The Brutal 30-Day Reset That Rebuilt My Self-Belief From the Ground Up
Sales, comfort and choosing the hard now vs the hard later
Comfort is one of the most dangerous drugs in the world—and I was hooked.
After 9 months of hitting target and putting up big numbers, I was getting worse, so I did something crazy: I volunteered to leave the safety of an elite campaign.
No pipeline.
No fund knowledge.
No sales methodology.
Week one nearly broke me—by week four, I had unlocked a newfound confidence.
In December 2024, I started a new career.
I started a role in sales.
I spent the first 9 months of 2025 in a relatively easy campaign.
The role was technically private health sales, but there wasn’t a lot of sales methodology at play; most people in the office knew it was more like order taking.
Order taking because you didn’t really have to build value.
You didn’t really have to sell. The campaign sold itself.
The fund I was representing had everything:
Exclusivity
Great brand
Not for profit
Really well priced
Amazing products
High levels of trust
There was little to no downside. So when you got on the phone with a potential customer, it was your sale to lose.
The prospects wanted to be a part of the fund—they sold themselves.
Hence, order taking.
Sure, our targets were higher than other campaigns in the company. Expectations were higher, too. But regardless of how high the target was, it never seemed high enough to really make me stress.
The brand, products and price were just so good.
Now you might be thinking ‘Sav, this sounds amazing’…
And you would be right.
But for a guy less than 12 months into a career in sales, the work was too easy. With no solid foundation in the art of value building and proper selling, I slowly became soft.
The results were still good.
I never missed target. I worked my butt off and was getting paid well.
But I knew it wasn’t right, or sustainable.
My calls had little to no structure, and I didn’t feel like I was improving as a sales agent and evolving as a private health expert.
So when a team meeting was called around month nine, to discuss the future of the company and certain campaigns, it was announced that my campaign would be slimming down to a skeleton staff.
My results had already stalled over the previous 4-6 weeks.
I was burning out a little and needed a fresh start.
I saw the writing on the wall and knew that I needed to conquer a new frontier, whilst venturing back onto an old frontier.
My own self-belief.
So I did the unthinkable. I put my hand up and volunteered to leave the safety of the previous campaign in search of a test.
New campaign.
New target.
Back into the broker space, which was infinitely harder and basically needing to relearn everything.
I tried not to see this as a step backward, but as a step forward.
A challenge I had to undertake if I wanted to improve.
My final month in the previous campaign concluded at the end of September, and by October 1st, I was dialling in the broker space again.
Let me tell you…
It. Was. Rough!
No pipeline
No fund knowledge
No structure to my calls
No objection handling skills
No sales!
After 2 weeks in the new campaign, I was averaging 1.2 sales per day, when previously I was used to 3-5 sales per day. Hitting target was something I had come to expect, and it was looking more and more likely that I would not hit this month.
With a trip to Hong Kong booked for the end of the year and other external pressures mounting, the panic began to set in.
Around the beginning of week 3, things started to change.
Momentum started shifting.
I was getting coaching from my sales manager, putting in longer hours and starting to get a feel for the whole process. My fund knowledge was increasing, and my pipeline management was tightening up.
By the close of week 3, I had put myself within firing range. My target was going to be extremely hard to hit—but not impossible.
What started as 2.63 sales per day had ballooned to needing 6 SPD.
Time to activate CHAMP ENERGY!
For the last week, I kept it simple, real simple…
I knew if I just hit these 4 markers every day, then I would come out of the last week and the month feeling proud of my effort:
1. Wake up and get an early win
An early win outside of my work hours would help me build confidence and momentum by the time I sat down at the screen.
It didn’t matter what it was:
Reading
Journaling
Breath work
Some life admin
A walk with my girl
Working on content
Writing my newsletter
Just something to set me up for success and feel a sense of achievement before clocking in for the day.
2. Dial as hard as humanly possible
Once I got to the screen, it was all about productivity.
Hit the ground running and don’t look up until you had set a solid foundation for the day.
Good quotes
Good conversations
Hopefully some sales
No breaks in the first 4 hours
Dialling hard requires you to get scrappy.
Efficiency over everything.
Make a sale > straight into another call.
The goal was to keep stacking up numbers throughout the day and let the volume do the talking for me.
Talk time
Good quotes
And of course, sales
Dialling hard also requires a keener attention to detail around real prospects vs tyrekickers (time wasters).
Every minute and every conversation counted.
3. Make myself proud
Amongst all the final week craziness, it was still imperative that I maintained my self-respect at all times.
Be stern, but don’t be rude.
Go hard, but don’t get sloppy.
Get the sale, but do it ethically.
When pressure is on, that is where you get to see the real you.
My job was to make sales, but my purpose is to always act in accordance with my principles—and to be like the boxer who never puts down his weapons.
4. Rest and recover
This was arguably the most important part.
Poor sleep leads to a lack of energy and concentration, which snowballs into worsening results and a lack of productivity if not managed.
At the end of each day, I wrecked.
Little movement
100s of conversations
12+ hours on the phone
After work, I kept it simple… like, real simple!
Go for a walk > hit the sauna for 20 mins > eat something > kiss my girl goodnight > get to sleep as early as possible.
That was it.
This is all I had the capacity for, because tomorrow I had to do it all again.
The model for the application of your principles is the boxer rather than the gladiator. The gladiator puts down or takes up the sword he uses, but the boxer always has his hands and needs only to clench them into fists.
— Marcus Aurelius
That final week was brutal… by 8 pm on the final night, I was shaking—my nervous system was in overload.
But…
I did it! I hit my target!
I didn’t give up, I put my head down, and I got it done.
Hitting target meant I was going to get paid commission, which, of course, is nice. It also meant that my pivot into this new campaign validated the success of the previous 9 months as not entirely luck/campaign.
Most importantly, though—it unlocked a newfound self-belief.
Despite what the market was doing…
Despite what adjustments I had to make…
And against the odds…
I was able to work hard, stick to the process and get the result.
Hitting target felt good.
But what it gave me was bigger than commission—it gave me proof. Proof that I could adapt, grind, and come out the other side without compromising how I operate.
This next level of self-belief would buoy me as I entered the quieter months of the year (Oct-Jan), and give me the perfect base for a big run at the most profitable months of the year (Mar-Jun).
If this landed, reply and tell me where your hard campaign is right now.
I read every one.
With gratitude,
SAV
If you’re trying to rebuild yourself—financially, creatively, emotionally, or physically—you’re in the right place.
I write here to document the process honestly, not perfectly.
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