I took a 50% pay cut to leave my sales job and work on a potato farm. I have no regrets.

• Five years after working in sales, Tyler Heppell felt he had lost his purpose and quit.
• He intended to work at his family farm for a year, but he's now decided to stay for the long haul.
• Heppell, 30, said he has learned more about business by working as a farmer.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tyler Heppell, a fifth-generation farmer from Heppell's Potato Corporation in Canada. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

As a fourth-generation farmer at a 104-year-old potato farm in British Columbia, my dad thought he had hit the lottery when he had three sons.

But alas, none of us wanted to work there.