Founder of 1% Better™ | Former accountant, future author | Follow me for the best self-development content on LinkedIn

Former accountant.
Future author.

I share actionable, educational, and entertaining self-development content to help my readers live their best lives.

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Colby Kultgen

I dealt with negative self-talk for years.

And believe me when I say, It's no fun going through life as your own worst enemy.

That's why I love simple reframes like this.

They’re the tiny course corrections that, over months and years, can completely transform the way you speak to yourself.

Source: Coral Santoro on Instagram

The only way to become the kind of person who can do the thing…is to start doing the thing before you feel like that kind of person.

Read that twice.

Most people get this backwards.

They wait until they feel like a "real" writer to publish.
They wait until they feel like a leader to speak up.

But here’s the thing: 
Identity doesn’t come first, action does.

The evidence you're searching for only shows up after you start.

So if you're feeling stuck right now.

Overthinking. 
Overpreparing. 
Overconsuming.

Ask yourself:
1. What would the “qualified” version of me do today?
2. What small move could I make in that direction?

Then do that.

Act like the person you want to become.
Eventually, you won’t be acting anymore.

End-of-year reminder:

You’re allowed to be proud of things that have nothing to do with income or promotions.

The friendships you strengthened.
The habits you kept.
The boundaries you honoured.
The health you protected.
The person you’re becoming.

Success is a much bigger pie than job titles and salaries.

If you grew, healed, learned, showed up for people, or protected your energy this year—that counts.

Celebrate the parts of your life that don’t get LinkedIn announcements.

Image credit: 6secondseq on IG

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a study everyone should know about:

Your brain is lying to you about the past.

Research shows we overestimate how predictable past events were by 30-50% (hindsight bias).

Translation: 
You think you "should have known better" way more often than you actually could have.

When you catch yourself spiraling about a past decision, run it through this filter:

1. Information gap - What did I not know then that I know now?
2. Resource gap - What didn't I have access to? (time, money, support, tools)
3. Awareness gap - What emotional patterns or blind spots hadn't I recognized yet?
4. Growth gap - What skills or wisdom hadn't I developed?

Your brain rewrites history to make past outcomes seem obvious. 

The reality is:
You did the best you could with what you knew. Now you know more. 

That's not failure, that's the whole point.

Remember:

It's better to admit you walked through the wrong door than spend your life in the wrong room.

I see this everywhere. 

The soul-crushing job we keep because it sounds impressive on paper.
The toxic relationship we cling to because leaving feels like giving up.
The outdated belief we defend because we've already invested so much of ourselves into it.

The hard part isn't recognizing this, it’s admitting it.

Because admitting you're in the wrong room means admitting you made a mistake. It means backing out. Confronting the sunk cost. Disappointing people. Starting over.

But here's what nobody tells you: staying costs more.

Every day in the wrong room is a day not spent in the right one.
It's not just wasted time, it's the compounding loss of what could have been.

The opportunities you'll never see. 
The version of yourself you'll never become.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do in life is simply say: "This isn't right for me anymore.”

And then move on.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Developing a bias for action is one of the most valuable things you can do in life.

This advice isn't anything new, Rumi was preaching the same thing almost 1,000 years ago: "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears."

As far as making this part of your every day working process goes, here are a few ideas:

1. Start every morning with one “move it forward” task. Pick the single smallest action that will advance your most important project, and do it before checking anything reactive.

2. Shrink every task to the next physical step. Not “write the article” but “outline the first three points.” Not “launch the product” but “draft the landing page headline.”

3. End the day by setting tomorrow’s first action. Before you close your laptop, write down the exact task you’ll start with in the morning.

♻️ Repost if this resonates.

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An idea that genuinely changed my life…

The Average Tuesday Rule:

The quality of your ordinary Tuesday is the best measure of your life satisfaction.

Think about it.

We spend 80% of our lives on these “nothing special” days, yet we obsess over optimizing the other 20%—weekends, vacations, milestones.

We tolerate miserable Tuesdays while dreaming about spectacular Saturdays.

But when your average Tuesday is an 8/10, everything changes:
↳ You stop counting down to Friday.
↳ Small moments start mattering more than big events.
↳ You start enjoying the entire ride, not just the peaks.

Most self-improvement advice focuses on reaching the ceiling.

The Average Tuesday Rule flips this approach: focus on raising your floor.

Here’s where to start:

➊ Design your ideal ordinary day:
 From wake-up to bedtime, craft a realistic blueprint for an 8/10 Tuesday.

➋ Take small steps to close the gap: 
- Identify one daily friction point and solve it permanently. 
- Add one small joy to your routine and protect it fiercely.
- Subtract one energy leak that consistently drains you. 

❸ Keep doing this until your reality matches your ideal.

Because life isn’t made up of mountaintop moments.

It’s made up of average Tuesdays.

How to remember almost everything you learn (science-backed):

how to remember almost everything you learn

I’m 34. 

Here’s what I would tell my 24-year-old self:

I’m 34. Here’s what I would tell my 24-year-old self.

How to do a hard reset on your life before 2026:

How to do a hard reset on your life before 2026

How to unrot your brain (step-by-step)

Reminder:

You don’t have to wait until January 1 to change your life.

Here are 6 questions to close out 2025 strong and hit the ground running in 2026:

6 questions to answer during the last 6 weeks of 2025

30 short habits with a massive return on life:

What would you add to this list?

30 short habits with a massive return on life 

Well, it's that time of year again.

Before we rush into 2026 with a fresh set of goals and big plans, there's something important we should do first:

Reflect on the 12 months behind us.

Wins, losses, lessons. The stuff most people skip over in their rush to plan what's next.

I originally created this set of 7 questions for myself, but after seeing how impactful they were, I knew I had to share them with you.

2025 Personal Year-In-Review

5 non-negotiable daily routines every person should have:

5 non-negotiable daily routines every person should have

A "razor" is a rule of thumb for simplifying complex decisions.

Here are 8 everyone should know:

8 decision-making razors everyone should know

How to get more done in less time (8 daily non-negotiables):

How to get more done in less time 

How to do a digital declutter before 2026:

How to Do a Digital Declutter Before 2026

Sales Coach

At Sales Coach, we are the "how" guys in Sales Enablement, working exclusively in the IT industry. Our team of experienced consultants—who all come directly from IT sales—focuses on bridging the gap between theory and practice.

We don’t just teach what to do to improve performance; we show sales reps how to do it, tailoring coaching and training to the unique context of each company. Every program is designed to be practical, actionable, and immediately applicable, empowering sellers to drive results from day one.

Specializing in IT Security, Datacenter, Networking, Disaster Recovery, managed services, Hybrid cloud, AI, etc. we collaborate with IT producers, distributors, and resellers worldwide to help them stand out, win more business, and grow revenue and profits. By focusing on real-world strategies that work, we enable our clients to achieve measurable growth in competitive markets.

Founder & Professional Sales Coach and Business Growth Enabler

Barberians CPH

It's time for us men to raise the standard and take self-care more seriously. 

Watched Peaky Blinders? That's how men dress and shave! 

With my latest investment in the Danish High-Quality Barberians & Sons of Barberians Grooming and Self-care Brand for The Modern Savage Gentleman, we want to help the modern man step up the game. 

Besides now owning the company, together with my business partners in Nordic Selfcare Group, I have taken on the role of Sales Director for International Sales. My role is to build an international presence with the brand and create a worldwide presence within 2023.

Fun to be able to practice all the mindsets, methodologies and models taught hours after hours in the classroom over the years, and now implementing a true networking and partnership-driven approach into our go-to-market strategy with our valuable resellers and distributors across the world.

I am looking forward to unleashing the Barberian Brand and helping the modern man become even more attractive and successful with our sortiment of grooming products.

Owner | Sales Director | B2B International Sales 

People Analyze ApS - An Empowerment Holding Company 

Founder & Professional Culture Developer

In People Analyze we help companies get valuable insights into the organization, teams and the employee. With our proven analysis, guides and assessment tools we assess behaviour profiles and behaviour patterns, driving forces and motivation factors, values and belief systems, leadership and management styles etc. 

We believe that insights is one of the most important leadership priorities. 
We believe that insights will help you take better decisions. 
We believe that understanding yourself is crucial for understanding how to unleash your pontential. 
We believe that understanding how people are different, and respecting the differencies, will give you the opportunity to leverage the differencies and truely creat high performance teams.

Founder & Professional Culture Developer

Openhagen - An Empowerment Holding Company 

Investor in www.openhagen.com - Set The Tone Of Your Home - The Beautiful Danish Design for Music Instruments and Devices. Helping with Business Development and establishing the brand in the world. Go to market strategies, sales tactics and positioning of the products in the market.

This is an example of a true "all-in approach" where I can leverage all I know and what I have learned over the last couple of decades. Here I can really use my experience and skills across entrepreneurship, sales marketing, sales enablement, culture and building high performance sales orgnization across the world. 

The Openhagen investment is a Sales Coach Inner Circle best practice.

Investor & Business Development

Metaview Consulting & Business Development - An Empowerment Holding Company

Co-Founder & Sales Enablement Director. 

Established MetaView as a new company based on all my previous Sales Enablement and personal development companies. MetaView's key focus were on the biggest globale vendors, distributors and resellers in the IT industry. Very fast MetaView became Hewlett Packards preferred Sales Enablement partner World Wide and we established the MetaView brand acrosss the world with offices in Denmark, Austria, Geneva and South Africa. 

December 2021 I decided to leave MetaView and in July 2022 I sold my 37,5% of the company. It was time to take Sales Enablement and Sales Marketing to the next level and leverage technology as AI, social selling, digital platforms etc. to create even better learning experiences with higher return on investment and culture impact.

Co-Founder & Sales Enablement Director 

Ensize Danmark

Founder & Director. Working with personal development, organizational change, culture programs, people insights, people test, behaviour profiles etc. Nordic distributor for Ensize International A/S and business development across all EDOC offerings. Responsible for building up the market and establish the brand in close co-operation with Ensize.

Founder & Director

Increase A/S

Director of Sales Enablement and Innovation. 

Increase A/S were a marketing agency who worked within the IT industry. In 2010 we decided to merge all my companies (Sales Coach, Talento & Ensize Denmark) into Increase A/S. 

The mission and objectives were to create the best Sales Marketing Agency in the IT Industry. A company who understood marketing and marketing automation for lead generation AND sales enablement. To maximize ROMI (return on marketing investment), ROAS (return on ad spend) and lead conversation, and who could help vendors, distributors and resellers to get more leads and convert them into buying customers.

Partner

Sales Coach ApS

Business Owner, Founder and Professional Sales Enablement Coach. Working as a Sales Coach in large organizations as EMC, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, IBM etc. Covering 22 countries with different stage of development, culture and skillset. 

The Sales Coach Mindset, Methodology and Communication Toolset get's developed and implemented across all parties of the IT Industry (vendors, distributors and resellers). Sales Coach becomes the IT industry's Best Practice when it comes to strategic and value based selling within the first years. 

After 2 years all IBM activities in the nordics moves into my other company Talento, which runs the nordics sales enablement activities for IBM. Sales Coach continues to work with HewLett Packard world wide with EMEA, CEE, GWE, DACH regions to cover.

Hewlett Packard

Sales Specialist. Back in Hewlett Packard after the merge with Compaq. Now head of public sales and working with sales strategies, initiatives and activities across multiple global distributors and resellers. Business development, sales and marketing campaigns and sales enablement of selected strategic partner who were part of the customer coverage attended and unattended.

Sales Specialist

Proact

Business Development Manager. Transforming a technical consultant business into a more sales-orientated organization. Key focus areas were modernization, optimization and transformation e.g. for Nokia and NetApp.

Business Development Manager

Founder & Sales Enablement Consultant | Sales-Coach.com

I've been a salesperson my entire life. It started when I was a kid, selling my own toys (to my mother’s great surprise), and it has evolved into a lifelong passion for understanding, mastering, and refining the art of selling. My journey has taken me through every stage of sales—from cold calling in call centers to managing complex enterprise deals. I’ve worked across industries, selling data center solutions, networking, IT security, managed services, hybrid cloud, and more. This hands-on experience has shaped my approach to sales training and led me to create Sales-Coach.com.

Why I Founded Sales Coach:
I started Sales Coach with a clear philosophy: Sales training should be built by real salespeople who have done the job. Too often, sales training is theoretical, disconnected from the realities of the field. I wanted to change that. My goal was to create a company that teaches sales in context—practical, real-world, and immediately applicable.

At Sales Coach, we don’t just train sales teams; we equip them with battle-tested skills that we’ve used ourselves. Everyone on our team has been an account manager, sales specialist, presales consultant, or sales leader. We’ve sat across from SMBs, enterprise clients, and public sector decision-makers. We know what works—and what doesn’t—because we’ve been there.

My Approach to Sales Enablement:
Over the past 20 years, I have developed and refined sales methodologies, mindsets, and communication frameworks that are simple, powerful, and easy to apply. While inspired by established sales methodologies like Challenger Sales, MEDDICC, and Solution Selling, I have built a more practical, effective, and structured approach that truly works in the field.

Beyond sales strategies, my work is deeply rooted in behavioral psychology. As a Master in NLP and Enneagram, with expertise in DISC and other psychological frameworks, I help sales professionals understand buyer personas, communication styles, and how to craft compelling value propositions. This combination of sales expertise and psychology-backed training allows us to create sales professionals who are not just effective sellers but trusted advisors.

If you’re looking to develop high-performing sales teams, improve deal conversions, and drive sustainable growth, let’s connect.

🔹 Founder | Sales Coach
🔹 Expert in Sales Strategy, Training & Enablement
🔹 B2B Sales, IT & Tech, Enterprise & SMB Markets
🔹 NLP Master, Enneagram, DISC & Behavioral Psychology

Let’s connect and start a conversation! 🚀

Carsten Hoelstad

A Christmas Tradition at Sales Coach, and why it matters 🎄

Every year, Sales Coach has the privilege of helping kids and families who can’t afford to hold their own Christmas party.

And honestly… It’s become one of the most meaningful things we do 💞 

This year we filled the room again with gifts worth 9.739,80 DKK, and the reactions say everything (quotes from kids last year):

“Is this my present 100%? I don’t need to share it with anybody?”

“Can I take the present home? I don’t need to give it back now that I’m done playing with it?”

If that doesn't hit you straight in the heart, nothing will 👊 

Of course, we don’t do this alone.

A huge thank you to all our clients across the world – vendors, IT distributors, and resellers. Without you, this would not be possible.

Your trust in us is why we can pass it forward to families who need it more than any of us.

Also, a massive shout-out to Peter Møller and the whole crew behind "Julehjælpen". Thank you so much for your effort and the initiative to do a Christmas party for people who didn't have the resources to do it themselves (send Peter some love).

And to our clients:
You won’t be getting Christmas gifts from us this year! 

We decided that these families need them far more than you do – and we know you’ll understand.

In Sales Coach, we teach sellers to shift from a 1st position mindset (thinking about “me, my quota, my goals”) to a 2nd position mindset, stepping into the shoes of others, understanding their world, and asking: “How can I help?”

That’s exactly what this Christmas initiative is about.
- It’s empathy.
- It’s perspective-taking.
- It’s acting on behalf of others who can’t act for themselves.

And in many ways, it reflects who we are as a company.

Unleashing People’s Potential and Helping Them Move Forward.

These are not just taglines for us. They’re at the core of everything we do, whether in a classroom, a coaching session, or a community hall filled with kids who want to feel seen, cared for, and included during Christmas.

Giving these families a Christmas they couldn’t afford on their own is one more small way to help people move forward.

To give them hope.

To unleash a little potential.

And sometimes, that’s enough to change a whole evening, and maybe even a life.

I appreciate your support. You all know you are...

On behalf of all consultants in Sales Coach. Merry Christmas 🎄

Enabling IT sellers to unleash their full potential through practical trainings with economic results.

taplio

The Battle

Colby Kultgen

Carsten Hoelstad

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The Battle

Colby Kultgen

Carsten Hoelstad

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Colby Kultgen's LinkedIn Performance

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