Joe Krouse is the owner/operator of Ten Mile House, Fred’s Garage and DB3 Donuts in Chicago. The consummate “mid life male”, he’s an entrepreneur and risk taker coming off of a successful audio/video business sale who changed direction and entered the hospitality business with no direct experience but armed with a passion for great food and the desire to take care of people.

He is a husband, father, son and brother and throughout this episode we chatted about how he makes decisions, family life and the effects changing industries and going out on your own has on your confidence, ability to balance work and life the highs of starting your own restaurant and the lows of having to close one.

We dug into our changing/evolving philosophies on money and time and how we choose to spend both and whats really important in life. Having recently experienced the loss of his sister, we went deeper into the family perspective, perseverance and a legacy that he holds dear along with the values he chooses to live by every day.

It’s always super interesting to me to reconnect with people I haven’t seen or spoken to in a while, or in this case knew when we were both just college kids trying to figure it out as opposed to now being 45 and still trying to figure it all out... Seeing what people have become, chosen to do, where they live, what type of family they have and what they’ve been up to for 20 years... Good times.