Acres of Diamonds: Turn Your Strengths into Business Ideas

Step 7 of 8: Leveraging what You Know.

We’re making great progress together!

Remember, steps 1 through 4 were all about looking inside yourself – your dreams, skills, and what makes you tick. Now we’re in the external research phase with steps 5 through 8. 

In Step 5, we talked about finding problems you care about solving because they are linked to your life purpose..
In Step 6, we looked at ideas that already exist elsewhere: in other places, circles, industries, and current trends.

Now, in Step 7, we ask a powerful question:

👉 What can you build based on what you already know, do well, or love doing?

I’m sure you’ve heard this old story about a farmer who sold his land to go search for diamonds.
He traveled far and wide chasing wealth… but instead, he never found what he was looking for and became impoverished.

Years later, the new owner of his old farm discovered something buried in the soil: one of the richest diamond mines ever found.

The diamonds were there all along, right under the farmer’s feet.

It’s a story I think about often when working with aspiring business owners who think they need to come up with shattering business ideas. They go back to school, obtain a new degree or license, and set out to learn a new skill in a new domain, when in reality, they already possess and know everything they need to build or buy a successful business.

Remember the work you did in Internal Research, step 2 of 8: Your Strengths? These are the diamonds in the rough.

Today, in step 7, we’re going to use that work and dig into something exciting: turning all those strengths and talents you discovered about yourself into real business ideas that could change your life.

Why Your Strengths Are Your Secret Weapon

Think about it this way. You’ve spent years developing skills, knowledge, and experience. That’s like having a treasure chest full of gold coins, but many people never think to use them for business.

Your strengths and career capital make you different from everyone else. 

They’re your unfair advantage in the business world. When you build a business around what you’re already good at, you start ahead of the pack. 

Starting a business based on your strengths will allow you to hit the ground running and generate profits sooner, rather than wasting time (and working capital) while you learn to become proficient in something new. 

Remember: As soon as you open your doors, your business will have recurring expenses, whether it generates revenues or not. And if you are learning something new that is critical to the business generating revenues, while operating your business, the cost of your “education” is that you are expanding the time it takes your business to get to profits. Your lack of proficiency is costing money.

Questions That Unlock Million-Dollar Ideas

Let’s start with some simple questions that can spark amazing business ideas:

What do you know that others don’t? Maybe you worked in a specific industry for years and understand its problems inside and out. Or perhaps you have a hobby that you know like the back of your hand.

What challenges have you overcome? Think about problems you’ve solved in your own life. Other people are probably facing the same issues and would pay for your solution.

What do people always ask you about? Friends and family probably come to you for advice on certain topics. That’s a clue about your expertise.

Do you have family secrets? Maybe your grandmother had an amazing recipe or your dad knew a special way to fix things. These could be the start of something big.

Have you created your own solutions? Did you ever make something or figure out a better way to do something? That could be your next product.

Real People, Real Success Stories

Let me tell you about Susan. She was a math and science teacher who retired and felt a bit lost. But Susan had been knitting her whole life – it was her favorite hobby.

Instead of just knitting for herself, Susan combined her teaching skills with her love of knitting. She started offering online courses and live classes. Now she has students all over the world who call themselves “yarnies.” The best part? She now has a thriving business, and she makes more money than she ever did teaching. She can travel while running her business.

Susan didn’t invent knitting. She just found a way to share what she already knew and loved.

The Magic of Industry Knowledge

This is for you if you want to quit your job but not your career to start a business. If you’ve worked in any industry for a while, you have insider knowledge that’s worth gold. You know the problems, the frustrations, and the gaps that others don’t see.

Maybe you worked in restaurants and know how hard it is to manage inventory. Or you were in healthcare and understand the paperwork headaches. These pain points are business opportunities waiting to happen.

The key is to think like a detective. What problems did you see every day at work? What made your job harder than it needed to be? What did customers complain about? These are all clues to potential business ideas.

Finding Your Sweet Spot

The magic happens when four things come together:

1. What you’re good at (your skills and career capital)
2. What you know (your knowledge)
3. What you love (your interests)
4. The problems you are aware of.

When these three circles overlap, that’s your sweet spot. That’s where you’ll find business ideas that not only work but also make you excited to get out of bed every morning.

The Snowflake Method: Your Idea Generator

Here’s a fun way to brainstorm business ideas. It’s called the snowflake method, and it works like drawing a mind map.