We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jonathan & Evita Kunke a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jonathan & Evita, so happy you were able to devote some time to sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our community. So, we’ve always admired how you have seemingly never let nay-sayers or haters keep you down. Can you talk to us about how to persist despite the negative energy that so often is thrown at folks trying to do something special with their lives?
Evita – No matter who you are, how hard you try, or how pure your intentions are, you will inevitably always be met with one person or another that will question your motivations and your choices. Wherever life takes you, there will be those who challenge your decisions, disagree with you, and express their distaste in the way you choose to live your life, or run your business. We are faced with these interactions in every situation in life, and the only way I am able to overcome the negativity and discouragement is to become absolutely dedicated to the heart and soul of my purpose. Being driven by and focused on my dreams, has been the way that I have been able to drown out the harmful exterior noise. I am actually a deeply sensitive person, and my love for other people is immense. Once we’ve smiled at each other, met for the briefest moment, or even just said hello, you instantly have my heart and with it, the ability to cause me pain. However, I have come to learn that you can deeply care about and consider what other people think, as long as you unwaveringly care about and stay true to what you believe in despite any negativity you encounter. I spend a lot of time contemplating my life and staying connected to who I am, and what I value. As long as I have confidence in myself, and also surround myself with people that believe in me, there is nothing that can stop me. I will walk boldly towards my dreams, no matter what chatter may rise up around me. At this point in my life, things always seem to be swirled up in some sort of chaos, but in the midst of it all, I have never been clearer on who I am and what I feel driven to do. This business of ours not only fell in our lap but it also felt like it kidnapped us into a very unexpected life. Fortunately, it became instantly clear what a gift that was. Part of the immense bond that Jonathan and I have is built on our shared calling and dedication to healing, and helping others live better lives by transforming their sleep. This business has allowed us to do that in a real and tangible way, and on a larger scale than we could have ever imagined. Reading those first emails and letters from grateful, impressed, excited, relieved customers changed our lives forever. We both felt this overwhelming sense of joy and fulfillment. We knew that this was exactly where we belonged. We live here now, and we couldn’t be happier.
Jonathan – Evita is right, there will always be people who are going to try and bring you down no matter what you are doing! Finding an outlet for that negativity can be challenging, but it is extremely important. One of my favorite directors is David Lynch, and something he said that really resonates with me is that “negativity is the enemy of creativity”. I can really relate to this, because I get excited and passionate about ideas even before they are fully formed, and there is always some amount of experimentation that happens while I am fleshing them out. Because I have no idea what (if anything) will come of them, if I am in a negative head space/frame of mind it is easy to get caught up in the logistics, and to start to talk yourself out of doing something because it will “never work”, or it is “too complicated”, or you are “not skilled enough” to pull something off. But if everybody thought like this, we would miss out on so many amazing inventions that truly make the world better, so it is important to not let yourself go there. For me personally, once I am in that negative frame of mind, it is difficult to bring myself out of it, and so it is much better to find ways to prevent myself from going there in the first place. Like Evita mentioned, one thing that really helps us is just having the knowledge that what we are doing is important, and knowing that we are making a real difference in people’s lives. It is much easier to shrug off an internet troll making negative or hateful comments on our posts or videos because we believe in what we are doing. I definitely will have an emotional reaction to some of the negative things people say online, but for me personally those reactions are always fleeting, and never truly impact me because I am confident in our vision and I know that we are giving all of ourselves to this. I truly believe that because we are as committed as we are, and our intentions are pure, we will be okay. I feel like I sound naïve saying that, because I know it is very much an optimistic/dreamer mindset, but it is how I feel. Honestly, this is the way we have always operated, and it is the only way I know how to live a life that I feel good about.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Evita – Our company, Honeydew Sleep was born out of our personal dream, desire, and drive to create innovative and superior sleep products. We believed that with our knowledge, experience, and total unwillingness to compromise we could accomplish this, and in doing so give people a real opportunity to sleep better than they ever had before. We set out to transform their sleep so that they could discover how truly vibrant and full of joy their waking hours could be when they were genuinely rested and pain free. That vision and our profound dedication to it, is what set us, two people who never longed for or intended to start a business, on a path to learning what it meant to grow a company from scratch. We knew that our purpose was so much bigger than just our product, so we jumped in with both feet, our hearts, and our souls.
Jonathan – We can’t help but get sappy when talking about this. What the average person doesn’t realize is that most people are adversely affected by poor sleep on a daily basis, and these negative effects are serious and spill into all areas of their lives. Their mood, their mind, and their health are all suffering, and yet they struggle to find the answers and solutions that can lead to relief and healing. I have spent almost my entire life in the sleep industry, and I saw time and time again that so many pillows on the market were falling short of everyone’s needs and expectations, including my own! I have bad neck issues, and tried every pillow in existence, but none were helping. We are crafty people by nature, and that inspired us to start tinkering. This tinkering turned into a hobby, which quickly turned into full time obsessing, and all of that time and focus culminated in the creation of a product that we deeply believed could improve the sleep and lives of others. We saw the transformation in our own sleep, and soon made some for our friends and our loved ones. Every time we sent our pillow out into the world, the feedback that came flooding back was overwhelming. It not only validated us, but it sparked this feeling of duty, of a calling, for us to continue helping people in this way.
Evita – What we do when we create our sleep products for our customers has a truly deep and profound meaning for us. Our business has been brought to life and propelled forward by the dream of a broader purpose. It was born out of our true love of our fellow humans, and the respect and adoration we have for every single life. We have always been guided by our unwavering dedication and steadfast insistence that every person deserves love, rest, health, joy, wellness and even luxury. The very core of what we do is rooted in our enduring belief that every human deserves knowledge of, and access to, things that can make their lives better, brighter, more fulfilling, more vibrant. We are driven by our empathy, and this is how we have found our way into the business of caring, of nurturing, and of healing.
Jonathan – Our mission is to be healers of many. To put it simply, when you sleep better, you live better. We are dedicated to providing healing in the form of elevated comfort, enhanced quality of sleep, and relief from pain. We are deeply committed to providing improved sleep that regenerates, reenergizes and restores the body. Without sleep we cannot live. Without restorative, productive, high-quality sleep we cannot thrive. There are too many people in this world that are suffering because they are yet to become aware of the immense healing power of sleep. Our life’s work has become to spread that awareness and to empower our customers by educating them about what their body and mind need for them to be living their happiest and most fulfilling life. We know that sleep touches every part of our health: physical, mental, and emotional. We want to teach our customers how to access the most satisfying and healing sleep of their lives, and in doing so improve their overall joy and wellbeing.
Evita – Our promise to our customers is that we will always nurture and take care of them in any way that we can when they reach out to us. We feel deeply and personally connected with them because we are sharing so much of ourselves. We see and understand them. We know them. We recognize and relate to their struggles and their pain. It resonates with us. It is familiar. In turn, we are abundantly grateful when our customers are willing to share a bit of themselves with us. Their stories sustain us and keep us motivated to continue chasing this dream. Without love and hope there can be no healing. We want to share our love and hope so we can all find our way to sleeping well and resting easy together. We appreciate each and every human that joins us on this wonderful journey of life, we are forever grateful for their trust in us, and we will never take it for granted.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Jonathan – In the very beginning, we were designing and making these pillows for ourselves first. Because of this, we had no time constraints, no budgetary restrictions, and no deadlines. We thought it would be a pretty easy project, but it ended up turning into a years-long obsession. Our ignorance of how challenging this would be worked in our favor, because had we known how long it would take us, I don’t think that we would have ever started. However, with every prototype that we made we could feel ourselves getting closer, so it was easy to keep going, and the closer we got the more it fueled our drive and determination. Then after we had spent so much time on this, it had to be perfect, so we would keep making tiny changes that most people would probably not even notice. I think that this ignorance and our stubbornness is what ended up making this work for us. After making hundreds of pillows in this crazy pursuit, “really good” is just not enough – it had to be perfect. We had a clear vision of what we wanted, and we refused to stop until this vision was realized. When we saw what a difference it was making for people and decided to create Honeydew, this was incredibly important to us. I knew that people were reacting the way they were because the product was perfect, and we made a promise to ourselves that we would never compromise that. We would do whatever we had to do to figure out how to run a business from here, but never at the sake of our products. In that way, we sort of worked backwards, because most businesses design products based on a set of criteria that they have in mind to help them maximize profits. We do not operate this way at all. To be honest, it would make our lives a lot easier if we were willing to compromise more – by outsourcing our pillow manufacturing overseas, or using less expensive components, for example – but if we were willing to do that, we would be just like all the other pillow companies out there. And what is the point of that? The last thing the world needs is another mediocre pillow.
Evita – Our genuine and consuming desire is to help other people. We started exploring this idea about the pillows because we were noticing that people were not getting their needs or desires met by the current options they had. We felt sad about their disappointment, and we knew that it went far beyond a fleeting moment of displeasure. We have such an extensive knowledge and wealth of experience in the sleep industry that we were acutely aware that the inability to find a pillow that is the right fit, both in the area of comfort and support, can have a majorly determinantal impact in all areas of our lives. Sleep is so important to rest and heal our bodies and minds, it directly effects our physical and mental health. If there was any chance at all that we could make a positive impact, we knew we had to take that chance. We found that if you align yourself with a purpose on this massive scale, there is no challenge you won’t be able to overcome in the pursuit of it. We didn’t truly have a solid direction or defined plan for where we wanted to end up, only the deep and aching love for others. Allowing this obsession to lead us as we set out on this journey just illuminated every next step, and taking those steps as they appeared, not only felt necessary but came naturally. When you find yourself on the right path, nothing, no matter how difficult, can lead you astray.
Jonathan – The third quality that made a big difference for us is our passion and dedication. To be honest, starting a business these days is kind of an insane thing to do! The best advice I could offer somebody would be to pursue whatever you are truly passionate about, no matter how crazy it may seem. I can talk about pillows for hours, and thank God for that – because now it is my job and I literally have to. When you are trying to make your business succeed, sleep is something that gets put on the back burner. Despite being a sleep company, we are no exception to this rule, and trust me, the irony is not lost on us! But because we are passionate about what we are doing, and dedicated to making a difference for people, we are willing to forgo our own sleep sometimes for the greater good. I think that everyone who wants to start their own business needs to be aware that this will most likely be the case, you absolutely must care deeply about whatever you are doing if it involves any amount of self-sacrifice, or you won’t be able to persist.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Jonathan – When I was 23, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had recently graduated from the highest rated film school in the country, and I was incredibly grateful for my education and for the experience, but I also felt a ton of guilt because somewhere along the way I realized that I didn’t want to pursue a career in the film industry. During my time there, I met a lot of extremely talented people who absolutely lived for the film industry. I had spent years making friends whose ultimate passion in life was storytelling, and who were willing to do whatever it takes to survive as long as they got to keep making movies. That was not me. I love movies, and music, and art, and I had spent a lot of my life acting before going to college, which I also loved. However, I applied to film school not because I wanted to make movies, but because I foolishly thought that with my proclivity for technology and gadgets, it would be a safer career path to enter a field that had so much technology at its core than it would be for me to try and pursue acting. Once I was there, however, I didn’t feel like I quite fit in with the other film students, many of whom had spent their lives preparing for this. To be honest, up until this point in my life, this was pretty typical for me. I had strong imposter syndrome no matter what I tried to do. I loved acting, and was really good at it, but I didn’t think that I was as passionate as the people I was working with (and therefore I didn’t trust myself to be able to make the sacrifices necessary to have a successful career as an actor). This led me to apply to film school, but when I got there it was the same thing. While I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, my dad had just started implementing a new point of sale computer system at The Sleep Shoppe, and suggested I come help them set it up 2 days a week so I could have some income while I looked for the job that would ultimately be my career.
Once I started working at The Sleep Shoppe, I was having a lot of fun, and I quickly came on full time. We had a warehouse manager at the time who was a drill sergeant with a heart of gold, and he was letting one of the employees who was down on his luck live in his car in the parking lot. This employee was a drummer, and we quickly bonded over music. He had very few possessions, but he had several cases of a book in his car called Another Heart in His Hand. I asked him about it, and he gave me copy, telling me he used to live with the author, and he would love to know my thoughts on it. It turns out it was a philosophy book written by a professional poker player, who repeatedly encountered an older man playing on the professional poker circuit who was sort of a Zen Master. Over the span of a couple of years, they ended up becoming friends and travelling around the country together playing in poker tournaments. As he tells it, he felt like he was constantly getting an education from this guy, and decided he wanted to start chronicling this education so that there would be a record of it for other people who might benefit. The back cover of this book said something like, “All true stories aren’t necessarily about truth. All stories about truth aren’t necessarily true. This is a true story about truth”. I was immediately intrigued, and I devoured it quickly.
This book ended up having a profound impact on me. One of the things that I still think about often is a section in the book where the older player is talking to the author about the concept of being comfortable. He is basically asking him why we as a society have shifted in recent years to a mentality where we expect to be comfortable at any given moment. All of the moment-to-moment awkwardness, the spaces in between conversations, all of these little uncomfortable parts of life that are ultimately meaningless have become something that we try desperately to avoid. In these moments in between our daily interactions, our brains start to trigger us to do something – anything – else to occupy them, and to restore our sense of comfort. The older character in this book is saying that our need to make sure that we feel okay in every moment distracts us from connecting to the world around us, and instead of being able to be present, or be there for others, or engage with the world, our focus as a result continues to turn back to ourselves and our own insecurities. He believes that meaning and fulfillment in life comes from our interactions and experiences with other people. The more that we can connect with people and help others, the happier we will be. By giving in to the anxiety generated by the smallest of our daily discomforts, we are further perpetuating our own isolation, and ultimately this becomes a cycle that ends up making you even less comfortable and happy.
This book came at a time in my life where I was uncomfortable a lot of the time and wasn’t sure why or what to do about it. I was struggling to figure out what to do with my life and was so focused on whether or not I was making a mistake by not pursuing film that I wasn’t in touch with what my heart was telling me. This book was one of the things that helped teach me to let go of shame and self-doubt, and to start taking action towards living the life that I wanted to live. That is something that I still work on to this day, but this book definitely nudged me in the direction of becoming more self-aware.
Evita – Recently a dear friend of mine recommended that I read “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo. I was definitely curious because I am someone who has a deep love of order and organization — in large part because I have so much chaos going on in my restless mind. I picked up the book and devoured it right away. First of all, I loved the author’s firm but positive, encouraging voice; it reminded me of my mother and often made me laugh out loud. Second of all, this woman is an absolute genius and once I had completed her method in its full glory, I stepped back to admire the fruits of my labor. You guys! My house is immaculately organized! This makes me deliriously happy. However, this is only one of so many gifts that this book gave me. Another lesson I learned is that sometimes all you need to do is to shift your perspective. Instead of looking at something as a chore, you need to look at it with positivity and excitement. Furthermore, Marie says to “Surround yourself only with the things you love.” She says to hold everything you own in your hands and ask yourself, “Does it spark joy?” If the answer is no, discard it. I found that this particular lesson applied not only to the material things that I was able to move on from and discard, but all aspects of my life. If something does not bring me joy, I do my best to move on from it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://honeydewsleep.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/honeydewsleep/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/honeydewsleep
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/honeydew-sleep/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HoneydewSleep
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/honeydewsleep
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@honeydew.sleep
