We Grow Together, So Keep Watering.

November 20, 2019 / in General Information / by Jason Terry

I was recently at the November Hats Club event hosted by Christy Rogers and Jason Rogers, owners of Training Umbrella. I helped organize the event for Hats Club because I’ve done business with Christy and Jason for years. And I knew it would be a great opportunity for them to share their entrepreneurial story while showing off their great training facilities. Training Umbrella has been providing technical training room rentals and specialized training for companies since 2011.

In 2011, It Began With a Referral

I met Christy in her first year of business through a referral from Janine Akers at DataFile Technologies. We did some LinkedIn training together to help her organic marketing efforts. Over the next few months, I found myself referring Google Apps training opportunities to Christy and realized that my friends at Umzuzu would probably appreciate the connection. So I referred Christy to Tony Sheets and Joe Tierney at Umzuzu. They’ve been doing business together ever since.

In 2019, The Reminder Was Powerful

So back to the present… where the Hats Club event was being held in the Training Umbrella classroom.

Jason and Christy were talking about one of their largest monthly clients who happened to be doing another big class in the training room behind us. This was the first reminder that we all grow together. Tony Sheets was at the event… and he was the one that had originally referred the client to Jason and Christy. See where this is going? It gets better.

The Connections Go Deeper

Jason Moxness was also at the Hats Club event. I’ve known Jason for years and we’ve also done business together for a decade.

During the Q&A session with Christy and Jason, he talked about the quality of Microsoft Excel training that Christy provides. And that he got connected to them for that training 6 years ago… with a referral from me (Jason Terry).

So I sat there… at the edge of the Training Umbrella classroom. I started looking around at the many faces I recognized. And I thought about the many ways this group of people, who happened to show up at the same event, were connected through relationship.

It was a powerful reminder that over the years we invest in relationships in our personal and professional lives. We help each other. And through the tapestry of connections, we grow together.

It’s hard to describe the powerful feeling of community that moment brought to me. But I wanted to try to share that moment with you through this story.

Since you are reading this, thank you for being part of my story. And thank you to each of you who have helped me grow over the years.

P.S. I had dinner at an event with Mic Johnson recently. We had a great conversation as always, and as a nod to the many years we worked together, I added “keep watering” to the title of this blog post. The inspiration for that is from a blog post Mic wrote in 2013. So thanks Mic… I’m glad we’re still growing together.