You’re in bed by 7pm. Not because you’re tired in the normal way. Because you’ve poured everything into the job and there’s nothing left.

No energy to talk to your partner. No interest in the evening.

Just the dull relief of switching off a brain that’s been running since 6am.

You’re not underperforming. That’s the thing.

You’re hitting your numbers. You’re doing everything right.

But it’s still costing you everything.

That’s where Nolan was when he started.

The Before

Nolan was a Regional Sales Manager at Splunk, three to four months into a new role covering net-new growth accounts.

$300K annual target.

Competitive background - former ranked footballer, MBA, felt like he had something to prove.

He’d already burned out once before, a panic attack in grad school, and he could feel the same pattern building.

His workdays bled into his evenings. He had no shutdown routine.

He was over-researching accounts instead of picking up the phone.

He was chasing activity for activity’s sake.

And he was carrying a belief that sales was supposed to be easy.

Every time it wasn’t, he felt guilty.

In his own words:

‍“I felt stuck in a loop. On paper, I was doing okay. But behind the scenes, I wasinconsistent, frequently second-guessing myself, and trying to get ahead.”

The Work

Over twelve sessions, the programme worked across Energy, Mindset, and Focus.

The Mindset shift was the foundation.

Nolan had been carrying the idea that sales should be a walkin the park - and punishing himself every time it wasn’t.

The programme gave him permission to accept that it’s supposed to be hard, and that the difficulty was exactly why he liked it.

As he put it:

‍“I dispensed with the idea that it’s supposed to be easy. Especially if you want to be good.”

‍The irony: accepting it wasn’t easy made everything lighter.

On Focus, he built an operating rhythm from scratch:

Sunday prep for the week ahead, eat-the-frog pipeline generation blocks in the morning, dedicated cold-calling windows in the afternoon, and an end-of-day shutdown routine that actually let him close the laptop.

On Energy, he stopped comparing himself to people who wanted work-life balance when that wasn’t authentically him.

He was in a season where career and hard things were his priority - and that was fine.

He cleaned up his diet, cut social media, and started protecting his energy through structured breaks rather than frantic output.

The After

Within two months of coaching, Nolan had generated 3x more pipeline than before.

He won a pipeline generation award for breaking into new logos.

He was hitting his KPIs with a consistency he’d never had.

By the end of twelve weeks, he was number one on his team.

Closed-won revenue: number one.

Self-sourced pipeline: number one.

His girlfriend could see the boundaries working. He reconnected with his creative writing.

He was working on sizeable CISO-level deals with genuine confidence.

He wasn’t just performing. He was performing sustainably.

The rep who’d been in bed by 7pm because he had nothing left was now the top performer on his team.

And for the first time, it didn’t feel frantic.

“Now I’ve got the system for clarity, focus, and self-belief that I was missing before. I know I can take this system anywhere. It hasn’t just made me a better salesperson - it’s improved me outside of work too.”

- Nolan, Regional Sales Manager, Splunk

Name changed to protect the individual's privacy.