The importance of fatherly advice

This week we ran a competition on our Facebook page that asked people to share the best piece of advice their father gave them. We received the most feedback we have ever had on any of our social media sites.
People flooded us with nuggets passed on from their dads. It felt like the best conversation we had ever had with people via the medium, and goes to show just how much we look to our dad’s for an example of how to live.
My father gave me something once that much later inspired me.

When I was about 13 years of age he gave me a framed poem called ‘IF’ by Rudyard Kipling. At that time we were butting heads a lot so the moment dad turned his back the poem was graffitied over and thrown in a bottom draw, but never thrown away. The poem is advice from a father to his son on how to be a man. It is about humility, honour, risk and reward.

More than two decades later when the seed of an idea for a range of men’s grooming products was forming in my mind, it was values like these that I wanted to bring to life in the brand.

So when the tattered old poem that my dad had given me years before was uncovered in the bottom of an old chest and I read the line, ‘if you can meet with triumph & disaster and treat those two imposters just the same’, well, the deal was done and Triumph & Disaster the brand was born.

Now in the spirit of father’s day and as a sign of respect for ‘old men’ everywhere, the team at T&D says ‘Rock on old boy and RESPECT’.

Dion Nash 
Founder
Triumph & Disaster