IGST + Change-Based Selling: How I Built a Unified System for Personal and Professional Growth

I’ve spent the last few years building two things:

1. A personal operating system for performance → IGST

2. A methodology for guiding transformational sales → Change-Based Selling

They started as separate ideas.

IGST was about staying centered and effective in my own life.

Change-Based Selling was about helping buyers navigate complex decisions and organizational change.

But over time, I realized something: The way I sell and the way I live had to be built on the same architecture.

If I wanted to be consistent, credible, and calm under pressure…

If I wanted to scale trust across clients, colleagues, and myself…

Then I needed a unified system that connected the inner work with the outer work.

And that’s what this post is about.

The Core Truth: Sales Is Change. So Is Growth.

If you’ve read this far, you know my thesis:

Sales is about change.

And not just product change.

• Organizational change.

• Behavioral change.

• Emotional change.

• Political change.

But here’s the twist: Becoming a high-performing human is change, too.

Same emotional resistance, same pressure, same fear, same potential.

So it makes sense that the same framework would serve both (And for me, it does).

How IGST Powers the Way I Sell

Here’s how my internal system (IGST) supports the external one (Change-Based Selling):

• Intention: Keeps me emotionally centered, values-aligned, focused on how I show up, not just what I do.

• Goals: Filters what deals are worth it, aligns my energy with my long game

• Strategy: Guides how I navigate org dynamics, stakeholders, and timing

• Tactics: Provides day-to-day tools (P4, COM-B, from→to docs, playbooks) to stay consistent

Without IGST, I’d be reactive, just another seller winging it and burning out (because that’s been me before, when I didn’t have these systems in place).

But with IGST, I run my deals, and my life, with structure, clarity, and pride.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

You know it and feel it deeply…The world is noisier, deals are messier, buyers are more skeptical (thanks, AI), sellers are more anxious.

And most systems out there teach you how to work harder, not deeper. That’s why these systems matter. IGST + Change-Based Selling isn’t about productivity hacks or short-term shortcuts. They’re about building a lifelong craft through internal clarity + external leadership.

It’s the only system I’ve found that holds up in pressure. And as sellers, we have plenty of that to go around right now.

You Can’t Fake Integration

You can memorize sales plays, you can say the right words, you can hit a number. But your buyer knows when your process is misaligned.

And if we’re honest, so do you, you know how it feels. That’s why I started treating myself the way I treat a complex client:

• Diagnose the real problem (not just the symptoms)

• Align the stakeholders (internal voices, goals, energy)

• Create a strategy (not just activity)

• Commit to implementation

• Reflect, refine, and expand

That’s what I do for myself every week. And that’s what I do for every deal I care about. Because the goal is to create meaningful change while producing work I can be proud of.

So if you’re feeling fragmented…

if you’ve got great tactics but no cohesion…

if you’re overachieving but under-aligned…

Then it’s time to unify your system, because you don’t need more effort. You need clarity, structure, and earned alignment.

That’s what IGST gave me, that’s what Change-Based Selling sharpened, and that’s what your next chapter is all about.

Let’s dig in together.

We are the sum of our experiences.

I’ve been wanting to share more about my background and how I operate (aka why I am the way I am 😂).

For context: before sales, I was in the Army. My job was route clearance in Iraq.

That meant keeping the roads free of IEDs so traffic — military and civilian — could move safely.

Five nights a week, 8–12 hours at a time, we crept down the road at 5–10 miles per hour. Speed was not your friend in that game, as you might imagine. 🙃

My primary role was protection, as the gunner for the truck. My secondary role was lookout.

That meant scanning trash piles. Disturbed earth. Parked cars. Anything that looked even slightly different than the last time we ran the route.

I rotated between thermal optic, night vision, and the lit-up stretch of ground in front of us. Just hoping to find the thing before it found us.

Ate a LOT of sunflower seeds to stay awake. Had plenty of “you had to be there” conversations in the truck.

But here’s the truth: route clearance demanded absolute accountability.

You didn’t get to skip steps. You didn’t get to be sloppy. Everyone took their role seriously, because lives depended on it.

Talk about “extreme ownership.” It was monotonous and terrifying all at once.

How it shaped me as a seller

Looking back, I realize that environment shaped the seller I’ve evolved into:

• I do the prep.

• I anticipate the threats.

• I move deliberately through each milestone.

• I use specialized tools and pull in the right teammates.

• And I take full ownership, because accountability is not optional.

Now, I typically despise when people make war analogies in the business world.

To be clear, that’s not my intent.

Sales and war have nothing to do with each other. But from the standpoint of emotional impact, war has everything to do with how I sell. We’re all the sum of our experiences.

That’s how I think about selling today: not rushing a close, but guiding people through dangerous terrain of change so the path is clear for what comes next.

Not a technical seller

I’ll admit it: I’m not a great technical salesperson.

Fortunately, I don’t have to be. Because I focus more on navigating change effectively.

And sales is about change.

Every deal is a minefield of risks — budget freezes, procurement stalls, shifting priorities, executive turnover. Safely navigating those requires intentionality and diligence, not just clever talk tracks or feature knowledge.

The takeaway

So to the sales folks out there: you don’t need to buy another course or tack on the latest methodology.

In fact, you probably already have — right now within you — all the skills you need to succeed.

Just lean into who you are at your core. That’s your superpower.

One of my core values is Tenacity, and I define that as:

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

That’s my superpower. What’s yours?

I needed a new system. So I built one.

Most performance systems are built for the average.

I’m not interested in average.

I grew up with no safety net. No family connections. No backdoor job. Just a mountain of pressure and a small set of options.

That pressure taught me something early:

Success isn’t about how much hustle you have—it’s about what direction you’re headed in when you apply it.

A few years ago, I hit a wall. I had the work ethic. I had decent sales numbers. But I felt off. Fragmented. Overextended. Like I was sprinting hard in ten different directions.

I realized I didn’t have a system.

Not a CRM.

Not a to-do list.

A personal operating system—for how I show up, how I decide what matters, and how I move through the world.

So I built one.

I call it IGST:

→ Intention

→ Goals

→ Strategy

→ Tactics

It’s simple. But it’s not shallow.

Intention is the “why” underneath the work.

Goals are the high, hard things worth aiming for.

Strategy is the map to get there.

Tactics are how you move the needle today.

Most people live in Tactics.

Some upgrade to Strategy.

Fewer align their Goals.

Very few ever ask if it all matches their Intention.

When I started aligning all four, things changed.

Not just the income (though it tripled).

Not just the outcomes (though they improved).

But the feeling of doing the work. I felt proud again.

This system has carried me through grief, burnout, and pressure.

It’s made me more effective and more human.

So now I share it—because you don’t rise to the level of your goals.

You fall to the level of your systems.

And you deserve one that was actually built for you.

#IGST #sales #performance #intention #changework #operatingsystem