I fucking miss you all so much.
Life has been weird, man. I feel so blessed and grateful to be in the position I am in today, and it is all because of my family and friends back home in Buffalo - ESPECIALLY the ones who have seen the struggles of Lonely Cowboy and STILL believed in me. You all mean so much to me, more than I will ever be able to express. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without each and every one of you.
I miss writing, and I feel sometimes it is the only way for me to communicate clearly to the people that care enough to read this. Obviously blogs are not the most popular form of media, so if you are reading this, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Back to addressing my family and friends back home specifically - I have been feeling pretty home sick recently. I guess my homesickness comes from feeling disconnected to the people that have supported me and believed in me every step of the way with Lonely Cowboy. I often feel guilty for not succeeding quick enough. My brain tries to trick me into thinking I have failed you all, which breaks my heart. The idea that my friends and family supported me unconditionally yet I still “failed”, eats me away - but on the flip side it motivates me even more to continue pushing forward.
I am working on giving myself more grace, and reminding myself that even though I may feel like I have failed in the short term, those failures were necessary for my growth as an individual and business owner.
You can’t have the highs without the lows.
As much as I miss Buffalo and everyone there, I am very content and excited to be where I am right now. Denver feels a bit more open to the idea of LC, and more accepting of it (if that makes sense). In my experience living in Buffalo for most of my life, it seems to not be the most accepting place for creative endeavors/business ideas. That might just be the blue collar, tough love attitude of the city (which I love, miss and crave sometimes).
At this point in my life/LC career, it is CLEAR AS DAY that Denver is the place to build the foundation of LC and make the most of opportunities when they come. The friends I have met here could not be more supportive of LC. The genuine relationships I’ve created and like-mindedness of my close circle is something that I remind myself everyday not to take for granted.
Now let's talk about LC and why the community behind it is all that matters -
I never ever want someone to think of Lonely Cowboy and think that I did this all by myself, because that is the furthest thing from the truth. I have had the help and support of so so so many friends and family that I almost feel like I shouldn’t take an ounce of credit for the future successes of Lonely Cowboy.
I know that is a wild thing to believe, and I know I have to give myself more credit, however I just know that none of this would be possible without the community behind it.
If you are reading this, my goal is to prove you guys right. I want to be an example of what's possible when a group of people work together to accomplish one common goal - LC’s first goal is simply to emphasize the importance of mental health, and then eventually get the scholarship running annually. The clothes and media and shit is dope, but those come and go. Legacy and being a pioneer in Mental Health Education is what I’m looking for LC to accomplish.
I know that goal is aggressive but it's not impossible. I believe God has put me in this position for a reason and has blessed me with unconditional support from my friends and family. I try my best everyday to not take that for granted.
Before I get too lost on a tangent, I just want to emphasize again that I fucking love all of you and I pray that you have not lost hope in LC. The only competition LC has is LC itself. What I believe LC can be, has never been done before. And I am so fucking excited to roll out all the behind the scenes projects I have been working on.
Lonely Cowboy has been through the ringer time and time again. Struggle after struggle, mistake after mistake, bad decision after bad decision - just constant lessons being learned the hard way. Yet I sit here today more confident in Lonely Cowboy than I have ever been.
In the public eye, it seemed as though Lonely Cowboy had failed. However, what most don’t know is that I have been working behind the scenes on projects the whole time - slowly putting pieces together to build the foundation of LC, as opposed to my previous approach of going balls to the wall in every direction possible, just to be burnt out on all fronts.
Lonely Cowboy is now operating with a “plan, schedule, execute” attitude. I’m slowing everything down and taking one step at a time. Cutting out all the unnecessary bullshit and distractions.
There is a part of me that is so thankful for the harsh business lessons I learned in the first two years of business. Without being aggressively humbled at the start, I would not know what NOT to do. And those lessons are priceless. You cannot learn those lessons in a textbook, you can’t hear it from someone and learn it right away. The only way to navigate those struggles are walking through the fire and making it out the other side.
In many ways, I am still walking through the fire. I am still struggling everyday with prioritizing what I need to do and what's most important to get done at this exact moment. I struggle with my own personal shit all day everyday as well. I know for a fact that everyday is going to contain some sort of internal fight or resistance to something.
Knowing that, I continue to just try to be 1% better everyday. Whether that’s working on kicking a bad habit, actively trying to be more compassionate, praying or meditating, exercising, staying off social media, etc. - just little things that I know I can do to make my brain just a little less on edge.
Relaxing has been by far one of the most difficult things for me to do in my life. I do not have an off switch on my thoughts. It feels like a hurricane of ideas, constantly bouncing back and forth, up-down, left-right, just continuously scattering about. But again, I am constantly looking for tools to help calm that storm. It is an everyday battle, but it beats staying comfortable and ignoring my struggles that I need to address.
Anyway, I feel like I could write forever, but this piece is getting pretty long, and I doubt many people will make it to the end.
So if you did, and you are reading this right now, once again, thank you. I fucking love you and your support for LC means so much more than you could ever imagine.
This is the part in the letter where I theoretically ride off into the sunset (until the next blog post, lol).
Until next time, folks.
Much love. - Kellan
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