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.
Question 2: What combination of skills do you have that most people don't?
After decades in your career, you've accumulated a unique skill stack that younger professionals simply can't replicate. This combination of technical knowledge, industry experience, and hard-won wisdom is your competitive moat.
Consider Michael Grottola, who started his own consulting business at age 65. Initially devastated and depressed after being laid off at a global auditing company, Mike slowly regained his energy and decided to become an independent consultant, helping new business founders gain access to capital.
Instead of accepting unemployment as a mandatory retirement notice, he realized his combination of decades of corporate experience, understanding of recession-era business challenges, and network of relationships built over 40+ years made him the perfect partner for small business owners hoping to gain access to capital during difficult economic times.
As a consultant, Michael helped over 280 companies and private practices across 20 industries grow their business while lowering risk. Then he sold his consulting company, effectively creating his own retirement fund.
Your unique expertise lives at the intersection of different areas of knowledge you've accumulated over decades. And it’s at that intersection of seemingly unrelated disciplines that creativity and innovation thrive.
Question 3: What results have you achieved that others struggle to get?
This is about your track record. Over your career, you've likely achieved results that others desperately want to replicate. Not just once, but consistently.
Professional achievements. Successful projects. Teams you've built. Problems you've solved. Systems you've created. Crises you've navigated.
Each represents expertise you can monetize.
Take Kathy Dannel Vitcak, who didn't think her combination of professional and personal experience with pets was particularly special. Her background included years of working with animals, but it seemed like simple "dog person" knowledge to her.
Then she realized that she'd developed expertise that pet owners desperately needed. Her flagship product was a remedy for dry dog noses, and it grew into The Blissful Dog, an e-commerce business that can be run from anywhere. The site now carries an extensive line of grooming products, including body butter and aromatherapy sprays.
Her love of dogs became her liberation from traditional employment and traditional retirement. How cool is that?
Crossing the Confidence Bridge
Despite all the knowledge and experience you’ve accumulated, you still may suffer from imposter syndrome. Especially when comparing yourself to influencers in your field:
But I'm not an expert compared to [insert famous “guru” here].
Let me stop you right there. Expertise isn't about being the best in the world or having the most impressive credentials. It's about being meaningfully connected to the people you serve.
Here are two vital truths to understand:
Most people are not in a position to evaluate someone’s level of expertise. But if you demonstrate that you understand their problem, then they know how you make them feel. And that’s what matters when it comes to attracting customers and clients.
And if you're trying to develop new expertise, being even 10% ahead of someone in an area that matters to them means you can help them. If you can help them get results, you can charge for that value.
Your expertise is valuable when:
You can solve problems others can't or don’t want to solve themselves;
You can help people get results faster than they would alone;
You can prevent them from making costly mistakes you've learned to avoid; or
You have a systematic approach to something they're struggling with.
Keep in mind that the business of expertise goes well beyond consulting or freelancing. As you’ll see in upcoming lessons, expertise converted into intellectual property can result in scalable assets that transform your business and change your life.
And it gets better.
In our next lesson, I’ll show you how the simple act of starting and running your business can help you quickly develop new expertise, or deepen your existing expertise to a level that puts you among the top in your field.
Keep going-
P.S. This is a free preview lesson from the Business of Expertise Blueprint in the next phase of Further Premium. Join us for the entire series!
further: flashback
🎶 Robert Palmer – Simply Irresistible, Heavy Nova, 1988 🎶
In 1986, Robert Palmer made a notable music video that essentially brought a Patrick Nagel painting to life with Addicted to Love. Not one to mess with a winner, Palmer amped up the formula for Simply Irresistible, the #1 hit single off his next album in 1988. (YouTube)
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