The Volume Group

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 12

There’s a story about an arts professor who split his pottery class into two groups. The first group only had to produce one piece for the entire year. One shot at perfection. The second group was graded on volume — they had to produce as many pieces as possible, measured by weight at the end of the semester.

At the end of the year, the volume group didn’t just produce more pottery. They produced better pottery. Piece after piece, the craft improved. Meanwhile, the single-piece group spent the year theorizing about what good pottery looked like and never developed the skill to make it.

I think about that story a lot.

I’m 500 posts into BiblePictures365 on Instagram and TikTok. The compositions are stronger now — better framing, better detail, images that actually stop a scroll. I’ve written a blog post every day this year, and the change there is different — the arguments are tighter, the thinking is more organized, and I waste fewer words getting to the point. Two different crafts, both sharpened the same way. Not by studying theory. By shipping something every day and letting the reps do the teaching.

Volume made the quality better. Not worse.

There’s a difference between volume and noise. You can only turn it up as loud as it is good. Go louder than the quality supports, and it’s just blaring — it hurts more than it helps.

But the answer to that isn’t to go quiet. It’s to keep producing at the level you’re proud of and let the reps tighten the craft.

I have no way of knowing everyone who’s seen my work this year. I just know that none of it would have reached anyone if I hadn’t shipped it.

Five five-star reviews on Amazon — most from people I hadn’t spoken to in years — exist because I published the book. 8,000 Instagram followers exist because I posted every day. Over 400,000 views on one video exist because I was already 200 posts deep when it hit.

If I had not shipped these things, they would not have had a chance to impact people.

In Search of Soho People

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 11

Malcolm Gladwell opens The Tipping Point with the story of Hush Puppies. A dying shoe brand — almost pulled from production — that exploded into a national trend because a handful of kids in Soho started wearing them. The company didn’t cause it. They nearly killed the brand. The tipping point happened because the right people found the product in the right place at the right time, and it spread from there.

I need to find my Soho people.

I have a five-star review on Amazon from a guy I went to high school with. We haven’t spoken in almost thirty years. He found my book off a single Facebook post, read it, and left a review comparing it to Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan. He said he put everything else down to read it. He wants the sequel.

One Facebook post. One reader. Thirty years of silence, and the book broke through it.

He’s not the only one out there. I know that. The problem has never been the product. Every person who’s read Phase Defiant has told me they couldn’t put it down. The problem is that almost nobody knows it exists.

I have a how-the-heck-do-I-get-this-in-front-of-people problem.

Gladwell’s point isn’t that Hush Puppies were great shoes. It’s that tipping points have structure. They don’t happen by accident — they happen because conditions are right. The right people, wearing the right thing, in the right neighborhood, at the right time.

I’m a storyteller who wrote a book. I don’t know where my ideal readers gather. I just know the book is good, and the few people who’ve found it agree.

So this week, I’m not trying to sell to everyone. I’m looking for my Soho — the small group of readers who will grab this book and not be able to shut up about it. I don’t need a million of them. I need a few in the right place.

I’ve spent five months building things I believe in. Now I have to learn how things spread.

Never Ring the Bell

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7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 10

I’m reading Admiral McRaven’s Make Your Bed this week. In Navy SEAL training, there’s a brass bell. If you want to quit, you ring it. You’re done. No more cold water, no more impossible runs, no more being pushed past what you thought you could take.

McRaven’s message: if you want to change the world, never ring the bell.

My bell doesn’t look like that.

There’s no brass bell in my living room. Nobody’s watching to see if I ring it. There’s no ceremony to my quitting — no moment where everyone knows I stopped.

My bell is when I stop doing the habits.

It’s the morning I skip Bible study because I’m running late. It’s the day I don’t track my calories because I already know I went over. It’s the walk I don’t take, the book I don’t open, the blog post I decide can wait until tomorrow. One day becomes two. Two becomes a week. And by the time I notice, the structure I built is already eroding and I barely heard it happen.

That’s what makes the ordinary bell harder than McRaven’s. His bell is loud. Mine is silent. His is a single dramatic decision. Mine is a hundred tiny ones, each one so small it doesn’t feel like quitting. It just feels like a day off.

I’ve rung my bell before. Not this year — but I know exactly what it sounds like. In 2022, I lost significant weight, stopped doing what got me there, and the habits dissolved so quietly I didn’t realize they were gone until the weight was back.

That’s why I built the 7-40 Challenge the way I did. Not as a goal with an endpoint, but as a rhythm that doesn’t stop. The habits are the structure. The structure is what keeps the bell out of reach. As long as I’m doing the seven things — even imperfectly, even six out of seven on a rough day — I haven’t rung it.

Day 5 of this round, I hit the wall. Six out of seven habits. No creative work. In bed early. That was a bad day. It wasn’t the bell. The bell would have been Day 6 looking the same. And Day 7. And Day 8. Until I stopped counting altogether.

Day 6, I came back. That’s the difference.

McRaven’s bell is dramatic. Mine is ordinary. But the commitment is the same — you decide, every single day, that you’re not done yet.

Headfirst

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7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 9

I started reading Admiral McRaven’s Make Your Bed today while mowing the yard. Chapter 6 is called “Dare Greatly.” It’s about the slide for life in SEAL training — the obstacle where going headfirst is faster but terrifying, and most people go feet first because it feels safer.

I know exactly what my version of feet first looks like. Keep creating. Keep writing blog posts. Keep building things in private. Keep doing the comfortable parts of this challenge and never venture into the hard part — which is telling people about what I’ve built and asking them to care.

The thing I’m most afraid of is making a marketing plan and sticking to it. Not because I don’t know how to talk to people. Not because the work isn’t good. Because somewhere deep down, I don’t want to look like I’m asking for help. I don’t want people to think I’ve got my hand out. Promotion feels like begging, and I’ve had a chip on my shoulder my whole adult life about wanting to be taken seriously.

That’s not irrational. It’s pride. And it’s been in the way for a long time.

I asked myself two questions this week.

What’s the worst thing that happens if I go headfirst and it doesn’t work? I still have my day job. I still have my family and my home. The worst case is a little egg on my face and a recovery. That doesn’t sound all that bad.

What’s the worst thing that happens if I stay safe? Then I’m an impostor. I built all of this — two novels, 144 days of habits, a business plan, a framework that works — and I never let anyone see it. That’s worse than rejection. That’s hiding.

And I’m done hiding.

The funny thing is, I’ve gone headfirst before. I went headfirst into my relationship with my wife because I knew exactly what I wanted and I didn’t care what anyone else thought. I went headfirst into my master’s degree. I went headfirst into every career move that mattered.

The creative work and the business — I turned those into some magical unicorn that required a level of courage I supposedly didn’t have. But they’re not magic. People do this every day. And here I am, stuck having a hard time getting over myself.

Thirty-three days left in Round 4. Time to go headfirst.

Every Test Is a Milestone

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7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 8

I had my yearly cancer checkup this week. Blood work came back exactly where it should be. Screening was clean. The doctor was pleased.

It doesn’t matter how much time goes by. It always feels good to get those results back. I believe firmly in my heart that this is never coming back. But every clear test is another milestone — another confirmation that I’m still here and still doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

I don’t get as nervous at test time as I used to. But it still means something.

What it gives me is perspective. The kind you can’t manufacture and wouldn’t wish on anyone, but once you have it, it doesn’t leave.

We are not promised tomorrow. And knowing that — really knowing it, not as a greeting card but as something you’ve stared down twice — changes the way you walk into every day. It makes gratitude less of a habit and more of a reflex. It makes wasted time feel heavier than it used to.

I’m still here. And I don’t intend to waste it.