Hello there. Pause for a moment and ask yourself: What do you want, and how bad do you want it? This isn’t about fleeting wishes or goals jotted down on a whim. It’s about that deep, burning desire that jolts you awake in the morning and dances in your dreams at night. The kind of want that demands every ounce of your focus, your drive, your relentless spirit. What do you want so bad that you could become obsessed with it? Because half-hearted efforts don’t leave a legacy—they barely leave a mark. To make something real, you’ve got to dive in with everything you’ve got.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” You have to know the goal you are after. But, it’s not just about what you want; it’s about how fiercely you’re willing to chase it. Let’s unpack this through a story from my own life that still stings years later, a lesson in what happens when you don’t bring your all.

The Half-Hearted Hustle: A Wake-Up Call

Remember being a kid, sent on a mission by your parents? “Find that lost toy” or “Clean your room.” You’d poke around for a minute, call it impossible, and slink back with excuses. That’s the default for too many of us—minimal effort, maximum cop-outs. But life doesn’t reward those who give up quickly; it honors those who push through.

When I was 18, a rookie reporter for my college newspaper, I learned this the hard way. My editor tasked me with covering a speaker whose story was, in her words, interesting and story worthy. She wanted the heart of his experience—what he’d done, seen, and endured—to captivate our readers. Simple enough? Nope. Instead of diving in, I treated it like a casual outing. I brought a date to the event, chatted through the talk, and left early to get my date home. When I sauntered back to my editor with a lazy “No story there,” she looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Are you out of your mind?” she snapped. “He was a rescue worker at the Oklahoma City bombing. Of course there’s a story—a remarkable one!”

She was right. The 1995 bombing was a national tragedy, and this man had been in the thick of it. My apathy had blinded me. Desperate to save face (and my job), I did what I should’ve done from the start: I tracked him down, got him on the phone, and asked every question I could think of.

What I heard was unforgettable, even 28 years later I can remember his voice as he told me the events. He described arriving at the chaotic scene, pulling bodies and parts of bodies from the rubble amid dust and despair. He described hope mixed with exhaustion as the work wore on. How the team’s morale crumbled when they learned it was a domestic attack, not foreign terrorism. The weight of it impacted him greatly. He couldn’t stay in his job. It drove him to attempt suicide multiple times one night. Only through his family’s prayers—especially his mother’s—did he find the strength to seek help and heal. Two years after the tragedy, he was sharing his story to inspire others.

That interview turned “no story” into the story—a raw testament to resilience. As Winston Churchill said during World War II’s darkest hours, “If you are going through hell, keep going.” That rescuer lived it, and I almost missed it because I didn’t want it bad enough.

From “No Way” to “I Made It Happen”

That screw-up was a gut check. If I’d given that assignment my full focus from the start, I wouldn’t have needed a second chance. But that’s the power of tenacity: It uncovers gold where laziness sees only dirt. When you decide what you want and pursue it with everything you’ve got, you don’t just chase a goal—you transform yourself. You go from “There’s no story” to “This is my story, and here’s how I shaped it.”

Think about your own dreams. What do you want? A thriving career? A stronger family? A passion project that lights you up? Now, how bad do you want it? Progress comes from relentless commitment, not fleeting bursts of effort.

Albert Einstein, who changed the world by wrestling with impossible problems, put it best: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” That’s the edge—sticking with it when others walk away.

Live with Fire: Your Call to Action

I’m older now, and I’ve lived enough to know I don’t want passive, uninspired days. I want to live on purpose. With focus. With impact. I want to pour out the love of God and goodness into the world, sharing my story to lift others up. Because when you chase what you want with every fiber of your being, you don’t just achieve—you become something greater. I am still a work in progress, but thankfully I keep walking further down this road.

So, ask yourself again: What do you want, and how bad do you want it? What are you willing to sacrifice, to endure, to make it real? Answer that, and you’re already closer to turning your dreams into reality. As Nelson Mandela said after decades of fighting for freedom, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” Now let’s go write our stories—with fire.