We had the good fortune of connecting with Hetal Joshi Nagaraj and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hetal, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
It was a process that continuously triggered the idea! The idea sparked the very first time in 90s when I came across Darpana Academy, my own IB schools infrastructure (Convents) and my visits to factory sites such as Reliance Industries, Nirma and visits to several textile/industrial factories in Ahmedabad because of my dad and by own school trips. All of this attracted me. I was in India back then as dad refused to relatives for USA visa due to mom’s health.
Those couple years of factory visits and these established infrastructure changed my life!
In early teen years, i was introduced to salon services and beauty industry so that I can take care of myself as performing arts was related to it. I took 3 certifications. At 17 years, I signed my first partnership contract with salon owner as a financer, service provider and a marketeer. By 18, I was supplying custom cosmetics to salons. By 19, I was partners with 3 salons.
I was accomplished at very young age through my school teams because of my consistent delivery in sports, several school clubs and for performing arts. My first artist contract was signed at 13-14 years for 1 year as a drama artist with a routine of dance in it. I was also about to complete my performing arts education in various genres via my school education(formal) as a requirement of extra curricular for which we were offered credits towards the final grades. Some of my training was pending because I moved to Ahmedabad for my 11th/12th grade education and because my teachers were associated in some way with darpana & mudra, i was told to complete it there to avoid my travel to gandhinagar. I was living across the street from darpana and thus was easier for me.
On other hand, my mom had an accomplished career and passions despite her health challanges. My mom used to run library and school programs at various private and govt institutes. These places offered a perfect place for her psychology work and performing arts activities. My mom was/is major in psychology and minor in theater with dance & several courses of cinematography at Mumbai University and it’s premises. My mom was also known for creating paintings and statues with precious stones, gem and precious metal threads for high budget commercial venues. It is still a trend! So I had my share of visits in those factories as well for bulk buys and custom orders and this led to my commercial prop/set designing and making it on my own. My creativity sparked to a whole new level in those days and it made me a finest sketcher and ultimately a designer in fabric/textile that required fine details of designing thread/fabrics itself. The knowledge of textile/fabrics was otherwise introduced to me by a chemical engineer who left his inheritance of various projects in my name and i continued since then.
My association with IT field was sparked in my highschool years as computer knowledge (software and hardware) was compulsory through govt programs and I was found hacking my first database from bank. Little I knew, I was introduced to security and ethical hacking fields. Thus, I continued with diploma right after and took several security courses right after refining my knowledge and increasing my IQ levels for critical/analytical skills. This explains my clearing several competitive exams as well. This led to my first independent partnership with a russian and german professionals for my first IT project in India. This project was a push from Nagaraj, my current husband (as he is an IT geek and engineer) and my fiance back then. The fact that he was there for me made me do wonders in IT because i was an intern at a lab while this was a full blown project. I delivered sucessfully with lot of support from Nagaraj by the time I graduated in my Diploma and moved to USA in 2004 after marriage and so today, I have these programs under me and IT company as well! I was introduced to wellness life and spiritualities, religious books practices by several scholars which made me practice those in my life. and so I offer these services as well.
However, my performing arts field dominates my every field. My formal trainings with 2 guru(s), my own generational trainings that we receive in my family from my peers exposed me to variety of trends, styles and several other topics that are usually not discussed in teachers of a particular era, per se. These trainings were other than my formal school education that added immense value to my performing arts. Performing arts was everywhere for me in entire different environment with its own infrastructure. Schools (with credits on it) to temples, my own families, professionally, and commercially as well.
This exposure, experience, knowledge, education and expertise kept me ahead of everybody and made it easy for me!
I delivered my first batch of performing arts at 19 and made it happen for my peers while others were wondering about the application of their knowledge in practical worlds.
So, today it all the environments comes together under me!
I was lit in my early teen years with possibilities in every field without any limitations or restrictions and with full safety. It was a necessity as my mom’s health was getting worse and I had to learn to take care of myself as a girl and so my dad would introduce me to some of finest people in the field. The introduction was so beautiful with all that knowledge and education that it sparked my needs to do it. And I delivered everywhere. I was introduced to mainstream lines of each field with paperwork and formal delivery of each project directly with educations and certifications.
Since most women in my family are very independent professionally from their early years pretty much all girls that are like me, in my family are trained to be so. Add to this, NRI (non-resident indian) upbringing with all the awareness of several countries exposed/brought up in global life and mixed cultures.
The whole experience in every field groomed me in a way where I was inclinded to have my own world along with my mainstream education profession. In my early years due to my mom’s health, I struggled with work life education balance and i had a severe mental breakdown mostly because of exhuastive hospital visits and to cope up with education and intern work. Those days taught me planning and time management and I was rewired by more than 6 spiritualities and 3 religions.
I made my plans those days itself to have my all state of affairs around me instead of me running for it. My education and all that global experiences allowed me that freedom to create infrastructure around me and so I educated myself more in other fields!
And so today, I have all this that you see today – www.hetaln.com.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Yes it was easy for me because of my background as stated earlier in each field and so I offer these programs under me and under my exclusive name as well as company’s names. When I moved to USA in 2004, I had to dissolve my share of partnership as per the laws because of my certificate usage in beauty industry. So business is very easy for me! Because of my education and real time experiences. I never had to really wonder or get confused on anything.
My paths were lit, well guided and I took all the knowledge/education/certifications that I need to lead it or make it happen or i had peers that guided me well and all of them are well established business industrialist.
My life was early and so everything in my life was earlier than most individuals of my age. Automatically, that made me ahead of most people in my levels as I was thinking of possibilities while others in my level were wondering about application of their knowledge in practical worlds.
My other plan was also to establish factory in usa for fabric/textile, costumes and all the backstage sets for commercial projects and so onn because of my specialities and success as well.
My latest challenge was criminal frauds, dirty politics and we are working on it! These challenges have thrown me off 10 years behind as per my plans, costed me connections that could have been for the betterment & upliftment as well as overall income of society and my company is thrown off to a backlog to 18 months. This has reduced my earnings considerably as well by each field and several other issue have surfaced. I am sure, I will overcome these challenges as well and I am working on it get rid of it forever.
Not much of story per se to speak of for any fields with well lit paths, own family influences and formal education guidance. Some triggers of certain occurrences were earlier than I had expected and that’s just fine as well because irrespective of those, I walked my paths as per my pace.
I am sure just like the way I have benefitted more than 3500 students under me, exclusively, with my knowledge and created several 1st generations in various fields with this success, I would definitely like to do more and bigger projects for the overall upliftment of society for knowledge, lifestyles and income both!
I encourage people to enter my fields with all the trainings that I provide because of my extremely diverse background in multiple fields makes differences in life of people in extremely positive way and it builds their career from all they learn under me. I feel blessed to be able to provide so for so many people. I will love for you to allow me to guide you so that your generations succeed as mine did without stressing on anything! Value your life as I do mine.
My personal 5th generation of performing arts (my kids/nieces/nephews), my company’s 3rd generation of service providers(those who work under me part and full time), 2nd generation of graduates and my company’s 6 lines of Elites (in each genre) will agree to this!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
This is tough question! It will depend on my best friends’ personal likes and interests and the time of the year and also other factors such as age of kids, age of other family members visiting with my besties and their capacity to travel around 🙂 Since i have variety of friends and all are still my besties from elementary schools and some as young as pre.school friends, they all are entirely different from each other. At some point, I think only 2 have them have not visited me yet. Everybody has visited me to see my babies, family and to see me.

But other than that, DFW and vicinity areas have alot to offer. Depends on interest of my friend.
Here’s my most recommended places and also my places of work or my places of activities or I visited these places :
https://www.hetaln.com/hetalstraveldiaries.

I definitely recommend to come around December times for more fun in DFW areas with and without family.
To speak of a few places that we have always visited with my guests/besties or friends are a “must see” are Grapevine ICE, Great Wolf Lodge, Reunion Tower with dinner during July 4th/Dec 31st fireworks and then it depends on their other interests
If you are willing to travel a bit more, all nearby cities have amazing things to do with and without family!
Other fun times is thanksgiving times for fall colors to nearby drives and such activities.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
1. My Mom, Daksha Joshi that planned my life (in her journal) by the time she passed away so that I learn everything that I should learn as a woman. 2. My Dad, Mahesh Joshi that executed it well and he had his share of additions to that list with other fields.
3. Nagaraj, my husband that made me the woman I am. My first independent partnership was because of my husband/Nagaraj. The day i felt independent, for real! So i dedicated my entire performing arts to his name as my gift to him. I am known as Hetal Nagaraj in this field.
4. My Education and my internship programs that provided me with all the knowledge and so I educated more!
5. My Family that provided me warmth, love and culture that I needed and so I never bothered to look around.
6. My spiritualities and religion knowledge that rewired me.
7. Smt. Ansuya Joshi, Lt. Smt. Nirmala Bhatt – 2 women that changed my life with an idea of independence, wellness and importance of family with support system and to create one.
8. All my teachers, fathers, nuns, gurus, priests, peers, industrialists, factory owners, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins and my friends that created support system with me so that I can do more and so that I can be for them too.

Website: www.hetaln.com, www.graceandgrooves.com

Instagram: https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks

Linkedin: https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks

Twitter: https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks

Facebook: https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks

Yelp: https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks

Youtube: https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks

Other: All official ones are listed : https://www.hetaln.com/hetalsocialmedialinks I don’t have any other social medias.

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