Overwhelmed With All the Success Advice? Learn How to Cut Through the Noise S6E6

 Feeling overwhelmed by all the noise around business, leadership, and what you “should” be doing next to create success in work & life?
 In this episode, you’ll learn how to make aligned decisions without second-guessing yourself—by using your strengths as your filter. 

Episode Summary

If you’re feeling stuck, second-guessing your decisions, or overwhelmed by conflicting advice on how to grow your business, lead your team, or figure out your next step—this episode will help you cut through the noise.

Because the truth is… there isn’t just one “right” way to succeed in business or leadership.

In this episode, Sheri breaks down why so much advice feels contradictory—and how to stop chasing every new strategy and start making aligned decisions based on your natural strengths.

You’ll learn how to use your strengths as a filter so you can lead with confidence, create a sustainable path forward, and finally feel clear on what works for you.

If you’ve been feeling:

• Exhausted trying to follow strategies that don’t feel like you
• Pulled in different directions by conflicting advice on business or leadership
• Unsure if you’re actually on the right path—or just spinning your wheels 

This conversation will help you cut through the noise and start making decisions based on how you’re actually wired—so you can move forward with more clarity, confidence, and ease.

What You’ll Learn

• Why following someone else’s blueprint can leave you feeling drained and second-guessing yourself 
•  How to use the Energy Test to quickly tell what’s aligned (and what’s not) 
• The Sustainability Test to build a path you can actually maintain—without burning out 
• Real-life examples of how different CliftonStrengths profiles lead to completely different—and equally successful—approaches to business and leadership

Key Insight

 “The problem isn’t that you need a better strategy—it’s that you’ve been trying to follow one that was never designed for you.” 

Quick Self-Check

The next time you hear a new strategy or piece of advice, pause and ask:

•  Does this feel energizing—or draining? 
•  Does this feel like me—or something I’d have to force? 
•  Could I realistically sustain this for the next 6 months?

Next Steps:

Book your Start with Strengths session today:

 Start with Strengths Session-
90 Mins  to unpack & navigate through your CliftonStrengths Report. Learn what it means for success in your career & life! 

Let’s continue the conversation beyond the podcast.

Join the Calling and Clarity Collective, a different type of Facebook Group for real conversations around Strengths, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership. 

🔗 Connect with Sheri

Website: www.sherimiterco.com
Facebook & LinkedIn: @SheriMiter

Additional Resources:

📘 Get your copy of the Discovering Your Calling Book

Searching for Mary Kay products? Shop Here

Matthew 5:14-16 is the inspiration for this podcast.
Gallup®, Clifton StrengthsFinder®, StrengthsFinder®, the 34 Clifton StrengthsFinder® theme names are trademarks of Gallup, Inc.

Transcript

Sheri Miter 2:01

In this episode, we're cutting through the noise of conflicting advice around business, leadership, and even figuring out what you're meant to do next. Because right now, one expert is telling you to be more visible, another is telling you to niche down. One says be vulnerable, another says take charge. And it leaves you wondering, what's actually right? In today's episode, I'm going to show you how to cut through that noise and start making decisions, leading and building your work based on how you're actually wired, so that you can stop second guessing and start moving forward with confidence. Welcome to the Discovering Your Calling podcast. I'm your host, Jerry Miter. I'm here to help you unleash your strengths and get clarity on your calling. I believe when you find your purpose in life, fulfillment, joy, and success will follow. If you're ready, pop in those earbuds, hit that follow button, and join me on this journey toward discovering your calling. So if you're trying to run a successful business, lead a dynamic team, or get clarity on what you should be doing for meaningful work, and it's starting to feel like the Grinch yelling, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, coming from Hooville on Christmas morning. This episode is for you. Can you relate? Doesn't it feel like the world is so noisy right now? And what happens is we finally get a clear plan, we feel aligned, and you're thinking, this is it, this is what I'm going to do. And then you make the mistake of opening Facebook or LinkedIn, and suddenly all of your confidence just goes straight out the window. Because for every this is the way to do it, there's someone else saying the exact opposite. Can you relate? Am I the only one feeling like it's just so noisy right now? Even just this morning, I'm sitting there eating my cereal and I scrolling Facebook and I see an ad pop up that says, if you want a sustainable business, you need to go, you need a low-cost membership. All right, that could be true. Then I open my email and the coaches I follow there are a couple of them were saying, you need to charge more. Working with fewer high-level right fit clients is the only way to build a business. And here's the thing: it's not just in business that we're having all this noise. It's happening in leadership too. Because if you lead a team, you're hearing things like be a servant leader, put your people first, be empathetic, be vulnerable, let them see the real you. And then you have somebody else saying, be decisive, set the vision, hold the standard, take charge, especially when your team feels uncertain or lost. And it just leaves us sitting there thinking, which one am I supposed to do? And here's what I want to say right here, because this is where the noise is really confusing. Neither of these options is wrong. Nobody's wrong, but they are completely different. And if you don't understand how you're wired to lead or operate or build the business or create a second career or next career, you will keep second guessing yourself every time you hear a new strategy or a new this is the way. And if you're not even clear on your direction of where you're going, this noise gets even louder. Because now you're not just filtering strategies, you're questioning everything. But what most of these coaches and guru leaders are missing is this. They're teaching you their blueprint, how they became successful, how they lead a team, how they found their calling. And it's all based on how they think, lead, and operate. But if you're wired differently, that blueprint isn't going to work for you. It will feel forced or flat out exhausting. Because your natural talents, how you think, feel, and behave, matter more than any strategy. And when you ignore that, that's when the noise starts to creep in. So a couple practical examples here. If you lead with talent themes like developer or woo, which is winning others over in your top 10, then that strategy of having a long large membership might work for you because you enjoy and you love interacting with a lot of people and helping them grow step by step. So that membership model might feel energizing and aligned for you. But if you're like me, and perhaps you lead with relater, strategic, and maximizer, like I have in my top 10, that same model can feel absolutely exhausting. So working with fewer right-fit clients, that's where you, and I know this for myself and I come alive. And it's the same thing for leadership. So if you're a leader with high empathy and harmony, you will naturally be a more empathetic leader. It just makes sense, right? But if you have high command in your top 10, then you naturally want to take charge, especially when things feel uncertain. And again, neither is better, neither is right or wrong, but trying to lead against your wiring, that's where burnout, doubt, and that I feel like a fraud feeling starts to creep in. So what's the answer to cutting through the noise? It's using your strengths as your filter. And as I share with my clients, your strengths should be your compass rose, always there to guide you along your journey. And if you can learn to pause before you say yes to any new strategy or plan or way of leading, and just ask yourself does this actually align with how I'm designed to show up? And if it doesn't, don't force it. Adjust it. So let me let's make this really practical for you. Because I want to leave you with a couple of tips you can actually walk away with here. Whether or not you've taken the Clifton strengths yet or not, these tips will help you. Now, if you've taken the Clifton strengths, they feel even more uh useful to you. I'm not gonna lie about that. But if you haven't, anybody can use these because this is a glimpse of what it actually looks like to start making decisions through your strengths. So the next time you pause to ask yourself, is this idea in alignment with who I am? You can simply run it through these two filters. Filter number one is what I call the energy test. When you hear a piece of advice, ask yourself, would this energize me or will it drain me? Does this sound like something I'd naturally enjoy or something I'd have to force? Because here's the truth. When you're working with your strengths, not against them, it feels energizing. But if something consistently drains you, even if it is working, that's a clue, it might not align with how you're naturally wired, or what I would say, your natural strengths. So if the idea of it feels like it's gonna be exhausting for you, then don't do it or adjust it so that it feels energizing. Then tip number two, another filter you can use, is what I call the sustainability test. And ask yourself if I if I had to do this consistently for the next six months, would it feel natural or would it feel exhausting? And can I keep showing up this way without burning out? And here's where you need to be truthful with yourself. Because I've made this mistake. I've said yes to things because I wanted it to work. When in the back of my mind, I knew that if I follow through with this, it's going to be exhausting and I'm not going to be able to sustain it very long. Because here's the thing, too, that most of us can do about anything, any type of strategy for a week, maybe even a month, but your calling is built on what you can sustain in the long run. What can you do for six months? What can you do for six years? So if the thought of doing the same thing over and over and over again or for the long term, really let that be a filter that maybe that idea, even though it's good, isn't the right one for you. Now, this is not always easy. I wish it was. And there are still times I catch myself getting pulled into the noise. But the more you practice this, the faster you come back to clarity. And instead of feeling overwhelmed, even if you do stray off course a little bit, you'll catch it quickly and you'll get back to using your strengths to create success in a way that aligns with them. And once this becomes your new way of auditing advice, you will start to feel grounded. You'll feel more confident, more aligned, and like the Grinch felt when his heart grew three sizes bigger than it was. You'll start singing for joy yourself instead of just hearing the noise, noise, noise, noise. And if you're sitting here thinking, okay, Sherry, this sounds great, but I don't actually know what my top strengths are or how to really use them to filter things like this. That's exactly why I created my start with strengths session. Because I do believe everything starts with strengths. And in this session, this is where you and I will get together and we will take everything we talked about today and make it personal to you. You'll take the Clifton Strengths assessment and uncover your unique strengths profile. You'll understand what it actually means, and you'll learn how to use it to make decisions, lead, and move forward with clarity and confidence. If that's something you're ready for, I'd love to support you with this. And you can find the link to book your Start with Strengths session in the show notes, or head over to sherry miterco.com backslash services. And I want to leave you with this today. Because discovering your calling isn't about following more advice and listening to all the noise. It's about slowing down, it's about pausing, and it's about understanding how you were designed to show up. Thank you for spending this time with me. My hope is something you heard today inspires you to take action toward discovering your calling. I just have two favors to ask of you before you go. One, if you found value and enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you might hear your review read on a future episode. And two, can you share this episode with three friends who will also enjoy it as much as you did? By doing these things, you will help us grow the podcast to make a bigger impact on the world. And until next week, remember, you've been created to live a life of fulfillment, freedom, purpose, success, and joy.