Fifteen Years Later

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I ran across something I wrote in 2011 about Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The idea that stuck with me then was simple: a character doesn’t change unless they go through hard times and conflict. Without it, the character stays one-dimensional.

I used Braveheart as my example. I’ve always loved that story. Scotland wouldn’t have won their freedom if William Wallace hadn’t gone through the pain of losing his wife. Her death changed the direction of his life.

Some things don’t change. I still reach for Braveheart every time I need to make a point about story.

But here’s what hit me rereading my own words from fifteen years ago.

My wife said something in that post that I quoted at the time: “Life never does quite work out the way we have planned, does it? So why do we wait for it to? We expect to live a neat and tidy life, but we both know it isn’t going to happen.”

That was 2011. She was right then. She’s still right now. Our lives have been anything but neat and tidy. Cancer — twice. Over five years of trying to have our son. Losing people we love. Career changes. Cross-country moves. None of it followed the timeline we set.

In 2011, I ended that post by saying we were “in pursuit of life.” That we were choosing to write a better story. That we didn’t have everything figured out but we didn’t have to.

Here’s what’s different fifteen years later: I actually did it.

Not right away. I spent another decade filling notebooks and making plans I didn’t follow through on. I had the knowledge. I had the books on the shelf. What I didn’t have was a system to turn intention into execution.

On January 1, 2026, I built the system first. A daily blog that forces me to process what I’m learning. A published novel that proved the dreams in those notebooks were real. Eighty-five days in a row of showing up.

The 2011 version of me knew the right words. The 2026 version of me is living them.

Donald Miller wrote that you have to go pursue life — that it won’t come to you. He hiked the Inca Trail. He biked across America. He started a mentoring project. He couldn’t sit and wait.

I didn’t hike a trail or bike across the country. I sat down at a desk with a cup of coffee and started asking better questions. And that turned out to be enough.

My bride said it best fifteen years ago and she’s still right: life isn’t going to be neat and tidy. The story wouldn’t be worth reading if it were.

The Coffee Shop

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I sat down at a coffee shop this morning with a hot cup of coffee and no agenda other than space.

No meetings. No interruptions. No one asking me for anything. Just a table, a cup, and whatever my brain wanted to work on.

By the time I left, I had completed a final edit pass on a manifesto I’ve been writing for weeks. I answered five strategic questions about projects I’m building. I made decisions about three different creative works that had been sitting open. I mapped out next steps I’d been circling for days.

I didn’t plan any of that. The space did it.

There’s something about a coffee shop early in the morning when I’m fresh. The background noise is just enough to keep me from getting too inside my own head. The coffee is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do — fresh, legal, addictive stimulants and atmosphere. Hard to beat.

I think most people underestimate what happens when you give yourself uninterrupted space to think. We fill every minute with input — podcasts, scrolling, notifications, conversations. And then we wonder why we can’t figure out what we want or where we’re going.

The man at the desk doesn’t need more input. He needs a coffee shop and an empty morning.

I don’t get to do this every Saturday. But when I do, more gets done before noon than in most full days of grinding. Not because I work harder. Because I think clearer.

Give yourself the space. See what shows up.

Tell Good Stories

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I saw the new Super Mario Galaxy movie today with my family. It was really well made. The animation was gorgeous, the 3D was good, and the story was well told.

But here’s what got me. Nintendo layered thirty years of Easter eggs into a movie that works perfectly for a seven-year-old who’s never picked up a GameCube. Robot Rob. Star Fox. Mr. Game and Watch. Crosses from Mario Galaxy, Mario Odyssey, Super Smash Bros. A cornucopia of references that made me grin in a theater full of kids who had no idea why I was smiling.

Two audiences. One story. Both satisfied.

They didn’t have to screen-adapt the thing. They just took stories that everybody loved from the games and seamlessly wove them in and out.

Later tonight I was scrolling Facebook and stopped on a Gabriel Iglesias clip. The man literally stands on a stage and talks about his life. No props. No gimmicks. Just stories about his mom, his son, his friends. He’s old school funny — from the generation that made fun of each other and it made them friends. He doesn’t get easily offended. He just holds the audience through his delivery and brings the laughs.

A $200 million animated movie and a guy alone with a microphone. Both doing the exact same thing: telling good stories.

I know this because I’ve lived it. I spent years in Toastmasters giving speeches, and the ones that landed hardest were never the clever ones. They were the personal ones. When I talked about my wife — how we met, how she walked with me through cancer, the ways she shows up that nobody else sees — the room would lock in. Not because the story was dramatic. Because it was real.

One of the best speeches I ever gave was about the butterfly effect. In the tenth grade I threw myself into singing. Gave it everything I had. That led to a full scholarship at my hometown college. My frustration with that college led me to apply somewhere else. Another full scholarship. And that’s where I met my bride. As soon as we met, I didn’t need to sing anymore.

One decision rippled forward and changed everything. The point of the speech wasn’t the love story — it was that sometimes we have to be excellent at something and give it everything we have for that season, even if later that’s not who we are anymore. Today leads us to tomorrow. But telling it through the real story is what made the room feel it.

Whether you’re Nintendo layering thirty years of games into a kids’ movie, Gabriel Iglesias talking about his mom, or me standing at a podium talking about the awesome girl I met in college — the job is the same.

Tell a good story. Don’t deviate from your source material to impress anybody. Know your audience well enough to layer in the things that make them feel seen. And make it real enough that they come back for more.

The tools change. The platforms change. The story is always the thing.

The Process

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I passed a group of protesters on the side of the road yesterday. Maybe fifteen or twenty of them, posterboard signs, standing on the shoulder.

I’m not going to tell you what was on the signs. It doesn’t matter for what I want to say.

My first thought was honest and probably not very generous: there aren’t very many of you. You’re all probably over sixty-five. And I found myself asking — what is it you actually hope to accomplish? Are you raising visibility? Making a statement? Finding community by uniting behind something you don’t like? Or are you trying to cause actual change?

Because those are very different goals. And only one of them requires a plan.

I learned in basic civics — the kind they used to teach in schools — that there is an established process for creating change in this country. The Constitution was written with it baked in. You lobby your representatives. You build popular support through persuasion and communication. You draft legislation. You vote. You work the system because the system was designed to be worked.

That process isn’t flashy. It doesn’t fit on a posterboard. It takes longer than an afternoon on the side of the road. But it works. It has worked for over two hundred years.

Gandhi understood this. He led one of the most effective movements in modern history — not through noise, but through disciplined, organized, strategic action. Silent protests. Marches with a plan. Civil disobedience with a specific legal target. He didn’t just stand on the side of the road. He mapped the road.

I think about this in my own life too. When I want something to change — my health, my career, my creative output — standing around being frustrated about it doesn’t move anything. What moves it is a process. Define the problem. Understand the system. Find the lever. Pull it. Measure what happens. Adjust.

That’s true in data management. It’s true in government. It’s true in marriage. It’s true in faith.

Energy without process is just noise. Process without energy is just bureaucracy. But energy with process — that’s how things actually change.

I don’t know if those fifteen or twenty people on the side of the road had a plan beyond the afternoon. I hope they do. Because the passion was clearly there. And passion deserves a process.

The Craving

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

It took two days.

Two days into assessment week — a planned break between rounds of the 7-40 Challenge — and I was already craving the structure I’d stepped away from.

I’ll admit, some of the break was good. I stopped listening to audiobooks for a few days and let my mind clear out. That turned out to be exactly what I needed to get ready for the next round of learning. And I never stopped my daily Bible reading. I just couldn’t let that one go.

But the calorie tracking slipped. The water slipped. I ate off plan multiple days, some just because I could — which, looking back, was kind of stupid. And it gave me a feeling I didn’t like. I could feel myself sliding back into habit patterns I don’t need. By day three I knew I had to pivot back.

So when I woke up this morning — Round 3, Day 1 — and I had my list in front of me, I felt relief. Energy. A little pep in my step. Because I had those small moments of accomplishment spread across the day again, and they’re fantastic.

Here’s why I think that matters beyond just me.

A long time ago, my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He lived for several years after his diagnosis, but he did not do well in unfamiliar places or unfamiliar routines. My grandmother — a retired nurse and a bit of a drill sergeant — kept his framework together. She kept him in line, kept him moving, kept his daily structure strong. And he was able to function for years, even as he lost more and more of his memory, because his routines stayed the same.

There’s a whole different set of blog posts in that story. But the principle is the same one I felt this week.

Our brains crave habit patterns. They are actual physical things happening inside our heads. We expect the rewards they bring. We expect the satisfaction that comes with practicing them. And that’s true for good habits and bad habits alike. The dopamine high from a good workout isn’t that different from the dopamine hit of an addiction. The difference is which pattern you’ve seeded.

Where I feel grateful is this: I’m healthy. I’m more motivated this year than I’ve ever been in my life. I feel daunted and challenged by the work I’ve set in front of myself, which is probably a good thing. Keeping myself in these habits — keeping myself moving forward — is how I prime myself for success through the seasons when fatigue or exhaustion or grief would want to stop me.

My grandfather didn’t have a choice. His framework was held together by someone who loved him. I have the choice. And after two days without it, I know exactly what I’m choosing.