This week’s spotlight story is going to be a little bit different. Normally I’m chatting to someone, asking them about their story, their dogs, their sport, their business or whatever interesting thing they’ve got going on. This week there’s no interview. Instead, I wanted to write about balance, family business and someone who has probably influenced me more than I actually tell him. Unfortunately, that person is my younger brother, Elliot.
And before he gets too excited about having an entire Saturday Read dedicated to him, I should point out that he also bugs the absolute life out of me. We squabble. We wind each other up rotten. We know exactly which buttons to press. But we also get some pretty awesome stuff done together.
Brothers first
There’s only a year and a half between us. I’m 31 and Elliot is 29, so we’ve pretty much always been around each other. We’ve also both been around Pawstrading since we were kids.
Back then, we genuinely thought we were helping Mum and Dad with the business. Now that we both have children of our own, I suspect our definition of helping may have been slightly different to theirs. We were probably considerably more of a hindrance than help. But to us, we were part of it. And as Pawstrading grew, we grew up alongside it.
One thing I should make clear is that Pawstrading is still very much Mum and Dad’s business. What they have done over the years, though, is give me and Elliot a huge amount of trust and freedom within it. We’re allowed to have ideas, chase opportunities, make decisions and generally get on with what we do. Obviously, that freedom does occasionally result in Mum or Dad pulling us back in for a little check in.
Usually something along the lines of: “Right… what exactly are you two doing?”
Which, in fairness, is probably necessary. Especially when their two sons consist of one person who can be slightly stressy and wants to think about everything and another who thinks every enormous undertaking is a ten minute job. I’ll let you work out which is which.
We definitely don’t always agree
Growing up, me and Elliot got into plenty of mischief together. We fought occasionally. We argued. We annoyed each other. Thankfully, as we’ve got older, the fighting has pretty much disappeared.
The annoying each other has remained remarkably consistent.
But something else has changed too. I think we’ve both got much better at recognising each other’s strengths and weaknesses rather than expecting the other person to think exactly the same way. Because we really don’t. I’m much more likely to look at something and immediately start thinking about the logistics, the workload, the risk and the 47 different things that need sorting before we do it.
Elliot brings more of the: “Why don’t we just give it a go?” And while that can occasionally make my eye twitch, I also really admire it. Because without that part of the recipe, there are things we probably just wouldn’t do.
Natchew is a perfect example
Our current Natchew project is probably one of the best examples of how our different approaches can work together. Taking Natchew further has meant stepping outside our comfort zone. It meant committing to a much larger range of products upfront, putting significant money into stock before knowing exactly how it would be received and deciding that if we were going to do it, we wanted to do it properly. But one tiny part of the whole project probably sums me and Elliot up better than anything else.
The labels.
The whole thing was instigated by Elliot. He’d been researching label printers, looking into what we could produce ourselves and came to me with the idea. We researched it, talked it through and confirmed together that it could work. So naturally…Elliot bought the printer. I’ll admit that at the beginning I was looking at the whole thing thinking: “You’re mad. Why can’t we just carry on doing what we’re already doing?” But Elliot could see where he wanted it to go. He started creating the label design and it quickly became his baby. Then came the point where it wasn’t quite doing what he wanted it to do. The frustration started creeping in. I stepped in halfway through.
Which, as you can probably imagine, went down wonderfully when his older brother started interfering with his baby. There was definitely a period of begrudgingly accepting the help. But eventually we started combining our different skills. He’d already had the idea, researched it, pushed us into buying the equipment and started creating something that simply wouldn’t have existed if we’d carried on doing what we'd always done. Then I came into it with a different way of looking at things.
We bounced backwards and forwards, changed things, worked through the problems and eventually got those labels over the line together. And the really annoying part? By the end of it, I was looking at them thinking: “Yep. You were right. We absolutely needed to do this.” Don’t worry, I don’t make a habit of saying that to him. But that little project probably sums us up.
Without Elliot, I might have looked at what we already had and thought it works, why change it? Without me stepping in halfway through, Elliot might still be arguing with a label printer. Together, we ended up with something better than either of us would probably have created alone. And that same mentality has carried through the wider Natchew project.
Sometimes I think he’s mad at the beginning.
Sometimes he thinks I’m being overly cautious.
Sometimes he doesn’t want my help.
Sometimes I probably give it anyway.
And somewhere in the middle…we tend to get some pretty awesome stuff done.
“It’ll only take ten minutes…”
There is, however, one particular Elliot trait that needs addressing. Every job takes ten minutes. According to Elliot. We recently decided to reshuffle our second warehouse. Elliot’s assessment: “It’ll only be a ten minute job.” My assessment: “Absolutely not. This is at least half a day. Fast forward a little while and we’re about ten pallets deep, everything has been moved, the warehouse is inside out and we are very firmly beyond the ten minute mark. Then…the fire service pager goes off.
Of course it does. There I am, surrounded by the aftermath of one of Elliot’s ten minute jobs, while he’s potentially disappearing off on a shout. Thankfully, on this occasion it was a water carrier job; Elliot wasn’t needed on that truck, and he was back within about half an hour. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to see a firefighter not go to a fire.
Because PT isn’t his only job
And this is where the balance part really comes in. Joining ing december 2024, Elliot completed his training to become an on call firefighter, officially passing out in March 2026. Even his pass out ceremony managed to clash with Crufts. Which is probably the most Pawstrading way he could possibly have joined the fire service. Alongside working with us, he now averages over 100 hours a week on call. Obviously, that doesn’t mean sitting in a fire station for 100 hours. He can be at work, at home or getting on with normal life. But when that buzzer goes, everything else stops. And I swear that thing has developed an incredible ability to detect when we’re busiest.
Middle of a warehouse reshuffle?
BEEP.
Flat out with orders?
BEEP.
Everything everywhere and we could really do with another pair of hands?
You get the idea.
There are days where he’s had a shout or a rough night and is understandably a little less tolerant than normal. There are also days where I’m stressed about an event, a product release, a ridiculous show schedule or one of the other 900 things going through my head and I’m considerably less tolerant than normal. Sometimes we’re both absolutely fine and just decide to annoy each other anyway.
That’s family, isn’t it?
But I do admire the balance
Because alongside Pawstrading and the fire service, Elliot still has everything else that makes up normal life. His other half, his lad, the dogs, family and still finding time for the things he enjoys like motorbikes, camping and travelling. And I genuinely admire how he manages to balance it. Because balance is a strange thing. It’s incredibly easy to lean too far into one part of your life. Work gets busy, so everything becomes work.
You get obsessed with a hobby or training and suddenly everything revolves around that. Family life gets hectic and something else gets pushed aside. And I don’t think balance necessarily means giving every part of your life an equal share all of the time. Sometimes work needs more of you. Sometimes family does. Sometimes you need some time for yourself.
Maybe balance is simply noticing when you’ve leaned too far in one direction and knowing when to pull things back again.
Learning from my little brother
And this isn’t actually the first time I’ve looked at something Elliot has done and taken something from it. Long before Covid, Elliot had crept a few extra pounds on. Nothing dramatic, but over the next two or three years he gradually lost it, got himself into a really good, healthy place and, more importantly, he maintained it. There wasn’t some enormous transformation announcement. He just quietly got on with it. And stayed consistent.
Watching him do that definitely fed into my own motivation when I eventually decided I wanted to make a similar change. I’m now at the stage myself where I’m learning what maintaining that change looks like rather than constantly chasing the next number. And as the older brother, I think it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes your younger brother can be someone you look up to as well.
There you go, Elliot. That’s the nice bit. Screenshot it because we’re moving swiftly on.
Maybe our differences are the point
The older we’ve got, the more I think we’ve learned to embrace what the other person brings. Elliot pushes. I’m probably steady. He sees an opportunity and wants to get moving. I start wondering how the hell we’re actually going to pull it off. He’ll start designing a label. I’ll initially wonder why we even need a new label. He’ll get frustrated when it doesn’t quite work. I’ll stick my nose in. He’ll get annoyed that I’ve stuck my nose in. Then eventually we’ll combine what we’re both good at and get the bloody thing finished.
Mum and Dad have given us the trust and freedom to explore that within their business, while thankfully still being there to occasionally pull us back into line when required. And I think projects like Natchew are the result of all those ingredients coming together.
Mum and Dad’s experience and trust.
Elliot’s willingness to take a risk and step outside the norm.
My ability to worry about absolutely everything that could possibly go wrong.
It’s quite the recipe. But somehow, it works. And underneath all the squabbling, winding each other up and general brotherly nonsense, I am genuinely proud of what my little brother manages to balance and what we manage to achieve together. There is, however, one area where 29 years of personal development appears to have achieved absolutely nothing.
FINISH. A. JOB.
Elliot has the attention span of a magpie when it comes to jobs.
He can be halfway through something…
See another shiny job…
Start that…
Spot something else…
And suddenly we’re five jobs deep and none of them are finished. So after an entire Saturday Read containing considerably more compliments than I’m comfortable giving my younger brother, I’ll finish with one simple request.
Elliot, please finish one of the other five jobs before you start another one.
Other than that…Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m proud of you really. Just don’t expect me to say it again on Monday morning.
Jack
P.S. I reserve the right to completely deny writing any of the nice bits above the next time we’re ten pallets deep into another one of Elliot’s “ten minute jobs”.