Start Here to Create a Location-Independent Business at Midlife
Let's uncover your hidden expertise using just three questions.
You need some innovative, sexy idea to start a business, right?
No, all you need is a solution to a problem that people will pay for. Most people at midlife are sitting on a goldmine and don't even know it.
Right now, locked away in your decades of experience, you have knowledge that people will gladly pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to access, depending on your model.
The problem isn't that you lack expertise. The problem is that you've been conditioned to think your knowledge isn't valuable because it's become second nature to you.
This is what I call the expertise paradox. The people with the most to offer often discount their knowledge and abilities, to the detriment of both them and others who could benefit from that expertise.
The "Obvious to You, Amazing to Others" Principle
The things that feel effortless to you after decades in your field are often incredibly difficult for others. You've developed pattern recognition, institutional knowledge, and systematic approaches that can't be learned from books or boot camps.
For example, Cinde Dolphin spent 24 years as a marketing manager for Coors.
When Miller and Coors merged their U.S. beer operations, she saw the writing on the wall — hundreds of jobs were going to be eliminated. At age 55, she took a buyout and started applying for marketing jobs, but as we know, that’s a tough position to be in.
Her situation illustrates a common challenge for Gen Xers. Traditional job searches often fail at 50+ due to ageism and high salary requirements, even though employers should value the unique combinations of expertise you’ve accumulated that can be valuable in new ways.
For Cinde that meant:
24 years of beverage industry marketing experience
Understanding of corporate merger dynamics
Knowledge of industry challenges and opportunities
Rather than competing with younger marketers for traditional roles, experienced professionals like Cinde find success by repositioning their expertise for consulting, entrepreneurship, or specialized roles that value deep industry knowledge.
Her "obvious" knowledge became suddenly valuable when repackaged for the right audience.
The Expertise Audit: A Three-Question Framework for Midlife Pivots
Let's uncover your hidden expertise using three questions specifically designed for people looking to leverage their expertise to start a location-independent business at midlife.
Question 1: What problems do people regularly ask you to solve?
Think about the last twelve months.
What questions do colleagues, industry contacts, or even family members consistently bring to you? After decades in your field, you've become the person people turn to for certain types of problems; what are they?
Maybe they’re strategic: "How would you approach this market entry?"
Maybe they’re operational: "How do you manage stakeholders when everyone has different priorities?"
Maybe they’re technical: "What's the best way to implement this system?"
Write down at least five problems people regularly bring to you. Include everything from industry-specific challenges to general business questions.
Here's the key insight: If people in your network are asking these questions, thousands of other people are struggling with the same issues and will pay for solutions.