In 2006, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean to bar chocolate factory and never looked back. His company, Askinosie Chocolate, was recently named by Forbes “One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America.” So far the company has provided over a million school lunches to malnourished children in Tanzania and the Philippines, without any donations. Founded at the forefront of the American craft chocolate revolution and regarded by many as a vanguard in the industry. Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.” Shawn’s book, co-written with his daughter Lawren, published by Penguin Random House titled “Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul” is an Amazon #1 bestseller.
Show Notes
“Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Have you ever thought about running a chocolate business and what that would mean for you? This episode of The Entrepreneurial You is all about this sweet business.
Here is a snippet of what Shawn shared:
“The business is a Cause. And the cause supports the business; it’s a circle. And so what I mean by that is, when I started the company I knew that I wanted to directly engage with Farmers. I wanted to meet them. I wanted to be in their homes. I wanted to get to know them and I’ve done that for 15 years. This next time I travel, whenever that’ll be (after a vaccine then) It’ll be my 45th origin trip since I started to meet with farmers, and that’s a lot of travel.
Then when I became You know engaged with them and understood what was happening in their communities, it was a very natural step for us to say. not can we fix this, this is a very important notion not can we come in as the great white Savior and solve all your problems, The question is can we be your partner? Can we be your friend? And is there a way for us to together contribute to some of these issues in your village? And so that’s the way it started in the school lunch program started about 12 years ago in the Philippines.”
Listen to the episode and let us know what is your biggest takeaway.
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