Day 58: The Incident That Started Everything

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years this morning, and he’s deep in the process of working with filmmakers to turn his life into a movie. The writers keep having to explain something to him that he keeps resisting: a character doesn’t just decide to change because it seems like a good idea. Something has to happen to them. Something that makes staying the same more painful than changing.

They call it the inciting incident.

And as I was reading it, I couldn’t stop thinking about my own.

May 2, 2016 is a date I won’t forget.

I’d been with the same company in Oklahoma City for nearly nine years. Every performance review I’d ever had was good. And one morning, they invited me not to come back. Times were hard. Restructuring. Shuffling. The usual language that means your number came up and it wasn’t personal, even though it always feels personal.

I’ve written about this before — Day 47, if you want to go back and read it — that specific sting of being let go when the reviews were always good. It’s a particular kind of disorienting. You did everything right. And it still happened.

But here’s what that inciting incident did: it forced my hand.

Within hours I was on the phone with a mentor. This is what happened. What do you know about? Who needs what I do? Three months later, I was living in DFW with my family in tow, in a new role that would sharpen my skills and my ambitions more than anything I’d done in Oklahoma. I would not have made that call without getting fired. I would not have left without being pushed.

God used that push.

Fast forward to June 2024. I accepted a position that would have required moving my family 8 to 10 hours away. Good opportunity. Good money. The right move on paper. I said yes.

But the closer the fall of 2025 got, the louder a voice inside me got. Not panic. Not fear exactly. More like a quiet, persistent clarity: This is not where you’re supposed to be.

I’ve learned to take that voice seriously.

In April 2025, I applied for a position back in Oklahoma City — the same city I’d left nine years earlier. By fall, instead of moving far away, I was home. Back where the story started. Different man. Same city. And a sense deep in my spirit that I had made the right call, even when it was the harder decision.

That decision was my second inciting incident. But this time I wasn’t pushed. I heard the voice and I chose.

That’s what Donald Miller is wrestling with in the book — the difference between a character who gets pushed into change and a character who eventually starts doing the pushing themselves. His point is that at first, we need the external incident. Something has to happen to us. But somewhere in the story, if we’re paying attention, we start to author our own inciting incidents.

December 2025. I sat down and wrote a document. Here is what 2026 will look like. Here is how I will execute it. Here are the habits. Here is the plan. Nobody fired me. Nobody forced me. I’d seen the pattern enough times to know: I had to force my own hand before life did it for me.

January 1, 2026. The 7-40 Challenge began.

And I’m only 58 days in, with two books written, a full publishing pipeline, and a growing sense that everything that felt like delay was actually foundation.

The inciting incident isn’t always the thing that happens to you.

Sometimes it’s the thing you finally decide to make happen.

Day 58. Still in the story.

I write every day about transformation, habits, and what actually happens when you stop planning and start doing. If that resonates, join the list at subscribepage.io/5g8Hdy and I’ll send you one email per week with the best of what I’m learning.

Day 57: A Character Is What He Does

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Round 2, Day 17
Tuesday, March 3, 2026

I remember hearing Randy Travis for the first time when I was in the fifth or sixth grade. Late ‘80s. This was right after he’d gotten big — Forever and Ever, Amen was everywhere. But when you grew up the way I did, you didn’t just hear the singles. You got the whole album. You listened to every track. And you picked up songs that most people never heard because they only listened to the radio.

There’s a song on that same album called “Good Intentions” — and I can still sing the chorus almost 40 years later:

I hear tell that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, Mama, my intentions were the best. There’s lots of things in my life I’d just as soon not mention. Looks like I turned out like all the rest. But Mama, my intentions were the best.

That chorus came back to me today during my reading.

I’m still working through Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and he’s unpacking what he learned turning his memoir into a movie script. The screenwriters and story experts taught him something that sounds simple but cuts deep:

A character is not what he says. A character is not what he thinks. A character is what he does.

Think about every book you’ve loved. Every movie that stayed with you. The characters that endure aren’t the ones who talk big. They’re the ones who act. We don’t remember them for their speeches. We remember them for their choices.

If you’ve read the Harry Potter books, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Severus Snape, judged by what he said and how he appeared, was a villain. Cold, cruel, seemingly loyal to the enemy. But when you see the full arc — what he actually did — he’s the hero of the entire story. He was a mole inside enemy territory for over a decade, driven by love for a woman he could never have, protecting her son even though that son reminded him of the man he hated most. Strip away what Snape said. Look at what Snape did. He was one of the bravest characters in the story.

Miller’s point isn’t just about screenwriting. It’s about how we live.

Are we the character who talks about what we’re going to do? Or are we the character who does it?

I spent years saying I wanted to be a writer. I told people I was going to write a book. I had notebooks full of ideas going back twenty years. But I wasn’t a writer. Not really. I became a writer when I sat down and actually wrote the book. The doing made it real. The wanting never did.

I can say I want to be a good husband. I can say it every day. But until I actually love my wife and put her needs above my own — consistently, not just when it’s convenient — am I really a good husband? Or am I just a guy with good intentions?

Randy Travis had it right. The road to hell is paved with them.

This is why the 7-40 Challenge matters to me. It’s not about the checklist. It’s about becoming the character who does the thing instead of the character who talks about the thing.

Fifty-seven days in, I haven’t missed one. Not because I’m special. Because I decided that the gap between what I say and what I do needed to close. And the only way to close it is to do it. Every single day.

So I have to ask myself — and I’m asking you too: What is the character you want to play in your life? Are you doing the thing, or just talking about the thing?

Because a character is what he does. And good intentions don’t count.

Day 57 — Seven for Seven

See you tomorrow for Day 58.

Day 56: The Hero Can’t Be the Loser

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Round 2, Day 16
Monday, March 2, 2026

I’m rereading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and he tells a story that I can’t stop thinking about.

A friend of his had a daughter who’d started dating a bad kid and smoking pot. Miller, fresh from Robert McKee’s story workshop, said something that sounds simple but lands like a hammer: “She’s stuck in a bad story.”

His friend didn’t get it at first. But Miller explained the framework he’d learned — a story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. And this friend realized something uncomfortable: he wasn’t presenting a very engaging story for his family. There was no mission, no purpose, nothing bigger than the routine. So his daughter went looking for meaning somewhere else — and she found it in a boy who wasn’t treating her well. At least he was telling her a story where she mattered.

The friend signed up to raise $25,000 to build an orphanage in Mexico. He didn’t have $25,000. His wife was shocked. His daughter was skeptical. But the whole family ended up rallying around it — and here’s the punchline that Miller drops:

“A girl who’s acting in the role of the hero can’t be in a relationship with a loser.”

It just doesn’t work. Because when you find meaning in your own story, when you know your own worth, you can’t lower yourself to be treated poorly. The bad relationship couldn’t survive the better story.

I’ve been thinking about how this applies to what I’m building.

The 7-40 Challenge is, at its core, a decision to tell a better story. Seven habits, every day, for 280 days. Not because checking boxes changes your life — but because the discipline of showing up daily puts you in a different role. You stop being the person things happen to. You start being the person who makes things happen.

And here’s what I’m discovering 56 days in: when you start playing the hero in your own story, it gets really hard to involve yourself in the things where you’re the loser.

The junk food that used to be easy to justify? Harder to eat when you’ve tracked your calories for eight straight weeks and watched the scale move 13 pounds. The excuse to skip a workout? Harder to make when you’ve got 56 days of unbroken execution behind you. The temptation to play it small, to hide, to keep your ideas in a drawer? Harder to give in to when you’ve written 56 blog posts, worked on two novels, lost 13 pounds and have the realization that you’re just getting started.

The better story crowds out the worse one. Not because you become perfect — but because you become aware. You see the choice for what it is. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Miller’s friend didn’t rescue his daughter by lecturing her. He didn’t ground her or take her phone away. He gave the family a mission. He gave them a story worth living. The daughter rescued herself — because the better story made the bad one impossible to tolerate.

I wrote recently about what it feels like to drift through life without a plan. I compared it to floating face down in water, only lifting your head from time to time to see where the current has taken you. That’s how most people live — pulled by the tide, reacting instead of choosing, going wherever the flow sends them.

To live differently, you have to put your feet down. You have to stand up and let the current run around you. And then you have to decide which direction you’re going to walk.

Nobody’s coming to make this easier. There’s no rich relative showing up with a check. No lottery win. No miraculous rescue. You either tell the story or somebody else tells it for you — and you’re just a character in theirs.

I’m 56 days into telling my own story. It’s connected to everything — my work, my family, my health, my writing, my faith. I can’t compartmentalize it anymore. I have to be the same person at work that I am at home. I have to give the same effort to the things I love that I give to the things I’m paid to do. Because all of it is part of the legacy I leave behind. All of it is part of the story I choose to tell.

If I start to play the hero, it’s really hard to involve myself in things where I’m the loser.

And those are my thoughts for today.

Day 56 — Seven for Seven

See you tomorrow for Day 57.

The Family You Choose

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 55 — Gratitude Sunday

March 1, 2026

Today I am thankful.

I’m thankful because I have friends. Two friends, specifically, who over the years have become not just friends — but family. Chosen family. The kind that is just as close as blood.

Last night we went to dinner at Whiskey Cake, a really cool eatery in Oklahoma City that serves freshly prepared, locally sourced food. The K’s sat across the table from us, and we talked about everyday things — family, activities, what everyone’s been up to. And all of that was wonderful in itself. But as I sat there and listened, I had to soak in just how good and right all of it felt.

These are the people who have been there through the hard times. These are the people we know we can count on, depend on, trust. These are friendships that started when we were barely twenty years old and have lasted almost three decades. And they’ll last from here.

You don’t get this kind of depth without taking years of time to just be friends.

There have been seasons where we didn’t get to see each other as much as we wanted. We were in Texas for nine of those years, and it made things tough. But we stayed dedicated — visiting several times a year, driving back and forth, staying in each other’s homes. One of their daughters even mentioned that she loved having us back in town, but that she missed us living in the DFW area because they didn’t get to go on road trips like they used to. That made me smile, because even in the distance, we had built something that was enjoyable. Something worth driving to.

It’s the process of getting to be with people you’re this close to. Just to share in their life. To know that you’re part of their story and they’re part of yours. To see their successes. To be there when they hurt. I love every bit of it. I love having these kinds of friendships because I know they are rare.

In today’s world, you don’t find this just anywhere. You can’t rush it. You can’t manufacture it. You build it one dinner, one visit, one road trip, one hard conversation at a time — over years and years and years.

The Bible says there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. It’s true. That’s what the K’s have been to us. Not just friends. Family. Not by blood by choice.

So thankful for you.

He Does Not Postpone His Life

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 54 — The 7-40 Challenge

February 28, 2026

I finished Linchpin today. And on the last pages, Seth Godin pointed me somewhere I didn’t expect — back to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

There’s a passage in “Self-Reliance” that stopped me and made me pay attention. Emerson writes about a young merchant who fails and society calls him ruined. A college-educated genius who doesn’t land the right job within a year, and everyone — including himself — feels justified in being discouraged for the rest of his life.

Then Emerson flips it. He describes a sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who tries everything — farming, peddling, teaching, preaching, editing a newspaper, going to Congress, buying a township. And always, like a cat, he lands on his feet. That man, Emerson says, is worth a hundred of the “city dolls.”

The line that stopped me: “He does not postpone his life, but lives already.”

I know both of those men. I’ve been both of those men. And the distance between them started with a dime.

From February 2004 to November 2007, I was the office manager of an insurance claims office. I handled the AP and AR, set up claims files, managed the office, took care of the owner’s dog, and served as a general catch-all for whatever needed doing. And if the picture I am painting isn’t vivid enough, the owner smoked four to six cigars a day about ten feet from my desk.

One day I was standing at the copier and the boss asked me how long it had been since he’d raised my salary. It hadn’t been. He told me to add ten cents to my hourly wage. I was making ten dollars an hour. I’m really good at math. I kept a straight face, knowing he had just given me four dollars a week.

I felt like I had been killing it. And I got a dime.

It was demoralizing. But it was also the spark. Because something shifted in me that day. I stopped working for the ten cents and started working for me. Not a dramatic exit. Not a big speech. Just a quiet decision at a copier in a cigar-smoke-filled office that I was going to build myself into something that could never be valued at a dime.

And I did. Over the next twenty years, I became the sturdy lad — at work. I the ins and outs of data management. I earned certifications. I went back to school and turned a 2.7 undergraduate GPA into a 3.95 in graduate school. I became a Distinguished Toastmaster with over a hundred presentations. I moved from that ten-dollar-an-hour desk into career I enjoy. Every time a door closed, I found another one. I landed on my feet. Again and again.

At work.

That’s the part I missed for two decades. I had become Emerson’s sturdy lad in my career, but I had never applied the same principle to the rest of my life. The writing sat in drawers. The novels went unfinished. The fitness goals reset every January. The creative projects piled up in folders and hard drives and notebooks, brilliant in concept and untouched in execution.

I didn’t postpone my professional life. But I postponed a lot of my creativity.

The 7-40 Challenge is the moment I decided to stop splitting the difference. To take the same man who turned a dime raise into a twenty-year career transformation and point him at everything — the health, the writing, the doing, the faith, the creative work, the platform, the legacy. All of it. Every day. Not when the time is right. Now.

Emerson’s sturdy lad doesn’t have one chance. He has a hundred chances. Not because he’s lucky, but because he never stops moving. He tries, fails, pivots, tries again. He doesn’t sit in a room full of half-finished projects wondering why none of them became something.

For twenty years, I was that man from nine to five. Fifty-four days ago, I decided to be that man all day. In every area. With every gift I’ve been given.

He does not postpone his life, but lives already.

Neither will I. Not anymore. Not for a dime. Not again. .