Would you believe that the tortillas that would eventually become Doritos got dumped in the trash nightly at Disneyland. Today, they have become a billion-dollar empire.

Today’s Siembra Lesson isn't about chips…

it's about how you see what's right in front of you.

There's a story I keep coming back to whenever I talk to creators who feel like they don't have enough… enough followers, enough resources, enough tools, enough opportunity.

It's a story about tortillas in a trash can.

I know that the first time I heard this story, it changed everything about how I try to see different perspectives during my creative process.

It's 1955. Disneyland has just opened its gates in Anaheim, California. Walt Disney, always the dealmaker, has lined up corporate sponsors to help fund his vision. One of those sponsors is the Frito Company (Frito-Lay), which opens a Mexican-themed restaurant in Frontierland called Casa de Fritos.

The food is simple Tex-Mex… enchiladas, tamales, rice, beans and every meal comes with a complimentary bag of Fritos. The restaurant's tortillas come from a local supplier called Alex Foods, a family-run operation just a few blocks from the park.

Every single day, Casa de Fritos would cook their food, serve their guests, and at the end of the day… toss the leftover, unused tortillas straight into the trash. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't lazy. It was just the way things were done. Nobody looked twice.

Until one day, someone finally did.

One afternoon, an Alex Foods salesman made his usual delivery to Casa de Fritos. He noticed the stale, discarded tortillas sitting in the garbage and had a thought:

Wait. What if instead of throwing these away, we cut them into triangles, fried them, and seasoned them?

That's it. That was the whole idea.

The cook tried it. The chips hit the menu… quietly, without any fanfare, without even telling Frito-Lay. And customers went crazy for them.

Not long after, a Frito-Lay marketing executive named Archibald Clark West stopped into Casa de Fritos while visiting Disneyland with his family. He saw people devouring these crispy little triangles and immediately recognized something nobody else had been willing to see at scale.

He went back to his bosses and pitched a triangular fried corn chip for national distribution. Frito-Lay partnered with Alex Foods to produce them. They called the chip Doritos — Spanish for "little pieces of gold."

Doritos launched nationally in 1966. They became the first nationally distributed tortilla chip in the United States. Today, the brand generates over $1.4 billion in annual sales. Over 100 million bags are consumed every single day around the world.

And Arch West? He loved Doritos until his dying day. When he passed away in 2011 at 97 years old, his family honored his final request… they sprinkled Doritos into his grave.

That's not just loyalty. That's legacy.

Here's what I want you to sit with:

The tortillas weren't new. The frying technique wasn't new. The concept of a crunchy snack wasn't new. Everything needed to create Doritos already existed…right there in that restaurant, every single day.

What was missing wasn't resources. What was missing was perspective.

One person decided to look at the waste and ask "what if?" instead of walking past it, I repurpose this chip and add my own flavor? One executive saw a small restaurant snack and imagined it on shelves across the entire country.

Two perspective shifts. One billion-dollar brand.

I talk to cultivators all the time who tell me they don't have enough to start. Not enough followers. Not enough money. Not enough time. Not enough content ideas.

But what I usually find is that they have plenty… they just haven't learned to look at what they already have differently.

That newsletter they've been sitting on? That's the tortilla in the trash.

That story they think is "too personal" to share? Tortilla in the trash.

That skill they use every day for their 9-to-5 that they've never thought to teach?

You get it… right?

The Siembra philosophy is rooted in cultivation… in working with what you've planted, tending what's already growing, and not always chasing the next new seed.

Sometimes the most powerful move isn't adding something. It's seeing something you already have in a completely new light.

Before you go looking for the next strategy, the next platform, the next revenue stream — take inventory of what you're walking past every day.

Your lived experience is not ordinary. Your community is not small. Your story is not irrelevant.

Someone else is looking at what you've discarded as "not enough" and seeing gold.

The only question is whether you'll see it first.

The next time you feel like you don't have enough to build something meaningful, remember the tortilla.

Someone else's trash. Someone's billion-dollar legacy.

The difference? One perspective shift.

That shift is available to you right now. Today. In the content you haven't posted, the email you haven't sent, the offer you haven't built yet.

This post is part of the Siembra Connect newsletter — a space for cultivators who are building with purpose, not just posting for performance. If this resonated, share it with a creator who needs to hear it.