Turning Your Hardest Season Into Your Biggest Asset: How a Cancer Diagnosis at 22 Sparked a Multi-Million Dollar Business

Loren Castle was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma at 22, and baking became her therapy. That therapy became Sweet Loren's, now in 35,000+ supermarkets, with Loren at the helm. In this episode, we get into how she survived cancer at 22 and the mindset shift that turned it into fuel instead of fear, the scrappy beginnings (a reused chocolate box, a toaster oven on the subway, and the Whole Foods meeting that started it all), and the hard lessons in packaging, branding, and customer feedback that came from standing in front of real customers every day. We also chat about marriage, the therapy work it took to stop taking each other's triggers personally, and what it meant to finally bring in a president to run the day-to-day, giving her marriage, parenting, and the business room to breathe. We love a story about building something from nothing, and what it costs along the way. Follow Loren: @lorenbcastle Follow Sweet Loren's: @sweetlorens