In fact, quite the opposite...

As a young school teacher, I was already living the mission to help people find their purpose. I believed that students learn through fun. I was so right, and so wrong. During my first year teaching at an inner-city school, my students received the lowest grades in the district, and I learned that without structure, there can be no fun. I learned to layer fun on top of structure, and soon, my students had the highest scores in the district.

I left teaching for sales in 2002 and was hit in the face with how hard sales can be. Just like teaching, I couldn't just show up and have fun and expect for things to go my way. Though I succeeded quickly, it was mostly due to my willingness to outwork everyone around me. We had just had our fourth, fifth, and sixth child, and I wasn't willing to risk losing.

I embodied something that actually hurt me. I believed to be great at sales, I had to be someone different than I was. I would always say, "I'm doing great, but I feel like I'm wearing another man's suit." I left the funloving guy behind and embraced the "way of the warrior."

I see so many sales and leadership professionals acting this way today, and for most of them, just like me, they are pretending. Even though I was winning, I was limited...and I was unhappy.

After failing at my first business, I joined a company that forced me to get a coach. It was difficult, but for the first time, I began to sell...AS MYSELF! I soon became a top rep, and then the trainer/coach for all new hires.

It was here that I learned, that when you love yourself when you do what you do, you are wayyy better.

Before long, I was recruited to sell coaching, and coach top professionals around the world. It was at this time that my "Sell Anywhere" journey began. My wife and I decided that we would create an adventurous life of travel. We would move around from one Air BnB to another throughout America and Mexico every 2 to 5 months. This journey would last more than two years.

It sounds fun, and it was, but it was difficult too. I had left my little nest in central Florida, and ventured to sell in places where nobody knew me.

One day in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I realized that I was still not being true to myself. My children had been up close and personal and saw a different side of me since I usually had a home office in our travels. What they saw was a grumpy, burnt out man, who wore his frustration on his face. Several days in a row, they asked me if I even liked what I did.

The truth was, I loved it-I just didn't like who I was being while I was working.

Who is the me that I liked-no loved? He was fun and joyful, happy go-lucky. He was not this warrior who approached sales as an adversarial, win-lose scenario. I realized I was not doing very well because I was acting like somebody else.

So I decided right then and there-to stop.

I took on a new sales identity. I would call myself "The Joyful Farmer." My goals changed to having fun and making friends. My work became immediately easier. The rewards would follow quickly.

Success came. It was not only fun, it was much easier than the earlier triumphs in my career.