Remembering Why You Started Your Business with Jeffrey Madoff

As an entrepreneur, you know a thing or two about taking risks and chances. Businesses experience growth, and human beings go through those rises and fall of success and failures too. Understanding that what you go through in your life has an impact on your business will help you find your success more quickly.  

Jeff Madoff, the founder of Madoff Productions in New York City, joins us on this episode of Making Bank. After studying psychology and philosophy in college, Madoff worked at a boutique in Wisconsin until he started a clothing company. From there, he launched himself into the fashion industry. Throughout his experiences, Jeffrey has learned the ways of entrepreneurship.  

Madoff emphasizes the importance of creativity in the business process and how to apply that creativity to further your company. While exploring this, he also talks about how he stays motivated and always remembers where he came from.  

Why You Should Use Creativity in Business 

Sometimes, people in business dismiss the importance of being creative. Success comes when there is a passion beyond just the money, beyond the numbers.

“We all have creativity in us because creativity is a form of your expression. Sure. But I think people are shut down…and I think that people get more and more afraid except for a very few of having that unique expression because they’re afraid of being judged,” Jeffrey says.  

Everyone has that creativity in them, especially people in business. The core of the business is creating something helpful to people or helpful to the world. It’s sustainably developing ideas that bring different ways of doing something to the table.  

A lot of people are scared to be creative because creativity is being vulnerable. It’s going beyond just creating something, it’s the possibility of someone rejecting something that you put your work and passion into. People get scared to be criticized, so they stop creating. They focus on the analytics of success and the numbers that ensure them the growth – but that can come to a stop.   

“And by the time they’ve entered the business world for so many people, that’s so shut down that they look at it very binary.” People develop the thought that they are good at business but are lacking creativity. Our people are creative but don’t know how to do business, therefore get shut down. And success is the balance of both – the ability to create and then market that thing you’ve made.  

Too often people box themselves into the stereotypical labels. The creative types. The business types. Sometimes, people use that to even rationalize the fact that they don’t want to put the effort in to learning the other half or express the other half. That inherently ties hands behind your back before you even try and start to be an entrepreneur. Why put those limits on yourself?  

Going Back to Why You Started 

“I’ve also been asked the question, you know, is there a failure that you’ve had that sets you up for success? And to me, success and failure are somewhat misnomers. The main thing to me that I have learned from all of these people is that the key to accomplishing your task, whatever that is, is perseverance,” says Madoff.  

If you want something done, you’re going to face obstacles. That’s a fact. But what determines your success is whether you are going to push beyond those obstacles or let them stop you from doing what you want. It’s not easy to start a business, but it’s even harder to build it and even harder than that to sustain it.  

So, it’s essential to know that you need the fundamental knowledge of business and creativity because you’re going to constantly be dealing with both sides as you grow and as time goes on. Balancing the two can help you push past the bad times, allowing you to come up with new ideas and new ways to get to where you want.  

It’s hard not to get discouraged or feel like you’re coming up short. Everyone has these thoughts and doubts. “The main thing is you have to remember why did you start doing this in the first place? And are those reasons the reasons that sustain you emotionally?” Madoff says.  

In the fashion business, Madoff decided to sell his second company because he didn’t want to stay in it. It wasn’t the business that had the allure he wanted, and he came by it. And before he wanted to start again, he had to think. Even though he had a good reputation, he didn’t want to do that. And it so happened that that decision was the one that led him to his next journey.  

“But the main thing that keeps you going through very difficult times is that the reason why you’re doing it remains true and that helps you keep at it because you know, at, at some point you’re going to come out on the other side of it,” Madoff emphasizes.  

Remember why you started what you did in the first place. Remember those feelings of success and fulfillment – and do something that makes it all feel worth it.