Over the last few weeks, my men’s group has been reading John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. On Saturday we were discussing the Law of Addition, and it sent me down memory lane, back to the origin story of Tying It Together Consulting.

In my first blog—and in my opening post on LinkedIn—I shared why I initially found myself in the nonprofit space. But there’s a difference between why you enter a field and why you stay. For me, staying in the nonprofit world—and more specifically, the association world—was shaped by something deeper.

My very first job in the nonprofit sector wasn’t with an association at all. It was with a 501(c)(3) organization, Junior Achievement. I served as a program manager, recruiting volunteers across four counties to teach financial literacy to students from kindergarten through 12th grade. I loved the mission and the work. What I didn’t love was my manager. She was a relentless micromanager, and after a year of feeling like I was under a microscope, I found myself flipping through the classifieds (for those under 30, that’s what we used before LinkedIn and Indeed) looking for a new opportunity.

Those classifieds didn’t just lead me to my next job—they led me to my calling in the association world. And while I’m proud of the work I did, the real reason that season became so formative was because of the manager, leader, and mentor I found in Tim Kent.

Tim had just become the Executive Vice President of the NC Association of REALTORS® not long after I started as the Marketing Specialist, and we worked together for five years. They were the most monumental five years of my career. Tim didn’t just talk about leadership—he lived it. He embodied Maxwell’s Law of Addition, which teaches that leaders add value by serving others, seeing them as capable and valuable rather than weak or broken.

Over the next few Tuesdays, I’m going to use this blog to share what Tim meant to me—and to many others—through his leadership. He is an essential part of my origin story.