00:00:00 – 00:00:08 Nitin Bajaj
Hey everyone, welcome to The Industry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Jini Ettigi. Jini, welcome on the show.

00:00:09 – 00:00:12 Jini Ettigi
Hi. Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

00:00:13 – 00:00:16 Nitin Bajaj
Great to have you here. Let’s start with the big question: who is Jini?

00:00:18 – 00:01:13 Jini Ettigi
And I think that’s just such a loaded question, but a good one. I am a singer by trade, singer, songwriter, pianist, educator, and finally entrepreneur. And who am I? I’m just someone who, you know, as I was going from a very young age, I kind of had a little bit of an aversion to herd mentality. And I didn’t mean to make choices that were off the beaten track, but that’s what ended up happening. So for me, I have made decisions more so from my heart and my intuition, more so from any kind of logic or reasoning to a fault. You know, my mom will say that I’m a little impulsive, but it’s led me to meet some really, really cool people that are in the music industry and that have helped me along this journey. So yeah, that’s me in a nutshell.

00:01:14 – 00:01:47 Nitin Bajaj
That’s just fascinating. One, the multiple roles you played, and two, kind of going the less-traveled path of exploring our passions, our interests, and arts, which not many, especially in our community, get to do. So kudos to you for going and blazing your own trail. We really appreciate you being a role model for many others. And looking forward to getting to know a little bit more of you in the next few minutes.

00:01:48 – 00:02:01 Nitin Bajaj
So I’m always curious to know why people do what they do. And in your case, you started Dreamality. Tell us a little more about that, starting from why even do this.

00:02:02 – 00:02:40 Jini Ettigi
Dreamality has been a passion project of mine. I started it with Grammy Award-winning music producer Quincy Patrick. He’s my husband as well, so I’m very proud of him. And the two of us, along with some of our music friends, we created Dreamality Inc. It’s a 501(c)(3) that helps bring music programs to kids in underserved communities. We also bring music therapy to people with disabilities, and we offer scholarships and unique performance opportunities for high schoolers in particular who show a lot of talent and they want to pursue music as a career or the arts as a career.

00:02:41 – 00:03:18 Jini Ettigi
And we simply did it because when we were sitting down and talking about it, I also teach. I teach voice and piano, and I’m lucky to call myself a mentor to some of my older students. And one thing Quincy, I, and the rest of our board members have in common is we all had incredible music teachers growing up. I wouldn’t even be having this conversation with you right now if it weren’t for my high school show choir director. Shout out to Mr. Michael Berkeley. I will always give him credit for watering whatever little seed I had in me to want to be a pop star at the time.

00:03:18 – 00:03:48 Jini Ettigi
You know, and teachers and mentors really play an incredible role on the minds of impressionable young people. And if you have talent and you don’t have an outlet for it, or you don’t have anyone who believes in you or helps you hone that craft, it’s almost like it’s just dead potential. So we started Dreamality to cultivate young people and their talent in our community. It was our way of giving back.

00:03:50 – 00:04:36 Nitin Bajaj
That’s just amazing. And you said if there isn’t an avenue, it becomes dead potential, but it also, I’m sure, leads to a lot of frustration in those young minds that then push them into some very untoward things where instead of having an outlet for the passion they have, that leads to a lot of negativity and frustration. So again, great work that you and the rest of the team are doing here to create those opportunities for these amazing, talented individuals. Give us a sense today for the size and scale, but most importantly, the impact that you and the team have been able to create through Dreamality.

00:04:36 – 00:04:56 Jini Ettigi
For sure. You know, we’re a regional we basically work within New Jersey, but we’re branching out into New York City, like the boroughs of New York City. We’re trying to get our tentacles into Philadelphia as well. But for the most part right now, it’s our impact since our inception was in 2013 is when we started.

00:04:57 – 00:05:13 Jini Ettigi
We’ve served over 7,000 kids and people with disabilities through our music programs. And this year, like for the last two years, our budget for our scholarships was 10,000. And this year, thanks to our incredible donor base, we were able to up it to 15,000.

00:05:14 – 00:05:47 Jini Ettigi
And our first foray into getting the word out there nationally was through our scholarship program. So now every day I’m getting applications from people all throughout the U.S. who are hearing about Dreamality scholarship. And this is open to all high school seniors who want to pursue a career in music after graduating. And so that’s really heartwarming to see that we have been consistently reaching out, trying to get the right connections to get the word out there. And it’s finally working.

00:05:48 – 00:05:55 Nitin Bajaj
That’s amazing. Congratulations to you. And you know, it’s not easy, but it’s very rewarding.

00:05:56 – 00:06:09 Jini Ettigi
Yes, for sure. We just got named one of the top five nonprofits in our county, Morris County, which has a population of a little over 500,000. So we just got our plaque over there.

00:06:10 – 00:06:10 Nitin Bajaj
Congratulations.

00:06:11 – 00:06:21 Jini Ettigi
Just like Christmas again. That was pretty cool. We had no idea that award even existed. And when we got the letter in the mail, it was a great day.

00:06:22 – 00:06:38 Nitin Bajaj
That is amazing. You know, the validation, it’s not as much about the plaques or getting those physical things. It’s more about the validation that we are doing something that is making a change in the community, in the lives of people we care for. So that’s really amazing.

00:06:39 – 00:06:40 Jini Ettigi
Thank you very much.

00:06:40 – 00:06:53 Nitin Bajaj
Now, as you go through enlightening a lot of the youth, I’m sure there are a lot of challenges you face. What’s the one big challenge you would like to call out?

00:06:53 – 00:07:10 Jini Ettigi
For us, one of the biggest challenges is reaching out. We know which schools need more teachers. We need that funding to come through so that we can hire more instructors and therapists to reach out to more schools. So it’s really more of a volume.

00:07:11 – 00:07:31 Jini Ettigi
We have incredible teachers that we’ve hired, incredible therapists, but we want that number to get higher. So in order to do that, we are seeking out grants and donors who believe in the arts and believe in how much art, music, dance, acting, poetry, all of this can enhance the community.

00:07:31 – 00:07:57 Jini Ettigi
It’s only benefiting creativity, getting these kids to express themselves, and we feel like we are not doing enough. So knowing that, if we can get that funding to really be able to hire more, that would be at this stage, especially if we’re trying to go more national or even just next door to Philadelphia, we need the manpower for that.

00:07:58 – 00:08:06 Nitin Bajaj
True. Now, on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What’s the one that you’re most excited about?

00:08:06 – 00:08:40 Jini Ettigi
It’s so interesting because you know I teach as well and I teach students of all ages. But there was a beautiful humanitarian effort that happened in 2023, and it was through Art of Living. Some people might be familiar with Art of Living. I’ve been a follower of Art of Living for a long time. And they had this World Culture Fest, and they came across a song that I had written called “I Belong to You.” And what we did was through Dreamality, we taught all of our children, all of the students, the song.

00:08:40 – 00:08:59 Jini Ettigi
And we collaborated with a Washington, D.C. children’s choir, and they learned the song and learned some dance choreography. And I was invited to perform alongside these angels behind me. And that was performed in front of almost a million people on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

00:09:00 – 00:09:42 Jini Ettigi
So to us, this was like a really beautiful day where with that song, “I Belong to You,” which is for those who know with Art of Living, that’s their catchphrase, “I Belong to You,” is the sense of taking responsibility for your neighbor. You don’t just live in a bubble. We’re here to serve. And in our way, me being on this planet as an artist, my way of serving is through music and art and teaching these youngsters the same thing. And I was singing joyously this beautiful song. And that to me was one of the highlights for Dreamality, was putting Dreamality on the map through Art of Living with this humanitarian song.

00:09:43 – 00:09:44 Nitin Bajaj
That is so amazing.

00:09:45 – 00:09:46 Jini Ettigi
Thank you.

00:09:47 – 00:10:14 Nitin Bajaj
Now, as we look forward in terms of opportunities and what’s coming up next, I’d like to pause and reflect and ask you to share two moments from your past. One where things did not work out as you had expected. There was disappointment, failure, lessons. And another where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:10:15 – 00:10:50 Jini Ettigi
Yeah, that’s a great question. And absolutely. With any business, for-profit or nonprofit, you have these challenges. For us, there was a time when we lost a big donor, and it was a grant that was helping fund our teacher base for much of the year. And the following year, we were three-quarters of the way through the year, and we had only gotten like a trickle of donors that came through with small amounts. And it was enough to kind of keep us slightly afloat.

00:10:51 – 00:11:20 Jini Ettigi
We’re entering the third quarter, and we still don’t have our big donor. And I would call this more so a challenge rather than a failure, a hurdle of sorts that we’re like, “Okay, we’ve crossed our T’s, we’ve dotted our I’s, we’ve reached out to as many people and applied to as many grants as possible, and it’s nothing gives.” So I actually sat down and I meditated. And I come out of my meditation, and I pick up my phone, which is what you’re not supposed to do, by the way. It’s like anti-meditative.

00:11:21 – 00:12:24 Jini Ettigi
But I pick up my phone, I’m going through, and I see a DM from an old acquaintance of mine from our 2016 Dreamality benefit concert. He played piano for a singer, and he’s a young guy. And this kind of answers the second part of it, of your question, how things just kind of turn around. And long story short, he reached out to me. This was a little while ago, like last year. And I had written a letter for him in 2020 because he had reached out to me. He had gotten an injury, not his fault. And he was going through like a court case with the person who had injured him. And he asked for my letter to assess his character and also talk about how, as a pianist, losing mobility in your shoulder can impact your income. So I wrote a one-page for him, sent it off, thought nothing of it. He said at that time, “If this goes well, if the settlement comes through, I’m going to look you out.” And I’m like, “Eh, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” I forgot all about the letter.

00:12:25 – 00:13:08 Jini Ettigi
So I come out of my meditation on this day, go through my DMs, and lo and behold, it is him. He had been watching Dreamality’s work on social media. He had come into this windfall, and he said, “I would like to donate 20,000 to Dreamality by the end of this year,” which happened to be the exact same amount that we had lost previously. And you know it’s like one chapter closing and another one opening and bringing the good energy in. And to put a nice little bow on this story, he said he wanted to make this out, this checkout, as the gratitude scholarship in the name of his teacher, his piano teacher, because his teacher was his mentor.

00:13:08 – 00:13:56 Jini Ettigi
So I met with his teacher, I met with the donor, and the donor said to his teacher, it was like. The teacher said to me, he said, “He had donated he wanted to give me $1,000 to the teacher,” he said, “as a Christmas gift.” But I said, “Tag it onto the Dreamality donation.” So it became $21,000 that was donated to Dreamality. And in the Indian culture, when you add a one at the end of that number, it’s inviting more prosperity. So these are things that you just don’t you cannot imagine, you cannot plan for. The way that that happened was so serendipitous. And it was, again, a reminder that you’re on the right track. Just keep doing the work, keep doing the work, and the universe does its magic in its own way.

00:13:57 – 00:14:12 Nitin Bajaj
That’s so true. That is so heartwarming, but also at the same time, it’s validation for you’re on the right path, and people will just show up and give you the nudge that you need to continue to do more and better.

00:14:13 – 00:14:23 Jini Ettigi
Yeah, yeah. That’s what that lesson taught me. It was like, never panic. There’s no need to panic. It’s just keep doing the work and keep staying positive.

00:14:24 – 00:14:43 Nitin Bajaj
Now, switching gears a little bit, when you’re not singing music and helping others, what do you do to de-stress, relax? I mean, you mentioned meditation, but are there other things beyond that that make you kind of just step off the treadmill?

00:14:44 – 00:15:15 Jini Ettigi
For sure. I love to cook. I am experimental with it, so some of my dishes are flops. Others are good enough. You know, but it’s a stress relief for me to cook and not have to be in performance mode. I have two cats, so snuggling with them is a huge stress reliever for me. And I do love to travel, although I don’t get to travel enough because of the cats. So it’s a double-edged sword.

00:15:17 – 00:15:21 Nitin Bajaj
Is there a book or a podcast that is a favorite of yours that you want to share?

00:15:22 – 00:15:45 Jini Ettigi
Yeah, definitely. I mean, one book that I’m on my second time reading is “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda. It’s just got everything in it, him chronicling how he became a yogi and a guru. And he’s like a 20th-century yogi. And he’s got humor in it. I highly recommend it.

00:15:48 – 00:15:55 Nitin Bajaj
Now, onto my favorite part of the show. We call this the one-line life lessons. Jini, I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

00:15:56 – 00:16:21 Jini Ettigi
Sure. So I think in terms of some of the quotes that I recommend that I kind of live by, one is, “Fear is what if, faith is even if.” It’s just a spin on the word, and it’s a completely different take on a problem. And then it’s not win or lose. It’s win or learn.

00:16:22 – 00:16:45 Jini Ettigi
I’ve never felt like, let’s say I give a performance and it’s not up to my standard. It’s not like, “Oh, that was a failure.” I don’t even believe in the word failure. It’s more like, “What did I learn from that?” And every performance is like a practice on steroids. And there’s so many lessons learned in every performance, whether it’s a really good performance or not so great.

00:16:46 – 00:17:12 Jini Ettigi
One of my favorite ones is, “Good looks will get you in the door, but it won’t keep you in the room.” Yeah. And then I’ll speak a little Hindi, although it’s not my language. But a friend told me this a while ago, and it stuck with me. “Ghar ki murgi dal barabar.” Right? So if you have chicken at home in your backyard, it’s as valuable as lentils in your cupboard.

00:17:13 – 00:17:39 Jini Ettigi
So I always say to, as a mentor, I tell people, you know, make yourself a little unavailable. It’s okay. It reminds people of what you know your worth is. And then for me, I have to quote Robert Frost on this one, which is, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I chose the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

00:17:40 – 00:18:03 Nitin Bajaj
Beautiful and very wise. Jini, thank you for sharing your journey, your story, and your life lessons with us. Congratulations again on all of the successes. But more importantly, thank you for doing what you do to help make this a more meaningful, a more musical community. Really appreciate it.

00:18:04 – 00:18:06 Jini Ettigi
Thank you very much for the time.