You have to know when to trust your gut if you want to be successful, according to billionaire investor Mark Cuban.

The lesson is especially important for anyone launching a small business: To succeed, entrepreneurs need the conviction to focus on their own goals while filtering out bad or irrelevant advice, Cuban told CNBC Make It earlier this week before a SXSW panel announcing ABC's "Shark Tank's" partnership with payment processing platform Clover.

"When you're just getting started in a small business, it's easy to drown an opportunity if you let yourself get pulled by different ideas," Cuban, 66, said. "People tell you, 'Oh I love your product, but I would buy more if you only did this [or] if you change just one little thing.' You have to sell to them versus them selling to you."

It doesn't mean ignoring all feedback, Cuban added. If customers are telling you the product or service is falling short of expectations, you'll have to readjust to survive. But more often than not, your sales will reflect whether you're on the right track, he said.

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"When you see there's no money coming in," that's a sign to change strategies, to lean toward or away from that customer feedback, Cuban said.

Strengthening your conviction

Confidence isn't necessarily something you're born with, and there are several ways to build it, experts say. When Cuban was younger, he built his own by learning how to dance, he said on NBC's "TODAY" in 2022.

After chipping his two front teeth at age 12, his mother taught him the box step by letting him stand on her feet, he recalled. Picking up the steps made him feel competent and like he could easily learn new skills, Cuban added.

"It really did [help with confidence]," Cuban told CNBC Make It in 2022. "I didn't have much of a dating life in high school, but as I grew up, when I got to college I was able to ask a girl to dance when most of my friends couldn't and wouldn't."

The billionaire isn't the only CEO who touts the importance of trusting your instincts. When Tiffany Masterson founded skincare brand Drunk Elephant, her friends and family thought the company's name would kill the business, she recalled on a 2024 episode of NPR's "How I Built This." But, she trusted her gut and later sold the company to Japanese beauty company Shiseido for a reported $845 million in 2019.

"I couldn't listen to other people, because then where do you go with that?" said Masterson. "Then, I wouldn't trust any choices I made ... So I just went with it."

Some experts say confidence is one of the greatest assets at work, whether you're an entrepreneur or have a 9-to-5 job. It's key to making "very impactful decisions," Bonnie Low-Kramen, author of "Staff Matters: People-Focus Solutions for the Ultimate New Workplace."

"Confidence is serious business, and the single most important differentiator in the workplace," Low-Kramen wrote. "It will be the person with high confidence and lower abilities who will get the job over the person with low confidence and higher abilities."

Being able to juggle your opinions with others is a crucial skill for success in entrepreneurship or in any job, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said on the platform's "The Path" podcast in 2023.

"Take all the input, take what everyone's saying and be aware of the situation around you," said Roslansky. "But you've got to come from your own heart when you make a decision."

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