In the Spotlight: Holstee

Let’s begin 2019 as we begin everything in the realm of Experience – with Intention. In The Experience Lab, we purposefully choose the people, artists, creators, and organizations we partner with to bring our Experience to life – ensuring there is alignment with our aim to bring beauty, kindness, Joy, and love to the world through our work. There is no better organization to spotlight for the powerful principle of Intention than our partners at Holstee, Dave and Mike Radparvar. Holstee was one of our very first partners and we are always proud and delighted to showcase their exquisite letterpress art cards in our Action Kits.

Eight years ago, these two brothers boldly wrote their Intention – known around the world as the Holstee Manifesto – which became the launching pad of their new business and their definition of success to live fully and mindfully. We asked them to share their perspective on the principle of Intention and what it means to them.

How do you define the principle of Intention?

Dave Radparvar (DR): We have found that while a goal will define what we want to do, identifying our Intention reminds us who we want to be and why we’re on the journey in the first place.

In this way, setting an Intention can help us avoid pursuing misaligned goals, and keeps us on track for the bigger picture. When we live with Intention, we live without regret.

How do you apply and use the principle in your work?

DR: We learned early on that it is much easier (and more fun!) to make products we are genuinely excited to share. This passion is the result of a series of events that need to happen. To be excited to share what we are doing, we need to be proud of what we are creating. And to be proud of what we are creating, requires us to be intentional about each decision in the creation process.

For us, this translates to how we source products, the content we put into the world, the people we work with and how we work with them.

Being intentional takes longer and costs more, yet it often means we can invest less resources into marketing. The people who value attention to detail and quality naturally gravitate to and share our work. At the end of the day, it is this process that defines our work and our brand.       

What advice do you have for our lab partners?

DR: Few industries have the opportunity to connect with the fragility of human life in the way that health care can. One way to practice Intentionality in health care is to simply step back and ask:  “Why are we doing this? What is the ultimate purpose behind our actions?”

Questions like these bring us back to our core purpose — bringing energy and love into the work. These questions remind us to go beyond the immediate outer pain we are solving for. They bring us beneath the surface to a human desire we all share — the desire to feel nurtured and cared for.