0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here. And welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like the shakeup today, we'll be focusing on creative careers and making a living with your ideas to drop these value bombs. I have brought Jeffrey Madoff in the EOFire studios. Madoff's careers span, fashion design, film production, teaching author, and playwrights. His book, “Creative Careers” was an Amazon bestseller and Madoff's play a belt musical legend Lloyd Price premieres next February. And today Fire Nation, we'll talk about that. The definition of success, the myth of the lightning bolt, how to be smart about our hustle, how we attract the right people in so much more.

0 (48s):
When we get back from thinking our sponsors from tools that help with automating your emails, increasing sales gamification in more, it's never been easier to create an online course than with the Thinkific app store. Learn more and sign up for a free trial of Thinkific at thinkific.com/fire free. That's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire free. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, or operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork.

0 (1m 31s):
Jeffrey say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 40s):
It's really important to look at what you love doing when you were a kid, what gave you joy? What did you look forward to doing, and then trying to build a career based on what you love

0 (1m 53s):
Fire Nation. Why would you want to do it any other way? Build a career based on what you love. That is the dream. That's the focus that's where your inspiration should be driving you tours. And today, as I mentioned, we're going to be talking about how you can make a living with your ideas and to kind of kick this off. Jeffrey. I want to know your definition of success.

1 (2m 15s):
I have a couple of definitions of success because I have one for business and I have one for life. And my definition of success for business is the ability to say no without catastrophic financial consequences. And my definition in terms of the rest of my life is to love and be loved back

0 (2m 41s):
Fire. Nation's so clean. So clear, so concise to the point. I mean the ability to say no without any catastrophic financial ramifications, I mean, that's a pretty awesome thing. And then to be loved and to love, I mean, that's success. So you have this myth Jeffrey I'd like to kind of dive into maybe peel back layer by layer about the lightning bolt. Talk about the myth of the lightning bolt,

1 (3m 8s):
You know, in movies and in books, it makes it look like great ideas, spring, forth, fully formed, and some kind of a lightning bolt of inspiration, but that's not how your brain works. And the more you expose yourself to ideas, the greater, the possibility of connecting those neural sparks in your brain, that can form an idea. And they're the result of accumulated ideas and something that sparks the association and those ideas have been percolating for a while. And you're finally seeing the relationship between them. And that's what we often mistake for that myth of the lightning bolt. And I think that it's really important to understand that you always have to keep learning, always have to keep educating yourself.

1 (3m 51s):
You always have to stay curious and that's going to foster the creativity, and that's going to foster the kind of ideas that you can develop because you have more dots to connect

0 (4m 2s):
Connecting the dots in a meaningful manner. This is the focus. This is what I want to kind of continue to talk about Jeffrey. As you know, we really get into details about hustle or lack thereof. I mean, a lot of people are just getting up. They're grinding all day, they're going to bed, they're doing it all over again. I mean something that you and I talked about pre-interview that I loved is that every day between four and six, you're going on a five mile walk in central park in New York city. So one thing I love to do with my dog every single day, actually around five or six here in Puerto Rico, I take Gus out for a walk and we try to hit our 10,000 steps, which is also about five miles. And it's just a great way to end the day to be in nature and to really enjoy all that around us.

0 (4m 43s):
And I know that my days are always better when I step back from the hustle, when I stepped back from the grind and I take time to enjoy nature, I take time to enjoy outside relationships. Love just like how you talked about defining success about being loved and loving. So how can we Fire Nation, not just hustle, but be smart about our hustle.

1 (5m 4s):
It's interesting. The way that you put it for a moment, by the way, I thought you were comparing me to your dog,

2 (5m 8s):
But

1 (5m 10s):
Thank you for not, but I am able to scratch behind my ear with my foot. Oh, wow. Not so easy. You know, when you walk around, it gives you the opportunity to wander around. And when you wander, if you change that AE into an oh, you wonder, and it can induce, even when you're up and about can induce this kind of a waking dream state where you're taking in things that you don't normally take in, because you've created that space for yourself in your own head, by allowing yourself to wander and not just always being in the grind as you call it. So I think that it's really important to allow yourself to wander.

1 (5m 53s):
So you can wonder Fire Nation wondering, wondering how can you combine the two? I mean, that's one reason I actually, you know, to continue this kind of Gus conversation, my 13 month old golden duty here, like I love taking him down new places so you can get new smells. He can meet new dogs. He can kind of start to wonder that, you know, Hey, maybe life isn't just our street and our house, but let's kind of expand our horizons and we can do the same things in our businesses and our lives. And what are some other ways Jeffrey, that you've really found in your lifetime, in your experience that people are being smart about their hustle, they're being efficient about their hustle.

1 (6m 34s):
Like they're, they're making the most out of their hustle. I think it goes back to school and kind of habits that we form when we're quite young. And I don't believe in the concept of getting an education. I believe that you take an education and the same is true when you're out of school and you're trying to build a career for yourself. You have to educate yourself. That means you have to be aggressive and proactive about gaining that education. And that's true in school and that's true in life. So that means you pay attention, that you be curious that you ask questions that you expose yourself to ideas and always be learning.

1 (7m 16s):
So if you want to start a business, the way to be smart about it, first of all, is to do a deep dive into that business. What's the market for what you want to do. What are people willing to pay? What's the competitive landscape and you can't be the only one in love with your idea. And that's really important. You have to put it out there and see if it's viable. And that establishes your proof of concept. If you want to build a business around it and you have to learn the business of the business, because that's the only way you can protect yourself and sustain a business

0 (7m 49s):
Fire Nation. There's a few things that I really want to chat about that Jeffrey was just going into, which is doing a deep dive into your business. Like really getting your hands dirty. And you know, this is why I'm such a big proponent, like even out of the entrepreneurship world, I'm just like, why are more people not doing like internships when they're younger? Like, oh, I want to be a nurse because I saw Grey's Anatomy. And then they realize, you know, three years into being a nurse that, you know, they're not anything they're not doing any of the things they thought they would be doing, but they just never took even the time to do like a one-week or a one month internship to actually do that thing. So why not do a deep dive into your business before it just becomes everything about all that you're doing and you can't be the only person in love with your idea.

0 (8m 30s):
There has to be other people that are also in love with your idea and learn the business of the business. Like this is your livelihood. This is your life. This is your potential future success learn the business of the business and Fire Nation. One thing that Jeffrey does really well is attract the right people. We're going to talk about that and so much more. When we get back from thinking our sponsors, knowing what factors are driving your business performance and growth is critical to your success until you know, what's working and what's not there isn't much you can do to scale your business or better serve your customers. That's why there's HubSpots with HubSpot. You can align your team with a single source of truth, giving them access to powerful prebuilt dashboards and reporting that helped prove the impact of your campaigns provide intuitive sales and coaching insights and give clear business performance at a glance across marketing sales and service.

0 (9m 23s):
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0 (10m 5s):
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0 (10m 47s):
Your invited to try it out for free for 30 days right now, visit thinkific.com/fire free to sign up and get started on your online course today. That's T H I N K I F I C.com/firefree. So Jeff who we're back and investing in relationships is key to success. I've seen you do this very well over the years. I mean, I was honored enough to be a part of a really amazing mastermind that you are in and have a great conversation with some amazing people. But I know a lot of people in my audienceFire Nation really struggle with attracting the right people. How do we attract the right people?

0 (11m 28s):
It's

1 (11m 28s):
Interesting. Like I'll get calls from people and, or I'll get an email from someone and they'll say, you know, I'd really like to pick your brain. That's not a very appealing thought or image, you know, when you think about it. And so I think that you also, in order to attract, you have to have something to offer because it's an exchange. And I think that it's really to cultivate relationships like you were saying, you went to a mastermind, but going to different situations where you're not only introduced to new people, that you have to have something to offer those people other than just what you want from them.

1 (12m 10s):
And so I think that, you know, business is transactional and, but trust is an essential aspect to building a good business relationship. I mean, I was fortunate enough. Ralph Lauren was a client for 35 years. Victoria's secret for 26 years. Those are the most difficult accounts to gain and maintain over time. But the way that I did that was that I always delivered on the promise that I put out there and in delivering on that promise, I always made myself necessary by coming up with new offerings, new ideas, new ways to help their business grow and go forward.

1 (12m 50s):
And I think that that's really important. Most people don't look at what they can offer someone else. They look at what they can get from that person. And I think that it's really important to establish right from the get go that this is a two-way street. And even if you're talking to somebody who's super established and very good at what they do, you still need to enter into that with some kind of an offering to do something. And you know, I, I want to comment on something you said earlier about the internships. The internships is, is a fantastic idea and that internship should be complimentary and almost look at it, whether you're in school or on a school as a part of your curriculum, fill in on ideas that you might not think are directly related.

1 (13m 44s):
Like if you are in fashion, work for a PR firm, work for a magazine work for all these other aligned fields where it's to your great benefit to know something about it. And in every relationship that you enter into you not only want to take something from it, you want to give something back to create a bond. So you can call those people later and build on that relationship and investing in those relationships is hugely powerful and a huge propellant in business,

0 (14m 16s):
Fire Nation. Most people, as Jeffrey just mentioned are only looking at what they can get out of that relationship. What's in it for me like to say Jeffrey everybody's favorite radio station is w I F M what's in it for me too many people think that way Fire Nation, you need to be thinking about what is the value exchange that you are able to offer to the other individual? Like, yes, it's okay to get value from somebody else, but guess what? There should be that two way street, that value exchange and what they did, I am excited to dive into Jeffrey is the one essential concept that every business in creative venture needs to have.

0 (14m 60s):
Can you share that concept with us?

1 (15m 3s):
Cause I, I think it's, it's so important because it applies to all of the things that we've been talking about and I'll give a slight preface is that entrepreneurship is a creative endeavor. Usually people think about creativity and they think about creativity as exclusively to do with the arts. But when you're an entrepreneur such as yourself, John, you know, you have to have an idea first and then you have to actualize that idea. Well, that's a creative process, whether you're creating an app, whether you're writing a book, whether you're doing a painting, whatever that is, you are making something that didn't exist before.

1 (15m 46s):
And that's something that you are creating is from an idea. It started with some idea that you had. So that's really an important thing to realize that business and creativity are not opposing forces. They work hand in glove together. So that takes us to the essential concept and the essential concept is editing. And so you just finished a book that's doing great. And let me ask you a question, how much of making your book as strong as it is, is the result of editing?

0 (16m 22s):
It was everything. I mean, that's actually the reason why I went with a traditional publisher because I was just like, I need to have a professional, help me edit this book to take these hundred thousand words and bring them down to what ended up being 71,000 words. So quite a significant drop there. And it all came down to editing.

1 (16m 43s):
Sharing is the key. I'll give you a quick example. The play that I wrote and in producing, we had a, a workshop and there's a scene that we were reading, doing a table read. That's what you do the first day of the workshop, which is literally the actors are sitting around a table and reading and everybody's hearing each other's voice for the first time and all of that. So there was a scene with a main character that's quite funny, and the actors were reading it, they're cracking up. And you know, as the writer, I'm thinking, oh, I love this. You know, they're laughing at the jokes I put in there. This is terrific, but something was hollow. We finished it.

1 (17m 24s):
And I said to my director, Sheldon ops is phenomenal, said to him, what do you think about that Australia scene? We just read? And he said, well, you know, what's funny, everybody was laughing. It's an interesting story, but it is, is it essential? And I said, what do you mean? Is it essential? And he said, does it either reveal more about the character or move the plot forward? And I said, no. And he said, then we don't need to do it. And that is it. Essential is the question that you should always ask yourself, whether you're putting together a pitch for a new business, whether you're trying to sell somebody something, whether you're writing a book, whatever it is, edit yourself.

1 (18m 8s):
Nobody ever says, man, I wish that sales presentation would have gone longer. You know, man, I wish that book had another 25,000 words. So I think that that editing concept, the idea of cutting something down to its essence, which takes a lot of work because it starts general. Like in that case, I pulled out five and a half pages, but it then gets surgical. It gets about even a word within a sentence to do the best job so that editing and no matter what you're doing and what you're presenting, the editing process is incredibly powerful and terribly underused because people don't realize the power of it and think that it only relates to writing, but it relates to every aspect of business.

0 (18m 56s):
I love that. And I actually recently watched an Ernest Hemingway documentary on apple, which was fantastically done. And he talks so eloquently about that and about how every word needs to have a purpose or it doesn't need to be there. So Fire Nation be thinking about this when you're going through your creative process and Jeffrey, I want to end with a bang here, give us some details about what's going on in your world right now, about what you want Fire Nation to maybe take action upon, to consume more of your contents, you know, check out your book. I know one thing that you do, that's pretty cool that you shared with me earlier is you go for that walk every day and you take one picture in New York city and you post it to Instagram.

0 (19m 41s):
So for people that like myself used to live in New York city, it's kind of like a little nostalgic taste of home or what used to be home. So I, I really would love to, you know, get a huge takeaway from you again, how Fire Nation could connect more with your projects with your book and then we'll.

1 (20m 0s):
And I would like to say, by the way, I don't just take one picture. I may take 40, but one through the editing process, you know, so, you know, it's in every aspect of life, as I said, so those pictures you can find on Instagram, it's Jeff underscore Madoff. And as John said, it's just street life in New York. And it's fun. My book, creative careers, making a living with your ideas is available. I love saying this part, John at all time booksellers.

2 (20m 37s):
And,

1 (20m 38s):
And if you read it and if you like it, please post a review. Cause that makes a difference. And if you don't like it, keep it to yourself and you can also see what I'm doing with creative careers on Instagram, at a creative career where you'll get quotes from my guests. And there's a website www I'll creative career.com and you can see my things there and also on LinkedIn, be Jeffrey Mt. Often I'd be happy to link in with any of your listeners and I'll be starting a podcast at some point next month, and hope to emulate some of the wonderful things and techniques that you have honed in your time.

1 (21m 27s):
Cause you know, you edit your, you edit your podcast really well on the fly, even. So, you know, again, that there's these examples of the editing all of the time. And then finally next year in March, my play will be opening a it's called personality, the Lloyd price musical about rock and roll hall of fame, legend Lloyd price. It's an amazing story. And that's also taking up a lot of my time now and it's really, really exciting

0 (21m 59s):
To me, Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with J M and JLD today. So please keep up the heat and please connect with Jeffrey on whatever one of those platforms he mentioned that makes the most sense with you, maybe multiple of them and yeah. Check out at any fine bookstore, his wonderful work. And I just want to say Jeffrey, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank

1 (22m 31s):
You. Great being here. I enjoyed it.

0 (22m 34s):
Hey, Fire Nation today's value bond content was brought to you by Jeffrey and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3000 of the world's most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs. And I created a revolutionary 17 seven roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. And I put it into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. This is personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is a step-by-step guidance and you need this to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. So visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to learn more and order your copy today. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side from tools that help with automating your emails, increasing sales gamification in more, it's never been easier to create an online course than with the Thinkific app store.

0 (23m 25s):
Learn more and sign up for a free trial of Thinkific at thinkific.com/fire free. That's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire free. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Whether you're looking for marketing sales, service, operational guidance, the HubSpot Podcast Network hosts, have your back, listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcast network.