Author: David Willis

Be your best, even when your surroundings aren’t.

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever had a job you hated? I have had a couple. (Thankfully it has been years since then.) You know the kind I am taking about don’t you? You dread Monday morning like the plague and long desperately for Friday at 5. The life is sucked out of you daily and you have very little joy. Anybody ever had one of these? I see those hands.

I made a decision years ago that I was going to do my best, even if I didn’t like where I was at that time. I tried every day to give my best effort and do the best work I could. I still felt like the life was being sucked out of me, but I knew that I was doing what was right. I found a small comfort in that. The easy thing to do would be do just enough to get by. Just enough to not get fired. To some people this makes it easier. I think that is a horrible way to go. Let me explain.

What happens when we do just enough to get by? We lower our standards. We make a conscious choice to be mediocre. Suddenly, scraping by at work turns into a behavior that can seep into other areas of life. Our defense against the misery at work ends up eroding our foundation. What we do today affects what we are able to do tomorrow. There is a great quote by Winston Churchill that speaks to this:

To every person there comes in their lifetime that special moment when you are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to you and your talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds you unprepared or unqualified for work which could have been your finest hour. – Sir Winston Churchill

Every day we have the chance to build a better tomorrow through our choices. We can prepare ourselves for the future with excellence today. I look at my decision to do my best with the job I didn’t like and know that it is one of the key things that helped me secure the job I do like. Had I not been doing everything I could to better myself in the bad circumstances, I may not have found myself in the good ones.

Have you found yourself in this situations? How are you responding to the negative work environment?

 

Its a Saturday morning tradition…

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

We have a Saturday morning tradition that I really enjoy: Homemade biscuits for breakfast and eating together as a family. It is one of my favorite times of the week, because I get to sit down in the daylight hours with my wife and son and enjoy them as we eat.

I started making the biscuits a few years ago. It is a very simple recipie:

2 cups of flour; 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 5 1/2 tablespoons of butter (partially melted) and a half a cup of milk. Mix all that together, roll out, cut out biscuits, and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.

I never thought anything so simple would bring comfort and joy. It is nice waking up on Saturday morning and having them to look forward to with Marixa and Trey. He asks for them  most Saturdays.

But, come to think of it, it really is the simple things that I look forward to the most. Getting home from work and cooking dinner. Talking with Marixa about her day. Playing with Trey and seeing the new things he comes up with. I absolutely love it.

What things do you do every week that you look forward to with your family? How do you make the time you have special?

Apartment 380 wasn’t so bad.

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

When Marixa and I first got married we lived in an 800 square foot apartment on the north side of Oklahoma City. It was one bedroom and one bath, and fit us perfectly after we said I do. It was filled with a bunch of hand-me-down furniture, including a recliner sofa that had the support beams exposed and an assortmnet of furniture made out of ammo crates. (Yes. Real ammunition crates. Our end tables, microwave stand, bookshelves, and a few other things were expertly crafted from old ammunition crates.)

When we moved in we had very few cares in the world. I had a part time job as did she. I went to school full time. There was a lot of time to hang out together, watch movies, play games, and enjoy life. We had a good thing going. Then, about 8 months in, we started to experience the craving for more. A bigger apartment sounded nice. Soon after that a newer car was a serious want. After that we needed to get out of apartments and into a house. We rented for a while and then we just had to buy. And so on.

Looking back, I miss apartment 380. We had very few debts. Very little worry. Life moved at a slower pace. It is a shame that we didn’t realize it at the time. We had a very good thing at the beginning of our marriage. It was a sacred time. One I would encourage more young couples to take advantage of.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my life. There are responsibilities and things to take care of, but I do love it. We are building a life in our home with our family. (We have been in this house for almost 5 years…that is some kind of record!). I do look back on 380 with fond memories. Given the chance to start there again, I know there are some choices Marixa and I would have made different along the way, but we wouldn’t be where we are in so many other ways.

Have you noticed this pattern in your life? Have you ever felt the need for bigger and better? I am convinced that there is much more contentment in simplicity. That is what those days were: simple. I loved it. One day we will get back there again…but not 800 square feet. That just wouldn’t work with kiddos and dogs!

 

 

The buck stops here.

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I just finished reading the Travelers Gift by Andy Andrews. That is the second of his books that I have read this month. Exceptional stuff. Check it out if you haven’t read it. You won’t be disappointed. In it he tells a story about a character named David who is way down in his life and is taught seven decisions that successful people make on the way to success.

The first of the decisions struck me. It is this: The buck stops here. What does he mean by this? I am responsible for my life. Things are the way they are because of the choices that I have made, the thoughts that I have put into my head, and what I have done with my opportunities. He says the way we are where we are because of the way we think. If we want to be somewhere else we have to change how we think. We are responsible. I am responsible.

This is not a popular message. We live in a world of blame passers. How often do we hear people say, “Its not my fault!”? It is easy to live this way, but it not rewarding.

One line that stuck out to me from this chapter says this: The buck stops here. I control my thoughts. I control my emotions. In the future when I am tempted to ask the question “Why me?” I will immediately counter with the answer: “Why not me?” Challenges are gifts, opportunities to learn.

This book struck a chord in me. The buck stops here. I choose not to be a victim. I choose not to let circumstance dictate my life. I choose to take responsibility for myself, my actions, my thoughts, etc. The buck stops here.

The paragraph goes on to say: Problems are the common thread running through the lives of great men and women. In times of adversity, I will not have a problem to deal with; I will have a choice to make… I accept responsibility for my past. I control my thoughts. I control my emotions. I am responsible for my success. …The buck stops here.

What do you think about these words? Where do you stand on this matter?

What we think about.

~ David Willis ~ 3 Comments

It occurred to me some time ago that I needed to be putting better things into my head if I wanted better things to come out of it. For months all I would listen to was the same music over and over, the same audiobooks over and over, and watch the same movies over and over. I wondered why my thinking never really evolved past where it had been. It is obvious looking back.

What you put in really is what you get back out. If you put in good, you get good in return. If you put in crap, you get crap in return. If you put in a random assortment of unconnected crap, you get an unsettled mind that can not find firm ground. But, here is the cool part: If you put in a stream filled with awesome, inspiring, instructive, thought provoking stuff….you fill in the rest of the sentence. It is like a light bulb came on in my head. What I was putting in is what I was getting out.

So, I have been trying to do this very thing. I have stopped listening to standup comedy. (There are some artists that are doing it right, but many are not. Why does it seem like a competition of who can be more vulgar or outlandish? I will save that for some other time…) I have stopped listening to some of the music that I had let slip in. For the most part, I have stopped watching TV. (I reserve the right to hang on to the Biggest Loser and the Food Network). I have made a huge attempt to remove many of the negative influences that have had a free pass into my mind.

The result? For starters my mind has found some peace. For a while I had my iPod in my ears most of the day. I wasn’t giving my brain any downtime. I take periodic times for quiet now. I have chosen some thought provoking listening (the writings of John Eldredge, Andy Andrews, CS Lewis, Mark Batterson, Seth Godin, Dan Miller, Dave Ramsey, and others). I have soaked up much of the information like a sponge. I see some of what I have read coming back through in my daily decisions. Also, I find I don’t have much bad to say about anyone. I am not putting negative into my brain, so I don’t feel the need to let negative come back out of it. There are positive ways to get through the issues.

What do you think about the most? What are you allowing into your mind that is shaping your thoughts? The good news is we can replace the negative thoughts for good ones. It takes work. It takes time to build new patterns. But, in time when we put good things in, we will definitely be getting good things out.