Somewhere along the way, most of us were taught that impact has to be measured in numbers. That unless you change hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of lives, it doesn't really count. So we take the thing that sits heavy on our hearts the children, the veterans, the elderly, the animals, the cause we cannot stop thinking about and we let it stay there. Because it feels too big. Because we don't know how. Because who are we to try? And that is where so many of us get stuck: not in the not-caring, but in the messy middle between caring and beginning. So I want to ask you the question I ask every time I stand up to speak about our nonprofit. If it changed one life, one child, one animal, one policy — would you do it? This episode is the first in a new series called The Power of One, and I'm starting it with our own story, because Chad and I are living in that messy middle right now. Fostering the Summit isn't even two years old. We spent fifteen years as foster parents, and that was the foundation for everything but it didn't come with expertise, or a plan, or any real idea of how to make it work. If I'm being honest, it still doesn't. We don't know year to year what the funding looks like, who will come alongside us, what doors will open. What we did know, two years ago, was one thing: children age out of this system at eighteen with a goodbye and a good-luck, and half of them are homeless within a year. Children who've been in foster care are diagnosed with PTSD at twice the rate of our military veterans, and yet we rarely give them the tools, the mentors, or the community to tell a different story before they walk out that door. For decades we have put duct tape on a system and called it care. We say we're doing it for the kids — but what if we actually just focused on the kids? That question was enough. It didn't require certainty; it required curiosity. Have the courage to be curious and the curiosity to be courageous, because the two live together. Here's what I've learned from every founder, every guest, every story I've had the privilege of sitting with: it is almost never the big thing that changes a life. It's one person saying I see you. Come to dinner. Let me be your mentor. Let me show up. That's the ripple one becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes sixteen and that is how systemic change actually gets built, not on Capitol Hill first, but in the small, unglamorous, imperfect first step. You don't have to start a nonprofit. You don't have to become a foster parent. You could volunteer two hours. Donate a meal. Share a mission with someone who cares about it too. There is no wrong answer here. So as I close, let me leave you with the question I keep asking myself: if at the end of your life, one person stood up and said they saw me, they believed in me, they showed me I could tell a different story wouldn't that be one of the greatest legacies you could ever leave? Take the messy step. Do it for one. As always love you, mean it. AwakeIn 2026 - The Remembering http://correeroofener.com/retreat Contact Corree or find out more about Corree and learn about all the ways she does not choose to stay in one lane go here: https://correeroofener.com/ To Purchase Emotional Money click here: Emotional Money Are you ready to walk with us for https:/https://fosteringthesummit.org Join us as we change the statistics for children aging out of foster care. Also, follow me on https://www.instagram.com/correeroofenercoach/ for more inspiration and practical wisdom for your business and life. Until next time, keep shining bright! - Corree
