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I can’t believe we got through the entire Valentine season without a seeing a single ad for Le Vian’s “unique chocolate diamonds.”

Maybe potential buyers did some googling and were shocked to learn brown diamonds are a) the most common and cheapest diamonds, plus b) they look like shiny poo! But those clever Le Vians decided instead of calling them ubiquitous and virtually useless brown chunks of compressed dinosaur doo-doo, they hyped them as magical chocolate diamonds—and everyone loves chocolate! And so, the Le Vian family has been making a whole butt load of money from shiny poo ever since!

Or maybe you have seen the ads for Snyders of Hanover’s “Flavored Pretzel Pieces.” The TV ad claims that they contain so much “intense flavor” that no one can eat a whole pretzel. Another genius marketing plan! They’re selling off the broken pieces from the pretzel line.

Kellogg’s did the same thing with “Corn Flake Crumbs.” I worked at the cereal company four summers while I was in college. One night, I worked the corn flakes line. (There is nothing better than hot, crisp corn flakes right from the oven.) But what do you do with all the broken flakes? You install a giant vacuum over the line with the suction carefully calculated to suck up crumbs and dust, but not the whole flakes. Voila! Corn Flake Crumbs!

What once were considered rejects, scraps, damaged goods fit only for the dumpster, are now proudly marketed as something truly wonderful. (You know where this is going, don’t you?)

What in your life is a brown diamond? A broken pretzel? A Corn flake crumb?

We all have areas in our lives that are not perfect, investment-quality Grade-A Fancy. But often our weaknesses turn into our strengths, our failures into our successes, and our worthlessness into our greatest value. The apostle Paul writes:

That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

How can you turn what appears to be a dark, cold “shaft” into a diamond mine?

I’m on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder spectrum, but am considered “high functioning”. I have managed to turn “quirky” into creative. I’ve used my clinical depression as motivation to write with hope and humor. And my OCD seems to balance out my ADD, so I am extremely organized and, thus, extremely productive: over 20 traditionally-published books, 3,000+ articles and hundreds of blog posts, along with hundreds of speaking engagements. (I don’t suffer from mental illness, I thoroughly enjoy it! And I think my readers do as well.)

So, how about you? How can you turn dinosaur doo-doo into “chocolate” diamonds?

Copyright © 2015 James N. Watkins

I think you’ll enjoy my book Squeezing Good out of Bad