Creating an abundance mindset and building a luxury artistic brand with Nikki Naghavi

Michelle Lynne: Hey everybody and welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast.
I’m your host, Michelle Lynn, and today I’m very excited to have Nikki Navi on. Welcome, Nikki.

Nikki Naghavi: Hi Michelle. Thank you so much. I’m super glad to be here.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I’m excited to chat with you. I’ve been following you forever. I love your content and I love what you’ve been building with your community. So I wanted to have you on about a number of projects that you’re doing and also, um, what it’s like building your own career, ’cause I know you have an entrepreneurial spirit and you’ve also got many different projects that you’re doing. So maybe you can introduce yourself to our audience and, uh, tell us about yourself.

Nikki Naghavi: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Nikki. I’m a violinist. I was born in Dallas, Texas, to a family of Iranian American immigrants. Um, I’m an only child and I started playing when I was four. My parents originally did not expect me to become a professional musician. I come from a family of engineers and doctors and lawyers and everything—basically not artistic. And I told them, “Oh, I wanna be a violinist.” And they were all like, “No, you don’t. What are you talking about?” Um, but I stuck with it and, uh, came up from my undergrad to Boston. I went to the New England Conservatory, graduated in 2023, and I’ve just been doing a bunch of random things ever since then. But it’s a very fun, exciting life and not every day is the same, so it’s cool.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yeah, tell me about that, because that’s one of the first things we talk about with building portfolio careers as artists and all of our days look different. So what are some of the projects that you are working on currently and after your, uh, you did your masters or undergrad at NEC?

Nikki Naghavi: Correct. I did my undergrad at NEC. I’m currently doing an MBA at the Global Leaders Institute, but yeah, my days are…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I…

Nikki Naghavi: I guess when I graduated college, I— I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I kind of knew that I didn’t wanna do a master’s in music, and it wasn’t anything against music, but more that I was interested in a little bit more of being on the background side and communicating and connecting with others on a personal level, outside of just music. So, I was applying to jobs all throughout the summer, beginning of the fall in 2023. I was getting rejected from everywhere. I just moved into my own apartment in a studio in Boston, downtown. It’s not cheap, so I was basically in a crunch to figure out how I’m gonna support myself in this situation. I eventually got a job where I went to school at the New England Conservatory, working in the prep school. I was doing that for about a year. I also, about a month before that, started this little business of mine called Glass Artists, which is, uh, essentially a contracting business for musicians—listening to this—but I like to call it a musician entertainment agency. We service mostly weddings and corporate events around the New England area. Our first year we had about 45 events, which for me was a surprise because my day consisted of going to the gym before nine, going to work nine to five … five to seven, usually doing some teaching private lessons after that, and then being too exhausted to do anything for Glass Artists. So, seeing that it still had a decent amount of reach, um, I decided to quit my job—my full-time job—in October of 2024, so that I could spend more time on the business. I had started my MBA a couple of months before that and continued to be teaching, so, and performing around the Boston area.

Michelle Lynne: That’s amazing. Well, congrats to you for starting something like this, ’cause that’s huge—events in your first year—that sounds like you got flying from the beginning. That’s a ton of work. That’s also a very sudden, different amount of work to handle on top of your full-time job. How was it for you to balance all of those plays? I know a lot of musicians listening are like, “How do I do all the things and be consistent?” Sometimes we’ll start something and we just don’t have the energy. Like you’re coming home, being exhausted after going to the gym and working all day. Like, how did you figure that out?

Nikki Naghavi: Absolutely. 100%. It’s a really big concern a lot of people have, just because we are human. At the end of the day, we also don’t wanna be working in all of our waking hours. We want some time to socialize and, you know, just downtime to relax. So I would say that I feel very blessed in that I do love working; it’s become something that I’m passionate about—spending my time every day, not just feeling like I need to out of necessity. So I think that really, really helps with the whole process. Besides that, uh, you know, time management—I’m one of those kind of crazy people who put absolutely everything in my calendar, including the 15-minute coffee with a friend, you know, in the middle of the day.

Michelle Lynne: Oh yeah.

Nikki Naghavi: I love scheduling. I love to-do lists. Anything that is actionable—which I know you talk about a lot as well, actionable—but you can also, like, feel a sense of accomplishment upon finishing it, I think, is really important to kind of train your brain to continue doing those productive tasks in order to feel that rush of endorphins once it’s done.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot actually this week about small wins, ’cause I was lacking some huge motivation and it was hard to get myself going. And I was like, “Okay, let’s create some momentum. Small wins. Uh, just 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there.” Gets that feeling of accomplishment. And I think particularly from day to day, because if you had a bad practice day, then I know the next day it’s way easier to wake up and you’re like, “Okay, wait—it seems easier today.” But I think ideally we want every day to be like, “Oh, I’ll start,” and then it’ll get easy. But some days it’s just like still a slog the whole time. I dunno how that is for you.

Nikki Naghavi: And, and to your point of practicing too, musicians and artists are in a special circumstance as well because it’s like you go into the practice room, you never walk out finished, you know—it never ends… And so feeling this constant sense of like needing to improve yourself, but never quite reaching that line of improvement—I think it’s, um, it’s a very useful skill to have. Music, you know, gives you that skill of perseverance and discipline and consistency at the same time, like you’re, you’re saying, you know, putting those small wins and metrics throughout the day to actually give yourself a sense of accomplishment for the hard work that you are doing.

Michelle Lynne: I love how you’re describing Glass Artists as an agency. Can you talk a little bit about stepping into this role? Because was it, is it currently running as you had imagined it or has it evolved into how it is currently?

Nikki Naghavi: It is actually—I didn’t really know what I had imagined it to be. I mean, it is just me. So I have full control over how I present everything—the branding, what I say yes to, what I say no to.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Nikki Naghavi: My original intention behind this was, um, a—I love just, I found myself spending, uh, not six hours a day in the practice room, but rather three hours a day in the practice room and three hours behind the computer. This was during school. I realized, “Okay, I really like the organization part—putting things together, connecting people—and I think I’m good at it as well.” So I stepped into that role and, uh, thought, “Why don’t I combine that with a passion to actually provide work to really hardworking musicians who are current students, recent graduates?” So I like, I try to hire a lot of younger people, especially those still in the school world so that they can break into the freelance bubble a little bit easier as well, especially in Boston. And, uh, yeah, I, I, I thought as well for the brand of Glass Artists, “How do I set this apart from any other contractor who, you know, handles a fair share of weddings throughout the summer?” as well, because a lot of people do… and thought… “I’m gonna take this from a luxury point of view—a kind of 24/7 concierge, like the way you step into the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and you feel like, you know, you walk in, you want a warm towel, they give you a warm towel; you want slippers in your room, they give you slippers in your room.” That totally customizable, feeling-important kind of thing, ’cause I think it’s important for, for the sake of music, to make our audience—our customers—essentially feel, have a good experience with the whole process.

Michelle Lynne: Yes. Thank you for talking about this. I think that’s huge. We can unpack that. But first, I wanna say, like, on your website, this absolutely is the feeling that you have. Everything is so beautiful. It’s like this, uh, luxurious experience on the website. You’ve got all of your videos right there—you can listen to everything. It’s very clearly outlined what to expect: testimonials, a beautiful site, everything functions beautifully. Did you build this yourself or did you have people?

Nikki Naghavi: Built it.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, it’s incredible. I, it’s amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to have all of the recordings, all of the set lists, and like, these are the hour packages—everything is so clearly laid out. It just gives this feeling of being very highly professional. And I think if you’re gonna reach the luxury market, that’s exactly what you need to come across in your branding. How did you learn about how to pick your angle in the market? Like, where were you getting these ideas from? Three hours behind your computer—was that also a lot of self-led research?

Nikki Naghavi: Yeah. Um, well, I guess, talking from like a—when I was in high school, I started posting on Instagram. I’d say that’s kind of where everything started in that I was really, really interested in music and, you know, doing my best artistically. But the more I had a presence online, the more I would see and notice how brands were leveraging their advertisements and how they wanted to hire, you know, “quote unquote” influencers to do work for them. And I, I, I really, really like to observe a lot of people. So, kind of flash forward, I got a little bit of marketing, real-world experience from that, started doing my own branding online and my own website, and I remember staying up during Covid one night for seven hours. I think I actually went downstairs at eight in the morning and talked to my parents and they were like, “Why do you look so tired?” And I was like, “Oh, I just built this website,” and they were like, “You’re, you’re a little crazy right now.” But, um, so I, I really—I don’t know. I, I guess I get a little fixated on that stuff. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but for my productivity, it seems to be a good thing so far. But to flash forward, what I’m building—like, the Glass Artists website—I actually went to like Chanel and Cartier and I thought, “Okay, what are these people, what are these brands doing that makes them so iconic and so luxurious?” Not to compare Glass Artists to a brand of that prestige, but I think it’s really, really valuable to be able to observe others around you who are targeting the same audience and are successful and doing what they’re doing—and they’re absolutely not music related at all. Obviously, jewelry brands, fashion brands—but I wanna, um, kind of attach myself to them in a sense, you know, with a similar kind of website structure, landing pages, and transparency that a lot of these places have as well.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. That’s amazing. This is such an elevated mindset—that you have to say, “I’m going to align with this luxury market; how they’re coming across to their audiences,” even as a musician. How have you learned to start thinking from this approach of going for the max? Like, let’s go a hundred percent from the beginning and not kind of work your way up into it.

Nikki Naghavi: Yeah. Um, that’s a great question. You know, we as musicians, especially as artists, tend to say yes to a lot of things. That’s kind of what we’re told to do.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yes…

Nikki Naghavi: Go meet this person. Go take this, play this. Don’t get paid for that. But it’s okay. It’s good for your connections and to a certain point—yes, absolutely. And you know, there’s also nothing ever wrong with giving back to your community too, if it’s for a good cause. However, we again—as I mentioned—are human beings. We only have so much energy throughout the day, so how we divide that and where we place our energy is really important to what kind of person we are and what kind of other opportunities we attract.

Michelle Lynne: Not to get too spiritual here, but the more you say no to things that are not quite what you think that you have the potential to surround yourself with, the more the events—or opportunities, people, monetary opportunities, you know—bluntly come into your space. Yeah, I fully agree with you and I hear you. However, speaking to the musicians who are afraid to make that jump of, “Okay, fine, I’ll raise my prices,” but what if no one comes, or maybe there is no one that comes for the first three, six months? I mean, how can you—was there a way that you had to teach yourself this mindset, or for you it was natural because it sounds like you very organically and quickly picked up all of these things? I mean, being observant—as you’re posting—while a lot of people are just posting and not paying attention, you’re watching the ads, you’re watching how they engage or how they’re even transparent with their customers. These are like things you learned in marketing school. So, it sounds like you just have this instinct around how these things work. Also, you mentioned you’re good with connecting people—that’s coming into your work now. You’ve managed to harness a lot of your strengths and bring them into building this business. Um, so for someone who maybe is not able to grasp that concept, like aligning yourself with higher opportunities so that they’ll come—do you have anything to say to that?

Nikki Naghavi: That you’re saying that, Michelle, I think you bring up a really good point in that, how can you take that leap when you have, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay back as well, right? This is kind of like—it’s definitely taking a chance. It’s, it’s, um, not the most secure or the safest way to go as well, and frankly, I think it’s important if you wanna be able to take that kind of chance, you have to also have a security blanket to fall back on. Right? That’s why I was working full time. That’s why I’ve been teaching for five years and I continued having a full studio… Yeah, I mean, I was really tired. I would come home and I was exhausted—and I’m 23. I wanna have a social life too. But, you know, certain sacrifices need to be made. Once you’re at a place where you can start saying… you kind of are on this path of saying no to things and having higher opportunities coming into your life, then it becomes a little bit easier. But I absolutely wanna say that it’s not like an easy thing to just start doing and then feel comfortable with, because who’s gonna pay your rent next month? You know what I mean? But in terms of… yeah, observing—I think I just feel very lucky in my ability to really take a look at what’s going on around me. I think what I’ve learned a lot, especially after graduating school, is I’ve met a lot of non-musician friends who work in health sciences, who work in marketing, who work in finance. Boston is a great place for all of that, and I really ask them a lot of questions because a lot of times these groups don’t mix, and so many of those practices are transferable in either direction. So that’s also been really interesting—the people you surround yourself with.

Michelle Lynne: I love that answer. That’s very helpful. And I think making friends outside of music is one of the most helpful and maybe strategic things that we can do too, because we learn what they learn in their undergrads or how they prepare for their futures or life after school. And that’s the reason we started with the Fearless Artists—’cause Yana and I felt completely unprepared for what was waiting for us. Um, when you started Glass Artists, was there anything unexpected or was it kind of just a slow progression and you could see what was needed in the market and you started building it from there?

Nikki Naghavi: When I started Glass Artists, I would spend hours and hours every single day cold emailing people, cold calling people. Actually, things didn’t just come to me…

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Nikki Naghavi: I went out one day on, um…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yeah.

Nikki Naghavi: …a street here called Newbury Street, which is kind of like Boston’s Rodeo Drive. It’s like the big shopping street with a little bit more of the luxury brands and everything. And I literally took all my business cards and I went door to door for like four hours. My feet were killing me, but I was just trying to talk to everyone who would talk to me—just tell ’em about Glass Artists. No actual opportunities came from that one experience, but I did just get to see what people were responding to positively and what they weren’t responding to so that when the time comes that I’m conversing with a client, I can speak to the things that people were a little bit more receptive to. Right. So, um, there’s been a lot of kind of grassroots work—I’m by myself. I’ve put in probably, over the entire time of having, you know, our Instagram and our social media and everything, 90 dollars in ads. So it’s really been organic for the most part. It’s definitely not something I can fully support myself with, but I’m hoping to get to that goal. And reading books on, you know, grit, perseverance—and what, you know, I listen to a lot of, like, I dunno if you’ve ever heard of Alex Hormozi or Leila Hormozi and, um, Shelby Sapp…

Michelle Lynne: I follow both obsessively.

Nikki Naghavi: You know, like…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Nikki Naghavi: I love that…

Michelle Lynne: Yes, yes, yes.

Nikki Naghavi: A lot of people think it’s really like, “Oh, you’re selling yourself to capitalism,” if that’s how you think about life. But I think everything in life is a little bit of a transaction. In terms of, you know, if you have a friend—and I feel like I’m going on a tangent here, but I promise I’ll bring it back—if you, uh, do something for your friend out of love, absolutely, that’s beautiful. It wouldn’t make sense if you did this nice gesture for your friend and they didn’t appreciate you, even if it’s just you doing something nice for them to appreciate you and then for your connection to grow stronger. That in and of itself is a transaction. It’s not so that they do something nice for you the next time as well. So I kind of tie this back to building an audience as a business, as a musician—and no one’s going to choose you or want to follow you or become your audience member if you’re not giving them something of value in return, right? So if it’s making someone laugh online, posting a comedy video, or making them feel seen by posting something that is relatable to them, or having fantastic art and an interpretation of a piece that they just absolutely love—but what’s difficult is that musicians spend so much time perfecting their craft, and there are so many people who are so close to perfect that how is anyone gonna differentiate who they should pay the most attention to? And by anyone, I mean the general public, who we hope to have as our audiences.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. I totally hear you. Can you just unpack a little bit more about the self-promotion? Because I get a lot of pushback from musicians who say, “I don’t wanna post about my projects myself,” because it’s so me-focused, with the way that you’ve overcome that. Or maybe that doesn’t affect you at all now because you have a hundred K. And I would love for you also to share how you built your audience there too.

Nikki Naghavi: Oh no, absolutely. Um, well, it definitely still affects me. I oftentimes, before I hit a share button, I double think, “Do I really wanna post this? Is it worth it?” if I don’t want my friends to, you know, think—’cause I wouldn’t say that in person. I’m a big “me, me, me” person. I also think that I have a certain personality online, but I wouldn’t say that I have that personality in one-on-one situations with my friends. Um, and I’m gonna speak to Instagram because that’s just the platform that I am on the most. But if Instagram wasn’t a thing, if it didn’t exist, or—yeah, if it wasn’t helping me professionally, I would not have a presence at all. I would much rather never share anything, be completely private. Um, I think that’s like a beautiful way of being, but given that it has given me so many opportunities just in connections as well that have led to chance and, and, you know, getting to know people around and around the city, for example, I continue to post. I guess, Michelle, you’re putting me in a tough spot here. I’m also gonna be honest with you. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the call, I’m an only child. I was raised in a very, very loving family. I’m so incredibly thankful for that. I wouldn’t at all be here doing anything I’m doing now if it wasn’t for their support at all times. Um, but I had a lot of attention put on me at a young age, and while I was still learning humility, I think that that attention—also not having any siblings or really any cousins near my age—made me always talk to adults. That kind of, I think, made my maturity grow a little bit faster than the average kid. Just maturity in terms of what adults deem as mature—not necessarily—but I guess what I learned essentially is that what I have to share can be valuable to some, and I started doing it and I was getting a positive response. So I kept doing the things that were giving me a positive response, and then here we are.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Thank you so much, because I really appreciate having leaders like you who do share. One thing I love about your content is you’re very raw. You don’t do the edits and the filters—you just share an idea. And sometimes I’ll just let it play and I’m like, “This girl is so fire. She knows what she’s talking about.” And it’s just you speaking and sharing your ideas. And I think that is so important to have leaders who are willing to share what’s going on and not hold back and not worry about what people might think, because you have a perspective—and that perspective is shaping so many people. I mean, the majority of people will not write you and say, “Hey, your post really helped me today.” So we actually never know how much impact we’re making. I get this too. I know the podcast has been going for over a year now, and I’ll get two or three messages per episode. But for every message that I get, there’s probably five people who loved it and just don’t take the time to write. And that’s fine, but it just helps me to remember that what we’re doing is very important—that we’re being visible, that we’re showing up, and that we’re giving what we have and that our message is important to us. And especially for someone like you—you’re really crafting and carving your own career. You’re creating your own success, and that’s why I think it’s so important that you have this visibility. Um, I’d love for you to share a little bit more, if you’d like to, about the opportunities you’ve had from being visible online. I know many musicians dream of having a hundred K—that’s my personal goal because I’ve been working on a couple projects and they’re like, “You gotta get your visibility up.” So I’m like, “Okay, how do I get there?” So, yeah, I’d love to hear about your process.

Nikki Naghavi: Well, I appreciate it and I really, really thank you so much for all the kind words. I also wanna acknowledge you for bringing in so many different thought leaders. Not—I’m not gonna consider myself a thought leader. I feel very much like a student still, but getting to hear all of the amazing minds that you bring onto this podcast and share—and having a centralized place where people and audiences can find that information—is really, really, equally as important and helpful. I think that’s kind of like—you know, you’re building an important place for the general public to convene.

Michelle Lynne: When I started my Instagram, I only let around five or six of my very closest friends follow it, and they were all non-musicians, and it was private, and I would post myself playing online. This is 2017 or 2018, so I was…

Nikki Naghavi: …these videos pretty consistently. Then one day I made a whole edited video and tutorial on upo staccato, and my friends commented, “Nikki, no offense, but we don’t care about this at all. Why don’t you at least share this with someone who can use it?” I’m like…

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Nikki Naghavi: …what a concept. So I was like, I was…

Michelle Lynne: Those are the best kinds of friends—who just tell you, you know, they’ll just tell you.

Nikki Naghavi: So…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Nikki Naghavi: I did. I just opened my account. I went public. I didn’t even really know how to use a hashtag or something. I didn’t really know what anything was going on, but I was just kind of posting my own stuff. I think I also came in at a very, very strategic time—when no one had practice accounts on social media. I would 100% argue that if I had started it now, or like in 2020 when there were so many, I would not be in the same place I am and I wouldn’t have built that audience at all. I think it’s just very saturated at this point and it’s difficult to stand out. There are those people who really, really do—and they create amazing stuff, and, you know, power to them—who had to try that hard back in 2017, 2018, just ’cause no one else was doing it. Um, and then, you know, after maybe like a thousand or so followers—who were a lot of random people as well—I got my first brand offer, and it was one of these little foldable mirrors with the lights. Like, you can get it at, you know, TJ Maxx for like five bucks. But I was like, “What’s this?” They sent it to me, and I was like, “Oh, well, I have to act like I know how to do makeup now,” because I—well, I got this mirror and I was like, “I don’t actually know what to do. Like, what do I do?” So, you know, I was kind of put in this position—I had to take a picture and I had already committed to them. So I did that. Um, time went on and, you know, Instagram started monetizing some things. They’re not doing it as much anymore—at least not for me as much anymore. I would say one of the biggest connections I made early on was, um, a violinist in Chicago, Rachel Miller. She’s one of my great friends now. She was working for an app called TRALA at the time, which is like a music violin learning platform. And so I started teaching on the app through there as well. It lasted about five years, and I created so many connections there. I also teach people from age five to 85 and from all over the world on Zoom, going back-to-back—especially during Covid—which made me so, um, comfortable with being flexible to what people need and how to respond to people, how to read them, how to read their reactions, and how to make things engaging still. Because as we all know, a private lesson online isn’t the most ideal way to take a lesson. So, it’s important to make that engaging as well. Um, I started on podcasts and talking about this stuff as well. Sharing my story made me better at storytelling overall, I think—which is, as we all know, a really, really powerful skill, whether it’s in concert or just sharing something casually. Um, I’ll tell you a funny story—probably 2022. There were a lot of these influencer platforms where you can sign up, make an account, and then basically brands who want to hire people but don’t know personally who to reach out to can go find your name or your profile. And in this catalog of creators online, one brand found me. They were paying really well and it was like a book reading app. I thought, “Oh, this is kind of nice.” Like, yeah, I’ll sign my name and we’ll do this partnership. They emailed me about a week later, starting to tell me more about the app. I realized it’s not just a normal book reading app—it’s an erotic book reading app.

Michelle Lynne: No. Oh…

Nikki Naghavi: …sitting here thinking…

Michelle Lynne: No.

Nikki Naghavi: Oh my gosh. I just signed my name, legally binding myself to creating content for them. I have 13-year-olds following me. I have my violin professor following me—what am I gonna do? It was so awkward. I had to make these books. It was some of the most awkward, but I just had to press post and, you know, that really taught me to read my contracts all the way through so that something like that wouldn’t happen again. Um, do your research, you know, before committing to things. But, um…

Michelle Lynne: My gosh. Poor you. It’s crazy.

Nikki Naghavi: Now if I can do that, I can do—I can post anything else about myself. Anything’s gonna be better than that. So, yeah. So stuff like that.

Michelle Lynne: That is so funny.

Nikki Naghavi: It helps me learn like, “Oh, how does this person market this product? How do I market it myself that way?” And then how can I use that tactic in my own business?

Michelle Lynne: What’s something else you’ve learned as your visibility has grown on Instagram? Do you find yourself—you said double thinking when you would hit post. Has that increased as you’ve grown with your following or lessened?

Nikki Naghavi: It is interesting. It’s grown a lot more in the last year and a half, just because I find myself—oh, I didn’t mention, I’m definitely not practicing nearly as much as I used to, as well, doing, you know, all the things I liked when I started working full time. And so, because I’m not practicing as much, I kind of feel like I don’t have the right to share my music as much anymore. So if you, you know, scroll down a bunch… you’re gonna see lots and lots of music videos. Now you see a little bit more of me talking— a little bit more lifestyle—just ’cause I think that it’s also more accurate to the person I am now and what I think about on a day-to-day. But I feel in this awkward space of like, “Okay, I used to feel awkward posting non-music stuff or non-classical music stuff, and now I feel awkward posting the classical music stuff,” but I post the other stuff naturally. So that’s interesting. I also have learned in this process, though, that everyone talks. Some people are gonna like you, some people are gonna love you, some people are gonna dislike you, hate you, or just think you’re annoying—or even talk about you—even if they don’t really have any real emotions toward you. And to be honest, we all talk. We all do it. So, you know, that’s gonna exist, I think, especially as you grow a bigger and bigger circle of connections in the world. So, I think that just comes with the territory.

Michelle Lynne: Have you always had this ability to have this shield of like, “Yeah, people are gonna talk and it’s fine—just let it slide off of you?” Or is that something that you had to develop? Because I’m asking ’cause I have so many musicians say, “What do I do when my colleague judges me for posting this practicing video?”

Nikki Naghavi: Yeah, absolutely, and especially in the music world, it’s just people talk a lot and there’s a lot of judgment. Well, when I was in elementary school, I had braces, I had glasses, I had frizzy hair. You know, English was not my first language. I was taking like Persian food to lunch every day instead of like grilled cheese. And then my orthodontist, you know, told me that I should take my retainer to school everywhere I go and, um, put it in after, you know, I finish eating. So what I did was put my little retainer box on a string around my neck and wear it as a necklace. I’ve embarrassed myself so much in the past that I don’t know that this stuff phases me as much anymore. Basically.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, you’re a gem. That is so sweet. I was about to say, I also had glasses and I would wear a sports band so they wouldn’t get knocked off playing basketball. So I had like the band going through my head. I mean, just so bad. But I think you used it for your strength. You’re like, “You know what? I’ve been there. I can handle this.” And for me, I think I went more internal. I’ve been so crushed with embarrassment—like, putting myself online has always been a little bit of a, “Okay, here we go.” And now I’ve gotten to a point where it’s easier ’cause I found my audience of people who appreciate it. So maybe that’s similar to what you— I mean, as your content is changing, I think because you’ve built such a strong personal brand, people are loyal to you. Whether you’re showing us your practicing, or about Glass Artists, or about your MBA—which I also love to ask you about—and we just wanna hear from you. I just wanna hear what you think.

Nikki Naghavi: Oh, I appreciate that. I, I wouldn’t say that I quite feel that way, or, you know—and maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t ever wanna get too big in my head, but I really do appreciate you saying that.

Michelle Lynne: I’d love to hear about your reasoning behind it and also what you’re learning, ’cause that’s totally speaking to my heart.

Nikki Naghavi: Absolutely. So, um, I’ve always—like I said, I decided not to do a master’s in music when I was finishing my undergrad, but I definitely was interested in having another degree. So an MBA was always something that was pretty big on my bucket list. I had found out about this program—which is actually an MBA in Arts Innovations—from a school called the Global Leaders Institute. It’s a fully online program. They’re based in Washington, DC. We have a couple of in-person summits throughout the year to actually get together as a cohort and, you know, work on our assignments and projects and case studies together. But I initially applied without—meaning to—I think it was like a free application or maybe a very low-cost application. So I applied, I did an interview completely for—excuse my language—for shits and giggles. Um, and then I got in and I was really surprised. So, I wasn’t planning to be back in school this early, but I’m really glad that I am now and learning a lot from it and getting to meet a lot of, you know, excellent people in the cohorts. So, um, yeah, I’m glad, and it’ll be nice to be able to say I have a master’s degree.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, so now you’re studying the business side. What is something that the arts or musicians need to learn from the business side—and maybe vice versa?

Nikki Naghavi: Hmm. That’s a great question. I can speak to, um, well, in general, you know, I think the perception of yourself as a business and of running your life as a business is seen really as having a bad reputation. I can understand, in some ways, you know, we are artists and we’re doing what we do for the love of the arts, but we also are human and ourselves before we are artists. So if you’re not able to sustain yourself—sustain your health and your happiness, and the people you love around you—how great is the art that you’re going to be able to produce in turn? So I think that it’s important to run your life and your career in a sustainable fashion, and that means focusing on what’s coming in and what’s coming out so that you can actually put your best foot forward artistically, and vice versa. I’ve learned a lot by working and seeing this in real-life settings. So many people get caught up in the official systems and processes and the steps that it takes to make something happen, or in the roles that people play in a functioning, thriving business. And that’s not what I do. So, you know, someone else should take care of that if you don’t have the extra capacity to do it. That’s fine, but if we’re all working toward a common goal here, it’s a little bit discouraging when your colleagues are so focused on themselves and their job description—for example, or the officialness of something happening—that everyone loses sight of the larger goal, the teamwork, and the shared goal. So I think that there could be a lot more collaboration and community fostering within the business world—the corporate world, if you will—and then a lot more individualism in the artistic world.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so beautiful because, I mean, musicians—we learn to work together because it’s necessary for what we’re producing, and so it becomes instinctive. And maybe that’s why artists have poor boundaries sometimes, with saying yes to everything and being willing to jump in and fix everything because we’re used to just doing it all and we know that there’s a job to do and we gotta get it done. Um, but I love what you’re saying about the business world also having a system and a process to get things done, because as you’ve learned with Glass Artists, if you wanna pull off an event, you gotta follow a system. I’m sure you have to-dos and organization behind it—that’s very structured. Um, where do you wanna see Glass Artists go? Like, what’s a dream that you have for Glass Artists?

Nikki Naghavi: Um, metrically, I’d love—I love to play in, you know, everything that I book, but I would love to get it to a place where I don’t have to play everything, where I’m able to support myself…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Nikki Naghavi: …my family, and then, you know, create work for a lot of musicians in the United States—work that excites people to come and put their best foot forward. I would say one other thing that sets Glass Artists apart—which not a lot of other contracting companies do—is actually paying their musicians well. I have a standard of an hourly rate that, if a project won’t produce something less than that—even if it’s for a big company I’ve always wanted to work with—I am willing to take the step in and, you know, do things for free in order to build the brand. But I’m not expecting anyone that I hire to lower their own standards and boundaries for me. So always treating my employees—I guess my subcontractors, my musicians—with the utmost respect, in the best situations; always making sure that they’re protected in every situation and then giving them a good return on their investment of time in my company. So, like I said, it’s a give and a take.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so beautiful. I am really encouraged to hear about what you’ve been building and also how you have set yourself up for success from the moment you picked your target market. You said, “This is how we are, this is how we act, this is how we treat our clients.” This is what I’ve learned from my years of being on social media, sharing, and working with people. And again, like, coming back to how you have so many different skill sets—you put them all together to create this—and I think that’s something that a lot of musicians can learn from: that you are more than a violinist and you’ve put all that together in order to play more and give work to other musicians. So thank you for what you’re contributing to the music industry—not just in Boston, but everywhere—because you inspire so many people online, and I think, um, yeah, your work is really beautiful.

Nikki Naghavi: Thank you so much, Michelle. I really appreciate that.

Michelle Lynne: If you had an action point for our listeners, we like to finish every episode with one thing that they can do, because what we’ve shared today— is there anything that’s highlighted to you from our chat?

Nikki Naghavi: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, a lot of us have big goals out there. Um, I have a big goal, and the way that I think you can start making it a little bit actionable for yourself is by realizing that there are mid-level goals that all lead to that one major big goal. And then beneath those mid-level goals are the daily steps that you must take in order to reach the mid-level, in order to reach the top goal. So, I guess, you know, if you have a goal, you can reach your goal by figuring out what each step is in order to get there—and this always starts from the small steps. So, never get discouraged that even if you’re doing something small today, it’s not gonna have an impact—because it really will.

Michelle Lynne: Beautiful. I’m just thinking right now of my big goals and I’m gonna break them down into mid-level ones. Thank you so much again—I’m so inspired listening to this. Um, how can people find you? Do you follow Glass Artists?

Nikki Naghavi: Thank you. Yeah. Um, so we’re active on Instagram. You can find me at “nikkinaghaviviolin” and Glass Artists at “glass.artist.” If you’re a musician and you’re interested in getting involved as well, I’d love to speak with you. You can feel free to send us a message on Instagram, um, and see how we can get started in a mutually beneficial partnership.

Michelle Lynne: Amazing. That’s great. We’re definitely gonna put the word out to all of our musicians in that area. Thank you so much for your time today, and love to stay in touch. Um, for everybody listening, take a screenshot of this episode and share your stories, and make sure to tag Nikki and Glass Artists. And we’ll say, until next time, be fearless. Thanks so much, Nikki.

Nikki Naghavi: Thank you, guys. Bye.