My Little Brother is an Entrepreneur

Every now and then I like to brag on someone close to me. In fact, I actually brag quite often about these people. 

If you know me person to person, I will often tell you about some people that really impress me other then my wife. Those people would be my two younger brothers – Quentin & Hunter.

Our family in a nutshell…

I am the oldest, followed by Quentin 19 months younger and Hunter 12 years younger. Obviously, growing up Quentin and I were super close and the two of us played every sport and competed in whatever we did (I want two sons close in age for that reason).

In high-school Quentin was a way better athlete than I. He played three sports and was a state runner-up wrestler. However, Quentin was not an academic all-star.

School just wasn't his thing.

Give him a Lego set at age 3 though and he would amaze you. By 10 he had basically every tool he could get his hands on and was building stuff everywhere.

He was a hands-on learner, and what he is able to do is impressive (Just another classic example of why everyone must go to college mindset is a bit outdated).

If Quentin was in school now, teachers and counselors would be leveraging college daily. “You know if you don't do this, or study for that you won't get into college,” and so on.

He can tell you himself, he had no intentions of college nor did he need to. There was nothing college was going to teach Quentin. 

The biggest thing he needed was real-world experience and a business mentor – neither of which college teaches.

[See Also: My $1,000 Side Hustle]

By the time he was 17 he was working for himself in the summers doing landscaping.

By 18 he operated an LLC and was full-time in the landscaping industry, obviously no need for college.

He went on to grow a huge business and basically did everything outside in the construction industry except build the house. I actually worked for him during the summers when I wasn't teaching.

Quentin has done really well for himself but recently decided to get a better work-life balance and downsized his business and now works for a larger scale company in the same industry. 

He ran his own business for 10 years, which is phenomenal considering 90% don't make it past the first year.

But this post today isn't even about Quentin. It is about my other brother Hunter actually.

Baby Hunter is all grown up.

If I can tell you one thing… we were all worried about Hunter growing up. He was super funny, super tall, and slept 75% of the day since age 4.

In kindergarten, he missed half the year and I am pretty sure everyone but my mom knew he was lying about his “stomach hurting.” We used to tease him that he would live in mom's basement forever and he would even say that was his goal.

I can just get her to make me food and I can play video games.

Hunter was always a sweet kid, probably sweeter than me, and 100% sweeter then Quentin. If I wanted something I was relentless. Quentin would just go do it.

Hunter, on the other hand, was in no big hurry.

My friends used to come over to play video games with him even when I wasn't home. He was always really mature for his age and when he was 6 he would hang out with 18-year-olds.

Middle school into high school he had friends but he rather hang with his older brothers and their friends. 

Hunter was way more mature than just about any of his classmates.

He also dealt with something very few kids have to deal with in middle school – losing a parent.

Losing a mom is hard for anyone, let alone a 13-year-old. 

Hunter was a rising 8th grader when my mom passed away. To say that it had a profound impact on him would be an understatement. There was a lot to deal with outside of just the emotional toll losing a parent has on someone.

I tell you this because Hunter was really, really close to his mom. His father is an awesome guy, but Hunter was no doubt a mommy's boy. And that is not a bad thing.

He was her baby. That is why she let him stay home all the time in elementary school.

Hunter is also the most intelligent of the three of us. But, like most 18 year olds, after graduating really didn't know what he wanted to do. 

He has bounced around the idea of medicine, or maybe a dentist. I have told him to look into the military.

However, Hunter doesn't listen to anyone and after working for Quentin since he was 15 he decided that he to wanted to venture out on his own. 

So at age 19 he started his own lawn-care company, MowGoat. His reasoning was pretty cool.

He crunched the numbers, figured out how much he was working full-time for a large construction company, and figured out how many yards he needed to cut to match his income and cover his expenses, yet work on his own time.

Using his experience from working with Quentin, he has really grown and established himself pretty quickly. At this point he will have some choices to make in the future.

For now, he plans on continuing community college this fall. As the grass stops growing and school picks up again, he will be able to manage both.

However, whether big or small, I am just super proud of him venturing out on his own like Quentin did as teenagers. Venturing out on your own takes risk. It takes a can do attitude.

And when you're young, sometimes your effort can be taken advantage of.

• He has already learned the hard way not to work for free. 
• He has also learned about accounts owed and always thing worst case instead of best case when it comes to client acquisition.  
• He has learned to be conservative in his projections and the power of word of mouth. 

Brotherly love!

Obviously, I am biased, but I am super proud of both brothers for being entrepreneurs and awesome people!

At the end of the day no matter what people say, you have to make money doing something, but there is the right way to do that – such as helping others by offering your services.

I wrote an article about the characteristics of an entrepreneur and the definition of an entrepreneur is simple:

Someone who organizes and operates a business(s) and takes a financial risk in doing so. “

Another definition said that an entrepreneur is someone “Who takes on,” a challenge, a risk, etc. However, what they really do is find a need and fill it!

Whether it's my friend who started his own gutter company offering instant quotes (a first of its kind) or my brother's who mow people's lawns, they have found a need to fill… and filled it!

There is no doubt that success will find my brothers and some of my friends because of who they are, and I wrote this just to say, I am proud of them.

Hope you enjoyed! ~Josh

Q: Who in your family has made you proud? Comment below!