What I Learned from Our First Kind & Funny Intern

When our niece Cheyenne was looking for a place to complete her job shadow requirement for Mullen High School senior year J-Term, I thought, “Hey, we have a company, you should shadow us!”

Here, at the end of her two weeks at Kind & Funny, I’m so glad we did it.

The dream team …

First of all, Cheyenne is a great person, and really fun to spend time with. She is kind, and curious, and thoughtful, and conversing with her proves what I have long believed, that every human can learn from every other human.

Plus, we did a ton of stuff, from branding work to goal setting to a Personal Style Soul Search to launching a new merch line for one of our clients, and it’s really interesting to see your job through someone else’s eyes. The freedom of having your own business means you can do a morning taste test in the CSU Spur Food Innovation Center, check out the cows at the National Western Stock Show, and spend the afternoon crafting really good marketing content for clients, so we made sure our intern got the full Kind & Funny experience:

Exploring the different ways people work …

In return, Cheyenne taught us a bunch of things as well. Here are some of my favorite things I learned from working with her:

Goal Setting is Not Impossible

The first day of the internship coincided with Kind & Funny Annual Planning, so while Kelly did all the number-crunching work, Cheyenne and I reflected on 2025 and looked ahead to 2026.

After writing down and sharing our 2025 accomplishments we discussed our goals, the personal strengths that would aid us in achieving them, and the people whose help we could look to along the way.

Making personal goals vs. making the best of where the wind blows is a skillset I’m still developing, and I learned so much from this goal-oriented person by listening to her feelings as she approaches big upcoming changes with intention and excitement. We talked about how having a strong sense of self helps navigate complex decisions like choosing a major to study, and we gathered other perspectives anytime Kind & Funny interacted with someone by asking how they made important decisions when they were 18 years old, and what perspectives they’d offer someone about to do the same.

This was a powerful experience for me because I remember the end of high school through the lens of my dad’s death just before graduation. Connecting with the momentum and joy that Cheyenne is feeling about her future through her insightful comments helped me reclaim that feeling for myself, and I’ll be forever grateful for that experience.

Speaking of gratitude …

Gratitude is Really Important

One assignment from Kelly had Cheyenne write a letter to her future self that we will mail to her when she is away at college. Unprompted, Cheyenne also included a full page of things she is grateful for along with the letter.

We didn’t read it, but I saw a lot of wisdom in Cheyenne’s choice to do that. It’s pretty convincing that “gratitude enhances health, brings happiness — and may even lengthen lives.” It is a powerful inward reflection that costs nothing, and I do not practice it nearly as often as I witnessed Cheyenne do it over these two weeks.

Parallel parked successfully on the first day …

Personal Pride is Worth It

The word that Cheyenne ascribed to my 2025 list of accomplishments was “proud,” which made me feel awesome because I’ve been trying to rebuild my self-esteem by feeling proud more often.

For me, this is a long journey that started with learning how to accept compliments like, “I like your shirt” by saying “Thank you” instead of “I got it for free at a basketball game.” It’s tied in with one aspect of my negative self-talk that tells me “nobody likes working with you or talking to you or being around you because you’re too much of a pain in the ass.” And honestly, all of that is BS that I need to leave in the past.

Having spent focused time with her, I get why Cheyenne noticed that pride. She is proud of herself, as she should be, and that’s inspirational.

She already has such a cool awareness of intentional decisions she’s made to align the way she spends her time with what she values in life. She has evidence of work she’s put in that has gotten her where she is. And, as mentioned above, she does it while giving real credit to the help that she’s received along the way. I appreciate how she showed me that pride and gratitude can live right next to each other.

I’m so happy I thought that Kelly & I had something to offer Cheyenne through this experience. It’s nice to be confident that there was a ton of value in getting to spend time with the two of us, but I feel extra grateful of all the value I received in spending time with her. Thank you Cheyenne, Kind & Funny Intern #1!

Want to spend some mentoring time with me? jed@kindandfunny.com.