36: Finding Purpose & Fulfillment through Meaningful Work with Shawn Askinosie of Askinosie Chocolate

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Hey, welcome to episode number 36 of Leading with Purpose, Empowering Talk Radio. I am your host, Nathan Mitchell. Friends, I would like to start off this episode with a very sincere thank you. You know, the average podcast gets less than 150 downloads after it has been live for 30 days.

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At the end of the day, my commitment to you is to bring you the very best guests and the very best content. So when I have folks like Sean Askinosie, founder of Askinosie Chocolate and author of the top selling book, Meaningful Work, A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling and Feed Your Soul, you're going to want to make sure you have access to that information as soon as it's made available. And being a subscriber is the absolute best way to do that. Before we begin our conversation with our guests, I would like to let you know a little bit more about Sean and his company.

Sean is the founder of Askinosie Chocolate. It's an organization that practices direct trade and profit shares with farmers in Tanzania, Ecuador, and the Philippines. The company also partners with schools and their origin communities to provide lunch to 2,600 children every single day with absolutely no outside donations. Their business model has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on Bloomberg and numerous other media outlets.

Sean was named Oprah Magazine as one of the 15 guys who are saving the world. He is also a family brother at the Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Ava, Missouri. Sean, welcome to tonight's show, my friend. How are you doing?

I'm great. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk. You are so welcome, my friend.

As a Springfield, Missouri native, I actually lived in Springfield for 26 years. My wife and I moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma 15 years ago. It's great to have you as a guest on the show. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. We can talk Springfield. absolutely you know sean i ask every single guest that's on the show i start here tell us you know kind of a fun fact something unique about yourself that perhaps a lot of people may not know about you i was a pro wrestler in japan uh when i was in college there um i went to the university of missouri but i was in tokyo for one year as an exchange student and my wrestling name was shooting sean springfield and uh i wrestled before thousands of people and i'm not really that big of a guy but I was big in Japan.

How many years did you do that? Just one. Just one? Yeah.

Well, that's definitely a fun fact. That's something I definitely did not know about you. You know, Sean, I've been reading your book, and one of the things you talk about in your book is that for two decades you were a self-proclaimed hard-charging criminal defense lawyer, and I know you probably get sick and tired of answering this question, but I've got to ask you, How do you end up going from practicing law to starting a chocolate company that is really focused on giving back?

The part of it, I mean, the core of who I am didn't really change all that much. In other words, I was hard charging and trying to win cases and do my best to defend people. But it was a pursuit of justice. And I mean that in all sincerity.

And that justice, it just so happened that it was one person at a time. And I spent a lot of time doing pro bono work, a lot of time in community work before I started the Chocolate Factory, even as a young person, as a young lawyer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. So the idea of social justice, the idea of community development, it really wasn't that new. It was just, if I could say, accelerated in a different vehicle.

Now, how I got from practicing criminal law and defending murder cases to making chocolate, that's, do you want me to tackle that? Absolutely. I'm sure it was quite a journey. It was.

It started with me realizing in my body that I couldn't do it anymore. And what I mean is just kind of a pain in my chest. and it was really almost like a mini panic attack that those were happening to me and i worked on the most serious criminal cases you can imagine death penalty cases are about as serious as it gets and um but yet these little traffic tickets or some you know nothing would get me kind of um anxious and I just noticed it. You know, I noticed it in my body and I realized that it was time to go.

And I've done it for almost 20 years. I loved it. It was my calling for a long, long time. And so I spent nearly five years looking for the next thing.

And as time wore on and I, you know, was really just reaching dead end after dead end, finding no inspiration or passion for the next part of my life, it seemed as though the anxiety and then really depression got worse. The harder I looked for the next thing, the further away it became. And so during this time, I had a very simple prayer. And it went like this, Dear God, please give me something else to do.

Sometimes I'd say it, you know, 20 times a day or more. But then I also started some hobbies of grilling. I bought a big green egg and then I started making every single meal on the big green egg. And then I started making cupcakes and then making chocolate desserts.

And then ultimately, I quit my law practice and started making chocolate from scratch. What age were you when you really started kind of doing some soul searching and maybe realizing that practicing law wasn't something that was going to be the right thing for you for the long term? early 40s yeah i was actually in my mid-30s i worked with a fortune 50 company for more than 12 years and it was kind of one of those stories where you think you know what you want early on in life when you're a young 20 something and i did it for a long time had great success with this organization and once i had kids you know i really realized that maybe what i thought i wanted initially isn't what i wanted for the long term i got to a point to where i was really so unhappy and so unfulfilled in my career that I struggled with problems with alcoholism for over 10 years.

And, you know, finally, seven years ago, you know, I completely, completely gave that up just by the grace of God. It was something that I was able to quit cold turkey and walk away from. But it's not something that I think is so uncommon in today's world. I mean, there's a lot of people that are unhappy in their work.

They're struggling. They're disengaged. They're unhappy, unfulfilled. What do you think is one of the main drivers behind such discontent in the workplace and organizations today?

I think it's a number of things, but it didn't just happen overnight. I mean, this has been something that's been building and building, I think, for years. Right now, Gallup says that only one in three employees in America is engaged in their job. So two-thirds of workers are not engaged and haven't been for some time.

That number really hasn't changed. And so what we're seeing is the effect of that. We're seeing it in our companies. The product and services that we provide are obviously affected by this number that we're talking about.

And the economy is affected by it. And ultimately, it will be the demise of capitalism if we don't figure a way to offer people at least the chance at meaningful work. And so I think, if I could say, I think that actually the Internet, and sorry, I know we're on the Internet, but the Internet, I believe, has really fanned the flames of this problem and not made it better. and I spoke at Google in December and I might the first thing I say in my book that you need to do when looking for the next thing in your life is to step away from Google and that wasn very easy to say there but they were real nice about it Stop the researching Exactly exactly But to your question I think there are a lot of things that contribute to this But what I would encourage your listeners, those who, you know, 45-year-old burned out criminal defense lawyers who are listening to just recognize that it's okay and it's not your job, listener, who might be really, really wondering about this, to figure out why this is happening, you know, sort of culturally.

But the message is that there's hope for you. The message is there really is hope and you can find the next thing in your life and I don't care how old you are I don't care if you're 18 and you're going to college or if you're 65 and you're going to do something else with your life there is hope now the not so awesome news I should say is that I believe that there's a lot of work, a lot of hard work to find the next thing possibly. And I think those people who are, the more driven and type A you are, I think the harder the work will be.

And it's just in our nature. It's that whole thing of our strength is sometimes our greatest weakness. And that's what we're facing here in this question. But I do believe that there's hope for people, despite the fact that you're right.

Culturally, we are in the midst of a wave of indifference. Yeah, no, I agree. And I look back over my own professional career. And one of the things that I struggled with was really empowering myself, but I was always really, really good at empowering other people.

And for me, it was, you know, being able to walk away from my addiction that ultimately set me on a path to realizing that I could accomplish anything that I set my mind to. And over the last seven years, it's probably hasn't been the easiest seven years of my life, but I can promise you it's been the most fulfilling and the most rewarding. So everyone, you're listening to Leading with Purpose, Empowering Talk Radio. We have Sean Askinosie on the show with us tonight of Askinosie Chocolate.

We'll be right back after this short commercial break. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Leading with Purpose, Empowering Talk Radio, and your host, Nathan R.

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Are you wanting to get better business results, better leadership skills faster? Then this is where you need to be. Welcome back to Leading with Purpose with empowerment coach and founder of Clutch Consulting, Nathan R. Mitchell.

With more of today's insight for effective leadership, host Nathan R. Mitchell. Hey, welcome back, everyone. We're with Sean Askinosie tonight, founder of Askinosie Chocolate.

Sean, welcome back to the show. Thank you. You're welcome. So one of the things that you talk about in your book, Meaningful Work, A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul, is that unmasking our sorrows can really lead to joy and vocation at work.

Can you explain that to our listeners tonight, exactly what you mean by that? Khalil Gibran is the one who said that, that I quote in the book, and he said that our greatest joy is our sorrow unmasked. And I believe that to be true. And for me, for example, my greatest sorrow in my life was, at least to this point was my dad's death when I was a 14 year old.

He had lung cancer and the cancer spread throughout his body. He was a lawyer and my hero and I really believed that he wouldn't die and the cancer kept getting worse and I still believed he would live and then I was with him when he died and it was just the most desperate sorrow filled moment of my life and I I was literally begging God out loud to please not let him die, to just please let him live. He died. And then I spent the next 25 years just essentially accomplishing every single thing in my path that I could to just think that if I could be somebody, that that would somehow quash the grief that I still felt over my dad's death.

And so what I did is I left a little part out when we were talking a moment ago about how did I get from law to chocolate. Well, one of the things I did during that five-year period is I volunteered at Mercy Hospital. And you know Mercy Hospital, and it was St. Lawrence when you were here.

And I volunteered in their palliative care team on Fridays. And really, I did it on Fridays when I was in town, and I did it for almost five years. And they would get palliative care for your listeners who don't know. it's essentially hospice in the hospital.

People are dying. And they would give me a list of patients to go visit, maybe five people or maybe 20 people. And they could be oncology, cardiology, neurology. And these were folks that didn't really have visitors.

They didn't have family they're visiting or anyone. And so I would just go and talk with them, just have conversations, sometimes read to them. But I would end my visit by saying the same thing every time, which was, One of the things I do as a volunteer here is I pray for people. Would you like me to pray for you?

And what I found is that 99% of people in that situation will take a prayer. And so I would say, well, what would you like me to pray for? And they would say things like, would you pray that I live two more weeks to my 65th wedding anniversary? Or would you pray that I die today because I'm in pain and I'm ready to go?

Or would you pray that I'm healed? And I used their exact words back to them, and I would ask them if I could touch their hand or touch their shoulder, and I just said their exact words back to them. And something happened in those moments really measured in seconds. And what it was is I actually thought about someone else besides me for just a moment.

and that was um that was like this unbelievable mysterious but yet uplifting experience maybe even in my whole life to date and i'm 57 years old and um there were times when i would walk out of the hospital to my car um when i was finishing that i felt as if my feet weren't on the ground that i It was like walking on air. What is that? It's joy. Well, how could that be?

Well, it came from the depths of my sorrow, the depth, the bottom. And Gibran says, the greater the sorrow, the greater the joy. And so what happened is, not while I was at the hospital, but during that time when I was volunteering there, that service created a space in me. not thinking about myself and then paradoxically this space was created for me to contemplate my future not google not a book not talking to friends it was this just rolling up my sleeves and just being with someone who needed me maybe just in that little moment that's what it was human relationships with other people uh insignificant moments of life and death and It even makes me think back to what you said earlier about how much maybe social media and Internet has played a role in this, that we're not engaged with other people as you were in the hospital on a daily basis.

Would you say that's true? I think it's true, and I think what's happened is with social media, one of the things that's happened is we've ceded our relationship responsibilities to an emoji. and we think that when someone's going through a rough time and they post it on Facebook or wherever and we put a little praying emoji or a little thing, I'm thinking of you, we think that that sort of discharges our responsibility as a human being and friend or family member to this person.

And unfortunately, well, but the truth is it doesn't. And so I'm not saying, look, I mean, there are, in fact, I've been off of Facebook and social media for six months and a little test. I'm going to go back to my personal accounts this week. And the reason is because of this, this exact thing we're talking about.

Obviously, in my business in Askinosie Chocolate, we have social media everywhere. But personally, I did this test, and I wanted to see if I could do it. And I can't. And here's what I can't do.

I can't keep up with the people that I need to keep up with who are hurting. People who are either distant family members or friends or family members of friends who I need to just see you know daily or weekly how are they doing And the reason is because I want to be able to include them in my morning prayers. And I found, you know, there's like 10 or 15 people that I pray for five mornings a week, and as an intercessory prayer, well, I wasn't able to really keep up with just what the most recent need might be.

And I'm going to go back really just for that. So if anybody out there has an idea of how to develop an app that will go pull statuses from Facebook and deliver them to my desktop at will, let me know. Because I think there's a business opportunity there. But you know, that's the thing.

I mean, it's like we're saying it's not all bad. I mean, this is a good example. I'm going to go back and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to slog through the mud of all the stuff I don't want to see in order to make sure I know what's going on with the people that I need to keep in touch with. Yeah, one of the things I noticed about social media too is in many cases you have individuals that are doing nothing but sharing their success.

And I almost think that it has gotten to the point where, you know, they're only sharing the good. They're not sharing the bad. And I think in many cases that has made it for a lot of people even harder than necessarily keep up with the Joneses. And that kind of leads me to my next question, you know, about just balancing financial success and, you know, how important is that?

And how important is that compared to really finding purpose, meaning and fulfillment in their life and work? I mean, it kind of goes back to what I said earlier, you know, to some degrees, I was much more successful financially when I was with the fortune 50 company than I have been the last seven years when I decided to venture out on my own. But over the last seven years, I've learned so much about myself and have been so much intrinsic motivation and reward that I didn't have before.

So how much success is really enough, and how do we measure it? Great question. The title of Chapter 3 of my book is How Much is Enough? And I have over the years become acquainted and now deepened my relationship with a nearby monastery, a Trappist monastery called Assumption Abbey.

And they make fruitcakes and sell a lot of them to Williams-Sonoma or whatever. But they follow what's called the Rule of Benedict. And the Rule of Benedict is perhaps the oldest continuously governing management document in history. It's been around for 1,500 years.

And it governs how monasteries all over the world operate and how they're managed. And one of the things that is important in a monastery is this question of how much is enough. How much beer do we brew at our monastery in order to survive and live our life? How many fruitcakes do we make?

And so this question of sufficiency is ever present on the mind of monastics like this who are following the rule of Benedict. And so what I wanted to do was just say, okay, I'm not a monk, but they have had great influence over me in the last 18 years. And so is there anything that I can apply? And this question is at the forefront.

And so I'm continually asking the question, how much is enough? What is sufficient? And here's the deal in answer to your question. I have not arrived at an answer, but this is okay because I'm asking the question.

that's really i think um maybe the most important thing that is an awareness just even stopping and saying do we really need to grow grow grow grow do i need more money more money because more ultimately is not enough and so once we can just stop take a deep breath do some reflecting do some journaling and have a conversation with ourselves about this question regularly, how much is enough? Talk with our spouses about it and significant others in our family, how much is enough?

What does it look like? It's a moving target. But if we can do that, then perhaps we can remove the stranglehold that the culture has conditioned upon us. Because really, I mean, everything from the GDP to net operating income is governed by a notion of consumption.

And more consumption is more money. And more money means more health. And we need to get away from that. And the best way to do it is just by start, just ask the question, just like you did and just like I am.

And we start to realize that with our hearts open and serving others while we're making money, whatever that looks like, that we're going to feel better at the end of the day than we would if all we thought about was more, more, more. Yeah, well, I mean, the proof is our obsession with consumption and material things and getting more, it hasn't made us more content or more fulfilled or happier as a society. I could probably argue that the opposite is true. Absolutely.

No, you're right about that. And, of course, we need housing, we need education, we need medical care, and, of course, there are needs that we have. And, you know, you're probably thinking, well, wait, you've got a chocolate factory. Don't you want people to buy your chocolate and consume it?

And isn't that going to make your company healthier? Yes. But what I talk about, and I encourage people even with my own chocolate, is to mindfully consume it. That's what I prefer.

That's what I ask for, for them to recognize that this chocolate bar is of value. And what are other things in our lives that we can mindfully consume? yeah and just real quickly we got about one minute before the next commercial break what do you mean by that by mindfully consume your chocolate i what i mean is i mean if you want to spend ten dollars or whatever it may be on this three ounce bar mindfulness would say you would ask the question is this a value am i getting something from this ten dollar bar do i love the flavor is it pleasing to me am i not just gobbling it up and maybe eating a few squares at a time time?

Am I enjoying it with friends? And do I see that the price actually means something? Is this company a valuable company? Are they doing the right thing?

Are they behaving as they should? This is what I call mindful consumption. Well, everyone, we're here with Sean Escanozzi. We'll be right back after this short break.

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Then this is where you need to be. Welcome back to Leading with Purpose with Empowerment Coach and Founder of Clutch Consulting, Nathan R. Mitchell. With more of today's insight for effective leadership, host Nathan R.

Mitchell. Hey, welcome back to Leading with Purpose, Empowering Talk Radio. I am your host, Nathan Mitchell. Tonight we have Sean Askinosie on the show with us, author of the book Meaningful Work, A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul, and also the founder of Askinosie Chocolate.

Sean, welcome back to the show. Thank you. One of the things that you address in your book is this idea of reverse scale. We talked a little bit about it earlier in that you look at organizations today, it's okay, we want to grow at all costs, exponential growth, and you really look at the inverse of that.

It's really an effort to resist the temptation that we should grow whatever it costs us. How can this practice and reverse scale ultimately help us continue to be more successful, but yet also faithful and true to ourselves, which at the top of the show you suggested was so important? Reverse scale would say it's counter to the culture. The culture, as you articulated, says grow, scale, and make money and repeat.

So investors want us to scale. Chambers of Commerce want us to scale because they want more jobs in the community. Our families want it for us because they think that scale equals rich and success for us, and they want us to be happy. And so I'm saying, what if we turn that question upside down and say, is this worthy idea?

Is it going to possibly help even just one person? Or what if it only helps me? What if it only transforms my own heart? Does that mean that it doesn't have value because it's just me?

And the answer is no A worthy idea is not made less valuable because it not scalable And I just encourage people to think about that And I know there are situations that that doesn apply to like when we trying when we have areas of imminent human need, like hunger and malaria and Ebola and things like that. So if we set those aside for just a minute, what I'm saying is that reverse scale would say, it's like human scale in another way of saying it. And that is, if you can remember what it is that drew you to the business or to start the business or to be part of the business in the first place, then what I'm asking you to do is to daily practice this notion of holding on to that tether, that thing that holds you to the draw, the calling that brought you there to begin with.

You know what it is and what it was, and I ask people to practice holding on to that. And what that might mean is sacrificing some scale in order to achieve that. Because this practice means, for example, that instead of every single person in the chain focusing on what's next in order to find someone to do the thing that's now beneath them so they can move themselves up, that that's a rat race and in that rat race we find that we are distanced from others and just like you've been saying nathan throughout this entire podcast is it's about relationships it's about people and even the people in our own companies even especially the people in our own companies that work with us and so we need to find ways and practices that will sort of be as I said, a tether, but they are moments, they're moments that point us home.

And we know what those moments are. They're moments in which time stops, we're fully present for the person that's in front of us or the work that we're doing, and it happens. It's mysterious, and sometimes we're even transported, in a sense, to another place, another place of joy, just utter joy at work. It doesn't happen every day, but when we see it, we say, aha, I need to hold on to that.

How can I practice that so that I don't lose it? And that becomes a discipline of our business life. You know, if I remember correctly from reading your book, I think you have a relatively small staff of about 16 people. Is that right?

That's right. That's right. And you guys are doing amazing things all across the world. Great charitable work.

How is it that charitable work and who you are as a company at Askinosie Chocolate is ultimately inseparable from the product you offer? What's happened in the last 50 years in America in particular is we've had corporate social responsibility departments crop up. You saw it in your own Fortune 50 company, I'm certain, and those CSR departments originally were populated by lawyers, God bless them, and they were risk managers. Well, now, you know, they're CSR departments, and it's where we sort of silo charity.

It's where we silo philanthropy. And what I'm saying is to not do that, I'm asking companies big and small to open the spigot, open the floodways in your company of the CSR department and let it spill and infiltrate into every part of the company. It will seem messy, and sometimes it actually will be messy, and it might feel not as manageable. But then what happens is we see other people in our company have a chance to be engaged in that work, and maybe we could call it charitable work, but it's just good business, and it's relationships.

It's touching someone else. It's having the opportunity to express kindness and compassion at work. And so what I mean by the inseparability of those things is if someone were to take our cocoa beans and mimic our recipe and make the chocolate bar, it wouldn't be the same chocolate bar that we make. because I firmly believe that how we treat farmers, we profit share with farmers all over the world.

I open my books to them. In July when I go to Tanzania, my financial statement will be in Swahili. We've done this and we've profit shared since we started the company, Chocolate University with students. I'm taking a group of local high school students to Tanzania in July, and we've been doing this since 2009, 2010.

Well, how we treat farmers and how we treat students and how we treat the people in the neighborhood of our factory is inseparable from the chocolate. We can't unwind it. It's like macrame. You're too young to know what that is.

But it's all wrapped up together, and we can't untangle it, and I don't want to untangle it because it's the thing that gives the resulting product or service meaning and purpose beyond just profit. That's why it's inseparable. You know, one of the things I like about what you just said is just your full transparency with the farmers that you have chosen to partner with. It reminds me of the open book management philosophy that I remember reading about and the great game of business by Jack Stack in Springfield, Missouri.

I've been practicing open book management for almost 20 years. I practiced it as a lawyer. We do it here. And my idea was, hey, can we take this upstream a notch to the farmers, our suppliers, and apply open book management principles to them?

And so that's what we do. And that's what we've always done. And it's, well, I go, I visit these farmers every year. I just got back from a trip to Ecuador and the Amazon, two of our origins.

And in a few weeks, I'll be in Tanzania with our students. And I love that. Even now, gosh, 12 years later, it takes me 50 hours, 50 plus hours to get where I'm going in some of these places from Springfield. But I still, I enjoy it.

I love it because I feel connected to the farmers. I feel in a sense that I'm honoring my grandparents who were farmers here in southwest Missouri. I spent a lot of time on their farm growing up. So farming is really important to me.

And the students are important to us. And so, as you mentioned, we incorporate these things like open book management when we teach our students and we incorporate it in how we treat our farmers. You know, as I mentioned at the top of the podcast, you've been featured on Bloomberg, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Oprah Magazine has identified you as 15 guys who are saving the world. And you mentioned earlier that you spoke at Google.

And this is also, everything you're doing has helped garner a lot of attention for you to help spread your message through your writing and your speaking. Before we conclude tonight's interview, where can people go to learn more about you, your speaking services, and ultimately Askinosie Chocolate? I have a little blog. It's not really pretty, but it's seanaskinosi.

com. That's where people can learn a little bit more about me and some of my writing that relates to these topics that you and I have been talking about tonight. And it also has some of my speaking stuff on it. And then our website, askinosi.

com, has a lot of information about our chocolate and our origins, our process, and all of our, we have a transparency report that people can read there to see what we pay farmers and what we've paid them all these years. And then there's a little thing at the bottom of that, of our website, if people are interested in having me speak. And, but thanks, thank you for mentioning that, though. I appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely. I want to thank you for being so generous with your time this evening. Is there anything you'd like to share before we conclude the interview that you haven't already discussed? Well, the one thing I would just encourage people to do, and this is counterintuitive.

If you're listening and you're struggling with what you're going to do in your job and you can't find the next thing and you can't find your passion, this advice that I'm giving I know is counterintuitive. It doesn't seem right because you're frustrated. Maybe you're depressed. But I would encourage you to look at the people in your orbit and say, who needs me?

who needs me and how can I serve them without expecting anything in return and Gandhi said you find yourself when you lose yourself in the service of others so I know it doesn't really make sense and I'm not suggesting the ends justify the means but I am saying find somebody who needs you and serve them well Sean thank you again so much I'm actually going to be in Springfield Missouri the end of next week Thursday through Sunday and I'm going to drop by your your chocolate shop there on commercial street And if you're there, I'd love to shake your hand and meet you in person.

I'd love that. I'd love that. Well, just let me know. Send me an email, text, or something.

I'd love to make sure that I'm here. And thank you for spending time with me tonight. You bet, sir. Thank you so much for your time.

You have a great evening. Everyone, you've been listening to Leading with Purpose, Empowering Talk Radio. Tonight, we had Sean Askinosie on the show, founder of Askinosie Chocolate and author of the fantastic book, Meaningful Work, A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul. As always, I'll be posting this at leadingwithpurposeradio.

com. You can also download it on Google Play and iTunes as well. Thank you so much. Have a great evening.

We'll talk to you soon. Good night. You've been listening to Leading with Purpose, empowering talk radio with host Nathan R. Mitchell.

To learn how Nathan can help you get better business results and lead you to your full potential faster, visit Clutch Consulting on the web at www.clutchconsulting.net. You can also download episodes of the show.