Tag: love

The Craving

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

It took two days.

Two days into assessment week — a planned break between rounds of the 7-40 Challenge — and I was already craving the structure I’d stepped away from.

I’ll admit, some of the break was good. I stopped listening to audiobooks for a few days and let my mind clear out. That turned out to be exactly what I needed to get ready for the next round of learning. And I never stopped my daily Bible reading. I just couldn’t let that one go.

But the calorie tracking slipped. The water slipped. I ate off plan multiple days, some just because I could — which, looking back, was kind of stupid. And it gave me a feeling I didn’t like. I could feel myself sliding back into habit patterns I don’t need. By day three I knew I had to pivot back.

So when I woke up this morning — Round 3, Day 1 — and I had my list in front of me, I felt relief. Energy. A little pep in my step. Because I had those small moments of accomplishment spread across the day again, and they’re fantastic.

Here’s why I think that matters beyond just me.

A long time ago, my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He lived for several years after his diagnosis, but he did not do well in unfamiliar places or unfamiliar routines. My grandmother — a retired nurse and a bit of a drill sergeant — kept his framework together. She kept him in line, kept him moving, kept his daily structure strong. And he was able to function for years, even as he lost more and more of his memory, because his routines stayed the same.

There’s a whole different set of blog posts in that story. But the principle is the same one I felt this week.

Our brains crave habit patterns. They are actual physical things happening inside our heads. We expect the rewards they bring. We expect the satisfaction that comes with practicing them. And that’s true for good habits and bad habits alike. The dopamine high from a good workout isn’t that different from the dopamine hit of an addiction. The difference is which pattern you’ve seeded.

Where I feel grateful is this: I’m healthy. I’m more motivated this year than I’ve ever been in my life. I feel daunted and challenged by the work I’ve set in front of myself, which is probably a good thing. Keeping myself in these habits — keeping myself moving forward — is how I prime myself for success through the seasons when fatigue or exhaustion or grief would want to stop me.

My grandfather didn’t have a choice. His framework was held together by someone who loved him. I have the choice. And after two days without it, I know exactly what I’m choosing.

Nobody’s Going to Tell You to Go

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 76 | The 7-40 Challenge

I started reading Seth Godin’s Tribes this morning. Early in the book, he draws a line between managers and leaders that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change. Managers manipulate resources to get a known job done. Leaders create change they believe in.

I’ve seen both. I saw it first in the churches I worked at in my twenties — people who would see something that needed to be done and just get up and do it, while some of the ministerial staff sat back and waited for someone else to move. I saw it in my insurance office years, when I realized that whether my manager wanted something done or not, if I knew it needed doing, I had to get myself to do it. It would get noticed later. And I’ve seen it across eighteen years of corporate work — the people without management titles who became the go-to people, who took on responsibilities nobody else wanted or even realized needed to be taken on. Looking back, I can see why some of them shot up through the ranks faster than others. They weren’t managing. They were leading before anyone gave them the title.

I spent twenty years filling notebooks with goals. “Someday I’ll write a book.” “Someday I’ll get in shape.” “Someday I’ll build something.” Same dreams, different handwriting.

Those notebooks weren’t the work of a manager trying to organize a life. They were the work of a dreamer who didn’t know how to lead himself. I wasn’t just trying to manage things — I was trying to blaze a trail in a direction I’d never been before. But whether through fear or apathy or something else I couldn’t name at the time, I wouldn’t let myself move.

Seventy-six days ago, I did.

Nobody told me to go. Nobody assigned it. Nobody was going to give me permission. That was the realization — if I didn’t tell myself to go, nobody was going to do it for me. I took the frustration I was feeling at the end of last year, the things I knew I needed to get done, and I leveraged the time and the tools I had at my disposal. I’m not where I want to be yet — not even close. But seventy-six days later, I’ve lost sixteen pounds, published a novel, built a platform, and written every single day. Not because I’m special. Because I finally stopped waiting.

Godin says there’s a tribe waiting for you to connect them and lead them. He says it’s easier than ever to change things, and that individuals have more leverage than ever before. I believe that. But here’s where I’d push back — or maybe push deeper.

You have to start at the desk.

Picture a man sitting alone at a desk with a computer, a notepad, and a cup of coffee. Nobody told him what to do or how he’d get paid. Just: get to work. That man has everything he needs. He has ideas. If he can get past the noise, he knows what he wants to do. He can see the people in his space who know what to do as well. But unless he’s done the deep discovery of who he is, what he’s here for, and what work matters to him, he’s not going to find the right tribe anyway. You don’t connect to others so they can tell you what work to do. You do your work, and then you find the people who sharpen it.

The tribe matters. But the desk comes first.

My wife told me she can see a major difference since January. She can see that I’m motivated and happy. That I have energy. That I’m going somewhere on purpose. That’s not management. That’s leadership — even if the only person I’m leading right now is myself.

Godin says leadership is about creating change you believe in. Here’s the change I believe in:

We were meant for so much more than living in fear and being frustrated. By learning how to clarify what’s important to us, communicate it to others, and leverage the tools we have — including AI — we can do the work we know how to do, better and faster, and make the world better around us.

But that requires the personal work first. If we can’t communicate clearly with each other, what’s going to make us any better doing it with a computer? The human has to get clear before the technology gets useful.

And clarity, for me, started with something that had nothing to do with technology.

I’ve discovered that there is a God and that I’m not Him. That shapes everything about the kind of leader I’m becoming. I have agency. I can make decisions. But I want to be the kind of leader who partners with the leadership above me — God’s leading me, and I’m doing my best to understand where He wants me to go. So I keep my ears open, my eyes open, and I stay ready to pivot when I realize I’m not headed where I’m supposed to be.

If you’re reading this and you’ve got your own notebooks — your own stack of “someday I’ll” goals in different handwriting across different years — I want you to hear this:

You’re further along than you think you are.

The things you’ve been writing down matter. They aren’t dead dreams. They’re evidence that something inside you has been trying to lead for a long time. If you’ll lean in, clarify what you want to accomplish, and actually start — you’ll move faster than you expect. Because the dreamer who filled those notebooks already did the hard part. You just haven’t given yourself permission to lead yet.

The notebooks were never the problem. The permission was.

Day 76 of 280. Four days left in Round 2.

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

The Little Things She Remembers: Gratitude Sunday and 27 Years of Small Holy Moments

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 32 of the 7-40 Challenge
Sunday, February 1, 2026
Gratitude Sunday – The Thank You Campaign

I’m taking every Sunday this year as an opportunity to express gratitude for a person, situation, or memory that has influenced me in a positive way. Today’s subject: my beautiful bride.

The Memory I Forgot

We were driving to lunch today, enjoying each other’s conversation like we always do. We’ve been married for 27 years now, and it hit me: because we’re both 47 years old, we’ve got more memories with each other than we have without.

Over a quarter century of friendship. Laughter. Love. Memories. Shared sorrows. A life we’ve gotten to build together.

As we talked, we were sharing disdain for the amount of snow still left in our area. That snowstorm last week was something else, making it very hard for both of us to do things we enjoy. She loves being outside, taking care of her garden. I love walking and exercising in nature.

And then she brought up a memory that she remembered and I did not.

Apparently, a little over a year after we got married—late 1999 or early 2000—there was another snowstorm. And I was eager to make snow ice cream.

It was the first time we’d been together when it snowed. In Oklahoma, snow is not the rule—it’s very much the exception.

She remembers me going out onto our balcony with a blue Tupperware bowl (probably knockoff Tupperware we got for our wedding) and filling it with snow. I made a little over a gallon of snow ice cream.

I told her it always reminded me of my childhood—something my mom and I did together during the rare times it snowed. It has a very familiar, very nostalgic place in my heart.

But here’s what got me: She had a memory of me making it for her for the first time.

When She Remembered and I Did Not

When she brought this up, it hit me hard.

The times we share with people can be meaningful to them without us even noticing. Which means we need to share those times and be as intentional as we can be with the people we love.

It didn’t surprise me that she remembered it—that’s what she does. But what surprised me was that such a simple little recipe with snow left a smile from that long ago.

I thought: I’m grateful that there are little moments in our lives that become meaningful just because we share them with somebody we love.

Something that was meaningful to me as a kid has now become much more meaningful to me as an adult because it made my bride smile.

Becoming One

There’s a principle in the Bible that says a man should leave his father and mother and become one with his wife. While the Bible is obviously talking about knowing her intimately and physically, I think we also need to acknowledge that becoming one with your spouse is also about bond, partnership, and shared experience.

It is a holy and awesome union that I think most people today don’t really understand.

We live in a world where people are encouraged to figure out life for themselves, their careers, their bucket list, their desires first—before they ever take the time to settle down and get married. Everything else before settling. A position I wholeheartedly disagree with.

What I found is by making that most important decision in my life early, I now had someone to share those amazing times and those struggles with. I have a beautiful champion in my corner who lifts me up and walks with me, who experiences blissful highs with me and holds me through the lows.

People do not understand what becoming one in purpose, mission, and in our lives really does.

We Didn’t Know Then What We Know Now

Back in those younger days, as we were building our young marriage, building memories, building our relationship, enjoying our friendship, we didn’t know.

We didn’t know we would go through hardship and trials. That we would struggle from time to time and overcome. That our wedding vows would be lived out year over year as they have been. Sometimes through some very scary moments.

I didn’t realize that small memories would become so sweet and full of so much meaning and texture.

I didn’t realize that those shared experiences would bind us together even more tightly, deepening the love we have for each other.

All of it comes together. And all I can do is stand in awe of the relationship I have with this beautiful woman, with a thankful heart to God for the day He brought her into my life and for every day He allows me to be her husband and her best friend.

What Gratitude Discipline Reveals

I think taking a chance weekly to be purposely grateful—not just in my marriage, but in my life in general—reminds me that I am ridiculously blessed.

I am so rich in so many ways that have nothing to do with money.

I am sitting on a gold mine of opportunity if I only tune my mind to it: an opportunity to love people, to take care of people, to serve people, to work through creative ideas, to share with people, to provide for my family, and to live a life that many people would not choose to live because they do it without gratitude or true thankfulness.

I have been blessed so richly in so many ways. How could I be anything but grateful?

It is my honor to share that gratitude tangibly with the world around me and help them, hopefully, be inspired to see the same thing. I can think of no more fitting place to start than with my marriage.

The Key to Building a Marriage

I think one of the keys to building a marriage—especially a marriage that lasts—is by cherishing and honoring not only the relationship but all those small holy moments that make it up.

Snow ice cream on a balcony in a knockoff Tupperware bowl.

A conversation on the way to lunch about too much snow.

Twenty-seven years of moments like these, stacking up into a life we’ve built together.

Sweetheart, I know you’re reading this.

I love you with every fiber of my being and more. I am grateful that you are my partner in this life and that you are my love.

For Everyone Reading This

Not everybody reading this is married. But you will have a friendship with someone special who has your back. You will have opportunities that have been given to you that you could be grateful for. You will have memories that can help spur you on to good things.

It’s all in our perspective.

Cherish the relationships you have. Honor the small holy moments that make them up.

Because someday, someone might remember a simple thing you did together—and that memory will make them smile 27 years later.

Day 32: Complete ✓

All seven habits executed. Gratitude Sunday honored.

Round 1 Progress: 32/40 days (80%)

Eight more days until Round 1 is complete.

See you tomorrow for Day 33.

The Rules That Make Excellence Possible: Day 27

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

Day 27 of the 7-40 Challenge
Tuesday, January 27, 2026

I’m reading Carmine Gallo’s book Talk Like TED right now, and in Chapter 1, he asks a question that stopped me on my walk this morning:

“What makes your heart sing?”

The answer came immediately: Being a husband to to my bride. Being a father to my son.

That’s what makes my heart sing personally.

But then he asks another question: “What is your obsession? What are you passionate about?”

And that’s where things get interesting.

The Answer I Didn’t Expect

My obsession isn’t separate from what makes my heart sing. They’re connected.

I’m obsessed with becoming the best version of myself—not for followers, not for book sales, not for speaking fees—but because I can’t be the husband she deserves if I’m dragging.

I can’t be the father my son needs if I’m physically exhausted, mentally foggy, emotionally drained, or spiritually disconnected.

The better I become—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually—the more I can show up as the man they need. The more I can model the kind of intentional, loving marriage that’s lacking in so much of the world today.

And here’s the thing: I can’t fragment myself. I can’t be excellent at home and mediocre at work. I can’t be disciplined with my spiritual life and careless with my body.

Excellence has to run through everything, or it doesn’t run through anything.

What My Day Job Taught Me About Transformation

I’m a data professional. I’ve been doing this work for over 18 years.

And here’s what I know from my day job: There is process. There is order. There are rules.

Data management isn’t chaos. It’s systematic. Organized. Deliberate.

When you have clear rules—agreed-upon ways to do things—everyone knows how to play the game. Everyone knows what success looks like. Everyone has a shot at excellence.

If I don’t know the traffic laws, I’ll run into people.

If I don’t know the rules of football, I’ll tackle the wrong person and the other team will win.

If I don’t have clear habits, I’ll drift through life wondering why nothing ever changes.

Rules aren’t there to penalize us. Rules are there to help us play the game better.

And by knowing the rules and following the system—the workflow, the structure—we actually have an opportunity to be excellent.

The 7-40 Challenge: The Rules of My Game

So what are the rules I’ve set for myself?

I have to be spiritually healthy.
I have to be physically healthy.
I have to be mentally healthy.
I have to be emotionally healthy.

Because if I’m healthy in those four areas, I can do all the major things I need to do in my life: be a husband, be a father, be a good worker, be a good friend.

That’s why the seven habits aren’t random. They’re strategic:

  1. Bible Study & Prayer → Spiritual health
  2. Exercise (1 hour daily) → Physical health
  3. Calorie Tracking → Physical health
  4. Water (100oz daily) → Physical health
  5. Reading/Learning → Mental health
  6. Gratitude Practice → Emotional health
  7. Creative Work → Mental and emotional health

These aren’t restrictions. They’re the agreed-upon structure that makes excellence possible.

Just like the data governance frameworks I use at work, just like traffic laws, just like the rules of any game—the 7-40 Challenge works because it has rules.

And when you know the game, you can play it well.

How This Helps 1,000 People

Here’s why this matters for my mission to help 1,000 people:

I’m not trying to inspire anyone with motivational speeches. I’m not selling quick fixes or secret formulas.

I’m defining the rules of the game clearly so that anyone who wants to play can play.

Seven habits. Forty days. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat 7 times.

That’s it. That’s the game.

You don’t need to figure out your own system. You don’t need to guess what works. The rules are clear. I am proving the framework as I go.

And just like at my day job, when you define the process clearly, everyone else can follow it too.

That’s not restriction. That’s freedom.

Freedom to focus on execution instead of decision fatigue. Freedom to know exactly what “winning the day” looks like. Freedom to become excellent because the path is clear.

What Gallo’s Question Revealed

So when Carmine Gallo asked, “What makes your heart sing?” I thought the answer was simple: my family.

But what I realized on my walk this morning is that the 7-40 Challenge IS about my family.

It’s about becoming the man she deserves and the father my son needs.

It’s about not fragmenting myself—being one integrated person who brings the same commitment to excellence to every area of life.

And it’s about using the same process discipline that makes me excellent at data work to become even more excellent as a husband, father, and human. And vice versa.

The rules don’t limit me. They make excellence possible.

And if they work for me, they can work for you too.

Because the game has rules. And when you know the rules, you can win.

Day 27: Complete ✓

All seven habits executed. The rules are working.

Round 1 Progress: 27/40 days (67.5%)

See you tomorrow for Day 28.