At some point in my life I decided I wanted to be a salesperson. When I was younger I was timid, awkward, and unassertive. I was often plagued by anxiety in the company of other people, but I loved to read, and many of the books I read were about the importance of being able to influence others. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Influence, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I read them all. That perceived gap between the relationships I felt I had the ability to build and the relationships I felt I needed to build has been a lifelong source of anxiety and striving for me. As a way to bridge the gap I decided to get myself into as many uncomfortable situations with people as possible.
My first sales role was selling advertising space in a student planner to local businesses in the Central Michigan University community. It was horrible. The product was horrible - again, this is for a student planner. Nobody looks at ads in a student planner. The ads were absurdly expensive, and Mt Pleasant is a small town so I was bothering the same dozen business owners for a full summer. Most of that summer was spent hyping myself up in the parking lot just to have my hopes dashed by a dentist receptionist. In total, I made less than $2,000 for three months of work.
That experience didn’t deter me. I could have done better with a better product, a different opportunity, better leadership. I was miserable throughout most of the role but I still didn’t feel I had what I sought after. I hadn’t developed a confidence and fearlessness in front of others.
And so the next summer I tried again. This time I travelled 2,000 miles across the country to sell Dish Network Door to Door in Washington State. Four months of knocking on doors, being chased off porches by dogs, having the police called on me in unfamiliar neighborhoods, and putting myself in anxiety-inducing positions selling satellite tv to complete strangers. Again, I was miserable. I had multiple breakdowns. I’d wake up on a Thursday morning and my hands would be shaking as I brushed my teeth. Most of my team quit before the end of the summer but I stayed put. This is what I wanted. Call it exposure therapy.
Once again, after months of work, I made next to no money. However, I could feel a sense of confidence growing. I’d manage to start and complete a difficult thing. I dealt with rejection so much that it didn’t feel as scary to me. I hadn’t been happy in the process, but as long as I was growing I was content with that.
In my last semester of school I accepted a final, full-time sales role at Rocket Mortgage. As an intern at the company prior to accepting the role I could see the results of my previous failures. I had more confidence than others interns, I won sales competitions and scholarships. It felt like everything was coming together.
As a mortgage banker I excelled early and quickly. I was the #1 new banker in the company my first month on the floor. I won MVP awards, and highest closer awards. I was the first banker to be promoted in my class of bankers and I continued to hit all of the promotions as they came to me. I made a lot of money. I had accomplished what I wanted - I could influence people. I was the confident, successful, growth-minded salesperson I wanted to be.
But I was still miserable. My day to day role made me uncomfortable. Every single day I struggled to role out of bed knowing the next 12 hours were going to be spent doing something that came unnaturally to me.
For the first time I began to ask myself if this person I was trying to mold myself into was actually the person I was meant to be.
I had everything I initially sought, but I could feel in my bones that I was in the wrong spot. It doesn’t matter how much you want to be something. If that’s not who you are your being will rebel against it.
The other day, I stumbled across a clip of Andre 3000 speaking about this exact thing.
“You’ve got to put the time in to figure out who are and what are not too. A lot of times what you are not is very important. You can want to be something, but your strength is actually something else. That is what makes you start do your own thing. That’s when your skin starts to breath and you start to get into your primal self.”
I wanted to be the type of person who is fearless in the face of rejection, can powerfully influence people, and has a long and fruitful sales career. But that wasn’t playing to my strengths and I was making myself miserable as a result.
I have no regrets. I learned valuable lessons and skills. Ultimately, I got what I wanted out of the pursuit. But its taken courage for me to let go of that ideal. Admitting to myself that I’ve been striving to be someone I’m not requires me to ask myself who I am.
I’ve discovered my strengths lie in deep work. I can fall into focus on a task for hours without distraction. I have the ability to sit with uncertainty for a long period of time while I seek to understand a problem.
I’m teaching myself to woodwork and turning it into a side hustle. Next month I’ll be starting a 6-month bootcamp to learn Python, the software language used in a lot of data analysis and AI programming. The thought of investing my time in these things fills me with excitement. I feel like I’m playing to my strengths. It feels like me.
I could be wrong. Maybe after time these new focuses don’t fit me anymore and I want to pursue something else. In that case, at least I’ll have built the skills I can carry into whatever I take on next.
What makes us unique as humans is the stack of interests that belong to us alone.
If you find yourself feeling as if you’re living someone else’s life, even if its the life you thought you always wanted, it’s time to move on. We’re notoriously bad at understanding what makes us tick. The only thing we can do is explore.