Tag: Books

The Craftsman and the Machine

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I’m reading Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and I keep seeing his argument play out in real time at work.

Newport says rare and valuable skills — career capital — are what give you leverage. The craftsman builds that capital through reps, not passion. Show up, get deep, get good. The leverage follows.

But what happens to the craftsman when a machine can do the surface-level work in thirty seconds?

I’ve been watching AI adoption in my field for months now, and I see three groups forming.

The first group is leaning in. They’re learning everything they can. They’re training the AI, building context, making the partnership between human and machine as smart as it can be. They’re using the tool to augment their thinking — not replace it. These are today’s craftsmen, and the career capital they’re building right now is going to pay off.

The second group is leaning harder into the work itself — but ignoring the tool. They’re getting the right answers, but not as fast as they could. They’re not teaching the AI their context. They’re not augmenting their thinking so they can do more. They’re good at what they do, and that’s going to carry them for a while. But they’re going to fall behind, because the first group is doing everything they’re doing plus more.

The third group is saying screw it. No AI. Not interested. And they’re the ones who are going to get left behind entirely.

Here’s the thing Newport gets right that applies directly to this moment: career capital isn’t devalued by AI if you know what you’re doing. If you can partner with the machine to do your work better, faster, and deeper — your skills become more valuable, not less. The craftsman who picks up a power tool doesn’t lose his craft. He builds faster.

But if you’ve been pretending — if you’ve been skating on surface knowledge and the AI exposes that — you’re in trouble. There’s no other way to say it.

I ran a demo last week where I asked a system a question in plain English and watched it produce the SQL in real time. I could evaluate whether the output was right because I’ve been doing this work for twenty years. But what happens in five years when someone with two years of experience runs that same demo and can’t catch the errors?

That’s the question that keeps me up at night.

The answer isn’t to fear the machine. The answer is humility. Learn. Do your reps. Stop being arrogant about what you think you know and start being honest about what you don’t. Because the AI is going to have more compute power than any of us, and it’s going to get to answers faster than any of us. But it’s not going to have the human filter we need.

You’ve got to be humble. You’ve got to be aware. And you’ve got to do your job the best that you can to keep the AI honest.

That’s the craftsman’s job now. Not just building the thing. Building the thing and making sure the machine didn’t cut the corners you’d never accept.

Twenty-Two

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I’ve sold twenty-two copies of my first novel.

I’m going to sit with that number for a second, because it means two things at once.

First — I wrote a book. A real book. A story I’m genuinely proud of. It has four five-star reviews on Amazon from people who aren’t just being nice. One of them is a stranger who picked it up because a friend recommended it. He put everything else down to finish it. He’s waiting for book two.

Twenty-two people have read something I created, and the ones who’ve talked to me about it say it’s good. Not polite good. Real good.

That feels like something.

Second — twenty-two is not enough. Not because I need validation, but because I know this book could reach people if they could find it. And right now, they can’t. Because I have no idea how to make that happen.

I spent tonight doing research. Honest, unglamorous research into what it actually takes to get a self-published novel in front of readers on Amazon. And here’s what I learned: I don’t know anything about this part of the process.

I know how to write a book. I don’t know how to sell one. Getting the algorithm to show it to people, building the kind of social proof that makes a stranger willing to take a chance on an author they’ve never heard of — I’m standing at the edge of what I know. And there’s nothing out here but questions I haven’t answered yet.

That’s an uncomfortable place to be. Especially after eighty-five days of building systems and shipping work and feeling like the momentum is real. Because the momentum is real. I know where I’m going. I just don’t have the skill yet to get the book there with me. And the only way to learn it is the same way I’ve learned everything else this year. Read. Ask questions. Build a system. Execute. Adjust.

I didn’t know how to write a novel until I wrote one. I didn’t know how to build a daily habit system until I built one. I don’t know how to market a book yet. But I will.

Twenty-two copies. Four five-star reviews. One stranger who couldn’t put it down.

That’s not a failure. That’s a foundation.

P.S. If you want to check it out: https://a.co/d/06d0FLNf

Make Your Own Map

~ David Willis ~ 2 Comments

Day 75 of 280 | The 7-40 Challenge

Nobody is going to hand you the plan.

I’ve only started realizing that this year. I knew if I wanted to be successful, I had to name my own goals — not adopt someone else’s and try to chase them with my own passion. That just doesn’t work. I don’t want somebody else’s dream. I want my dream. I don’t want somebody else’s body. I want my body to look the way it’s supposed to. I don’t want to write somebody else’s book. I want to write the books that are inside of me, about the things I’m interested in.

So I had to make the map.

Not a map someone gave me in a class. Not one I found in a self-help book. Not one my boss outlined for me. Mine. Built from scratch. Designed for the terrain I’m actually walking on.

I’ve been reading Todd Henry’s Die Empty this week, and his principles keep landing on things I’m already living. But the truth is, I didn’t need Henry to tell me these things. I needed him to name what I was already doing — so I could see it clearly and do it better.

I’m seventy-five days into a 280-day transformation experiment that I designed myself. Seven daily habits, forty-day cycles, daily blogging, a published novel, a Bible illustration project, and a philosophical manifesto in progress. Nobody assigned this to me. Nobody approved it. I just decided it was time to stop filling notebooks with “someday” and start building.

That’s what map-making looks like. Not waiting for instructions. Deciding what the terrain requires and drawing the route yourself.

Do your best work even when no one’s watching.

My blog gets ten to twelve views a day. Some days, one or two. I’m seventy-five posts in. Why do I keep writing for an audience that small?

Because I’m not writing it for them.

I’m writing it as my own content library — a record of where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and what I’ve been thinking. I know deep inside me that the questions I’m asking are good ones. The development I’m doing, whether publicly or privately, is still my own personal growth. It’s still interacting with my goals. It’s still getting things done.

And here’s the practical reason: if I don’t do my best now and have my rhythm down, and everybody shows up one day and I screw up — everything blows up. The time to get good is before the audience arrives, not after.

Say yes.

In the last seventy-five days, I said yes to publishing my book. I said yes to throwing myself out there and engaging online with people I don’t know. And from the limited feedback I’ve gotten, it’s all been positive.

What I’m discovering is that the real limitation was put on me by me. The limitations we live inside are self-inflicted most of the time. If we really wanted to get things done — put a plan together, build a system, and just said yes to doing it — we’d be so much further than we thought we’d be.

I’m finding that for myself, seventy-five days in.

But here’s the one that cuts deepest.

Take responsibility for your own progress.

Who was I waiting on for permission? Not my boss. Not a mentor. Not even a sign from God — although a finger is always welcome.

I was waiting on me.

Getting older has had an effect. The man I look at in the mirror these days is a whole lot grayer than he used to be. He’s having to work a whole lot harder to get back in shape. And I’m realizing that if I want to make a contribution to the world like I intend to, I have to do it right now. I cannot wait, in good conscience, for anybody else to give me permission to be the best version of myself.

I think it’s been a sin, in many ways, to limit myself from striving for excellence over the years. I’ve always tried to do my best. But I’ve let the fact that I didn’t know how to do something stop me from even wanting to learn how to do it.

I can’t do that anymore.

I was going through chemotherapy in 2005 for the first time. I would go back to work after my sessions, and I would sit in the office feeling like I’d been burned from the inside. Raw. Just as gross as you can feel. The guy I worked for was smoking cigars in there, and life was still moving at its regular pace. I just wasn’t.

And I remember sitting there thinking: I’m going to choose to take care of the things I’m responsible for, because I chose to. Not because someone’s making me. Because I decided that excellence was my standard, even when I felt like I was on fire inside.

That ability to choose excellence has served me for the rest of my life.

If you can choose it through chemotherapy, you can choose it at any other time.

You’re going to get well. You’re going to get better. And you’re going to come back with a map in your hand that you drew yourself — because nobody else was going to draw it for you.

That’s agency. That’s the yes that changes everything.

Day 75 of 280. Five days left in Round 2.

740Challenge #MakeYourOwnMap #DieEmpty #ToddHenry #Agency #Transformation #LivingProof #DayByDay #LifeOnPurpose

Gratitude Sunday: You Showed Up

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 69 of 280 | The 7-40 Challenge | Thank You Campaign

Last Monday night, I did something I’d been putting off for weeks. I hit publish on a Facebook post telling my friends and family that I’d written a novel. That it was on Amazon. And that I’d love for them to read it.

I’d built that moment up in my head more than I probably needed to. But I’m proud of Phase Defiant. I’m proud that I wrote a novel that started at over 100,000 words and 105 chapters, and after two full revisions landed at 60,000 words and 58 chapters — without losing a single plot point or anything that made the story worth telling.

I believe it is a good book. I just didn’t know if anyone else would care.

The first response I got was from one of my students from a youth group I led — twenty-five years ago. She told me she wanted to read it. The next was from a lady whose son had been in Cub Scouts with my boy.

And then it just kept going.

People from high school. People from church. People I’ve worked with. People I’ve met at random over the years. From every corner of my life, people were either congratulating me, telling me they wanted to read it, or letting me know they’d already bought it.

One friend I haven’t talked to in over ten years — a fellow author named Aubrey — reached out and asked whether I’d rather she buy the book or read it on Kindle Unlimited. She said she’d gladly leave a review. And then she invited me into a couple of author groups on Facebook. That kind of generosity from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a decade was something else. If you are reading this, thank you Aubrey. I appreciate you.

And then there was Rusty.

Rusty is a friend from high school. I remember him being a voracious reader — the kind of guy who collected Louis L’Amour books and had read every single one. He read Scarlett and Gone with the Wind and countless others. He always had a book in his hands.

He told me he got my book on a Thursday. He finished it on Friday. One day.

I was at the gym with my son when the text came in. He told me the book had great characters and good flow. And then he said he was going to give it to his kids and ask them to read it.

I don’t know how to describe what that feels like. To hear someone I remember as a reader — a real reader — say that my book was worth his time and worth passing to the next generation. As a YA novelist, that’s everything. That’s the whole point. Russ, I appreciate you.

Fifteen copies sold this week. I didn’t know what to expect, so fifteen feels amazing. That’s fifteen people who believed enough in me to spend their time and money on something I created. I don’t take that lightly.

Am I in this for the long game? Absolutely. I know how this works. I get to do my own marketing. I get to do my own promotion. And whether Phase Defiant reaches thousands of people or stays in the hands of the ones who already have it, I’m grateful either way.

Because before I knocked, I was afraid that nothing would change. And now that I’ve knocked and people showed up — the fear is gone. It’s not fear anymore. It’s fuel. The validation I needed — that this is a good book and worthy of people’s time — has already been given. Now I just want to get to work.

So if you bought this book — and I hope you’re reading this post right now — know that I appreciate you more than I have time to say.

I wrote this story because it had been inside of me for a while. I love superheroes. I loved growing up in the nineties. I love telling stories. And I love connecting with people. Phase Defiant gave me an opportunity to do all of that in one book.

If you enjoyed it, I would love your feedback in an Amazon review. That’s the single biggest thing you can do to help an indie author get discovered by people who don’t already know him.

But more than anything — thank you. Thank you for being on this journey with me. Thank you for showing up when I finally knocked.

I appreciate you.

📖 Phase Defiant by DMT Willis is available on Amazon: https://a.co/d/04IcWIKi

740Challenge #GratitudeSunday #ThankYouCampaign #PhaseDefiant #DMTWillis #IndieAuthor #BookTok #Gratitude #Community #LivingProof #DayByDay #YouShowedUp

1,200 Letters

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 62 of 280 | The 7-40 Challenge

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller tells the story of the first time he met Bob Goff.

Miller and his friends had been paddling through an inlet somewhere near British Columbia when they came across a house tucked back in the water — a retreat that Bob had built for visiting world leaders. Bob saw them coming. He didn’t know who they were. He waved them in anyway.

They were wet. They smelled horrible. They had planned to stay for an hour. They stayed for almost eight.

What Miller learned during those eight hours is one of the best stories I’ve ever heard about what happens when you throw your family into a better narrative.

Bob Goff had become — I forget the official title — essentially the honorary consul for Uganda. Part of the job meant meeting with foreign diplomats, and he’d come home and told his kids he was a little nervous about it. So he asked them what they would do.

His youngest son said he’d invite them over for a sleepover. Because you get to know people better when they stay with you.

His daughter said she’d ask them what they hoped in. Which might be the best question you can ask any human being — not what do you do, not where are you from, but what do you hope in? What’s your vision for the future, and how do you hope it will happen?

Their oldest son said he’d want to record it.

And Bob, being Bob, took all three ideas and turned them into a mission. His kids wrote twelve hundred letters to world leaders around the world. The letters said, essentially: we want to know you, and we want you to know us. If you’d like to come visit, here’s a key to our home in San Diego. And if you’d rather we come to you — we will.

Twenty-nine responded. Out of twelve hundred.

And Bob kept his promise. He flew his children to every country where a leader said yes. Those kids got to hand world leaders a key to their home, ask them what they hoped in, and film the conversation. One leader actually came and stayed with them in San Diego.

What Bob realized was simple and profound: people are people, no matter where they’re from. Get past the hype, and we’re more alike than we are different.

But here’s what hit me about the story.

Bob didn’t just teach his kids about diplomacy. He gave them an inciting incident. He threw them into a story where what they thought mattered — and where what they thought led them halfway across the world to make connections they never would have made otherwise.

The children were changed by the journey. Not by reading about it. Not by watching someone else do it. By doing it themselves.

Twelve hundred letters. Twenty-nine yeses. A lifetime of stories.

I have to look at my own life right now.

Am I writing letters to dignitaries? No. But I’m standing at the edge of my own inciting incident, and it’s one I’ve been avoiding.

I am not uncomfortable with writing. I’ve been blogging for years. I have hundreds of posts out there with my opinions on everything from faith to fatherhood to data management. I am not afraid to write a book and put it online. I’m not afraid to sing a song and upload it. I’ve done these things.

When I create something and put it out into the world, it feels like giving a gift. Here it is. If it does good for you, I’d love for you to see it. I’d love for you to have it. I’d love for you to experience it the way I have.

That part doesn’t scare me.

The part that scares me is asking.

Not just “it’s here if you want it,” but “will you go look at this? Will you actually take time to consider reading what I’ve written? Will you consider buying what I’ve published? Because I think it will do good for you.”

That’s a different sentence. That’s not leaving a gift on a doorstep and walking away. That’s standing on the porch, knocking, and saying — I made this, and I believe it has value, and I’m asking you to give it your attention.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

Instead of twelve hundred letters to world leaders, I’m going to start posting to the people in my life — and the ones I haven’t met yet — and saying something I’ve never quite said before:

In case we haven’t talked in a while, this is who I am.

I may never have shown you this side of me. I may never have mentioned that I write novels, or that I’m sixty-one days into a personal transformation experiment, or that I’ve been creating daily Bible illustrations since January 1st.

But this is genuinely who I am. And I’ve done some things that I think, if you’ll go check them out, you’d really like.

Would you do that for me?

I’ll be honest. That freaks me out a little.

Not because I don’t think the work is good. I know it’s good. I’ve put too much into it to doubt that.

It’s because asking is a different kind of vulnerability than creating. Creating is between me and the work. Asking is between me and you. And “no” hits different when you’re the one who extended the invitation.

But I have a feeling — the same kind of feeling Bob Goff must have had when his kids started sealing those envelopes — that if I do this, I’ll be changed by the journey.

I’ll continue to write and create and produce things I believe are valuable. I’ll continue to want to get them in front of people who can use them. But I think something else will happen too. I’ll learn what I’m capable of. I’ll develop a confidence that can only come from stepping out and declaring to the world: this is what I want to do, and this is who I am.

Bob Goff threw his children into a story. Twelve hundred letters. Twenty-nine yeses. Changed forever.

I’m throwing myself into one. Day 62. The inciting incident isn’t the creating. It’s the asking.

Here’s my letter. I hope you open it.

Day 62 Scorecard:

✅ Bible study and prayer ✅ Gratitude ✅ Reading (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years) ✅ Calories tracked ✅ Water (100 oz) ✅ BiblePictures365 (Numbers 31, 32) ✅ Exercise (Workout A with my son) ✅ Creative hour