Origin Story & How Hugs Over Handshakes Was Born
Hey, I’m Tim. And if you’re reading this, I want to start by saying something I wish someone said to me years ago:
You’re not broken.
You’re just disconnected, from yourself, from your family, from the parts of you that actually matter.
Because that’s exactly where I was.
Where it really started. Everyone sees the man I am now, the dad who’s present, sober, grounded, building something meaningful.
But what they don’t see is where I came from.
My childhood was… disconnected.
Not a lot of affection, not a lot of emotional safety.
I learned to survive, not to feel.
And at 12, something happened that changed everything. I was sexually abused.
No support, no space to process it, no one who even knew what to look for in a kid who was hurting.
So I numbed.
First with distraction.
Then with alcohol.
Then with drugs.
Anything to not feel what was too big to feel alone.
Through my 20s I was using meth, speed, coke, fantasy, pills, whatever kept me out of my own head.
And the fucked-up part?
I still managed to build a multimillion-dollar business.
Because that’s what trauma-kids-turned-adults do:
We overperform to hide the parts we don’t want anyone to see.
Becoming a dad changed everything… and nothing.
When I became a dad, I stopped drugs cold.
But I swapped it for something more socially acceptable: drinking.
And then life hit hard.
My daughter Matilda was diagnosed with PDA.
My partner’s health fell apart.
The business was pressure every single day.
I was drowning at home and drowning at work.
I didn’t realise I was in a slow-motion collapse until I was in the psych ward, twice.
Depression.
Suicidal attempts.
ADHD.
Bipolar diagnosis.
Two young girls watching their dad disappear without understanding why.
This was my rock bottom.
And it wasn’t loud.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It was quiet, empty, terrifying.
The moment everything changed
I remember the night I knew I had to choose:
Keep going the way I was…
or lose everything that actually mattered.
I put the alcohol down.
I committed to do the work, the real work.
The kind that makes you look at your patterns, your trauma, your bullshit, and your truth.
I rebuilt myself from the inside out.
I spent 2 solid years and more than 100k on personal development, and I’m still going.
I went deep with retreats, online courses, and in person and online communities.
I found my fire again and started giving back to those that supported me.
These programs didn’t fix me.
They helped me understand myself.
They gave me the tools to be honest, grounded, vulnerable, and present.
They helped me become the dad my girls actually need.
Not the one pretending he had his shit together…
but the one who genuinely does.
From rewiring circuits to rewiring families
For years I was an electrician, literally rewiring broken connections.
Turns out my real work wasn’t in buildings.
It was in families.
In my family.
I went from fixing faults on job sites
to fixing the disconnection in my own home.
From wiring switches
to wiring safety, communication, and understanding.
From running a business
to rebuilding myself.
And what I learned is this:
When you repair the connection within yourself,
you repair the connections around you.
That realisation changed everything.
How Hugs Over Handshakes Was Born
HOH wasn’t a business idea.
It wasn’t a strategy.
It wasn’t a brand.
It was a moment.
A moment where I realised I wasn’t the only dad who felt like I did.
The only parent running on empty.
The only man who didn’t know how to talk about what was going on inside him.
The only family trying not to fall apart.
I realised I could use my story, the breakdowns, the rebuilds, the dark days, the wins, not to impress people, but to reach people.
HOH was born out of one intention:
To help families reconnect through communication, curiosity, understanding, love, and fun.
To help parents be present.
To help kids feel seen.
To help men feel safe enough to open up.
To bring families back to each other, one simple ritual, one conversation, one moment at a time.
This isn’t about perfection.
This is about showing up.
About choosing connection over control.
Hugs over handshakes.
And if my story resonates even 1%…
you’re in the right place.
