Tag: thankful

A Good Goodbye

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Rest Week

Thirteen years ago, my grandmother was home, slowly waiting for the cancer to take her.

I knew she was near the end. She lived about an hour and a half away, so I called and asked if I could come early. I drove down, and that morning I cooked her breakfast. We sat across from each other and we talked — about my job, the master’s degree I was working on, my family.

I knew Grandmas aren’t supposed to play favorites. But she was proud of me, and I felt it.

I told her I loved her. I told her I was proud to be her grandson — proud to be working in the same business my grandfather had been in. I told her I wanted to make her proud.

She smiled and said I already had.

I knew, the whole time, that it would be our last conversation. And because I knew, I got to choose what kind of goodbye it would be. I wanted it to be a good one. It was.

There are only a few people in this life I miss the way I miss her. She gave the best hugs. She believed in me. She trusted me. And I didn’t let her down.

That morning gave me a clarity I’ve never forgotten. When you know the moment matters — when you know it’s the last one — everything unimportant falls away and you’re left with only the things worth saying. I love you. I’m proud of you. Thank you.

We don’t always get to know which conversation is the last one. That morning, I did. And I’ve tried ever since to talk to the people I love like I might not get another chance.

The Surgery

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 14

I used to think that when I finished writing something, I was done. The story was out. The work was complete. Move on to the next thing.

That was shortsighted and a little arrogant.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop tonight working on the editorial pass for my second novel. The bones are solid. The arcs are where they need to be. What I’m doing now is polish — adjusting the reader experience, tightening scenes, making sure the story feels cohesive from the first page to the last.

And I’m enjoying it. That’s the part I didn’t expect.

I used to dread editing. It felt like going backward. The creative rush was in the writing — getting the story out, discovering the characters, finding out what happened next. Editing felt like admitting the first version wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t. And that’s not a failure. That’s how stories work.

The things we love in books — the moments that land perfectly, the detail in chapter two that pays off in chapter twenty, the line of dialogue that feels inevitable — those aren’t first-pass items. They’re the result of careful editorial surgery. Someone went back in and made the good parts great and cut the parts that were only there because the writer liked them.

Here’s what the surgery looks like today. I discovered I was being too on the nose — telling the reader what to think about events instead of trusting them to pick it up. The story elements are all staying. The structure is solid. But there’s a pattern running through the manuscript where I’m explaining what a scene means instead of letting the scene do its own work.

That’s the kind of thing you can’t see in the first draft. You’re too close. You’re too in love with making sure the reader gets it. The edit is where you learn to trust them.

The other thing that’s changed is the standard. A younger version of me would have been satisfied to just do a good job. Get it done, ship it, move on. I’m not that guy anymore. I want the work I put out to be the best I have — not perfect, but the best version I can make. I want the reader to smile, or think, or feel something they needed to feel. And I owe it to them to go back in and make sure I’ve given them that chance.

The first draft is where you create the story. The editing process is where you learn to trust your reader with it.

Drive-Through Talking

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

It had to have been the early 2000s. My bride and I were sitting in a church auditorium listening to Kevin Leman speak, and the phrase he kept using made me chuckle every time I heard it: drive-through talking. I kept mistakenly calling it drive-by talking in my head — which, as I’d later realize, is an entirely different communication style and not one anybody recommends.

But the drive-through? That one I knew well.

In my younger years, my wife and I ate out constantly. There was a Taco Bell just down the street, and we learned a small but important truth at that pickup window: when the kid on the headset repeated our order back to us, we got what we ordered. When they didn’t repeat it back, the odds of getting something we hadn’t asked for went way up.

Marriage works the same way. The window is just invisible, and the cost of getting the order wrong is much higher.

The Technique

When your spouse is talking and you’re listening, act like you’re at the drive-through window. Repeat the order back. Make sure they know you actually heard the words they said — not the version your brain rewrote on the way in.

We’ve been doing this for over twenty years. It usually sounds something like, “Hold on — I think this is what you’re saying. Do I have it right?”

Over time, four phrases have done most of the heavy lifting:

  • Can you repeat that, please?
  • Do I have this right?
  • Is this what you said?
  • Help me understand.

That last one is the one I have to be careful with.

“Help Me Understand”

When I say it, I mean it the way it’s supposed to be meant: I’m being dense, I’m missing context, I need more from you so I can actually track what you’re telling me. It’s me admitting I’m the bottleneck.

That phrase has a problem. It can land as “you’re being too vague — explain it better,” which puts the work back on the person already doing the talking. Same words. Different posture. Completely different effect.

I’ve had to work at making sure my tone matches my intent on that one.

What the Research Says

Charles Duhigg points to research on couples who argued differently — specifically, on what separated couples who stayed together from couples who fell apart, based on how they fought.

The pattern is uncomfortable in its simplicity. Couples who focused on controlling the other person tended to end up divorced. Couples who focused on self-control — managing their own reactions, taking responsibility for their own part — tended to end up still married, and happier in the marriage they were still in.

That’s not abstract to me. It’s been my goal for twenty-seven years — to be the husband who’s regulating himself, not the one trying to manage her. Drive-through talking is what that goal looks like in practice. You’re not trying to win the conversation. You’re not trying to control where it goes. You’re regulating yourself long enough to clarify, repeat, and confirm — so that the other person actually feels heard.

I also use this with my son, too. Testosterone gets in the way more often than I’d like to admit, on both sides of those conversations. But the same courtesy I extend to a stranger at a checkout counter is the courtesy I want to extend to him — and even more to him and to my wife than to anyone else.

He and his mother shouldn’t get the worst version of how I communicate just because they’re the most familiar.

The Pushback

Someone might tell me their marriage is fine without all this work. That they don’t need techniques. That things are good.

I’d push back. “Fine” is an invitation. Just because something is good doesn’t mean we stop trying to make it better. Just because things work okay right now doesn’t mean they can’t fail later. The roof you don’t maintain is the roof that fails in the storm — not on the sunny day you decided it was fine.

I’ve never wanted to be over-prescriptive about this. I’m not a counselor. I’m a husband who’s been married a long time and has paid attention. My belief is this: because we’re friends, because we have the mutual aim of respecting each other, taking care of each other, honoring the vows we made — we can work through things. Not because the technique is magic. Because we love each other, and we choose to be married to each other, every day.

The drive-through window just helps us hear each other while we’re choosing.

Substack Confucius

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Substack lately. Reading Notes, engaging with other creators, trying to learn the platform and find my voice inside it. And I keep running into the same thing.

Substack Confucius.

You know the type. They post Notes that sound profound until you read them twice. “Conceal your strikes from your opponent and you will more easily strike his hide.” That’s not actually from Substack — that’s the Sphinx from Mystery Men, a character whose entire joke is that he speaks in pseudo-wisdom that sounds deep but means nothing. The joke works because we’ve all met that person. Apparently, a lot of them have Substack accounts.

But there’s a difference between a truth that’s been earned and a truth that costs nothing to say. A platitude and a hard-won insight can look identical on the surface. The difference is whether the person saying it has bled for it or just typed it.

Here’s my test: is this true on and off the message board? Can I take this sentence, walk into my office on Monday morning, and apply it to real work? Can I use it to grow my Substack, write a better blog post, have a harder conversation? If the answer is no — if it only works as a caption underneath a sunset — then it’s not wisdom. It’s decoration.

I’m writing this as a reminder to myself. Because the temptation is real. I’ve felt the pull — the urge to write a Note that gets restacked because it makes people feel something for three seconds instead of one that makes them think for three minutes.

I don’t want to be Substack Confucius. I want to say things that are honest, even when they’re not pretty. I want to write things that work on Monday morning, not just on a feed. And if that means fewer restacks and slower growth, I’ll take it. Because the audience I want isn’t looking for fortune cookies. They’re looking for someone who’s actually doing the work and willing to talk about what it’s really like.

The Laundry

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

In 1999, my bride and I were newlyweds living in an apartment complex with no washer and dryer. We’d carry our clothes over to the laundromat, sit together while things ran, and just talk.

One afternoon I folded something and she looked at me and said, “You didn’t fold that right.”

What do you mean I didn’t fold that right? It’s folded.

“No, there’s a right way to fold it.”

There is? This is how I was taught. This is the right way.

“That’s not the right way. My way is the right way.”

Okay. Why is your way the right way?

“Because it is.”

We’d met and married in about nine months. We were still figuring each other out. I was twenty years old and probably defensive about it, because what do you mean I’m wrong? I’m not wrong. I had one context for how folding worked and it was the only one I’d ever known. But she had a different context and it was the only one she’d ever known too.

Neither of us was wrong. We just hadn’t compared notes yet.

It took a few rounds. But eventually she explained why she liked it done her way, and I realized I didn’t care enough about folding to make it a hill to die on. So I started folding her way. Twenty-seven years later it’s muscle memory. I don’t even think about it anymore.

Here’s what I’ve learned since that laundromat.

We both wanted the same thing. We wanted the laundry folded. That was never the argument. The argument was about how. And the moment we both committed to the what — the thing that actually mattered — the how became something we could figure out together. We could give each other grace on the method because we agreed on the mission.

That’s true in a marriage. It’s true at work. It’s true in any room where two people are trying to get something done and they’re stuck arguing about technique instead of agreeing on the destination.

Get clear on the what. The how will work itself out.

Twenty-seven years of folding laundry. Still figuring out the how. Never once lost sight of the what.