Shawn Askinosie, CEO & Founder, Askinosie Chocolate

Best selling author, social enterprise founder, CEO and social impact pioneer: Shawn Askinosie shares the true benefits of understanding your supply chain. Shawn setup Askinosie Chocolate 16 years ago with his daughter Lawren and was recently named by Forbes “One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America.” He’s been named by O, The Oprah Magazine, “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World” and has an Amazon #1 bestselling book titled “Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul.” In this podcast discussion, Shawn sheds light on the efforts and rewards of knowing who his cocoa growers are; how he’s making globalisation work for him; and why now is the time for good cash flow management. He dives candidly into how his father’s death spurred an innate desire to “deep work,” triggered his abandonment of a 20 year legal career and paved the way to his true calling: chocolate. From working across his value chains, Shawn cites a key takeaway: “I aspire to continue to learn from them about this notion of ‘enough’ – how farmers demonstrate the joy of what seems so small.” To the big businesses, he says: “there is a way for your big business, to engage in the supply chain in a way that will change your life.” “If we're not at the tip top levels asking how much is enough, then nothing will be enough. I think that we have runaway greed that forgets why we're doing this, what our purpose is. And I'm fearful of this. But by the same token, I'm very optimistic for the future of capitalism, because I believe that we're in the midst of a sea change.” Listen to the full podcast here. Links: Meaningful Work, Shawn’s book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547277/meaningful-work-by-shawn-askinosie-with-lawren-askinosie/ The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_(book) What Should I Do with My Life? By Po Bronson:: https://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Do-My-Life/dp/0345485920 Estimating the economic incentives necessary for eliminatin