The carpenter finished measuring the wood for the legs of the desk and made marks where he would cut them. Then he reached into his bag and gave Michael another wooden heart he had made for the Social Connect office with the words Love, Serve, and Care already carved into it. Then he said, “Once you know why you love, serve, and care, then you share it all with one person at a time. You gather all your love, all your desire to serve, all your care, and you give it to one person, one moment, one interaction at a time.

“You see, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you think about having to implement Love, Serve, Care with all your team members and all your customers and all the people you interact with. It’s easy to put these systems and programs in place yet manage to not love, serve, and care for the people who are right in front of you. You get so overwhelmed with the prospect of having to do this for everyone that you wind up doing it for no one. You start to believe you can’t make a difference, so you don’t. But the truth is you can make a difference.

“It’s like the two friends walking on the beach who come across a bunch of starfish stranded on the shore. One person starts picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. The other friend asks, ‘Why are you doing that? There are so many starfish stranded on the beach, you can’t possibly help them all.’ The first friend then picks another starfish up and throws it back in the ocean, and says, ‘I made a difference for that one.’

“In this spirit, the key to becoming a powerful success builder is to make a difference to one person, one moment at a time. You do it each day, with each person, in each moment, as part of each interaction, and over time you powerfully impact a lot of people. Always remember that a big mission starts with a small group of people. If you want to impact millions of people, you have to start with one. If you want to impact billions, start with twelve, one person at a time.”

Michael nodded as he thought about his daughter’s youth basketball team and realized the power of what the carpenter was saying. With the 12 girls on his team, he focused on one interaction at a time and saw a powerful impact. He also saw this play out at the new hair salon Sarah had just found. When Michael was there waiting for his daughter to get her hair cut, he met the owner, Frank, and asked him why his place was so busy. Frank said he had a simple secret to success. When a young girl sits in his chair, he treats her like he would his daughter. When a woman about his age sits in his chair, he treats her like he would his wife. When an older woman sits in his chair, he treats her like he would his mother. Frank treats his customers like family, and his business just grows and grows.

Yet, Michael wasn’t doing this with his team at work, and they weren’t doing it with customer service. They were too focused on their big problems to see such a small, simple, powerful solution. It wasn’t about loving, serving, and caring for everyone all at once. It was about loving, serving, and caring for one person at a time. Michael knew what he needed to do immediately, but before he left to go meet with Sarah and his team, the carpenter had one final piece of advice for him. “What I am about to tell you may seem counterintuitive because we’ve been talking about strategies to build your business, but the key to loving, serving, and caring for one person at a time is this: Don’t focus on building your business. Focus on using your business to Love, Serve, Care, and build others up. If you do this, your business will build and multiply exponentially.”

“It is counterintuitive, but I get it,” said Michael. It made perfect sense to him. His experience as a coach had taught him that if you want to win a basketball game, you shouldn’t focus on winning. You should focus on the process it takes to win. His favorite coaching quote was: Don’t focus on winning a championship, focus on becoming a champion. He knew that champions made plays that won championships.

He also focused on the process as a parent. He often told his children not to worry about grades but to be their best every day and they would do great. He and Sarah taught them the right habits and knew their habits would lead to great results.

Yet at work he didn’t make the process the focus, and knew his team needed to hear what their focus really should be. It wasn’t about building the business. Their job was to Love, Serve, Care, and build others up. If they did this each moment in each interaction, Social Connect would grow. It was so simple Michael wanted to kick himself for forgetting what he knew to be true. Unfortunately, he thought it might be too late since it would take time for this approach to translate into more business, and it would take a miracle for them to acquire a few more clients before their funding ran out. But there was no other option. He couldn’t wait a minute longer. He had to share the carpenter’s advice immediately.

“I’ll see you in a little bit. I’m going to build others up,” Michael said before thanking J. for his advice and walking out the door to meet with his team and company.