Teaching Professionals To Achieve Success From Their Gifts

Meet Your Professor, Donnie Tuttle

Hi there! I’m Donnie Tuttle, and I’m thrilled to welcome you to the School of Professional Design. For years, I’ve been on a mission to help people discover and live out their professional purpose. As the founder and headmaster here, my goal is to guide you in harnessing your unique gifts and talents to achieve extraordinary results with ease and joy.

I’m a proud father of eight wonderful children. My wife and I chose to homeschool them to nurture their God-given gifts and talents. We wanted them to explore their own designs, rather than conform to a one-size-fits-all education system. This experience solidified my belief in the power of being true to oneself – U-B-U (You Be You). It’s in being ourselves that we find our greatest strength and value.

I began my career as a school teacher, teaching second, fourth, and fifth grades. From 1998 to 2003, I made learning fun and engaging, helping students connect with knowledge in meaningful ways. I also ran a large children’s ministry at our church, where we encouraged students to explore and express their gifts.

After leaving teaching, I ventured into sales. Initially, I felt out of place, always trying to impress and over-promise due to my fears. Despite early success, I never truly enjoyed it. It took me several years and many roles to realize that I could be myself in sales, thanks to the mentorship of a coach. This revelation transformed my approach and led to a successful career in sales coaching and management, where I helped others find their unique strengths and achieve outstanding results.

I eventually joined a coaching company that emphasized performance through numbers. While this method worked, it lacked inspiration. I believed in giving people meaning in their work. By focusing on their vision and unique talents, I saw remarkable improvements in their results.

My personal breakthrough came when I decided to abandon the aggressive “sales warrior” mentality and embrace the “joyful farmer” approach. Instead of conflict, I chose joy, aiming to connect with people, brighten their day, and help them – with sales as a natural byproduct. This shift not only transformed my life but also the lives of my clients.

In 2019, I left the coaching company to start my own, dedicated to helping people create processes rooted in their purpose. Now, as the first professor at the School of Professional Design, I’m here to help you discover and unleash your professional potential.

Let’s embark on this journey together and make work a place of joy and fulfillment. Welcome to the School of Professional Design!

The most important thing you can know about me is my greatest accomplishment: I am a devoted husband to my wife of 29 years, and father to 8 amazing children!

My mission is to help professionals live out their purpose in their work.

I am the sworn enemy of the grind.

I believe that purpose has a process, and that process can be seen.

I believe that each of us has what we need to create what we want.

I believe that it doesn't have to be hard.

I definitely didn't get here overnight though.

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 fun-loving 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.

I began to coach my clients from this formula, and found that they too were able to achieve more when they connected their purpose and their productivity.

I found that when you love what you do, you love who you do it for, how you do it, and who you get to be in the process, you become an unstoppable force!

To put it simply, here is the formula:

Know your identity.

Create your vision.

Identify "your people".

Look for any asset you can leverage towards your goal.

Create strategies from these things.

Commit to action.

Be open to explosive results.

It works because it is simple.
It works because it is natural.

When you function from flow, and alignment with your gifts and the people you desire to serve, you have an unfair advantage that nobody can replicate.

Different isn't always better, but better is always different.

If you want to receive extraordinary results, you have to be open to extraordinary action. I mean-outside of the ordinary. In today's climate, there are more bad sales calls and recruiting calls being made than in the history of mankind. How are you being different?

After years of helping others succeed, I decided it was time to open The School of Professional Design.

There are many options for self improvement out there, but none like this.

Working from your life purpose is the greatest gift anyone can have, and the greatest way to elevate personal productivity and sales in the universe.

My desire is to make purposeful productivity more accessible, without sacrificing the personal experience. I believe that we are all on a personal journey, and that there is no "1-size-fits-all" answer, even though authors and gurus act like there is.

I believe that the answers are actually...inside of you!

My hope is to help you connect with those answers and live them with courage.

"I am the midwife to other people's dreams"- Aristotle