Voices of Inspiration
Voices of Inspiration is a travel podcast that goes beyond the guidebook. Hosted by Amelia Old, each episode centers on the people who give a destination its soul—travelers with transformative stories, locals who call these places home, tourism professionals shaping how we experience them, and others whose work or lives are deeply connected to a place.
Through candid conversations, Amelia uncovers the moments, challenges, and personal histories that reveal what a destination is truly like. These aren't surface-level travel tips—they're stories about identity, belonging, resilience, and discovery. The kind that help you understand not just what a place is, but why it matters to the people who know it best.
At its core, this podcast is about connection: how travel brings us face-to-face with perspectives we might never encounter otherwise, and how every destination becomes richer once you've heard the voices behind it.
Voices of Inspiration
From Legal Battles to Chocolate Bars: Finding Purpose with Shawn Askinosie
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In this episode, I sit down with Shawn Askinosie, founder of Askinosie Chocolate, whose journey from criminal defense lawyer to chocolate maker is as powerful as it is unexpected. After nearly two decades of handling serious felony and murder cases, Shawn found himself at a crossroads when the emotional toll of the work began affecting his health and perspective on life. What followed wasn’t an overnight transformation but a slow search for purpose that eventually led him to the world of craft chocolate—and to building a company rooted in connection, transparency, and community.
Our conversation goes far beyond chocolate. Shawn shares how traveling to the Amazon to meet cocoa farmers changed the way he saw the world, why his company practices profit sharing with the farmers who grow their beans, and how initiatives like Chocolate University are helping young people experience global connection and service. Along the way we talk about grief, purpose, human connection in an increasingly digital world, and the moments in life that remind us we’re exactly where we’re meant to be.
Episode Highlights
[02:13] – Shawn reflects on his career as a criminal defense lawyer and the emotional turning point that led him to reconsider his path.
[04:56] – How a series of hobbies—including baking and making chocolate desserts—eventually led him toward chocolate making.
[06:15] – Shawn’s first trip to the Amazon to meet cocoa farmers and what it felt like stepping into a rainforest for the first time.
[09:50] – The early challenges of building a bean-to-bar chocolate company and educating people about craft chocolate.
[13:15] – The philosophy behind Askinosie Chocolate: “It’s not about the chocolate… it’s about the chocolate.”
[17:06] – Shawn shares a powerful moment when he realized he was on the right path.
[24:39] – How profit sharing with cocoa farmers helps support families and communities around the world.
[30:54] – The mission behind Chocolate University and how travel experiences are shaping young people’s perspectives.
[43:26] – A deeply moving story from Tanzania about hospitality, connection, and the power of human relationships.
Links & Resources
Instagram: @AmeliaOldOfficial
Website: https://AmeliaOld.com
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Everyone has a story to tell. We connect and relate to one another when we share our stories. My name is Amelia Old and I am your host of Voices of Inspiration. Join me as I share stories of friends, family and strangers from my everyday life and travels. You will laugh, possibly cry or walk away, feeling connected more than ever to those around you and ready to be the change our world needs. Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours?
Speaker 2First of all, I want to say thank you for taking time to be with me today. I am so excited about this talk we have a lot to talk about, actually, and you are so inspirational and I can't wait to learn more about your path and your journey to where you are now.
Speaker 3Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2So this morning, when I was getting ready, I watched your TED Talk Find your Calling when it Hurts, from 2019. And I want to encourage everyone to take time to watch it and I'll link to it in the notes of this episode. But I immediately related to this message. My brother passed away when he was 18 years old, and that is where my own journey of service to others began. Three weeks later, hurricane Katrina happened and all I could think about was just pouring myself into something else versus continuing the grieving that I was in in that moment, and a quote at the time stuck with me, and it still does, and it's sometimes in tragedy. We find our life's purpose. The eye sheds a tear to find its focus, and I felt like that was so in line with your message. You've had quite the journey. You started out as a criminal defense lawyer message. You've had quite the journey. You started out as a criminal defense lawyer and I just want to. Can you talk about the moment that you decided to transition?
Speaker 3from this career to pursuing chocolate. Yes, thank you. And let me just also, before I begin, acknowledge your own grief and heartbreak and sorrow, and I think that it absolutely can be a sort of pathway for many of us, a doorway to a greater joy. Kind of paradoxically, but for me, I did criminal defense law for almost 20 years and I specialized in really serious felony cases and murder cases. Murder trials is really where I built my reputation. But there was a particular murder case toward the end of that 20 years. It was very high profile and really emotionally just exhausting.
Speaker 3And at the conclusion of that case, or near the conclusion of the case, right before closing arguments, there was this moment with my client outside the courtroom in an ante room where lawyers can talk to their clients.
Speaker 3It's a real small room so they can talk privately about whatever. And it was in that room and in that moment that I kind of saw that the roles were reversing between me as the advocate and a protector for my client, and my client then became sort of a protector, in a way, of me, and that's really not the way it's supposed to work. I wasn't really ready for that, but it really did sort of shift things for me. And then you know, you know it started to unfold after that, and then it wasn't too long after that that I kind of noticed I could be in court on a really simple thing, I mean just a court appearance, nothing really at stake, and I would have chest pains, and I learned later that it was probably a panic attack of sorts. And that's when it shifted for me. That's when I realized I needed to kind of find something else. I just didn't know what else to do. I didn't have any other ideas, but that's when it started.
Speaker 2What led to chocolate? How did that come about?
Speaker 3So what really? That's a great question. And I did not have some like lifelong passion for chocolate. I didn't really at the time. I just kind of started developing hobbies. I bought a big green egg to learn how to cook outdoors and then I started baking, then I started making chocolate desserts. So that was kind of the pathway, chocolate desserts. So that was kind of the pathway. And at the same time that that was happening I was volunteering at a local hospital on Fridays, just visiting with patients in palliative care that had asked for a volunteer to come visit, and so all that was kind of happening at the same time and it all happened over about a five-year visit and so so all that was kind of happening at the same time and it all happened over about a five year process. I just didn't know it was going to be five years at the time, but just really desperately searching and then one thing led to another and I just kind of landed on chocolate.
Speaker 2Really, you decided to go straight to the source to get your beans. What was that experience? Like the very first time you did that.
Speaker 3It was a really moving experience because I'd never I'd been outside the country before and I went to college in Japan, so I'd certainly traveled, but I'd never seen what's called a primary forest or rainforest like this.
Speaker 3And so within a few months of deciding that I was going to make chocolate, I went to the Amazon and that's where I learned first how farmers can influence flavor by how they what's called post-harvest the beans, so how they ferment the beans and how they dry the beans can really influence flavor.
Speaker 3But being in primary forest was kind of an overwhelming experience for me because and I'm sure you can relate to this because you've traveled extensively and I read about your going to Mount Everest base camp, so you know it's really you and I'm sure many of your listeners can relate as well there comes a point in some travels where you say to yourself this is bigger than me and if I'm not really careful I could be lost forever if I take one wrong step. You know, and that's the way I felt in the dense dense rainforest, the way I felt in the in the dense dense rainforest, um, we had a guide, um, who was um Ochoar tribe from the Amazon, and without him, I mean, we would have been lost and that's really that's a. That's a. It's an overwhelming feeling, but it's also really kind of liberating, in a way, to have that feeling and to recognize it at the time.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely. I can remember when we did go to Everest and being in Nepal and in the journey it almost didn't seem real that you know because it is so different than where we live. Didn't seem real that you know because it is so different than where we live. And, yes, you know, we can travel to some of the the well-known places like London or Paris and and these big touristy places, and that's very different than putting yourself in a situation like you're talking about or Nepal. When you're doing a trek like that.
Speaker 3It is a whole nother world yeah, and I also had kind of a, a moment of awareness of creation that I had never really experienced before in other travels. I I mean, I've been in thailand and, like I said, j um, but I it was a, it was. It was that as well, sort of like wow this is creation.
Speaker 3This is pretty raw and, um, like I said too, it felt bigger than me and especially as a hard charging motivated you know trial lawyer that wants to control everything, I realized I was out of the way and it was hard at first, but that difficulty and that challenge didn't last long because I tried to just kind of and in some ways you don't have a choice but I just tried to let go.
Speaker 2So what have been some of your biggest challenges that you faced since starting Askinosie Chocolate?
Speaker 3The challenges that we have faced have really interestingly changed over the years. So in the beginning the challenge was convincing people what bean-to-bar chocolate was and why people should pay, you know, a lot of money for a chocolate bar. That's three ounces. That, you know, appears to cost three times more than a Nestle or Hershey bar or four times more.
Speaker 3And so we were one of the first people to do this in the United States. There were like three of us that were starting, and that was the first challenge was just educating and informing people about what this is and why it's a value and why it's important, and sharing the story. That was really the first challenge and over time the challenges have just kind of ebbed and flowed. The challenges have just kind of ebbed and flowed. Most recently, the challenge is that right now, the price of cocoa beans has skyrocketed and in the last 12 months the price has increased about 300% and that's our main ingredient. Now, fortunately, I go buy the beans myself and travel to meet with farmers every year, and in a few weeks I'll be in Tanzania, and so I know these farmers quite well. In almost all cases, I'm approaching nearly 20 years with some of these farmers, and so we will work through it. But you know the price of that commodity just has a whole slew of challenges and you know considering price increasing for our own product and how to manage cash flow and all of those things. But I do think that over time, that all of our organizations and, candidly, all of our relationships and just our lives and our bodies experience entropy and we see the kind of erosion of the edges over time and I mean I see it in my body, I mean I see it in my face. I can look at my face and think, wow, there's some entropy right there. We have to decide how we will allocate resources to preserve the erosion, where we can and where we choose. If you're not careful, you will experience erosion and it will not be reparable. But because we're paying attention to it and trying to watch it and be aware of it, then we can address it. And so that's what we're thinking about lately is how we adapt, and so that's what we're thinking about lately is how we adapt, how we maintain our quality, which is really important to us, and the ethos for us for all these years.
Speaker 3I can't remember if I used this in the TEDx or not, but we say it's not about the chocolate, it's about the chocolate. And so when I say it's not about the chocolate, I mean this summer in Tanzania we're going to graduate our 10,000th young person from our afterschool program in 10 years. We have something called Empowered Girls and Enlightened Boys, and it's in and around the village where we buy beans there. We support that program and started that program and teach young people life skills, and we provide feminine hygiene products for the girls so they can go to school. And that's 10,000 kids in 10 years. That's a lot for a company our size. We're 20 people full-time. Our foundation, the Chocolate University Foundation, has one employee. That's it. And then we have two people in Tanzania that work for us.
Speaker 3But that's not about chocolate. It's about connection, it's about community, it's about our supply chain and engaging with them as humans in a spirit of mutuality and kinship. On the other hand, what we do is everything about chocolate. We focus entirely on the quality of the product and making sure that the beans that we get from the farms are perfect and that the roast that we give the beans to influence flavor is perfect. Trying to win awards, like I said earlier. You know, when I started there were three of us. When you enter a competition with three people, you're going to win something, but now there's like 300, you know, maybe 350 chocolate makers in the United States, but we're still winning awards and that's something I'm really proud of that we can balance those things.
Speaker 3That it's not about the chocolate, it's about the chocolate, and what that really boils down to is the product that we make is inseparable from who we are, and that's true for you, it's true for all of us. Whether we provide a service or whatever, we can't separate who we are as people from what product we deliver or service we provide, and so if we're careful about that, then we can do some things to hold off entropy in our organizations, but also remembering that everything ends, and so that's a real challenge, I think, especially in North American culture is we have trouble with endings because we don't like them, and I understand that because they can be very painful.
Speaker 2but so even companies end you know, our bodies end and that's hard it's really hard, but it's something we about the chocolate from.
Speaker 2From an outsider like myself, it's also about all the lives that you're changing beyond your, your own inner circle, and I think that that is really incredible. Can you describe the moment that, or a moment that you knew I have made the right decision? Switching careers Like this is the moment that, or a moment that you knew I have made the right decision? Switching careers Like this is the moment that it's clicked. I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3Thank you for asking that question. And there are so many moments and what makes that possible is not that there are more moments, but that I'm more aware of them. The moments are always there. They never are not there. They were there when I was in my thirties, you know trying cases, I just wasn't as aware.
Speaker 3Um, I was thinking about this yesterday and I remember when my daughter was in um community theater and she was probably 10 years old or 11 and she was Annie and in the production of Annie and singing, and I would go to all of her rehearsals and she probably didn't like that. You know that I was there for everything. But I specifically remember moments while I was there and listening to her sing, you know, at a rehearsal or whatever, and I remember thinking to myself and this is a very sort of and this is a very sort of beginning point of awareness. I think, and I thought to myself it's not going to get any better than this If I die today. It's just fine, it's just not going to get any better. And I remember, I thought that at the time and I think it's important for us to cultivate that kind of awareness, and I didn't even know what it was back then and they seemed that I recognized them much less frequently than I do now.
Speaker 3I'm older, a lot older much less frequently than I do now. I'm older, a lot older. But, to answer your question, there are many of these that I now see that I didn't see before, and one in particular is in Tanzania. Every time we are getting ready to return back to Springfield, missouri, where our factory is and where I'm from, we have a little celebration with the farmers the night before and we have a goat and other stuff on the beach where we are, and this farmer his name is Livingston, but he took me aside and he wanted to give me actually, I keep it on my desk right here he wanted to give me this bracelet and this was given to him by his father, which was given to him by his father. This was probably his most treasured possession and he wanted me to have it as a symbol of our friendship. And I remember thinking then well, okay, I'm doing the right thing, I'm in the right place at the right time, I'm where I need to be.
Speaker 3And the following year I had my grandfather's pocket watch restored and I gave it to him, and as a reciprocal symbol of how I felt about him, and so these moments I've come to know are kind of like glimpses of the divine for me, and I know, I know now that they don't last. Um, they're just an opportunity for me to remember, so to speak. That's a very long answer to your question.
Speaker 2No, I, I appreciate that and you know, like you mentioned, you had this thought of if I die, that's okay. And I have in recent, you know the last year or two, have started feeling that same thing. You know what? I've lived a thousand lives, it feels, you know, career wise and personally, and done a lot of different things, and so it's okay. And I think that's such a um, a comforting feeling because, while, yes, there's so much more that we want to do, um, being aware of you know the like, the word you used, aware of that is pretty powerful in my opinion. That is pretty powerful in my opinion. Um, how do you establish, or how did you start to establish, relationships with these farmers that you work with?
Developing Sustainable Business Partnerships
Speaker 3The the. The way I started it was first I had to find them, and that wasn't easy. And even back then, first I had to find them, and that wasn't easy, and even back then we had Google and everything. It's just that you, you couldn't Google, you could not use search technology to find them then, and you really can't do that now. There, there, there's some ways you could do it.
Speaker 3Now that would be a little bit easier, but really I had to find them and as a lawyer, I spent my life trying to find people, often people who didn't want me to find them, you know, and so I'm used to almost in the way of a journalist, kind of trying to find people and talk to them, and so that was very common for me.
Speaker 3And that's what I did. To find farmers, I just found people who knew people and who knew other people, and I tried to just not give up when it seemed like I was hitting a wall. And once I found them, then we had to make sure that the farmers would be able to meet our specification for cocoa beans, that they're not regulated by the government, so that I could, you know, directly contract with them and pay them directly, help them, open bank accounts, profit share with them, and so that's once. We were able to establish all of that. Then I just started going to visit them every year and looking at our cocoa beans and getting to know them, and then now they're kids and now they're grandkids, and so it's just like any other relationship. It takes time and effort, and I know that these are business relationships, but I also know that they're not just business relationships and that they're friendships. And, um, this past February I took my 50th origin trip since I started the company.
Speaker 3I took my 50th origin trip since I started the company, and so when I go to Tanzania in a couple of weeks, it'll be 51. And so that's how you do it. That's how you maintain this spirit of of mutuality um and kinship and not, you know, like I'm some kind of solution provider but really a business partner.
Speaker 2What can you talk a little bit more about the profit sharing with the farmers and and how you've seen that impact their communities and their families and how you've seen that impact their communities and their families.
Speaker 3The profit sharing is part of an open book management style that we use and I used that as a lawyer and it just basically means that we share numbers.
Speaker 3We share the financial numbers and then teach what it means and then share in the outcome.
Speaker 3And so from the very beginning, all those years ago, I knew that I wanted to include farmers in this and kind of let the open book management system apply to them as well, and not just employees in the company. And so what that looks like is us preparing consolidated financials and then putting them in their language. So in a few weeks our financials will be in Swahili and um then we will show the farmers how we calculate the profit share and um bring them money and hand them money, and we've done that every year. And we we publish what we pay the farmers and how much we profit share with them on our website. It's not a fancy infographic, it's just a spreadsheet, but we put it on there and it's audited by a local university accounting auditing class, but it's pretty simple. That's how we do it, and we pay the farmers a lot more money than they would otherwise have received all these years, and we also pay them in advance in most of the cases, like really far in advance.
Speaker 3It's like an interest-free loan, you know, for them to operate their harvesting business, operate their harvesting business and that's not easy for us because we don't have a lot of debt, we don't have a big, huge line of credit, and so we're operating out of cash flow.
Speaker 3And that's a challenge for us sometimes, but it's how we've done it all these years.
Speaker 3Wow, how have you seen it impact their communities? So we facilitated what we call a vision of greatness, and I write about that in my book, and I've helped people and companies and nonprofits develop their own vision of greatness. I learned that from my mentor, ari Weinzweig, who is the co-founder of Zingerman's Deli in Michigan and has written about this extensively in many books. So when we facilitated this vision of greatness for the farmers, one of the nine points that they wanted to work on was early childhood education in their village. They wanted a preschool, and so we provided the funding for the preschool, but they built it and they run it and they managed this school, which opened in January of 2020. Another example is and this may sound overly simple, but it's very impactful for them One of their vision points was to have homes in and around the village that had a metal roof instead of straw or thatched, and they reported to me last year that all of the farmers in the cooperative so 40 families now all have metal roofs because of the business that we've done with them.
Speaker 2That's amazing.
Speaker 3Yeah, and these are just some examples. The farmer I work with in Ecuador has been able to send all of his kids to college and one of his kids to medical school.
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 3So those are some examples.
Speaker 2I mean, that's a huge impact Some people are not aware of.
Speaker 2I've spent time in Zambia and in some of the villages there and you know the lack of access that they.
Speaker 2They just don't have access to some things like like. Here's an example Some of the nurses that I met with in this one village, first of all, the patients would have to travel miles and miles because they didn't live near the village and they would travel by bike or by foot and if they were pregnant, they would go to this, this room in this building, and they would just stay there, like in the last couple of weeks, their due date, and they would just stay there until they had the baby, not knowing when they were going to have the baby, and they had no light and the only if they gave birth at night, the nurses would use the light from their cell phone to help these women give birth. And so the impact that you and your company have made on these communities is pretty incredible. I mean, with the 40 families with Metal Roots, that's a big deal, and I know that some people aren't aware or don't think about that, that something that might seem small to us is life-changing for them.
Speaker 3Yes, you're absolutely right. And what an experience that you had in Zambia. I mean, that's something you won't ever forget. No, and so I wish more people could have those kind of experiences.
Speaker 2I could talk for hours about that experience and the families that I met with and the challenges that they faced. It was definitely a life-changing experience, to say the least. You mentioned earlier Chocolate University. Can you talk a little bit more about the impact of that and exactly what it is and how that's impacted the students in the communities that are involved?
Speaker 3Well, that's quite a segue in the communities that are involved. Well, that's quite a segue. I don't know if you planned it like that, but so what we do, chocolate University started when we started the company so this is not new and that the idea was to engage the kids around the neighborhood of our factory in Springfield, missouri, and we located the factory in a very old building it was built in 1894 and in a part of our community that was undergoing revitalization and where many social services were. On our street, our largest homeless shelter was there and there were 85 kids a night in that shelter, and so we wanted to kind of look at the schools that they were going to and develop. So we started an elementary school program, a middle school program, high school program.
Speaker 3Now we have a middle school summer school program, and now it's in the beginning and for many years it was just a project in our company, there was no separate entity.
Speaker 3Now there's the Chocolate University Foundation and it's run by donations from our company and from donors around the United States and it's a 501c3 nonprofit with a board of directors.
Speaker 3My daughter and I are on it as non-voting board members and it operates all of these things that we've been talking about and the reason I mentioned that it was a nice segue is because our high school program for juniors and seniors in southwest Missouri is to teach them the ones that are selected. It's a really competitive program and we pay all of the money except a $500 registration fee for the kids that are in it, which it's between $5,000 and $6,000 per student to do this. But they spend time in the spring semester learning about our business and everything, and then in the summer they spend a week on the Drury University campus near our factory getting to know each other and learning more about Tanzania language, culture, history. They go home and pack, we meet them at the airport and take them to Tanzania to meet cocoa farmers, just like you did in Zambia and the experience that you had. I don't know how long ago was your trip to Zambia, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2It's been quite a few years, maybe seven or eight years.
Speaker 3Okay, well, this is what I mean. So when you spoke a moment ago about your trip to Zambia, I could tell that, even though it was seven or eight years ago, it still impacts you. It impacts your thinking and how you feel about things. Well, this is what we're trying to do with our Chocolate University students, and we've been doing this now for 14 years. We've taken kids every other year to Tanzania, and I'm still in touch with students from the first trip in 2010. They were part of our 2009 group.
Embracing Human Connection Through Transformation
Speaker 3One of them is now a tax lawyer in Las Vegas and he's on our board of directors, and another one is an executive at TikTok in Austin, and I see him almost every time I'm there, and I'm there a lot because I have grandchildren there and they still talk about how impactful the trip was, you know, 14 years ago, and so it's really quite amazing and I had no idea at the time that, you know, a two week experience that is transformational really can influence how you think about life and how you move forward in life, and that's what Chocolate University is all about. We want to do two things One, we want to inspire young people that business can be a force for good in the world and secondly, really importantly, that there's a world beyond their own. And this isn't like a nothing wrong with a mission trip, but this is not like a mission trip where you go build a building for a week and take pictures for Instagram so people can think you're a good person. That's not what this?
Speaker 3is. This is an opportunity. And I tell the students this I'm like, hey, you're going to see what we do there and and you're going to, you'll have a chance to roll up your sleeves and help, but you're not really helping. I mean, it's what you're going to do If you let it, if you let this trip um wash over you, and if you will receive the hospitality that's going to overwhelm you, and if you can receive that and let your heart change. That's the. That's where the work happens.
Speaker 3Not in building a building or drilling for a water well. We'll do all that, but you're going to. If you let, if you let your heart in on this trip, then you're going to be changed, maybe forever. That's what Chocolate University is about.
Speaker 2I love that and it's those interactions with these other communities and these other people around the world that it's like you said. Yes, it's great to build a house and do some of these other things those are necessary, but to change yourself or to get, to get um um deep within yourself, connecting with the people, you know, that is where it's at and that's where I always find the most joy when I travel is I want to talk to the locals, I want to hang out with the locals. What do they do, like what's their favorite thing to do? And it's cliche, off the beaten path, but that's truly what I enjoy, because it's the connections with other people that are going to change you.
Speaker 3Yes, going to change you?
Speaker 3Yes, and it so happens that right now, with, let's just say, the tsunami of AI that is present and upon us as we speak, one of the greatest challenges will be. One of the greatest challenges will be in-person connections with people, and that could be at the coffee shop tomorrow morning, or it could be halfway around the world next month, when you take a trip and we are losing that. You want to talk about entropy. This is a place of entropy and that is human relationships and human contact, and I use AI every day and have since. Basically, it came out in all ways that you can possibly imagine, but I also see the kind of risks that are going to come with it and with a lot of technology, and so these opportunities for young people to experience human connection is becoming even more and more important, is becoming even more and more important. You know, we read all of the time about the crisis of loneliness in our country, and it's true and it's real, and I think things like TikTok and other platforms don't help for the most part.
Speaker 3And I was talking with a teacher, a high school teacher, two days ago who told me he teaches English and he said that most of his students report that they're on TikTok eight or nine hours a day and that's um a problem. And so if I can play a very, very, very small role in helping a young person experience transformation through human connection, then that's what we'll do.
Speaker 2Um, I also don't think that the pandemic really helped. I've spoken to a couple of therapists locally even who talked to me about they're still seeing patients who are still struggling from the pandemic and how we were cut off from each other and that lack of interaction I know, even for myself, when I first started getting back into traveling and things, it felt weird, you know, and so I think that some people, a lot of people, are still struggling from that.
Speaker 3I agree, and we haven't talked about this, but 24 years ago I co-founded a grief center in Southwest Missouri. It's called Lost and Found Grief Center and it's for children and families who've experienced the death of a loved one. And I'm not sure how old you were when your brother died, but if you'd lived in Southwest Missouri and you wanted to come to a group, we would have had one for you and in 24 years we've served 20, for you and we, in 24 years we've served 20,000 people in Southwest Missouri, all free and all mostly by group, which there's quite a power and a power of healing in support groups like this. But I myself have been a facilitator in a teen group for over 13 years and so I also we have experienced at Lost and Found. We have had families who have had a loved one die from COVID, and the Wall Street Journal estimated that in the United States there were 9 million people grieving from the death of a loved one of COVID. You know that were immediate or next to immediate families and when you start, you know, extrapolating that, combined with what you were just talking about about the challenges of separation and isolation during the pandemic. We, we will. I believe that we will, we will and we are experiencing the wake effect of all of that for years to come, this generation.
Speaker 3I think it'll take a generation to perhaps heal from all of the consequences of the pandemic, both real that is, someone whose parent died or sibling died from it and also the secondary trauma that was experienced from all of the people who had these sort of like trigger experiences from their own grief not related to COVID, all brought to the surface because of the suffering that was happening and the isolation and separation.
Speaker 3And so we see it in our young people, I see it in the teens that I work with at Lost and Found, and so it's hard when you're in the middle of something to really correctly assess it as a problem or where it's all going to go. But I think you know you and I are talking about this and it is a really big, big problem in the world and in our country, and I think that all of us are responsible for helping each other through all of this. And Joseph Campbell said that we're called to joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world, and that's everybody. We're all called to joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world, and that's sometimes easier said than done, and sometimes it's really easy because it just feels, right, but we have to do it.
Speaker 3It's our duty to do this, I think.
Speaker 2I completely agree. Can you share a memorable story from your travels and these families and communities that you've been involved with that has significantly influenced your work?
Speaker 3just my kind of core being or my essential nature is. One time this is several years ago we were taking kids from here to Tanzania. It's a long trip, sometimes it's 60 hours door to door. A lot of these kids have never been on a plane no, I shouldn't say that A lot of them haven't been out of the country. Several of them have never been on an airplane.
Experiencing Hospitality and Finding Purpose
Speaker 3And so, you know, I tell the students I'm like look, when you get there, it's not going to smell like Springfield Missouri, it's not going to look like it, the food's not going to taste like, you know, the food you're used to. And when we get there, they're all very tired, they're exhausted. And the first day we were taking a little bus and I use that term loosely kind of a large van, and we're driving these dusty roads and we're out near a Chocolate University affiliate school. It's a high school, basically what seems to be in the middle of nowhere, basically what seems to be in the middle of nowhere, and there's a very long driveway for the school that's gravel and mud, and kids are just streaming out of the school to greet our little van and there's about 20 of us and they start singing in English. We are happy. We are happy to see you, we are happy to see you.
Speaker 3And just a simple little song. And so the 1,000 kids are greeting 20 of us and they just enveloped us and I took a video of this and it was just like everybody was consumed by this larger group and I stopped videoing because I wanted to be part of it. You know, I wanted to be in the group. They were all singing.
Speaker 3You can imagine not a single person in the group was immune from tears that in that moment, including me, and I've been there many times and I thought about that moment so many times, so so many times since then, and it's taken on deeper and deeper and deeper meaning each time I reflect on it. But in the beginning I remember thinking in the very beginning, like at that moment I thought to myself I was so overwhelmed and I told the kids later I'm like here's what happened. You were overwhelmed by this hospitality that you weren't built for. You're just not used to it, you can't take it, it's too much. And I remember thinking, like at that moment I was like I think this is what heaven might be like.
Speaker 3You know, um, I'm going to get off of the bus and it's. I won't be able to. It's just too much, I can't take it. I just can't take it. It's like a blanket of of hospitality that is overwhelming, it brings us to our knees, and that's what I would say answer to your question. That that's one thing that's happened. You know, that'll always be with me, because that is what we were talking about earlier. It was a glimpse of reality, it was true and, um, I got to see it for a minute, but it's still with me, you know.
Speaker 2It's an authentic, genuine experience and I think that your point of they're not built for it because, again I go back to things are just so different here we were raised different here in the States and when you go to other countries, and to especially some of the smaller areas that are not, as you know, big tourist destinations, you, the hospitality, is above and beyond it and most of those places, you know, I have felt that, and maybe not with a thousand children singing to me, but I have felt that hospitality in many of the places that I've visited as well, and it's so different than it is here and it's something I think everyone should be able to experience.
Speaker 3I agree, and maybe you know, like, when we travel to these places, maybe we can bring back a little piece of that you know, and and and incorporate that into our lives, and that's how hopefully that's how it happens.
Speaker 2What advice would you give to someone looking to make a career change the way you did in finding their purpose? And and do you have any advice?
Speaker 3Well, that's a that's a tough one. Um, it's I I've you know the, the practical thing. I talk to people all the time about this and I'm like one of the first things I say is thing. I talk to people all the time about this and I'm like one of the first things I say is you know what's your financial situation? I mean, can you practically do this? Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3And I know that sounds kind of boring and but it's important because the practical considerations, especially depending on you know your situation, I think that's something worthy of consideration and very practical. But I try to understand is the person drawn to something else or are they pushing away from their present experience? And so I think that's really important. I think it's important now. I mean, I feel like I have a better sense of that now than I did then and I was kind of looking to get away, look at the practical things and then find a trusted friend or group of friends that you can meet with and gain wisdom from about this thing that you're thinking about doing maybe a coach or a counselor or someone that you're working with to really kind of work through this and see if you need to adjust your mindset and stay where you are, you know should.
Speaker 3I stay or should I go?
Speaker 2And you're probably too young to know that song.
Speaker 3But anyway, and I know, it and and so I think that's an important assessment. And then, if it's really I need to go, I think it's important to do the work, and there's, and there can be, some really hard work. Otherwise you'll be asking your the yourself the same question Should I stay or go, three years from now, four years from now, and so. And this work is challenging and in many ways and but it's worth it, you know, to do this work and it all kind of melds together life and business, and our career, our vocation, our calling and the hobbies that we have, our interaction with families.
Speaker 3I mean our families. And um, I know that doesn't sound very specific when it comes to advice, but I don't have any. Like it's hard. I'm just going to say, you know, this is not easy for most people, and I think it's even more challenging now than when I did it 20 years ago, and I think one of the reasons is because technology has made it even more attractive and, at the same time, paradoxically challenging, because the choices are even more varied now.
Speaker 3And everything seems possible now, everything, anything. You want to figure out how to raise sheep? I'm sure you can go somewhere and go to the ranch and figure out how to do that. You want to learn how to make pottery? You can go, I mean, you can, it's, it's endless. And that's where the paradox of choice hurts us and paralyzes us, and so this is a tough, tough path, um, but even if you end up staying where you are doing, the work is never lost. It's never wasted.
Speaker 2I think those are some very good points. If people want to find you online, I know that you have a book out which I purchased and it arrives Wednesday and I'm very excited about that. So you have a book out and a website and social media. If people want to find you online, where can they find you?
Speaker 3they can find the company at askanosecom. That's the best way and we have a lot of social media channels under askanosecom askanosechocolate. Me personally, the best way is LinkedIn. I'm easy to find on LinkedIn and that would be probably the best way for me.
Words of Wisdom and Inspiration
Speaker 2And I will make sure I link to those websites in the notes of this episode and also to the book. Again, I'm very excited about reading it. So one more question for you and I ask everyone do you have a favorite quote or any words of wisdom that you would like to leave behind?
Speaker 3My favorite quote this probably won't shock you is from Khalil Gibran, poet, philosopher, who says Our greatest joy is our sorrow unmasked and we talked about this in some ways at the beginning, and I think that you would probably agree based on the sorrow and heartbreak over the death of your brother and where you are today as a human, and I think this is true for so many of us, that we find joy in and from the heartbreak in our lives. So, yeah, that's what I would say.
Speaker 2Thank you so much for taking time to be with me. This has been such an inspiring talk. I could talk to you for hours.
Speaker 3Well, thank you for having me. Thank you so so much.
