You’re checking Slack at 9pm and your partner’s stopped asking what you’re looking at.

You worked last Sunday. You’ll probably work this one too.

Not because anyone asked you to, but because the thought of not working feels worse than the thought of missing another afternoon with your kid.

You’re one of the most capable on your team. You know that.

Yet somehow knowing that makes the anxiety worse, because now there’s further to fall.

That’s where Luke was when he started.

The Before

Luke was a BDR at Chainguard, working strategic enterprise accounts in cybersecurity.

Before sales, he’d been a paratrooper. He’d managed drilling teams on oil rigs.

He’d taught himself music production and keyboard from scratch.

He’d spent two years at Cloudflare as the top-performing BDR in his territory - never missed target, consistently above 150% every quarter.

None of it registered.

On his onboarding scorecard, Luke rated his confidence in meetings and high-pressure moments at 2 out of 10.

He described himself as Scattered, Stressed, and Doubtful.

The statement that resonated most:

‍“I often feel I’ll get found out.”

He was switching off from work 0–1 evenings per week. He finished every day mentally drained.

He was spending weekends building sequences instead of being with his daughter.

His fiancée told him she didn’t care about the money - she just wanted him present.

In his own words:

‍“I have a serious problem with imposter syndrome and self-doubt. I often find myself in a room with people and think, I shouldn’t be in this room.”

The Work

The programme worked across all three pillars - Energy, Mindset, and Focus.

But Mindset was where things began to change rapidly.

On Mindset, Luke was challenges on what made him believe he wasn’t a good communicator.

He listed the reasons easily.

Then he was asked to list reasons that he was.

The list was overwhelming:

Successful across four industries, landed Cloudflare with zero sales experience, became the best BDR there in six months, taught himself multiple instruments.

The negative story couldn’t survive contact with the facts.

He named his inner critic Boris. Once the voice had a name, he could hear it without believing it.

On Energy, he built a hard stop at the end of every working day.

Brain dump. Close loops. Lock the phone away.

He started meditating daily and restarted music production - something he’d abandoned because work felt too serious for hobbies.

As he put it later:

‍“You can convince yourself you’re doing the right thing just because you’re exhausted.”

On Focus, he reframed his entire relationship with work.

His fiancée’s words hit him hardest:

‍“She doesn’t care about the money - it’s more about being with that person.”

‍He started prioritising being a good father and partner over being a workhorse.

His realisating wasn’t soft.

He'd rewired what “success” actually meant.

The After

Over twelve weeks, Luke’s scores shifted across every pillar.

His confidence in high-pressure moments went from 2/10 to 9/10.

His sense of alignment between who he is and how he shows up at work went from 4/10 to 10/10.

His mindset satisfaction moved from 3/10 to 9/10.

Evenings fully switched off per week: 0–1 → 4–5.

Setback bounce-back time: several days → hours.

Statement that resonates most:

‍“I often feel I’ll get found out” → “I often feel calm and in control.”

He stopped working Sundays entirely.

His fiancée noticed the change - she thanked him for it.

He started playing music again. Internal management began actively advocating for his promotion to AE.

His three words at the end:

Calm. Confident. Motivated.

“Stop assuming working harder is the answer. If you’re already grinding and nothing is changing, something else is going on.”

On Looking Back:

“I expected tactics. What I got was a proper look at how I was thinking about myself and my role.”

- Luke, BDR, Chainguard

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Name changed to protect the individual's privacy.