Wanting is everywhere. Pursuing is rare. Jeff has spent decades watching both — and the gap between them has nothing to do with motivation, discipline, or hustle. It has to do with a decision most people never actually make.
Every room I've ever walked into is full of people who want things. They want to build a company. Want financial freedom. Want to write a book, start something, change their situation. Want is everywhere. It's cheap and it's comfortable and it doesn't cost anything. Wanting is a great place to live because it comes with all the identity benefits of someone who has goals, without any of the exposure of someone actually pursuing them.
Pursuing is different. And I've spent decades watching people confuse the two — not because they're dishonest, but because wanting can feel exactly like pursuing if you're not paying close attention.
What Wanting Looks Like Up Close
Wanting talks about the goal constantly. It researches the goal. It buys courses about the goal, follows people who've achieved the goal, reads books about the goal. It makes plans for the goal. It thinks about the goal late at night in a way that feels like motivation. Wanting is emotionally engaged. Wanting can consume hours of your life.
But wanting almost always has a condition attached: I'll start when I'm more ready. When the kids are older. When the market is better. When I have more capital. When I understand it better. When conditions are right. Wanting is always one step removed from action. It lives in the preparation phase permanently.
“Wanting is the experience of being fully engaged with a goal without having made a real commitment to it. It's a comfortable place to live. It is not a place where anything gets built.”
— Jeff
What Pursuing Actually Looks Like
Napoleon Hill called it a burning desire and I used to think that was hyperbole. Now I think it's the most accurate description available. Pursuing has a quality to it that wanting doesn't — it's not optional. The person truly pursuing something has crossed a line internally where not doing it is no longer acceptable. Delay creates real discomfort. Inaction is genuinely intolerable.
When I look back at every significant thing I've built, there was a moment — usually not dramatic, often quiet — where it shifted from something I wanted to something I was committed to in a way that closed the exit. That shift is everything. It's the difference between a plan and a decision.
- Wanting is conditional. Pursuing is unconditional.
- Wanting survives obstacles by explaining them. Pursuing survives obstacles by routing around them.
- Wanting requires the right mood. Pursuing shows up regardless of mood.
- Wanting keeps an exit available. Pursuing closes the exit.
- Wanting is a feeling. Pursuing is a decision that precedes the feeling.
The Diagnostic
Here's how to know honestly which one you're doing. Ask yourself: if every condition I'm waiting for never arrives — if it's never the right time, never the right circumstance, never the perfect setup — will I still do this? If the answer is yes, you're pursuing. If the answer creates hesitation, you're wanting.
There's nothing wrong with wanting. Not everything should be pursued. But the brutal mistake is wanting something for years and calling it pursuit — while the actual cost of that confusion is a life spent preparing for something you never quite started.
“The moment you stop requiring permission from circumstances to begin is the moment wanting becomes pursuing. That moment is available to you right now.”
— Jeff