Tag: communication

Day 43: The Factory Worker Inside You

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Round 2, Day 3
Tuesday, February 17, 2026

I’m still working through Seth Godin’s Linchpin, and tonight I want to talk about something that might make you uncomfortable.

There’s a factory worker living inside you. And if you’re not careful, he’ll run the show.

The System That Built Us

Godin makes the case — and he wrote this back in 2010 — that the industrial revolution didn’t just build factories. It built an education system designed to feed them. Sit down. Follow instructions. Get good grades. Go to college. Get a job. Do what you’re told. Collect a paycheck.

The highest value of that system wasn’t innovation. It wasn’t creativity. It was compliance. The goal was to produce people who could do a job for a day’s wage and not have to think.

And for a long time, that system worked. For the factories, anyway.

But here’s the thing Godin saw coming sixteen years ago: that era is over. And if it was over in 2010, it is buried in 2026. The rise of AI, the speed of change in the marketplace, the sheer volume of information and tools available — all of it demands something the factory model never taught us.

Applied creativity.

The Moment You Start Phoning It In

I know the factory worker mindset from the inside. During my days working in an insurance office, I felt it pulling at me constantly. When your contribution doesn’t seem to matter, when you’re not making progress, when the environment is draining — it is incredibly easy to just phone it in. Go through the motions. Clock in, clock out, repeat.

I think we all have moments like that. Seasons where the path of least resistance is to stop caring and just do the minimum.

I started breaking out of it when I realized something simple but powerful: my level of effort actually moved the needle. When I brought energy and intention to my work, things changed. When I phoned it in, they didn’t. The results were directly connected to the investment.

That’s not a complicated idea. But it’s one most people ignore.

The Rogue in the Cubicle

Here’s what I’ve learned about myself over the years. I am a creative free spirit living in a corporate, data-ordered world. Those two things don’t always get along.

I have to turn on music to keep my brain engaged. I have to move. I have to conceptualize problems in different ways just to stay satisfied — not because I’m difficult, but because that’s how I’m wired. And honestly, that creative wiring is exactly what makes me good at what I do.

Because if we look at things the same way every time, we never solve problems. We just keep describing them. New solutions require new ideas, and new ideas come from people who refuse to think inside the factory lines.

That rebellious streak? It’s not a flaw. It’s the linchpin quality Godin is talking about.

AI and the New Frontier

This is even more real for me right now as I learn to work with AI tools. The way I see it, AI is the ultimate amplifier of applied creativity — but only if you know how to use it.

I’ve been learning how to iterate: ask questions, get feedback, supply my critiques, apply my business knowledge, layer in my creativity, get more feedback, and iterate again. The process works. But it only works if you bring something to the table.

And here’s what I’ve noticed: the quality of the answer depends entirely on the quality of the question. If you’re not clear about what you need, the tool won’t save you. You have to understand what you’re working with — the sophistication of the model, the way you communicate and express yourself — so that the response fits the context of what you’re actually trying to accomplish.

In other words, AI doesn’t replace thinking. It rewards it.

The factory workers of 2026 are the people who will ask a machine to do their thinking for them and accept whatever comes back. The linchpins are the ones who will use these tools to multiply what they already bring — their creativity, their experience, their judgment.

Which One Are You?

So tonight I’ll leave you with this.

Are you a factory worker or a linchpin? Are you phoning it in — going through the motions at work, at home, in your health, in your relationships? Are you following the old model: sit down, follow instructions, don’t make waves, collect your check?

Or is there a rogue inside you that knows you were built for more?

Because here’s the truth: in today’s world, nobody is coming to hand you a better life. The era of doing what you’re told and being rewarded for it is over. If you are not taking the initiative to drive your own success forward — to learn new tools, to think creatively, to bring something to the table that nobody else can — then you are falling behind. Right now. Today.

Not tomorrow. Not next quarter. Now.

The people who thrive in 2026 and beyond won’t be the ones who followed orders the best. They’ll be the ones who refused to stop thinking, refused to stop growing, and took ownership of where they’re headed.

So if you haven’t started, start now. Not when you’re ready. Not when conditions are perfect. Now.

Day 43 of 280. Be the linchpin.

Day 42: Everything Is Connected

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Round 2, Day 2
Monday, February 16, 2026

I’ve been reading Linchpin by Seth Godin again, and it’s stirring things up. But tonight’s post isn’t about Linchpin. It’s about something that book keeps pointing me back to — a thought I’ve been carrying for years.

Everything is connected.

A Hospital Bed and a Fish Bone Diagram

In 2018, I was lying in a hospital bed going through chemotherapy for the second time. A 13-centimeter tumor. Four one-week hospital stays. I didn’t know how much damage the cancer had done. I didn’t know how long I had.

A few friends from work would come visit and keep me up on the projects we had going. And because I didn’t have a whole lot else to think about, I started processing — really processing — how our business workflows actually worked. Where data originated. How it matured through systems and the activities of people. How something that started at the beginning of a process was eventually consumed by somebody at the end who had no idea where it came from. It just magically appeared.

Lying there, I could see it like a fish bone diagram. One thread of data with dozens of offshoots — different teams, different efforts, different parts of the business process. And I could see how the busted processes, the workarounds, the bull crap people had to do just to keep things straight — it all became very apparent.

That clarity has stayed with me. As a data professional, I try to share it with anyone who will listen: if we understand the overall business workflow, we can pass out the pieces, identify the problem areas, and start making things better. That’s true in any business, any organization, anywhere people work together.

But here’s the thing. That principle doesn’t stop at the office door.

The Insurance Company

I actually made the connection about life being connected even before the hospital bed.

In the mid-2000s, I worked at an insurance company where I was miserable every day. The owner smoked four to six cigars a day ten feet from my desk. Profanity filled the air. Morale was rock bottom.

And I realized something that changed my trajectory: I couldn’t be angry at work and healthy at home. It invariably carried over. My frustration at the office became tension with my family, and that was not a sustainable position.

I had to start working on myself personally — not because I loved the job, but because I knew that everything was connected. If one part of my life was poisoned, the rest would suffer.

Fast-forward a few years. I was working on my master’s degree, thriving in an academic setting where I had previously been a mediocre student. And I realized the difference wasn’t intelligence. It was devotion to the process of getting better — and being the same engaged, enthusiastic person in my whole life, not just pieces of it.

When I stopped compartmentalizing, everything changed.

The Kobe Bryant Principle

I heard a story about Kobe Bryant that stuck with me. Kobe deliberately studied the referee’s handbook — every rule, every call, every technicality. Not because he wanted to argue calls. Because he wanted to master the environment he was operating in.

If he wanted a specific foul called, he knew what action to take. He knew how to get timeouts. He knew how to stop the clock. He used the rules of the game to his advantage — not by breaking them, but by understanding them so deeply that he could stretch them.

That’s what excellence looks like. It’s not just knowing the rules. It’s knowing how to apply them so you can accomplish what you need to accomplish while still taking care of the people around you.

Kobe demanded that kind of mastery from himself. And he rose above almost every player who’s ever played the game because of it.

The Real Question

Seth Godin wrote Linchpin in 2010, and he was already pointing out that the industrial age — where the highest value of the education system was producing factory workers who would do a job for a day’s wage and not have to think — was over. That we had entered an era of applied creativity.

That is even more true today. The market is changing. AI is reshaping everything. The people who will thrive are the ones who see the connections, who understand the whole system, who refuse to compartmentalize their lives into disconnected pieces.

So here’s what I’d say to you tonight.

If you feel like two separate people between work and home. If you feel like two separate people between groups of friends. If how you feel in your mind doesn’t match how you act on the outside — you need to have a frank conversation with yourself.

The way God created us is to be whole. Engaged and excellent in all the areas of our lives — not fragmented, not compartmentalized, not running different versions of ourselves depending on who’s watching.

Everything is connected. Your health affects your work. Your work affects your family. Your family affects your purpose. Your purpose affects everything.

The data taught me that in a hospital bed. Life has been confirming it ever since.

Day 42 of 280. Everything is connected.

Day 12: More Than Just Checking Boxes (Why This Challenge Is Emotional)

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I’m in the Emotional chapter of “Made to Stick” this morning, and something caught my attention.

The Heath brothers tell a story about a soldier cook. He had retired, but when offered an opportunity to cook for soldiers in Iraq, he jumped at the post. When asked about his job, he didn’t say “I prepare food.” He said: “My job is morale.”

He understood something deeper than the task list. Yes, he cooked meals. But his real job was building the strength soldiers needed to keep fighting, to survive, to stay mentally sharp in war.

That hit me hard. Because the 7-40 Challenge can’t just be about checking boxes.

The Real Job

Bible study. Exercise. Reading. Water. Calories. Gratitude. Creative work.

Seven habits. Forty days. Repeated seven times.

On the surface, that’s what I’m doing. But here’s the truth: my job is to be living proof that change is possible.

I was made to help people. To make their lives better, easier, more purposeful. I feel that call deep inside me—the need to take care of people, to build them up, to show them what’s possible.

But I can’t do that and ignore myself.

I have to fill my cup so I can fill others.

Why This Is Emotional for Me

This isn’t self-improvement for self-improvement’s sake. If the goal were just about me, it would be much too small.

I’m doing this because:

My family needs me healthy and strong. Fewer illnesses means less stress on my wife. More energy means I can be active, do the home improvement projects we love, spend time doing whatever activities we choose. Better mood means better interactions with everyone around me.

My son needs to see this. Not hear about transformation someday—watch it happen in real time. So when life gets hard for him, he knows it’s possible to choose differently.

The 1,000 people I want to impact need proof. By clearly defining the transformation I’m undergoing and letting people watch it play out in real time, I’m demonstrating the courage they need to name their own transformation—which may be completely different than mine. But watching mine unfold might inspire them to face theirs.

The Ripple Effect

When I’m healthy, strong, and energized, my world improves. And everything my world touches improves.

My marriage gets stronger. My parenting gets more present. My work gets sharper. My ability to help others grows exponentially.

That’s not narcissism. That’s stewardship.

I can’t pour from an empty cup. And at times over the past twenty+ years, I’ve run on fumes, talking about “someday” while my cup stayed empty.

Not anymore.

Motivation and Movement

The soldier cook understood: his real job was giving soldiers the strength to keep fighting.

My real job? Giving people stuck in “someday” mode the courage to actually move. To break from routine’s gravity. To start now instead of waiting for perfect.

And I can only do that if I’m doing it myself.

Day 12. Twelve perfect days behind me. Not because I’m special, but because the mission is bigger than me.

Day 12 Scorecard: ✅ Bible study ✅ Exercise (Workout B – back, biceps, legs) ✅ Reading (Made to Stick – Emotional chapter) ✅ Water ✅ Calories ✅ Gratitude ✅ Creative hour

The best time to fill your cup? Now. Not for yourself alone. For everyone who needs you at your best.

My job isn’t just the habits.

It’s to be living proof that change is possible.

See you tomorrow for Day 13.

Gratitude Sunday: My Mom and George Bailey

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite Christmas movies is It’s a Wonderful Life.

When I was younger, I liked it because an angel comes down and helps a guy get through a hard time. You get to see his whole story unfold and figure out who he really is. I didn’t see the deep significance as a young person watching this movie for the first time.

As I’ve gotten older, George Bailey’s story has become far too familiar.

I see it in life all around me. People—many wonderful people—don’t realize the good they do. They don’t understand how their influence has shaped the world around them far more than they know.

One person I can see this to be true about is my mother.

A Life of Selfless Love

My mother is one of the most selfless, wonderful people I have ever met or had the pleasure to know. She is kind and caring and deeply concerned with the well-being of others.

This flows from her relationship with God, which has been solid for as long as I can remember. She loves Jesus dearly. And because of that, she has consistently, over the years, shown people God’s love in countless ways.

I’ve seen her stop in the grocery store and share God with people or stop and pray with them just because she knew they needed it. I’ve seen her give of herself and run herself ragged to make sure that the people she served and the people she loved were taken care of.

But I’m going to tell this story from my perspective, from what I’ve seen in my own life.

Songs and Stories in the Early ’80s

My mother, in the early ’80s, started telling me stories about Jesus. She would sing songs and read the Bible with me. She was very involved in making sure that I knew that Jesus loved me—and also building me up to be a confident and strong young man.

She was consistent in her love.

I reminded her the other day that she’s the reason I know Jesus, just as she’s the reason many other people in this world know Jesus as well. She’s the reason people have found hope when they didn’t have any. She’s the reason people have found kindness when they most needed it.

She has been God’s love to people repeatedly throughout her life.

And just like George Bailey, I don’t think she understands just how far her influence has gone.

The Billy Graham Question

It makes me think.

If I asked you, “Do you know who Billy Graham is?” most of us—whether we are Christians or not—have heard the name. We know he was a very famous minister. We know that he touched countless lives with the love of God and with the message of God’s salvation.

But if I asked you, “What was the name of the man who introduced Billy Graham to Jesus?” I don’t think many of us would know who that is.

You never know the effect you have on someone’s life. You never know the influence. You never know the good that you do. You’ll never see the full picture.

But that shouldn’t stop you from doing good.

My Gratitude

So to say the least, I’m grateful for my mother.

I’m grateful for the way she’s loved me and taken care of me. Even though it’s been many, many years since I’ve lived in their home, she still loves me and prays for me to this day like I’m her baby boy.

Her influence on me has been outstanding.

And I can only imagine the influence she’s had on others—the people whose names I’ll never know, whose stories I’ll never hear, whose lives were changed because she stopped in a grocery store or prayed with someone who was hurting or sang songs about Jesus to a little boy in the early ’80s.

She’ll never know how far her influence has gone.

But I do know this: I wouldn’t be here without her. I wouldn’t know Jesus without her. I wouldn’t be attempting this 7-40 Challenge without the foundation she helped build in my life.

So thank you, Mom.

For being God’s love when I needed it most.

For never giving up on me.

For showing me what it looks like to live a life of purpose.

You’re far more influential than you know.

And I’m forever grateful.

#ThankYouCampaign #GratitudeSunday #ItsAWonderfulLife #GeorgeBailey #MothersLove #Faith #Jesus #Grateful #FamilyLegacy #Influence #740Challenge #Purpose #ChristianLife #Thankful

Reevaluating the 7-40 Challenge: Habits, Identity, and Becoming Who I’m Meant to Be

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Hey there, friends! Welcome back to the 7-40 Challenge. It’s a bright, shiny day out there, and honestly, I’m to be out in it and writing these words. If you’ve been following along on my blog, you know I’ve been all in on this journey of building seven daily habits over 40-day cycles. It’s my way of zeroing in on consistency, one small step at a time, to spark real transformation in my life.

Lately, though, I’ve been taking a hard look at the goals laid out in front of me—tweaking, rethinking, and reworking what they look like moving forward. One habit I’ve been crushing is my daily 30 minutes of reading. Over the past three months, I’ve powered through nine full books and dipped into several others. It’s been incredible, and I’m fired up to keep that momentum going. But as I am in the midst of my third round of the challenge, something’s been nagging at me: Are these habits aligning with what I want to achieve? Or the person I want to become?

This hit home while I was diving into Atomic Habits by James Clear—the book I’m currently wresting with. He drops this gem: “The process of building habits is the process of becoming yourself.” At first, I paused and thought, Wait, aren’t I already me? But after mulling it over, it clicked. We’re not static; we’re works in progress. These programs we set up aren’t just about checking boxes or knocking out tasks. They’re about evolving into a different—hopefully better—version of ourselves. It’s not about the habits for habits’ sake; it’s about the identity they shape.

That realization made me reflect on how, in this latest cycle, I’ve caught myself going through the motions on a few of these habits. My original intention was to dial in harder, to optimize and elevate them. But after those first few chapters of Atomic Habits, I saw the gap: I need to crystal-clear define who I want to become. Only then can my daily actions truly propel me in that direction.

And then Annie Dillard landed the knockout punch with one sentence that’s been living rent-free in my head:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

That’s it. No fluff, no loopholes. The 30 minutes I give to reading, the way I show up (or don’t) for my workouts, the quiet moments I protect for prayer and reflection—these aren’t just line items on a habit tracker. They’re the raw material of my life. If I’m half-hearted today, I’m half-hearted forever. If I’m intentional today, that intention compounds into the person I’ll look back on years from now.

So yeah, I’m hitting pause. Not quitting—just stepping back for a few days to get brutally honest about the “who.” Who am I becoming with every sunrise? Are these seven habits still the truest expression of that person, or do I need to adjust some of them? None of them are bad (they’re actually really good), but good can be the enemy of great when it’s not aligned.

I’ll be doing some deep thinking, a lot of head-scratching, probably more than a little praying, and asking the big questions:

• What kind of man do I want standing here in five years?

• What daily practices will make that version of me inevitable?

Thanks for riding shotgun on this reflective detour. I’ll be back tomorrow with whatever clarity (or beautiful mess) comes out of this reset. Until then—let’s keep choosing our days on purpose. Because as Annie reminded me, that’s exactly how we choose our lives.

See you on the other side.