I’m not sure a day passes when I don’t think about my Dad.
Today is one of those days when I find myself thinking about him a little more.
He died eight years ago today, just one week after his 78th birthday.
Way too young.
My Dad is still the most inspiring person I have ever known.
I don’t think I’ll ever think about him in any other way.
While he was alive, he had a massive impact on my life.
Eight years later, he still does.
One of the ways he continues to impact me is through the stories I tell my clients about him from the years when I worked alongside him in our family business.
I could probably write a book about what he taught me about leadership.
Today, on the anniversary of his death, I want to share one of those stories.
My Dad was a retailer.
He loved what he called “the retail trade.”
He bought his first shop from a great uncle during the 1970s and spent the next few years paying back the loan he’d taken from the Ulster Bank to buy his shares in the business.
Building a retail business in Northern Ireland during the Troubles wasn’t easy.
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, his premises were damaged numerous times by fires started by incendiary devices and, on occasions, by car bombs.
When bombs exploded in the centre of Dungannon, our house a mile away would literally shake from the blast.
Eventually Dad paid the bank back for that initial loan.
Then he decided to expand.
His first move was to acquire Menary Brothers in Lisburn, about 30 miles from his home in Dungannon.
Around six months later, the shop was burned to the ground after an incendiary device was planted inside.
I remember Dad telling me about standing in a car park a short distance behind the shop.
He watched the flames appear through the roof and eventually engulf the building.
He was in tears.
As he stood there wondering what on earth he was going to do next, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
He turned around.
There was a man standing behind him whom he’d never met.
“Are you Brian?”
The man turned out to be the chairman of the Ulster Bank.
The bank that had loaned Dad the money to buy his original business.
And then loaned him the money to buy his second store.
I don’t know the man’s name.
But I know what he told my Dad.
Whatever he needed from the bank to get the business up and running again, he would get.
I’m not sure that would happen today.
This was more than 40 years ago, at a time when banking was perhaps more personal and relationships counted for something.
I don’t know exactly what Dad was thinking as he stood in that car park.
But I can imagine that moments earlier he must have felt very alone.
His shop was disappearing in front of him.
He didn’t know what came next.
And then, with a tap on the shoulder, something changed.
He wasn’t alone.
Someone was in his corner.
Someone had his back.
Dad didn’t need to hear it twice.
Within a week, he’d secured temporary premises and was trading again in Lisburn.
Before long, new, bigger and better premises had been built, and he was back trading on the site of the store he’d watched burn to the ground.
I grew up in the middle of all of this.
I knew about many of the challenges Dad was dealing with.
But I don’t think I really understood them.
Not until I was much older.
Probably not until I started working in the business myself in the early 1990s.
Only then did I begin to appreciate in some way what he’d gone through to build what he built.
Dad had an extraordinary ability to get back up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Whatever came his way, he kept moving.
He kept building.
He kept looking forward.
And perhaps that’s one of the greatest things he gave me.
Not through anything he ever sat me down and taught me.
Through the way he lived.
My Dad was one in a million.
He gave me so much through his generosity and through the opportunities he created for me.
But he gave me immeasurably more through the person he was.
Through the example he gave me as a husband.
As a father.
As a businessman.
As a human being.
Eight years after his death, he’s still teaching me.
And strangely, he’s still teaching other people too.
I tell my clients stories about him all the time.
Stories about leadership.
Resilience.
Kindness.
Generosity.
Love.
And every time I do, something of Dad gets passed on.
His story, which is already part of mine, becomes a little part of theirs.
And today, as you read this…
…it becomes a little part of yours.
I love the story my Dad told with his life.
It inspires me to keep telling it.
But perhaps more than anything…
…it inspires me to think about the story I’m telling with mine.
Thanks Dad.
I love you.
Much love
Peter