midori_betterthan_butter Midori on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/midori-sato If you recognized something in this conversation — joesteele.com . Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. CHAPTERS 0:00 — She almost went bankrupt the next day 0:30 — From $2,000 to 3,000 stores 4:27 — The Silicon Valley trip that changed everything 5:50 — Moving to New York: what she thought vs. what she found 9:30 — Building the executive structure 11:44 — When she realized the hires were wrong 16:13 — Four bankruptcies 20:22 — The daughter decision 23:33 — Taylor and the shift 26:52 — Building the U.S. chapter differently 28:44 — Better Than Butter: where to find it

June 16, 2026Episode 6428 min

When You Wanted It To Work

A concern was there before the contract was signed. Rob Broadhead had worked with the contractor before. The relationship was good. The project looked viable. The timing was right. And when the questions started showing up, he chose to trust rather than push harder. A few months later, the missing work surfaced. The result wasn't just rework. It became hundreds of unbilled hours, opportunity cost across the business, delayed growth, and a project that pulled people into work they never should have been doing. This conversation is about the window between seeing something and naming it out loud — and what it costs when the relationship makes that window wider than it should be. Guest Links Website: rb-sns.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robbroadhead If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com . Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Chapters 00:00 — We Wanted It To Work 01:02 — Trusting The Wrong Signals 05:12 — Assumptions Create Expensive Problems 11:04 — How The Opportunity Appeared 14:20 — The Porsche Problem 16:20 — Why He Never Pushed Harder 19:48 — The First Real Red Flag 20:53 — When The Team Found It 22:33 — Realizing The Cost 24:15 — Opportunity Cost Spreads 28:14 — Looking Back 33:41 — The Silent Failures 36:14 — Where To Find Rob

June 9, 2026Episode 6328 min

When Momentum Never Arrived

A partnership with a major company looked like an obvious win. The reach was there. The brand was there. The market opportunity was there. What wasn't obvious was the amount of education, alignment, and execution required after the agreement was signed. What looked like a growth engine became a slow-moving operational challenge that continued to absorb time, attention, and momentum long after the excitement of the deal. In this episode, Kevin Shtofman shares what happened when a partnership that made perfect sense on paper took far longer to gain traction than anyone expected, how leadership kept extending the timeline, and why some risks are difficult to name while you're still inside them. Guest: Kevin Shtofman, COO of REBA and former Global Head of Corporate Development at Cherre. Connect with Kevin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinshtofman/ If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com . Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Partnership That Looked Like A Sure Thing 02:21 The Revenue Bet Behind The Deal 05:08 Why Partnerships Mattered So Much 08:47 From Corporate Development To COO 11:49 The New Pace Of Work 15:35 Context Switching And AI 19:17 The Commitments Nobody Defined 21:06 The Game Of Thrones Problem 23:02 The Story The Team Kept Telling Itself 23:49 When Friction Became Risk 25:09 We Saw The Vision Clearly 26:42 The Cost That Didn't Show Up 27:28 Why Naming The Problem Didn't Fix It 29:51 Everyone Has The Same Tools Now 33:09 Moving Fast Without Losing Control 34:29 The Right Amount Of Breakage 38:26 Two Eyes, Two Ears, One Mouth 39:20 Four Term Sheets Out Of Fifty-Six 41:20 The Risk Nobody Could Describe

June 2, 2026Episode 6230 min

When Everyone Agreed and Nothing Changed

Everybody agreed on the problem. The recommendation was clear. The meetings happened. The conversations happened. And nothing changed. In this episode, Joe Steele sits down with Brandon Moon of TD Pine Advisors to explore what organizations reveal after agreement has already been reached. The conversation moves through founder bottlenecks, perceived authority versus actual authority, why people say they understand when they don't, and how organizations often mirror the behavior of the leader at the top. If you've ever watched a company acknowledge a problem while continuing to operate exactly the same way, you'll recognize this one quickly. Guest: Brandon Moon TD Pine Advisors linkedin.com/in/brandonmoon Book: Job to Asset — available on Amazon If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com . Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

May 26, 2026Episode 6134 min

The Call Nobody Wanted to Make

A fast-growing company fixes a checkout problem in days — and quietly creates a much bigger one underneath it. This episode with James Lang explores what happens inside organizations when speed starts overriding understanding. From payment systems to vendor relationships to engineering conflict, the conversation stays focused on a pattern most operators recognize immediately: everyone in the room thinks they're solving the same problem, but they're actually protecting different things. James spent years scaling a MedTech company from startup stage into rapid growth while managing the friction between executives, engineers, marketers, vendors, and organizational momentum. What emerged from that experience shaped how he now thinks about leadership, AI implementation, and the hidden cost of misalignment inside growing companies. If you've ever watched a room agree too quickly, ignored a concern because the outcome looked obvious, or realized later that nobody actually owned the handoff — this episode will feel familiar. James Lang OverLang Venture Partners overlang.com LinkedIn: James Lang If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com . Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Chapters 00:00 — Nobody made the call 01:12 — Growing into the COO role 02:35 — The payment gateway decision 07:42 — The hidden cost of speed 09:18 — Managing up and down at the same time 13:01 — Engineers, ego, and decision-making 18:48 — When meetings stop being honest 20:18 — Vendors and missed opportunities 24:08 — What the COO years taught him about AI 27:42 — Solving symptoms instead of causes 30:03 — AI is built in our image 33:01 — Connect with James

May 19, 2026Episode 6031 min

You Thought You Could Fix It Later

Jerry Brazie has built, bought, and sold more than a dozen companies over thirty years. He was doing $25 million a year in revenue and clearing a quarter million a month in profit when a $4 million transportation company came across his desk. He took the financials to his peer group — the same people he'd been sitting with for twelve years, whose advice had helped build everything he had. They said no. He came back the next month with more answers. They said no again. He bought it anyway. The integration started falling apart almost immediately. It took three to four years of working through the wreckage to discover that the quarter million he thought he was making should have been $310,000 — his core business had been leaking while he was looking the other direction. Six years and roughly $10 million later, he was out. "I was high on my own supply." Guest links: KronosGroup.org If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. CHAPTERS 00:00 — “Everything Is Your Fault” 00:34 — What Jerry Is Running Right Now 03:24 — “I’m The Rock Everyone Crashes Against” 05:57 — Running Multiple Companies Simultaneously 08:01 — The Acquisition Everyone Told Him Not To Make 13:07 — When He Realized They Were Right 15:43 — “I Was High On My Own Supply” 15:52 — The Hire You Already Knew Was Wrong 19:13 — The Difference Between A Bad Hire And A Bad Deal 21:57 — Why Speed Felt Safer Than Hesitation 25:25 — Momentum Over Clarity 31:24 — The Voice He Never Forgot

May 12, 2026Episode 5924 min

The Check You Almost Wrote

Eric Hoffman spent years as an attorney before building a legal tech company on his own. What started as a conversation about cold calling and startup pressure turned into something more specific: what happens when nobody is around to interrupt your thinking while you're carrying too much. In this episode, Eric talks about the Reddit post that made him question whether he was really building a company or just hiding inside one, the $35,000 coaching decision he almost made, and the moment where AI recognized a pattern in his behavior before he fully did himself. This conversation isn't about entrepreneurship advice. It's about what judgment starts to feel like when there's no co-pilot in the room. Eric Hoffman: aiesquire.ioLinkedIn: Eric Hoffman, Esq.Book: The Runway Is Behind You — available on Amazon If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com. Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Chapters 00:00 — The pricing build 02:45 — No one catches it but you 04:16 — What AI Esquire actually is 06:41 — Following the rule book 10:35 — The Reddit post 12:34 — Checkbook in hand 15:00 — Cold calling for a company nobody knows 16:15 — Claude as co-pilot 19:03 — What hasn't worked 21:07 — Razor sharp at 10 AM, gone by 7 PM 23:22 — Where to find Eric

May 5, 2026Episode 5830 min

The Fix That Made It Worse

Angelo D’Amico runs a $25M+ manufacturing company and a second consumer brand with 60 people between them. When the wrong people started accumulating inside the business, he did what a good leader does — he tried to help them. Coached them. Gave them time. Gave them the benefit of the doubt. It didn’t work. And while he was trying to fix the individual, the people around them were quietly absorbing the cost. This episode is about the difference between a performance problem and an alignment problem — and what it costs when you treat one like the other. Angelo on LinkedIn: Angelo D’Amico canadarubbergroup.com / softstall.com If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Chapters 00:00 — He Thought He Was Doing the Right Thing 00:21 — The Decision He’s Still Thinking About 01:17 — What He’s Actually Running 05:23 — What a Tough Stretch Looks Like 06:56 — When the Blinders Go On 09:06 — Problems Sound Smaller Than They Are 10:38 — Narrow Thinking and Tolerating the Wrong Things 11:20 — When to Act and When to Wait 13:48 — The Weight of Being the One Who Has to Change It 17:10 — What the Team Was Holding That He Didn’t See 19:17 — The Fear of Destabilizing What Was Left 21:34 — The Fix That Made It Worse 23:35 — Making Calls Inside the Uncertainty 26:01 — The Signals He Moves Faster On Now 27:49 — What Would Feel Different Today 29:35 — Where to Find Angelo

April 28, 2026Episode 5725 min

When the Room Knows and Nobody Says It

The partnership looked strong on paper. High volume. Big dollar figure. A sales leader confident enough to move it forward. But the product team knew the call would pull the company away from its roadmap. They talked about it with each other. They just didn't have enough political capital to make the concern reach the person making the decision. Six months later, the contract was canceled and the roadmap was delayed by at least two years. Petar Kralev has spent his career inside organizations where the signal exists but doesn't always reach the room where the real call gets made. This episode is about what that looks like before anything visibly breaks — and what it costs when people know something is wrong but don't say it loudly enough to matter. Petar Kralev: ⁠mirror360.org⁠ | LinkedIn | Substack Joe Steele: ⁠joesteele.com⁠ If you recognized something in this episode — ⁠joesteele.com⁠. Follow Decision State on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. 00:00 — When the dashboard looks right 00:18 — The partnership that cost two years 02:44 — Building Mirror 360 03:17 — How information gets filtered 04:56 — Leaders who may not want visibility 06:00 — Clean signals vs people signals 07:11 — Screaming into the void 09:53 — Why no company is exempt 10:33 — When alignment is only surface-level 13:26 — Smart people, incomplete information 14:57 — Trying to raise the concern 16:12 — When politics shapes the call 18:11 — Reading between the lines 19:31 — Early mistakes building the company 21:03 — How he tries to avoid the same pattern 24:01 — Where to find Petar

April 21, 2026Episode 5623 min

When the Hire Looks Right

Most hiring decisions don't fail immediately. The candidate checks out. The process is clean. The client signs off. And then something small goes sideways — sometimes eight months later. Darren Tompkins runs a multi-division recruiting firm with no debt, no office, and no outside capital, placing people into engineering, construction, and data-center projects where a wrong read has consequences on both sides. This conversation is about what it actually costs to make judgment calls about people for a living — and what happens when the placement that looked clean turned out it wasn't. Darren Tompkins — Vader-Rey Companies vaderrey.com LinkedIn: Darren Tompkins If you recognized something in this episode — joesteele.com. Chapters 00:00 — When decisions start to stack 00:30 — What the day actually looks like 00:45 — Why you can't turn it off 01:16 — When a placement goes wrong 02:11 — High-stakes hiring decisions 03:20 — Army vs business pressure 05:26 — What looks easier than it is 06:32 — When hiring decisions fail 09:02 — A different kind of hard 10:39 — Building without debt 12:59 — Slow seasons and pressure cycles 14:54 — When the work doesn't stop 16:46 — AI and hiring decisions 21:06 — Losing a client 23:18 — Where to connect