Why the "right" strategy might be wrong
And how to tell which strategies are right for you.
One thing that drives me absolutely bananas is when people give advice on the internet as if there’s only one way to succeed.
Bold statements. Absolute claims. Sharp-edged advice that seems to leave no room for nuance.
Success looks different for everyone, and there are a million ways to get there.
Also, I hate being told what to do. The minute someone starts telling me what I HAVE to do or what I MUST do, I’m out.
But there’s another category of advice-givers that are much more well-intentioned.
The ones who found success a particular way and genuinely want to help others do the same.
Precisely because there are so many ways to succeed, there are just as many people marketing and talking about the way they found.
So, who’s right?
They all are.
Strategy doesn’t live in a vacuum.
It lives inside the context of perspective and capacity, something most advice overlooks.
I once paid $5,000 to spend a day with someone who hard sold me a VIP day. For her, when she invests way out of her comfort zone, it lights a fire under her ass and she rises to the occasion.
For me, it shut me down and it took months to recover. My capacity was not the same as hers.
Invisible Context
Business advice isn’t neutral. It comes with invisible context.
Baked into every piece of advice could be any number of tiny assumptions.
Things like:
Risk tolerance (Are they comfortable taking big swings or do they play it safe?)
Financial privilege (Do they have savings or a spouse covering the bills or is failure not an option?)
Personal work style (Are they the hustle-24/7 type or the “two calls a week is plenty” type?)
Belief systems (Do they think investing big is the only way forward or do they advocate slow and steady?)
Access to networks (Did they start with industry connections or did they build everything from scratch?)
Take any common advice—post daily, raise your rates, invest big. Those strategies might work brilliantly for someone with a strong network, savings in the bank, and a love of being visible.
But for someone with limited time, social anxiety, or no financial safety net, the same advice can feel overwhelming or just wrong for them.
None of this makes their advice bad. But it does make it context-dependent.
When context isn’t taken into account, it can really mess things up.
If you take any piece of advice at face value and it doesn’t work for you, it’s easy to assume that you’re the problem. That you just don’t want it enough. That you’re not bold or confident or ambitious enough.
But maybe the advice didn’t take YOU into account enough.
Invisible context sneaks in and erodes self-trust. You start ignoring your instincts. You try to force strategies that were never meant for you or the season you’re in.
You overextend, over-invest, over-effort, and then wonder why nothing works.
Strategy vs Capacity
There’s a difference between strategy and capacity, and rarely does advice on the internet consider both.
Strategy is the plan. When it comes to advice, it’s the specific action someone is recommending.
Capacity, on the other hand, is everything that makes that strategy workable in real life.
It includes your time, energy, emotional bandwidth, financial reality, belief systems, what your body can handle, and support structures.
Advice that focuses only on strategy assumes everyone has the same capacity. But two people can take the same action and have completely different experiences.
One person might launch a program and feel energized. Another might try the exact same thing and feel completely fried because they didn’t have the internal or external capacity to support it.
This matters because when advice doesn’t work, most people don’t question the strategy. They question themselves. Again, they assume they weren’t committed enough or brave enough or confident enough.
But often, the issue isn’t effort, it’s a mismatch between the strategy and their current capacity. When you start factoring in both, your decisions become clearer, more sustainable, and a whole lot more effective.
Note: Capacity and capability are not the same.
Capacity is a state, a season, a reflection of your current available resources. It has nothing to do with your ability. You can be highly capable and still not have the capacity for a particular strategy right now and that is not a problem. That’s context.
Someone with capacity for high risk right now might tell you, “Quit your job and go all in.” Someone in a less resourced season might say, “Test your offer first and make sure it works before making the leap.”
So before you take any advice, consider:
Does this person’s risk tolerance match mine?
Do they have financial advantages or constraints that I don’t?
Are they playing a short game or a long one?
Does their work style match how I want to run my business?
How might privilege be impacting their experience?
What is my capacity right now for this strategy / tactic / advice?
Most business advice doesn’t come with a disclaimer.
But once you start filtering for fit, you stop feeling like you’re doing something wrong when someone’s strategy doesn’t work for you.
It becomes less about “having what it takes” and more about finding the way that works for you right now where you’re at.
Your context is the only context that matters for you. Everyone else’s success is information. None of it is instruction.
What’s the worst (or most off-base) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
What advice has helped you?
Comment below, I’d love to know.
Amy x