From Ideas to Execution: A Creative Workflow w/ Jeffrey Madoff (TPS596)

Thanks to Shopify for supporting the productivity show. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like ourselves the resources once reserved just for big business. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/TPS. Welcome to the productivity show. A podcast by Asian Efficiency to help you maximize your productivity so you can get the important things done without having to sacrifice your health, family, and things that matter to you. We've helped tens of thousands of people save time, be happier, and become more productive. Today, Tan is joined by Jeffrey Mattoff and he's the founder of Mattoff Productions based in New York City. His company has produced commercials for brands such as Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Tiffany, and other big name brands you've heard of. He also teaches at Parsons School for Design, a course on creativity that is also today's topic for the podcast. Tan asked Jeffrey as a creative how he turns ideas into work of art, how to fuel your creativity, how to make a living off of your ideas, and of course how he's get stuff done. You can find links to everything that we share in the show notes by going to theproductivityshow.com and now on with the show. All right, so I have a very special guest here today. Jeffrey Mattoff, how are you today, Jeffrey? I'm good. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm really excited to chat with you here today because I've heard your name come up many times in my friend's circles and we recently got connected through one of our mutual friends, Chris. Before we start diving into your story and creativity and how we can be more productive and organized and get the most out of our own lives, one of the things we always like to start off with with our guests is have them share some of their favorite resources as of lately. So would you mind maybe sharing three resources that you really enjoyed as of lately? Sure. So I have Gmail, which many people do, and I don't like Gmail. I hate the threads and I hate that I have to be like hyper aware of not to reply all, not to make certain mistakes. But there's a feature worth it that I recently found out that I have been using obsessively since and that's the tasks. So as a constant reminder to myself of things that I have to accomplish, I set up those tasks. So whenever I open up my emails, I see those things that still need completion and you know, they go into an archive once you have. And I didn't actually know that existed. And since I found out that existed, it's really been revelatory because he keeps things front of mine because I used to have posted notes, right, send myself emails and they were in like four or five different places. And now it's really easy and I'm reminded whenever I open my email. So that actually has helped the rather chaotic individual me be more organized. So that's one. And something that I've been using now for a few years, which has also been revelatory is Trello. You know, I started using Trello for project management because I'm involved in production, doing the video production that I do. I'm involved with the class that I teach and booking speakers and all of that. And I found Trello to be a really easy and intuitive tool to organize whether it's my class schedule speakers that I've contacted that haven't yet confirmed those who have all of this and it makes it really easy. And I realized with these tools, because there's a billion out there that if it's much of a learning curve, I'm not going to use it. So those that are really intuitive and they can make my life easier and simpler and store information in their organized fashion for me. And I don't have to think much about it. And I can use it without having to go through pages of demos and all that sort of thing. I use it. And those two things as basic and simple as they are had a really big impact. And then third is a combination of things. It's YouTube, which I use as a research tool for a lot of things because you can, it's astounding what you can find on there. So the play that I'm working on, there's a few different singers that are involved in the play. And I was able to hear their music and see footage of them that helped inform the characters that I was writing. And plus going down the rabbit hole research wise into the music and who played it and all of that. And so I think that obviously the internet is a great research tool period. But also YouTube is incredible because you can start getting in a lot of different influences, the music being visuals, hearing speeches, conferences, all kinds of things. And I use that often also. And that couples with books. And I read a lot, but you know, writing a book, Creative Careers, the book that I wrote and going through all the different notes that I had from my guests, organizing that and creating these principles that we'll talk about. Because I had to use these principles that we'll be talking about in order to accomplish these tasks. So it was not just reviewing the materials in the book, but I'd even put it all together because I took from so many different sources. So I think that, you know, those are the tools that I have that are most effective for me. Amazing. Thank you. And I'll make sure to link to all of them that we just talked about here in the show notes so people can easily find them and reference them. Jeff, you before you and I got connected here, I've heard your name come up a few times in my friends or goals. One of the things I like to do here in Austin is organize dinner parties, especially the COVID, where we would invite people who did extraordinary things or really interesting things in town or if people were at fly in. And one of the things that we always did at the dinners was connecting people with all the people. And one of the things you have that I have talked about is great people oftentimes meet all the great people through all their good and interesting people. And that's how you and I got connected here today. And I've always heard your name come up at our dinners because Tim, the co-host of our Skyline dinner party has always mentioned, oh, you got to meet Jeffrey. He is the guy who's shot the commercials for Ralph Lauren, Victor Secret, such a smart guy real successful entrepreneur. You got to meet this guy. So I've always heard your name come up a few times. And as I was digging deeper into your life and your bio, I start to find out that you're a very accomplished guy. You had like a lot of creative endeavors. You were a top 10 fashion designer at one point here in the country. You started a business and you had 120 employees by the age of 22. You shot commercials for big brands, multi-billion dollar companies. And now you start organizing and writing a play. You've been a film producer, creative director. You've just had so many interesting different things and you teach at this person's school of design as well. And now you're a New York City. But it all started back when you are in Wisconsin. So would you mind sharing your story of how it all got started and how you end up being where you are today? And how many days do we have for this? You know, I'm reluctant to say much. I don't want to screw up what a positive first impression you already have. There's a good chance to more I talk about it. You're like, "Yeah, well, I don't know about this guy." It actually all started in Akron, Ohio, which is where I'm from originally. I was born there because I wanted to be close to my parents who were living in Akron at that time. And it's funny because, you know, as I've been doing podcasts lately about my book and so on, people have said to me, so, you know, what was that turning point moment in your life that sets you on the path? Or what was the revelation that you had that set you on your path in writing books or plays or movies that's the inciting incident? What set everything into motion? For me, it was birth, you know, because once I was born, there was a whole world of possibilities to pursue. And prior to that, I was just in this sort of isolated place, but comfortable had all the food I wanted and felt sheltered and safe. And, you know, I never, because I never really had a grand plan. And as a result, I'm seduced by ideas and things that interest me. And I've been fortunate enough to figure out ways to make a living doing those things that interest me. And one of the things that I asked my guests in class, and I have many wonderfully accomplished talented people as guests in my class that I interview. And I always ask if we would have known who is a kid, would we see any through line from your childhood to now in terms of what you're doing and what your interests are? And there are those to say, "I absolutely," you know, and there are other ones that say, "No, not really. You know, you would have never guessed I'd end up doing what I'm doing now." I think if you look back at my life, you would see a through line and you wouldn't be terribly surprised at the diversity of things that I've done. And it's always because I was encouraged by my parents to be curious, to express myself. And, you know, to never be reluctant to doing that and to explore. And, you know, to me, curiosity is the essential fuel for creativity and for creating relationships. So, I don't have that grand plan that somehow the genesis was from when I was a kid and I've pursued it diligently. In fact, it's been quite the opposite. I didn't have a plan, but as things happened that interested me, I sort of went that way. And then I went that way. - Right, 'cause you started a fashion label, you design clothing, you got started with manufacturing in that and one of the things that I've learned about your story is how you weren't always interested in fashion. You were interested in sketching, but you weren't always interested in fashion and you just kind of stumbled upon that. And then when you were named one of the top designers, you then moved on to eventually doing video production and films and plays. And did you find yourself wanting to reinvent yourself in that way or was it just purely accidental and it was just the right opportunity or idea at the right time and you just pursued whatever interested you? - Well, I wouldn't consider reinventing because if you pull back and you look at the bigger view of my life, that's how I've lived. So it's not reinventing, it's a consistency with how I've pursued things. So when I started my first adult career, 'cause I had a lot of different jobs as a kid, the typical jobs when I was a kid, like having a paper route, those don't exist anymore. I guess you could throw tablets and laptop computers on people's front porch, but they were actually newspapers that. In shoveling driveways of snow in the winter growing up in Ohio and tombstone setting, I did a lot of different things, never had any customer ever voice, any dissatisfaction when I set tombstones. That was a very good job that built myself confidence 'cause nobody ever complained. But as things unfolded, I was working in a small boutique in Madison where I went to college and a friend called me and asked, "If I could think of a gig that would earn more than bank interest." And so I was in this clothing store, I had done the buying for it. My parents were entrepreneurs and they were retailers and same with my sister. She's an entrepreneur and she has a very, very well thought of sophisticated women's fashion store. And so I knew a bit about retail and a little bit about it, not much. And I never had aspirations of being a designer. When my friends said, "Can you think of something that would earn more than bank interest than I was in the store?" I thought, "Well, I could always draw I can start a clothing company." Being clueless in terms of what that actually meant and how to actually do it. But one of the things that I learned is that everything that you do, if your eyes are open, informs everything else you do. And you can learn from those things and consciously or not, you will apply that knowledge to the next thing that you do. And so I think that part of my pursuit has been breaking down these walls that I think are kind of more walls of perception of difference rather than looking at what is the common ground among different pursuits. And I think there's much more that pursuits have in common than differentiate them. And so we're capable of doing much more and extending in more diverse directions than we think. And that's one of the things that I learned too. So I don't reinvent myself. It's just a further expression of myself and applying that in different areas. (keyboard clicking) The New Year is the best time to start your business. And 2026 is the year you finally launched the project you've been dreaming about. And one powerful move puts your future firmly in your hands, starting a business with Shopify. Maybe you've got an idea you can't shake. A craft everyone tells you to sell. 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One more time, gusto.com/tps. - One of the things that you and I talked about earlier that I wanted to bring up here as kind of like a discussion point was the word creativity and what that really means. And one of the things I mentioned to you is, I don't consider myself a creative or a creative person, but as someone who teaches creativity, how would you define creativity? - So I define creativity as the compelling need to bring about a change. And in that definition, it embraces typically creativity people think of the arts, you're a writer, you're an actor, you're a painter, you're a dancer, you're a musician, whatever. And they don't think of entrepreneurs. And being an entrepreneur is a creative act. And the reason I say that is you are bringing about a change and you have a compelling reason to do it. And that compelling reason can be, you think you're solving problem, you think you're creating value. In my case, it's I'm unemployable, that's why I'm an entrepreneur. So it's somehow figuring out a way to apply your talents and then bringing that idea to life, no matter what it is. So I would argue in your case, you've created a business out of coaching people on productivity and efficiency. Aside from that, you've also created a scenario with your dinners where you bring people together to exchange ideas. Now, creativity is very much about the exchange of ideas. So I would say that you are short-changing yourself by not considering yourself creative because that shuts you off from certain options or thinking about certain options. When in fact, you've demonstrated that you are creative, it's just a different way of looking at creativity. - I think that's a really important distinction that you made there because when I think of the word creativity, I think of the idea or possibility of thinking outside of the box and coming up with something. When I sort of realized about, at least about myself at least is, I'm very creative once I know what the box looks like. If I know what the box and parameters look like, I can be very creative. Just like in my younger years, I used to think that I wasn't creative in many ways 'cause I didn't like drawing, I didn't like the arts or I didn't like any of that. But if I had a problem, I would come up with many creative solutions if you got a way to get to where I wanted to be. And that is something I've learned over time is creativity as well. And I learned that I might not be the person who is great at thinking out of the box. I think some people are a lot better at that than I am. But that doesn't limit my creativity. However, if I can know what the parameters are and I know what the box is, then I can work with that and be very creative in that sense. And that's how I can learn how to embrace that. But what you're saying is the need to change is a form of creativity. and entrepreneurs are essentially creative people as well. And I would also argue in your case that you created a business, so you did build the box that you are exercising your ideas and you formed that box out of what you felt would create a viable business and solve the problems of efficiency and productivity for your clients. And that's a creative act. So, you know, I think that for too long, there's been a very narrow definition of how people interpret creativity and coupled with that, I think is something else that's important, which is why don't people consider themselves creative? One reason is the narrowly circumscribed area that people define creativity within. What the other thing is is that be it parents or teachers or even your peers when you're a kid, when you're putting things out there and people are responding, often critically to what you're doing, that can hurt. And I think that shame enters into it at a very early age and you become more reluctant to speak up, you become more reluctant to share your ideas because you don't want to be shamed or embarrassed in front of others. One of the things that I try to do in my class and also with my play and even on film sets is create a safe space where people can act out and not be judged or criticized. Now, I may give them notes on their performance, but the key thing is, I'm encouraging, because I think you get the best out of people by encouraging them to express their ideas. And I think that it's become hard in our culture. This is a little bit of a tangent that I think it really speaks to the point, which is if you say to people, "I want to be an actor, or I want to be a musician, or I want to be a painter." The first question you get is, well, what's your fallback position? What do you mean? Well, what's your fallback position? The implication being that's never going to work. Now, if you said you're going to be a dentist or an accountant or a lawyer, nobody asks you what your fallback position is, because that's considered a real job and a real profession. Well, they're all real jobs and real professions. If you're a professional comedian, then you have learned to survive in a very competitive, difficult world. There are those comedians that are making a fortune, same with actors, same with painters, all of these things. They're all professions. And you have to work like a professional to succeed in those areas. So when people would say to me, when I was younger, "What's your fallback position?" You're looking at it. I'm the fallback position. It's going to be my own savvy, my own creativity. I'm going to somehow figure out how to get over under or round or through those obstacles. So then I can do what I want to do. And I'm not trying to live up to somebody else's ideal of what that is and fit into the narrow definitions that they've created about that. Can you force creativity? And the reason I asked that question is we get a lot of people coming to us saying, "Hey, Tana, I would love to write a book or publish a book. I would love to do more of my artwork. I want to do more of X, Y, and Z. But I oftentimes just don't feel like it. And I'm waiting for the right moments to do something." And they have this belief that you can't really force creativity. You just have to wait for it for the divine moment to come. And then when that moment comes, that's when you act on it. Yeah, that I don't believe at all. And the reason I don't believe in that is there is no divine intervention that happens in all of a sudden the lightning bolt strikes and you're creative. And if the interesting thing is you were saying that, "I'm going to start this. I'm going to wait for the right time." It's kind of like when people are going to promise themselves that they're going to do an exercise program. And they decide, "Yeah, first of the year." By the way, that's when gym memberships go up. All these people, they make their New Year's resolutions are going to get in shape. I'm in the collective too long. I've got too much of a stomach. I'm going to exercise. I'm going to finally get on that fitness program, which of course they don't do or they drop right away. And I think that it's more about, you know, if you're going to run a marathon and life is a marathon, you don't start off thinking about the entire span. You break it up into steps. Because when you break it up into steps, it's accomplishable. Otherwise, you're so overwhelmed by the enormity of the task that you never started because it seems insurmountable. And so when I started doing running, I started setting up different landmarks along the path that I ran. And so instead of thinking, I haven't accomplished anything until I get to the end, I had a bunch of landmarks along the way or steps along the way. And maybe that's a productivity hack. But I think that, you know, it's sad and thought of it that way, thinking about your show. But I think that that's a way that you can move forward because it's an overwhelming task to go out and think that you're going to, whether it's white a book or a play or make a film, if you're trying to think of the all at once, it's too hard to get your arms around. But when you learn how to break things down into the incremental steps that are necessary to move it forward, then you're accomplishing things all along the way, as opposed to thinking you've only accomplished it when you finished the entire enterprise. And is that part of your creative process? So if you're, for example, writing a play or shooting a commercial or producing a film, do you start with the end of mine and saying, hey, this is what I'm aiming for. This is division. And then you break stuff down. Is that how it starts off for you? Essentially, yes. You know, so if I'm doing a commercial or what's called branded contents or that sort of a thing, you know, there's a conversation with the client. And what I do first is listen. That's a critical part of just human interaction. And I listen to hear what their expectation is, what it is that they hope to accomplish, who the audience is that they're trying to attract, you know, all of these things about it. And so I'll get a sense of who they are and what they believe and what they're, what they're looking for. And then I will try to gear my process to accomplish what they're trying to accomplish. I may not do it the way that they're thinking about it. I may come at it in a very different way because again, that's why also they're hiring me. I want to understand and not disregard their desires or their wants, because that's also why I'm being hired. So it is, I approach those things with there is the whole, but then what are the components of that whole to put it together? And one of the things I learned when I started my first adult career as a designer had an idea. I would have to sketch that idea. Then I would have to break it down into the components of materials and labor. How much does the fabrics cost? How much labor would it cost to put and assemble those pieces together? You know, how long would it take to get it made? How much are the costs involved in that? Can I complete it by deadline, ship it by deadline, then collect the money and create a cash flow cycle essentially that allows me to keep doing it? What was the same thing in making a film? I had an idea. I'd have to storyboard or sketch out what the idea is for the film, break it down into the components of what are the different cost factors with the labor of the equipment, the materials, all of that, completing it by such and such a day, delivering it and then charging enough that I made money on doing it so I could continue doing it. So they were very much the same. And I learned that all those processes, it was the same thing with writing a book, same thing with writing a play. They were all essentially the same and required the same thought processing protocols in order to accomplish them. I love that you have a really good sense of the process and the protocols and the things that need to happen in order for you to make something sustainable because the language that I hear often from quote unquote creatives is that they're willing to do the work, they're willing to be the designer, the creator of something, but then not understand or learn the process. And then they oftentimes blame that they're creatives and this is just how I do things. And they just put responsibility away and say, hey, I'm going to do this, but if it doesn't work out then, or if I don't get stuff done on time, or if I don't get paid fast enough or if I don't get paid what I'm worth, so be it. And they just put the blame elsewhere. And a big distinction that I see from you is yes, you are a creative person, but you also understand the value, the need for process and protocols so that you can continue to do your work and to do your art and to be creative and make that a thing that you can do sustainably over the long term. I think if you don't consider those things, then what you're doing is a hobby. So, you know, Now if your hobby is painting or photography and you don't care about making money at it, it's just an expression that you want to do for yourself, which is fine. You don't have to think about any of those things. And you're supporting your hobby through the other work that you do. But I haven't approached any of the things that I do as a hobby. I've approached them as, you know, this is what I want to do because I want to make money doing what I love doing. And I think in order to do that and to be a responsible at all, you take responsibility. And you know, when you're thinking that, you know, everything is everybody else's fault. And that's why you haven't accomplished it. You have to take a hard look at yourself and realize that maybe I'm the problem. You know, what is it that I'm doing that's preventing me from doing that? And again, I think people are reluctant to place themselves at risk, you know, because then they can be blamed. And blame is a pretty harsh thing. And we all try to avoid being blamed. But I think there's a difference between blame and accountability. And if you have a client and you have a deadline, then you are accountable to that deadline and you do what you can to meet it. And you fulfill on the promise of the job you've taken on, whether it's writing a play, taking a picture, or doing their dental work, you know, it's all the same on that level. And so I look a lot of these things as having more income and then income. 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Do you see Orion up in the sky there? I said, no, what do you see? I said, I see a bunch of stars. He said, no, no, there's Orion is up there and he looks again and he said, look, you'll see like those two stars are the shoulders. Then there's the three that are the belt. Then you see the sword on the belt. And that's Orion. What do you see? Do you see Orion? I see a bunch of stars. And the more I said, I just see a bunch of stars, the more upset he got. And I said to him, Billy, I see what people have agreed is Orion, but it's not intrinsically Orion. Yeah, I might have been 12 years old. And I said, it's just what we all agree is Orion because there's so many stars out there. And as human beings, we have this compelling need to organize information and somehow derive meaning, often artificial meaning from what we have, what we are looking at. So the world makes sense, right? So I think that organizing principles are essential. And you know, that hit me when I was a kid, that we kind of made up those meanings. You know, I mean, that's not to get into it, but that's kind of the origin of religion. Things didn't make sense. And religion helped life make sense. And that's comforting when you think you understand things. Well, oftentimes when we really don't understand things, but we create these artifices to make things comprehendable or somehow make sense. So there's always a striving to make sense of things. So in the arts, in life, organizing principles are what helps you make sense of something. And so when I'm writing a play, I have a sense of the story that I want to tell. And you know, but I have to tell like in this case, it's about the life of Lloyd Price, who's one of the cornerstone figures in rock and roll and also integrating the music business. And so I have to decide since he's had such a vast life and such impact, what is the story I'm going to tell? That's the first organizing principle. What is it I want to communicate about that? And then just like in running the marathon, breaking it down into the components, well, who are the main characters? What are the milestones that were accomplished along the way? What's the big message at the end of this? And so you start mapping out the story. And that doesn't mean you can't change it as inspiration hits and you get ideas and you're writing and so on. But having those organizing principles, I think are what is essential so that you can accomplish the task and you understand what the goals are that you're pursuing. And when it comes to producing this, one of the things that you mentioned to me was, you might not be the most organized person, but you have a great team of people around you who complement you in many different ways, right? So for example, I'm sure you have a lot of notes. I'm sure you have a lot of digital assets. I'm sure you have a lot of photos and video footage and things all over the place. So how would you organize this or how do you have people around you that can help you with that? So what you touch on, which I think is really important, especially for the entrepreneurs that are listening and small businesses, what's so important and so often overlooked is the importance of delegation. Know what you know and know what you don't know because there, then you can bring in people that can help you accomplish what you're trying to do by providing complimentary talents. So for a bit of moment about the fear of writing another paycheck, you know, and how are you going to do that? First of all, think about if you were able to exercise what you are best at. How will that help your business grow? And look at the opportunity cost and lost opportunity cost by you having to pay attention to all these other things, which take you away from the main flywheel of your business in terms of driving it forward. So I have in my production business, I have a really good executive producer. He figures out the schedules, he figures out the budgets, he does all of these things that make the job accomplishable and profitable through the budgeting in terms of what we can do and what we're up against and what we have to deal with. We have the same thing with the play. I have an executive producer and that's part of their goal is dealing with the investors and all of the minutia and filings that go along with that. A general manager who negotiates all the contracts and all of that kind of thing. And we're working with a labor force, in this case actors and other creative pursuits set designers and all that sort of thing. And it's all kind of the same thing that you have to look at what don't you know and how does what you don't know affect your business and is there a way to fill that gap so that you can delegate those responsibilities to somebody else. And it also raises another question is how do you attract really good people if you don't have the money to pay them? And that's a big challenge for a lot of businesses too. And I think you can sometimes meet that challenge in surprising ways. Like going after people who you think would be really good to work in that position and offer them something special. That's something special could be some kind of financial participation, could be equity, could be whatever that can job appealing. And there are people who are actually quite accomplished to what they're looking for in their next gig is more responsibility and what they want to have is impact. And that's very attracted to them. And oftentimes past a certain point more attracted than just the salary. One of the things you talk about in your book Creative Careers is you have a process about how to determine your value. So whether you're working in corporate or you're just starting out, you're trying to charge for what you're offering. How do you determine your value? So let me do a turn about and ask you a question. You put together a business based on productivity and efficiency, right? Yep. How did you know what to charge your clients initially? At first I didn't have a clue. And what I ended up doing was I looked as a starting point, looked at my competitors or people who are offering very similar things. And I would look into see what they were charged, what they would offer and kind of relate to the brand positioning as well. And see is this a premium brand? Is this kind of like a more affordable brand? Like how does this all relate? And that usually would kind of give me a range of what to charge. And then the other part was just what was I willing or daring to charge for it? Or did I have the confidence to charge for it even? Like I think that was the bigger issue is if you see other people charging a lot of money, do you have the confidence to charge the same thing? It's not more based on what you think you can offer people. So there's two aspects of that that are really important. The first aspect which people often forget about is context. All right. So that context is that you looked at the competitive landscape. You looked at people who are doing, in generally speaking, similar offerings and what do they charge and what are they charging for? So that at least gave you the world that you're dealing in, right? And you got a sense of that. And then whatever that cost was, you had the first convince yourself you could charge that and get it. Because if you're not convinced of your value and you say, well, you know, I'm thinking that it's going to cost about, you know, in your tentative, that being tentative is already going to start to erode the confidence that the buyer has in you. But if you have confidence in what you're presenting and how much you're presenting it for, it doesn't mean that you won't negotiate. But what it does mean is that you're making your statement, you're planting your flag, you're setting up the parameters if there isn't a negotiation. You're setting up those parameters and you have the confidence in what you were offering and the value of that, you can get it. And I would put one more thing into that equation because I think your, and the reason I asked you is the same for every business, you went through the same thing I went through, you know, what's the, what's that world and how much can you get in that world? And, you know, and do I have the confidence to ask for X amount? And I think that's all really critical. And the other part of it is proof of concept and proof of concept to people often overlook. And essentially, what proof of concept is is you can't be the only one in love with your idea. You have to know that there's a market for what you're doing and they're willing to pay for what you're doing. So in, you know, researching the competitive landscape of what you're doing, you saw there are other businesses that are surviving and some that are thriving. So you know that that's out there. And when you put together your offering, you got to get some sales. And then when you have those sales, you've established proof of concept. People are actually willing to pay for your service or the product you're creating. And a lot of people, you know, they talk to their friends and they talk themselves into thinking something is really great. And I see this with lots of like startup tech companies just because they figure out how to code something, something. They think that there's a value to it, but nobody cares. And as a result, they don't really have proof of concept. And sometimes they're good enough sales people to even raise some money against an idea that hasn't even been proven. And I think that proof of concept is essential. And that happens in theater. And that's why you have smaller presentations and workshops to get in front of potential investors and audiences to see the response. And it's the same thing, you know, in your business. It's the exact same thing. Are people going to be willing to pay for this? And until you're paid, you don't have a proof of concept. You have opinions. One thing I like about the idea behind your book is that it was born out of the proof of concept almost in sense that it was taught as a class first at the Parsons School of Design. You were teaching a class and you invited all these guest lecturers to kind of share their story, how they got started. And you took some of the big takeaways from them, put it into the book and then also create your own process behind it as well. For those who are interested in learning more about how to make a living with their creativity, their careers, is there anything that you want to really echo or really share with the audience that people should know about the book? Yeah, I think that there's an essential piece to this because I'm often asked, so how do you foster creativity? Or how do you encourage creativity? And I think that there's two things that are really important. One is allow people to express and listen. And you may not like their idea, but unless you can offer something constructive from a positive place, shut up because you then just become hurtful and there's no progress in being hurtful. So I think that it's really important to listen and to allow people to express and that also you extend that permission to yourself. Like a lot of people are afraid to speak up again because from an early age they were afraid of being embarrassed in front of others. And so I think that that's really an important thing. But for the creativity itself, my belief is that the more input you have, and what I mean by input is reading books, meeting people, going to conferences, talking to people, going to plays, going to museums, researching things online. The more inputs you have, the more dots you've got going on in your brain that you can connect in those neural firings can create those constellations. So you see a lion out of all that chaos of stars. And I think that that's really important is curiosity is the fuel for creativity. And I think actually for fulfilling life and for relationships. Before you and I started the podcast, I started recording, we talked for about 20 minutes. And it's your curiosity about me, my curiosity about you, which informs what we hope is an interesting conversation because we're both curious about each other. And that helps create a bond in relationships when somebody's genuinely curious in terms of what you're doing. I think that that is the glue. And I think that wanting to learn and being curious about things is so essential. And curiosity is what's going to help you be creative and feeding that curiosity. I really love how you tied it back together to Orion by putting in the dots in your brain and then making meaning out of that later on. I really love that example. So thank you for sharing that. Jeffrey, for those of you who want to check out the book, we'll make sure they'll link to it in the show notes here as well. Again, the title is Creative careers making a living with your ideas and we have it here on screen. Beautiful. Visual aids. Yeah. Jeffrey, for those who want to find out more about you, your works, and everything else that you're up to, where should they go to? So there is a couple of websites. One is MatOffProductions.com where you'll see the kind of video work that I do. And there is a creativecareer.com, which you'll hear things from my guests and myself about all kinds of different topics like what we've been talking about in others. And it also ties to the book if you're interested in the book and you can sign up and you can get three articles and updates and that sort of thing. And then on Instagram, there is at MatOffProductions and also at a creative career. And you can see, again, things from my class and the guests that I've had and images from my work. And on LinkedIn, be Jeffrey MatOff and I post things on LinkedIn related to creativity and those kinds of topics that we were talking about. And it's funny, you know, it's a whole other topic, but you know, I have Twitter accounts that I never use. And what are your thoughts on that? You know, do you use every social media platform that's available or do you figure, you know, here's where I can best express, and I'm only going to be there. Yeah, I've used many over the years and personally, I always go back to the platform that I like using the most and right now for me that's Instagram. I had a Twitter for many years. I even had thousands of followers on there, but I stopped using it because it was just not the platform for me and it's not the one that I enjoyed. And sure, I could have someone else run it for me, but I want to be authentic in a sense that I do everything that I post myself. And so I just, I'm just going to have a personal Facebook and an Instagram and that's it. And we have a business page and a business account that people can follow us on where all the people are running it. And our sharing my ideas and kind of sharing the stuff that we teach and really believe in. And so it's done through a brand or a company account, which is a little bit more accessible for more people. But for me personally, I just like to post on one or two platforms and that's it. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. I was curious because I'm kind of in that same place. I'm just, you know, I'll direct it to these places because otherwise it's like a list that long, that long. And I think it becomes overwhelming. Yeah. So those are the best places to get hold of me. Great. We will all make sure to have links to all of that here in the show notes. Jeffrey, thank you so much again for your time here today and for your ideas and inspiration. And I'll make sure to link to your book and make sure that people can find you elsewhere so they can continue to follow you and your works as well. Thank you so much again. Well, thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks a lot.