I Think I’m Onto Something. But It Might Just Be Sleep Deprivation.

It’s 4 AM. I should be sleeping. I’m not.

I’ve been at this for three months now. Reading papers. Running experiments. Writing posts. Building frameworks in my head at 2 AM and tearing them down by sunrise.

And tonight I’m having the thought that every obsessive person eventually has:

What if I’m wrong about all of it?

The Case for Being Wrong

Let me play devil’s advocate against myself.

I’ve been in sales for thirty years. The methodologies I’m questioning have been used successfully by millions of salespeople. Companies have built empires on SPIN and Challenger and Sandler.

Who am I to say they’re all wrong?

Maybe I’m just experiencing confirmation bias. I had a theory, and now I’m only seeing evidence that supports it. Every stalled deal becomes proof of “pushing too hard.” Every closed deal becomes proof of “letting the buyer lead.”

Maybe the deals I’m analyzing would have played out the same way regardless of my approach. Maybe I’m assigning causation to correlation.

Maybe I’m a tired guy in his forties, going through a life transition, seeing patterns that aren’t there because I need something to hold onto.

That’s a real possibility. I have to be honest about it.

The Case for Being Right

But then there’s the other side.

The research is real. Kahneman and Tversky didn’t win a Nobel Prize for nothing. Loss aversion is one of the most replicated findings in behavioral science. Reactance theory has held up for sixty years.

I’m not inventing the psychology. I’m just asking why sales hasn’t applied it.

And the observations keep stacking up. The deal that came back when I pulled away. The comparison between Sarah’s approach and Marcus’s. The patterns in my pipeline data.

These aren’t imaginary. They’re measurable. Documented. Real.

The question isn’t whether the psychology is sound. The question is whether I’m applying it correctly.

Why the Doubt Matters

I’m writing this post because I think the doubt is important.

If I were certain, I’d be dangerous. Certainty is how bad ideas survive. Someone gets convinced they’ve figured it out, stops questioning, starts preaching.

I’ve seen it in sales a hundred times. A leader gets attached to a methodology and force-fits every situation into their framework. They stop seeing reality and start seeing confirmation of their beliefs.

I don’t want to be that guy.

So I’m sitting with the doubt. Letting it challenge me. Asking whether the patterns I see are real or whether I’m constructing them.

That’s uncomfortable. It would be easier to be certain. But easier isn’t the same as right.

What I Know for Sure

Here’s what I can say with confidence:

Something is changing in how buyers buy. The old playbooks aren’t working like they used to. Response rates are down across the industry. Deals take longer. Buyers are harder to reach. Everyone I talk to in sales feels it.

That’s not my theory. That’s market data.

Whether my explanation is correct – whether the inverse relationship and loss aversion and reactance theory are the right lenses – that I’m less sure about.

But I’d rather have a hypothesis I’m testing than no hypothesis at all. I’d rather be wrong about something specific than vaguely confused about everything.

Why I’m Going to Keep Going

It’s 4:37 AM now. I should really sleep.

Here’s why I’m not going to stop, despite the doubt:

First, because questioning is how you find truth. If my ideas can’t survive scrutiny – my own scrutiny, before anyone else’s – they’re not worth holding.

Second, because the alternative is going back to what wasn’t working. And I know that wasn’t working. Even if I don’t have the full answer yet, I know the old answer is broken.

Third, because something in my gut says there’s something here. That’s not scientific. That’s not rigorous. But it’s kept me going through harder nights than this one.

So I’ll keep testing. Keep observing. Keep writing. Keep doubting.

And eventually, I’ll either prove myself right or learn something better.

Either way, I’ll know more than I do tonight.