757. 4 Ways to Come Up with THE BEST Business Ideas

That's when I started to figure out how to solve what I was going through. And then once I started to solve it and noticed that I was making big changes in my life, finally completing things, showing up, setting deadlines, making goals. And believe me, this took a long time. This was like six to eight years of me doing this. I ended up wanting to solve these problems for other people.

Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, best selling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy, multi passionate entrepreneur. My journey has taken me everywhere. From being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself, to later becoming a multimillionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything. We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at rock bottom. We had no ideas and I had no education to fall back on. This is when I found per personal development and learned everything I could about business. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this podcast are going to let you know that you're not.

Alone and that we all feel like.

We don't know what we're doing. We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business, and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can't hide from and put so much on the line that your higher self is forced to come out. You're going to stop waiting for someone to approve of you and you're going to anoint yourself. Because I'm obsessed about building businesses that give women a platform, I want to feature you. So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment along with a shout out. And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, we're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Earn your happy podcast.

And it's time for another quickie because.

There'S always time to fit in inspiration. And I am somebody who just absolutely loves getting that quick shot of an idea of inspiration, of learning from somebody else's journey in the morning. So I hope that this has proven to be something that just gets your wheels turning and looking at life in a different way, looking at life in a different lens. And with a different question, which really brings me to my topic today. And that is the best ideas come from solving a problem in your own life or wanting to solve a problem in your own life. So many people are always like, where do you come up with these ideas? Or how do you know what you should be doing first? How do you know what journey you know you should be on? What are some of the first ways to become an entrepreneur? And I think one of the biggest things that you can do is look at your life and see the problems that you've had to solve for yourself and how you could now teach that process to other people. So for me, I found personal development and had horrible anxiety. I had horrible body image, I had horrible self confidence. Like the worst you guys, you would not even recognize who I was. I don't know if you, you know, if you haven't been listening to this podcast, some of you may not even know that. I dealt with so many such social anxiety because I hated who I was so much because I had never completed anything, you know, homeschooled through high school, didn't graduate high school, felt like a total loser, working a bunch of different retail jobs, just bouncing job to job because I was never willing to go and apply for anything that could stretch me for fear of rejection or that people would find out that I wasn't, you know, educated or didn't have a college education. So I just avoided everything like the plague, which then turned me into an anx ridden freak show. Like, I literally couldn't do anything without getting some crazy anxiety and having panic attacks. And, you know, I went through the whole gamut. I went and got, you know, anxiety and depression pills for it. I did the entire thing and they really did not help me very much. Hardly at all, actually. In fact, it was to the point where I just felt so numb in my life because I was on so many different medications that I had a real come to Jesus moment. I was watching a commercial that was like so sad. And I don't even remember what it was about, but the commercial made me say something. Like in my brain I asked the question, like, wow, do I, like, am I not feeling things that I normally feel? Like, is this numbing everything that I'm experiencing in life? You know, am I, am I trying to cope with something that maybe I should be looking at? Or I'm not willing to look at or I'm not willing to do the challenging things and I'm trying to cover it up with things. This is not everyone. This was My experience, there are definitely people who I believe need to use the assistance of medication. I do think that it's helpful in some experiences. For me, I was simply running from something and trying to cover it up instead of facing what I needed to face. So with that said, during this commercial, I asked myself. I was like, wow, if I. If all of a sudden I lost everyone I loved in my life, how would I feel? And I was like, oh, my God, I don't think I could cry. And that was the moment when I said, okay, I'm gonna get off these things and I'm gonna start facing whatever it is that I'm afraid of and seeing if I can do this with the help of, like, I didn't even know who. With the help of dot, dot, dot. That's how it was. And I was like, I don't know where to start. I don't know where to turn to. And I started asking people. Like, I told Chris, because he worked in a big office. He actually worked in, like, a mortgage and finance company at the time. And I didn't really talk to a ton of people. Cause I was kind of doing random retail jobs and didn't have a ton of friends. And I said, hey, ask anyone at work if they know, you know, of any, like, events or personal development or books or anything for. For somebody with anxiety who. Or lack of self confidence. So he actually went and he asked around his office, and someone had just gone to something called Landmark Forum, which is almost like a big personal development type of experience where you're going to kind of face whatever it is that you've been avoiding. And for me, it was, you know, social anxiety. Where did this come from? Lack of self confidence? What's my story? What do I believe? Where did my story come from? Why do I feel this way? So I was at the place where I was like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes. And, you know, that's when I started to figure out how to solve what I was going through. And then once I started to solve it and noticed that I was making big changes in my life, finally completing things, showing up, setting deadlines, making goals. And believe me, this took a long time. This was like six, six to eight years of me doing this. I ended up wanting to solve these problems for other people. So that is where these different ideas came from is down the road, I was like, wait, I've solved this for myself. I've been able to, you know, make these friend circles who support me through this. I've been able to set these goals. I've been able to set these little milestones. I've been able to show up. I've been able to, you know, do all of these different things. How do I package this and teach to other people? So what are the problems that you have solved for yourself that now you can go and package for other people? All right. Another thing to look at is what is something that I do in my life that I'm like, wow, this is clunky. How could I streamline this? Or wow, I'm not really like, I just see that this could be done in a better way. How can I make this quicker, faster, easier for other people? Right. Maybe you're a mom and you're like, what is this clunky process with cleaning these baby bottles or whatever this looks like? And you're like, wow, I could think of something could maybe you created something at home that could be better. How can you patent something? How could you invent something? Right? So that's solving a need for yourself. Let's look at the third one. So number one was something that you've solved for yourself. Number two is streamlining.

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Number three is what is something that you could improve. So this is what I did with light pink. I looked around at the social culture of drinking. I looked around at what choice had if we didn't want. You know, for me, I love wine. I'm obsessed with wine. But sometimes wine feels really heavy or two glasses of it. I'm like, oh, you know what? I felt that the next day and I don't feel great. But I still want to go and.

Have my two to three drinks if.

I'm out all night with friends. And so that's when I said, isn't there? You know, but the lighter cocktails was like, you know, people are getting like vodka soda and a lime. And I remember looking around one day in a restaurant and I was having a vodka soda and I was like, do we like this? Like, are we actually enjoying what this tastes like? Cause I think it tastes like crap. Like I want something with a ton of flavor, But I still want something that's lighter, low sugar, and I want to feel good tomorrow. So I was like, God, I just feel like we could make this better. And I feel like it could be in a can so that it's like, I could bring it with me to the beach or if I brought it with me to a social event, I don't want it to look like, you know, a hard seltzer. I want it to look like a really elevated experience. Like, I want a canned cocktail, but I want the experience of, like, a luxury wine bottle.

And so I to say, how can I improve this?

Is this a stupid idea?

And then I was like, wait, I would love this. I would absolutely love this. And then I was like, okay, so when we're drinking, we're asking these, you know, we're having these conversations that usually I leave, and I'm like, God, I wish we could have just like, skipped the small talk and gotten to the good stuff. What if on the back of the can, we wrote questions so that we all got better conversations, we had the cocktail we wanted, and we felt better the next day. And so I decided to create an idea out of something that I wanted to improve.

I want.

I wanted it for myself, right? I wanted to solve this for myself. And that's why it's so easy for me to talk about it, is because I'm so passionate about it. This is exactly what I wanted. I am the customer, so I can speak not only from the journey, but I can speak from being in the shoes of the customer and speak to that customer and know what she wants, because she is me. So the fourth one is repackage, you guys, so many times we try to reinvent the wheel, and what I kind of did was repackage with light pink. You know, what is already out there, but we needs improvement. But repackage, like, what is something that's already out there, but you can just put your own spin on it. So maybe you're a, you know, maybe you love coffee cups, but you're like, God, I just wish that, you know, they came out with one with all these poppy colors, with quotes that are a little bit more empowering or very specific to the boss babe or whatever that looks like what's already out there, but you want to put your own spin on. You want to put your own flare on. So, you guys, these are the four. What can you solve? What can you streamline? What could you improve, and what could you repackage? The four. Four places where I think the best ideas come out of, because it's solving needs for yourself. So I'm sending you guys. So much love. Let me know any of your takeaways. As always, sharing is how this podcast gets out there, and it means the world to me. I literally see every single one of you who tag and share, and I fall a little bit in love with you every single time. I'm so grateful for you. It's always nice to know exactly who I'm talking to, where I'm at. Am I on a walk with you? I'm in the car. What? Are we cuddling your dogs?

I. I sure hope so.

I don't know. Have a glass of wine with me. That would be great as well. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone.