There Is No Map

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 52 — The 7-40 Challenge

February 26, 2026

I’m still working through Seth Godin’s Linchpin, and I either wasn’t paying attention the first time I read this book, or I just wasn’t ready for it.

Godin shares what he calls his favorite bad review — someone critiquing his book Tribes. The reviewer said Godin spent all this time talking about people with good ideas and how they could spread those ideas and made it sound so easy. But then the reviewer complained that Godin never provides a how-to. No step-by-step guide. No blueprint for becoming this kind of leader.

Godin’s response? That’s the point. There is no map.

When I heard that, I felt something click that I’ve been circling for years. Because I have been that reviewer. I’ve read Godin’s work and felt simultaneously inspired and annoyed. I could feel the grind between wanting to be what he described and having absolutely no idea how to get there.

But here’s what I’m realizing at Day 52 that I couldn’t see before: it’s not completely true that I didn’t know how. I just didn’t realize that the principles I was applying at work — the ones I was crushing with — were the same principles I should have been applying to my own life and my own projects.

Let me explain.

Back in the DFW area, I was working as a data governance specialist. I was doing good work. Gaining customer trust. Improving data flow. Making initiatives succeed. But the people around me were getting promoted, and I wasn’t. So I asked my manager the question: how do I get promoted?

His answer was ambiguous at best. Something about being involved in a larger project. Contributing at a higher level. And in my mind, I was contributing. But not on anything high-profile enough to get noticed.

I had two options. Whine about it and stay put, or lift my gaze and figure out how to get to that bigger project. There was no map for that. Nobody handed me a flowchart that said “do these six things and you’ll be promoted in eighteen months.” But when the opportunity for a bigger project came, I recognized it. I grabbed it with both hands. And by the time I was done, I’d gone from data governance specialist to data management advisor for the company.

Looking back, that’s the whole lesson. There was no map. But there was a framework — a set of principles I was already living by at work. Solve the problem. Own the outcome. Show up consistently. Build trust through character, not credentials. I just hadn’t translated those principles to the rest of my life yet.

That’s where the frustration lives for most of us. We want a map. We want someone to hand us a set of directions and promise that if we follow them, everything works out. But that’s not how any of this works. It’s not cartography. It’s a series of decisions made over time in response to things nobody else has encountered in exactly the way you have.

So it’s not that we want a map. It’s that we want a framework — a way to process the information that gets thrown at us. We want a set of habits. We want to name the things that matter and start pursuing them.

That’s what the 7-40 Challenge is. It’s not a map. It’s a compass. Seven habits aren’t directions to a destination. They’re tools for navigating whatever wilderness you’re in.

And I think this is why the Bible says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It’s not that you haven’t accepted what God has offered. It’s that your journey with Him is different from anyone else’s. Your response to Him will be different. The principles are universal, but the path is individual. That’s true in faith. It’s true in business. It’s true in transformation.

I’ve had mentors who wandered through similar wilderness. Dave Ramsey taught me to handle money. Dan Miller — who wrote 48 Days to the Work You Love before he passed away — helped me see that passion and entrepreneurship could coexist. Godin has been pushing me to think differently for over a decade. But none of them walked through my wilderness. They gave me enough to start cutting my own trail.

Twenty years ago, the teacher was there. The student wasn’t ready. Now, having been through two cancer battles, corporate environments that tested every skill I had, a marriage that’s lasted 27 years, and a productivity explosion over the last 52 days — I can’t imagine going back to where I was. I see the man I’ve come from. I see where I’m going. And I realize that what felt like delay was actually foundation. Character. Work ethic. Know-how built across a lot of different areas.

The foundation is firm now. And because of that, I can finally hear what Godin’s been saying all along.

There is no map. There never was. But there’s a compass, a set of habits, and a God who’s been with me the whole time.

Day 52. Still cutting trail.

Respond, Don’t React

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 51 — The 7-40 Challenge

February 25, 2026

Zig Ziglar once made a distinction that I think about more than I probably should. He said there’s a difference between responding and reacting. If you go to the doctor and they give you a medicine and ask you to come back in a few days, you want to hear them say, “Your body is responding to the treatment.” That means it’s working. If they say your body is reacting to the treatment, that means something’s gone wrong and they need to try something else.

Responding means something thoughtful is happening. Reacting means something unplanned is happening. A response flows from something pre-programmed inside of you. A reaction is something that happens in a moment.

I’ve been on both sides of this more times than I’d like to admit.

Over 27 years of marriage, there have been plenty of moments where my wife has said something, and I heard it wrong. Not because she said it wrong, but because I skipped the step where I consider context, intention, and the fact that this is a person who loves me and has been proving it for nearly three decades. Instead of processing what she actually meant, I jumped to how it made me feel. And then we had to spend the next thirty minutes untangling a reaction that never needed to happen in the first place.

Even with the people we love most, we sometimes forget to use who they are as a filter. We forget to give them the benefit of the doubt — that maybe they’re having a bad day, or maybe they just said something in a way that hit us sideways. A response gives them that grace. A reaction doesn’t.

On the other end, I had a moment at work not long ago where someone from a different department walked into my office and essentially started unloading on me. They were upset. Really upset. But I knew they weren’t mad at me. I knew I wasn’t even the reason they were venting. So I smiled. I kept asking questions. I let the storm blow over. And when it was done, I offered to help fix the problem going forward.

Had I matched energy for energy, nothing productive would have come out of that conversation. Just two frustrated people making each other worse. But something was pre-programmed in me that kicked in before the reaction could: I’m not going to let other people dictate how I act. I choose to show kindness. I choose reserve.

Now, a moment of honesty. I owe my bride the same. For the times I haven’t my darling, I ask for your forgiveness.

That’s what responding looks like. It’s not weakness. It’s not letting people walk on you. It is not assuming the worst and starting from that place. It’s having something already built inside you that catches the moment before it spirals.

Which brings me to something I’ve noticed 51 days into this challenge. The daily habit structure hasn’t necessarily made me better at handling unexpected problems. But it has made me better at keeping focus when problems show up. Good days or bad days, there’s a certain set of things I’ve committed to getting done. And I just do them. If something throws me off, I adjust the plan — but it’s because I planned the adjustment, not because I panicked.

Yesterday was a good example. I sat down, read some current events, and felt the weight of the world land on me. The kind of weight that makes your own goals feel small. My agency felt like it was shrinking. And the resistance — the part of your brain that’s always looking for a reason to stop — grabbed onto that feeling and tried to run with it.

But instead of spiraling, I was able to name it. I could identify what I was feeling and why. I could remind myself that aside from being the person I’m supposed to be, there’s not a ton I can do to affect the greater world. I have to control what I can control, be an inspiration to the people around me, and leave the rest to God.

That’s a response. A reaction would have been closing the laptop, skipping the creative hour, and telling myself none of this matters anyway.

So if you’re someone who feels stuck in reactive mode — where everything feels urgent, every problem is a crisis, every headline sends you spinning — here’s what I’d ask you: What can you actually do today to make your situation better? Not the world’s situation. Yours. What to-do list can you write right now that moves you toward something that matters to you?

I think what a lot of people forget in our current crisis culture is that we’re human. We have basic needs. And one of them is a sense of accomplishment — the feeling that we can do something and do it well. When we lean into excellence, when we focus on working through the things we can actually control, we give ourselves less room to react and more room to respond.

And yes, my faith is all over this. My belief in God, my relationship with Jesus, my daily Bible reading — they ground me in something bigger than the world around me. Bigger than current events. In my view, there’s nothing bigger than my God. And when I take that perspective and look at the problems around me, I don’t see political sides or cultural battles. I see people who are hurting. People who need help. People to serve.

That’s the filter. That’s the pre-programming. And it changes what you see when the storm walks through your door.

SELECT * FROM imagination WHERE creativity IS NOT NULL

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 50 — The 7-40 Challenge

February 24, 2026

I spend my days writing SQL, talking with people about their data, and making sure systems talk to each other the way they’re supposed to. It’s not glamorous. Nobody’s making a movie about the guy who finds the duplicate data records.

But here’s the thing nobody tells you about data management — it’s storytelling. And I don’t mean that in a fluffy, motivational-poster kind of way. I mean it structurally. The same brain that queries a database is the same brain that builds a fictional world. Let me show you what I mean.

In a database, every table needs a primary key. That’s the unique identifier that connects one set of information to another. A vendor’s tax ID, an employee number, a transaction code. Without it, you’re just staring at rows of disconnected facts that don’t mean anything.

Characters work the same way. Tiffany Grant, the protagonist of my novel Phase Defiant, has a primary key — and it’s not her name or her abilities. It’s her relentless need to ask questions. She doesn’t accept things at face value. That trait is what connects her to every relationship, every conflict, and every turning point in the story. It’s also what connects her to Thomas, because he’s wired the same way. When those two primary keys match up, suddenly you can JOIN the tables together and the story gets a whole lot richer.

Speaking of JOINs — in SQL, when you join two tables, you take partial pictures and combine them into something complete. One table might show you a vendor’s name and address. Another shows you their payment history. A third shows you the contracts. Individually, they’re just fragments. Joined together, they tell you exactly who that vendor is, what they do, and whether or not they’re worth keeping around.

Fiction works the same way. Tiffany by herself is one dimension of the story. Thomas by himself is another. The organization watching them is another. But when those plotlines JOIN — when characters realize they’re not alone and start working together — the story gets bigger than any one of them. That’s not a coincidence. That’s architecture.

Now, let’s talk about dirty data. In my world, dirty data is the stuff that doesn’t add up. Duplicate records, missing fields, values that shouldn’t exist, timestamps that make no sense. And here’s what most people don’t realize — dirty data tells you a story too. It tells you where the organization cut corners, where they stopped paying attention, and sometimes where somebody’s actively hiding something.

Fiction has dirty data too. It’s called the villain.

A good villain in a story does the same thing bad data does in a database — they either hide incompetence or they hide something more sinister. They lead you to believe something that isn’t true so they can achieve their own ends. And just like a senior analyst can spot a counterfeit record the way a bank teller can feel a counterfeit bill, an experienced reader can feel when something’s off in a story. The details don’t add up. Someone’s motives don’t match their actions. That’s dirty data, and it means someone in the story is lying to you.

I’ve heard that bank tellers who handle money all day long can spot a fake bill the moment it hits their fingers. They don’t need to hold it up to the light. They just know. I’ve seen the same thing in data. When you’ve worked with it long enough, you know when something’s wrong before you can even articulate why. The flow is off. The connections don’t make sense. And that instinct — that pattern recognition — is the exact same muscle I use when I’m writing fiction and something in the plot doesn’t feel right.

Here’s one more parallel, and then I’ll stop nerding out. There’s a principle in AI and data science: garbage in, garbage out. If your data is poorly managed, your AI is going to make erroneous assumptions based on bad connections. It won’t understand your business. It won’t see the truth. It’ll confidently give you wrong answers because the inputs were wrong.

Storytelling has the same rule. If you skip the world-building, if you don’t lay down the framework, if you don’t know who your character is and what they want and what’s standing in their way — you end up with a plot that confidently goes nowhere. The architecture of a good story is the same as the architecture of a good database. Character wants something. Adversity stands in the way. A guide shows them a path. They move toward victory or experience defeat. That’s the character arc. That’s also, if you squint at it, a pretty decent data flow diagram.

I say all of this because I spent a long time thinking I had to be one thing. Technical or creative. Analytical or artistic. SQL or storytelling. The truth is, they’re the same skill wearing different clothes. Both require you to see patterns. Both require you to connect things that look unrelated. Both require you to know when something doesn’t add up and have the courage to say so.

So if you’re the person who spends all day in spreadsheets and databases and you think you’re not creative — you’re wrong. You’ve been telling stories with data your whole career. You just didn’t call it that.

And if you’re the creative person who thinks data is boring — come sit with me for an hour. I’ll show you a database that reads like a thriller. We can finds some villains lurking for sure.

Day 49: Standing on My Own Shoulders

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 49 — The 7-40 Challenge

February 23, 2026

I spent some time today going through old papers. Old goals. Old to-do lists. Old projects. I hoard projects the way some people hoard shoes, apparently.

I was reviewing them to see where my mind has been — not just recently, but for several years. And what I found surprised me. Many of the goals I’m working on today are goals I’ve been working on for quite some time, whether I called them by the same name or not.

A pattern is emerging: I was more productive than I was giving myself credit for. And some of the successes I’m having today are standing on the shoulders of things I did years ago — things I may not have been completely ready for at the time.

What do I mean by that?

I’ve been listening to Linchpin by Seth Godin. If I had to break the book down into one tagline, it would be this: listen to your inner genius and defeat the resistance. When I was younger, I understood what that meant. But I didn’t understand it the way I do today. Maybe that’s a product of age, time, and perspective. Probably all three.

Here’s what I realize now: my resistance — my hesitation, my inability to push projects forward — had much more to do with not knowing what I was doing than it did with motivation. I was plenty motivated. I was working hard.

I wrote a children’s book years ago. I had an idea, wanted to get it out, wanted to push it onto Amazon so people could share the story with me and, honestly, so I could make some money. I think I sold ten copies. That might be generous. I was probably in the hole after all the printing and formatting and noise it took to get it right.

But here’s the thing — it wasn’t that I couldn’t get a product put together. I could. I did. The book existed. The problem was that I didn’t understand fundamentally how to do the next step. I didn’t even have the framework to ask the right questions.

Fast forward to now. I just published a teen superhero novel set in the 1990s called Phase Defiant. I got it onto Amazon KDP just a couple of days ago. I’m working through a few final revision items Amazon wants before the print version goes live.

And I’m at this place again — the place where the creative work is done and the real work begins.

But this time is different. Instead of wishing and hoping things will go well, I have a plan. I’ve laid out a research-based approach to getting eyes on my book. I’m using the tools at my disposal. I’m studying ARC teams, BookTok strategies, content marketing, audience building. I’m turning research into actionable items.

This is the part I didn’t understand when I was younger: just getting your idea done does not mean you are successful. It means you can finish a project. But finishing the project doesn’t mean everybody’s naturally going to love it, because once you finish it, the real work apparently begins — getting people to notice it, recognize it, and love it just as much as you do.

I want to embrace this next part of the journey. I’m truly proud of this book. I believe the themes in it and the story it tells are worthy of people’s time. I hope that when teen readers finish it, they’re encouraged by the protagonist. That they’re asking good questions about their own lives. That there’s a general feeling they just went on an adventure that was worth the ride.

I say all this to say: I’m much further than where I was. My lack of knowledge now isn’t a stumbling block. It’s an opportunity to take my enthusiasm to the next level. And by practicing these seven daily habits every day, I’m setting myself up for the kind of structure I need to keep building.

The goals haven’t changed much in ten years. But I have. And that makes all the difference.

Day 48: Thank You Campaign — My Dad

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Round 2, Day 8
Sunday, February 22, 2026

Welcome to Gratitude Sunday.

Every Sunday this year, I’m taking time to express how thankful I am for the people, the moments, and the things that have shaped my life. I call it the Thank You Campaign. And tonight’s post is about my dad.

My dad has been so many things to me over the course of my life, and I could go on for a while about all of them. But there’s one thing I want to highlight tonight: I want to love my wife the way my dad loves my mom.

I have witnessed it firsthand for as long as I can remember. He has been head over heels in love with my mother since they met in their twenties. Almost fifty years of marriage later, he still goes out of his way to make sure she’s taken care of and that she’s okay. That kind of love doesn’t just happen. It’s chosen, over and over, day after day. And I’ve had a front-row seat to it my entire life.

There are three ways this has shaped me that I want to share tonight.

He gave me security. Growing up, I never questioned whether our home was stable. I saw how my dad treated my mom. I saw them work through their problems. I saw them take care of things together. Their relationship was solid, and because of that, I felt safe. A kid who watches his parents love each other well doesn’t have to wonder if the ground beneath him is going to shift. That’s a gift I always appreciated and appreciate so much more now that I’m older.

He showed me what protection looks like. I have watched my dad defend my mother, and I am thankful for it. There are some things you just don’t do around my dad, and disrespecting my mother is at the top of the list. He didn’t just show me that their relationship mattered inside our home — he showed me that there are some people in this life you simply don’t get to mess with. For my dad, that is and always has been my mother.

He showed me what tireless love looks like. There have been times when my dad was burned to a crisp — tired, worn out, running on fumes. And he still went out of his way to love her and take care of her. Not because it was easy. Because that’s who he is. Love isn’t just the good days. It’s the days when you have nothing left and you give anyway.

Dad, if you’re reading these words, know that there are so many other reasons I’m thankful for you. But tonight I’m highlighting this one: I have watched you love my mother consistently, every single day of my life. It is one of the things I admire most about you. You showed me how to love my wife with that same kind of effort, that same kind of devotion.

I want to take care of my bride with the same heart you’ve shown Mom. That’s the standard you set. And I’m grateful for it.

Thank you, Dad.

Day 48 of 280. Gratitude Sunday — The Thank You Campaign.