The Power of Desire: Growing Ourselves by Growing Others

At MTN OPS, we believe desire isn't the finish line; it's the ignition point. Our core value for the month says it plainly: "We value highly ambitious people, driven by a desire to succeed but with an attitude of temperance. We will work with you to ambitiously transform your life, all the while realizing that it takes time and patience for results to be achieved. Let's win each day and trust the process." (MTN OPS Core Values)

As a leader, my understanding of desire has changed over the years. I used to think of it as fuel for my own goals, something I needed to build a business, hit a number, prove a point. But the longer I lead people, the more I've realized the deepest desire a leader can carry isn't for their own growth. It's for the growth of everyone around them.

I learned this in a pretty ordinary way with my own son. When Beckham was about seven, I had a real desire to teach him some important gospel truths. I sat him down for a serious conversation, and honestly, I couldn't tell if it was landing. So instead of pushing the lesson, we just went to McDonald's. He ran back and forth from our table to the play place, chicken nuggets in hand, grinning the whole time. When we got in the car to head home, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him beaming, just staring out the window with this infectious smile. I asked him what he was smiling about. He said, "I just love being with you." That's when it hit me. What he was going to learn from me wasn't going to come from a lecture. It was going to come from how I showed up, how present I was, how much time and attention I gave him. My desire to teach him mattered, but it needed the right amount of patience, timing, and simplicity to actually reach him. Ten years later, that same desire looks different but hasn't changed one bit. I just got to take Beckham, now seventeen, on a fishing trip to Alaska, and I watched him beaming again, this time from behind me in a helicopter on a brand new adventure. Same desire underneath it all: I want to be close to you. The desire I had for him at seven will be the same desire I have at seventy.

Scripture reframes desire from a selfish craving into something sacred. In Psalm 37:4 we're told, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) When our hearts are aligned with His, God doesn't just permit our desires; He plants them there.

But the highest form of desire isn't asking God to bless what we already want; it's desiring what He wants for us. President D. Todd Christofferson taught this recently in general conference, describing the character of Christ: "A third motivating force essential to the character of Christ is His desire to glorify the Father and to fulfill the Father's will in every particular, Jesus, delights to do the will of God." (President D. Todd Christofferson, "The Character of Christ," April 2026 General Conference) That's a desire worth carrying as a leader. Sometimes it's as simple as finding a quiet moment to tell God, "I want to do what You would have me do." When that becomes our desire, growth stops being something we chase on our own terms and becomes something we're led into.

Proverbs 13:12 names the tension every leader feels along the way: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." (Proverbs 13:12, KJV) Growth is slow, and desire deferred can wear a person down. But desire fulfilled becomes a tree of life, something that keeps bearing fruit for others long after we planted it.

That's the kind of desire I write about in The Conquer Code. One of my favorite lines I included in the book says it best: "They rise highest who lift as they go." A leader's desire for growth was never meant to stop with them; it's meant to multiply through the people they lead, their family, their team, their community. (Conquer Corner: Opportunity)

Kevin Hall captures this same truth in Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words. He writes, "We often receive what we desire for others," a reminder that when we pour our desire into someone else's growth, it becomes the very thing that grows us. Later in the book, he describes how the encouragement of two fellow travelers "reignited our enthusiasm - our desire to aspire." That's leadership in a sentence: reigniting desire in someone else the moment their own has grown faint. (Aspire, Kevin Hall)

The Challenge:

This month, stop measuring your desire only by what it will do for you. Ask instead: who is my desire for growth supposed to serve? A spouse. A child. A teammate. A stranger who needs someone to believe in them before they can believe in themselves. Let your own desire for a higher level become the spark that lights someone else's.

Desire, when it's rooted in God, tempered with patience, and pointed at other people, doesn't just transform your life. It transforms everyone your life touches. That's the MTN OPS way to conquer more.

Let's keep conquering together.

Trevor Farnes
Founder | MTN OPS