Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - The Hidden Genius with Polina Marinova Pompliano

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

In this episode, Anthony talks with Polina Marinova Pompliano. author of Hidden Genius. Polina has spent nearly a decade profiling the world's top performers and distills the secrets, the unknowns and their individual stories into her debut book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is open. open book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know I can roll with the punches, so let me No. Anyways, let's get to it.

Hidden genius. Do I have a hidden genius? Do you have a hidden genius? It might be hard for us to locate mine, but if anybody can help us, it's Paulina Maranova, Pompiliano. Lots of syllables, lots of valves. You know I'm already in love with this person. Paulina is an incredibly curious person and has spent her career studying thousands of the most successful and interesting people out there. Her new book is overflowing with insights into the minds of successful people. It really gets to the heart of their stories, and it's a fantastic read. So joining us now on Open Book is Paulina Maranova Pompiliano. I mean, what a name.

You know I love that name, right? I mean, what's not the like about the pomp name? You are the founder of the profile, and you've written a book which is about to be a bestseller called Hidden Genius, the secret ways of thinking that power the world's most successful people. That's pretty cool. Okay. And obviously, both me and Holly had a chance to read the book. And I love the book, actually.

I'm a big self-help book person. And a lot of the same. I didn't really even find it to be self-help as much as I found it to be a historical analysis of what works and why it works. So let me rephrase it that way. Well, let's go there. Okay. Congratulations on the book. You said you dreaded history class until you studied.

People-focused learning. Is that correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah. You were at Fortune, where you and I met, then you went to launch The Profile. So take us through that right of passage for you. Perfect. So, first of all, thank you for having me on. I'm really excited. I love that you love books. So we're going to get along. Great. So I worked at Fortune. I started at the very bottom when I joined in 2014. And then I worked my way up to become like the lead tech reporter covering startups and venture

capital and I did that up until 2020. So when I was at Fortune in 2017, you know how media goes to all their cycles where people get laid off and then there's a lot of clickbait and then there's whatever. Sensational Journalism. So in about 2017, there was a lot of that. I wasn't feeling very fulfilled. I was really like, is this it? Like, is this what we're doing? So in my free time, I was like, I'm going to start, I didn't even call it a newsletter. I just called it an email that I would send to family and friends with really high quality long-form journalism that actually has nuance and context. And I would just curate like eight profiles of people because I like learning about people. And I would send it out. So I started doing that on weekends. I was working

on it on weekends and on the subway on the way to work and on the way home. And that was in February of 2017. I started sending it every Sunday. Still haven't missed the Sunday since then. But I was doing that for three years for free. And in the process of writing this newsletter, a substack came around. And they were like, you can add a paid layer to your newsletter. And it was like, who would pay me for this? But I was curious. So I tested it out in 2020 and January. And enough people were like, I'm willing to pay where it made it interesting. So I was like, obviously with the profile, I want to do original interviews. I want to do original content. But I can't do that while still working at a traditional media company because there's a conflict. So I started just like thinking, like, what if, what would the profile look like if I put

100% of my time and effort into this versus kind of splitting it and just working on the weekends? And that question led me to put in my three weeks notice. And then my last day at Fortune ended up being March 20th, which is when the whole world shut down 2020. That was a risk I had not foreseen in all my planning. But it was honestly the best thing ever. I love working for myself. I love working on the profile and now I wrote a book. So COVID helped or hurt? At the time it helped because a lot of people had a lot of time on their hands and they were willing to spend money and read higher quality content after they had exhausted all the junk that was like, love is blind and that Tiger King, Tiger King, all of that. They were willing to like pay for high quality content. Okay. So let's let's go over

this and let me see if I have your recipe right. According to your book, I mean this, let me see if I have this right, you're going to check my work, there's an organic table to success. And so what do I mean by that? There's one part mental resilience. There's one part creativity. There's one part fostering relationships. There's a leadership quotient to this. Can you lead people? And sometimes leading people requires collaboration more than it requires bossy pants. I think we know that. And there's this sort of mosaic, if you will, or a pie chart of those ingredients. And if you have those Mixed in the appropriate manner, you can ultimately become very, very successful. What did I get wrong?

No, that's exactly right. I actually really like how you put it, that it's ingredients as part of this larger whole. I think the reason that I structured the book like that, which every chapter stands alone, so you can read each chapter individually without having to read the whole book. But if you do read the whole book, the thread that goes through it is identity and perspective. And I think like most of us get lost in one of those ingredients. Either we identify a super creative but not an entrepreneur, which is kind of how I used to think of myself, or we identify as like, I'm a leader and that's all I do.

Then if you lose your job as CEO, you're kind of in for a treat where you're like, who the hell am I, right? So I think identity is shaped by all of those different ingredients. And if you work on each one individually, you can ultimately find what I call your hidden genius. But, okay, I want to push back a little bit. bit. Yeah. There's an X factor in there, though, too, isn't there? I mean, I can be creative. I can be a leader, but what's the X factor? There's something that you know that's like lightning in a bottle, Polina. What is it? Okay. You have it. Anthony Pompliano has it. Your husband, what is the

lightning in a bottle? The lightning in the bottle is like that, the way I define hidden genius is like your framework or your unique view on the world that you've gotten through the experience that only you've had or that only I've had and you're able to bring that together and then share your learnings with other people. I think like that's the thing. That's the X factor that differentiates people. Most people don't know what their hidden genius is or what their X factor is. Okay, fair enough. I want to move to the, I want to move to the relationship side of this now, okay? Because what makes good and healthy relationships and how do you create them? How do you go from zero to hero with somebody? Well, a few things. One is that there's this framework that I love.

I heard LinkedIn founder, Reid Hoffman, say this on a podcast once. He said trust equals consistency plus time. And this is something that can help you with any relationship, whether it's personal, professional, business, whatever. But it's like, you don't trust people who consistently break their promises. So when I say I'm going to do something, I do it, but not only do I do it once, I do it over a long period of time. It's the idea of that trust compounds, the more you keep your promises, the more trust interest that pays off. Toby Lucky, the founder of Shopify, he has a similar thing that's called a trust battery is the way he visualizes it. So when you meet somebody, your battery is charged at 50%. And every single interaction with that person either

charges it a little bit more or discharges it. He's like, aimed to be a person whose battery stays at over 80%. The other thing that I learned when writing this chapter is that John Gottman, he's a psychologist, he's brilliant, and he can predict whether couples will divorce or succeed with a really, really high degree of success. And he's found something he calls bids. And he's like on a daily basis with your partner, you do what's called like a bid for attention. So I might be like, hey, look at this funny meme on my phone. And then if the other person was, it's like that basic. If the other person looks, then he's like, that's good because they answered your bid for attention. The dangerous part is when you're constantly having these bids and they're

constantly being ignored. And it's not like one big blowout fight that will destroy a relationship. It's like those tiny things because it shows a lack of respect for the other person or whatever they're trying to get your attention on. So in that chapter, he has a number of techniques, but that's probably the one I think about the most. Okay. I find all of that fascinating. I think think about that in the context of our very distracted world. Certainly my wife is showing me something. I got to pay attention otherwise going to whack me over the head with something. You have people in the book, Beyonce, Kobe Bryant, the Holocaust survivor, Edith, Eva Eager. Yes. Tough people, right? I mean, they're strong people, right? What makes them tough? What makes them strong? What makes them resilient?

Okay. I think it's this idea of, the overarching idea is victimhood versus being victimized. So Edith, who's a Holocaust survivor, she talks a lot about this idea of, like, in our lives, we will be victimized in some way. I think she says, like, you know, the neighborhood bully, the spouse that hits, the boss that yells, like you will be on the receiving end of some sort of victimization. No, no question. Everyone's going to get hit with that. Everyone. I agree with you. Exactly. So, so everyone's going to be on the receiving end of that, but that's external. And she says victimhood is what comes from the inside. You can make yourself feel like a victim. And only you. And she realized this when she was, she, her sister and their mom were on the train to Auschwitz. And her mom said, by the way, no matter what happens in the coming days, just remember that you are responsible for what you put into your own mind. And that stuck with Edith throughout the whole thing as she was on the ultimate receiving end of victimization. The other people that I highlight. So, for example, in the mental resilience chapter, I talk about David Guggins, who's this former Navy C-L-turned ultra-athlete.

He's, you know, the epitome of, like, strong, savage, mentally tough. It's interesting that he creates it. It's like voluntary suffering. He talks about the dark room. You go into this dark room where you face yourself and you're honest with yourself. He goes into like the bathroom, looks at himself in the mirror and he's like, you're fat, you're lazy. Like, what are you going to do about it? Then there's Courtney Dalwalter, who's also a long-distance runner.

she talks about the pain cave. And she's like, you know, during her runs, by the way, she's insane. She's gotten like a bleeding head injury. She's like broken a bone. She just keeps going. She hallucinates. And people are like, how are you able to overcome this barrier of pain? And she's like, oh, that's because I know that I'm in control of when I enter the pain

cave. And I'm equally in control as when I leave. And she literally visualized herself like going into this place that she knows is going to suck. But then she also knows, like, she was going to suck. But then she also knows, like, she will get out eventually in these, like, 100-mile races. And then, though, I was like, I don't want to just include people who are these ultra-runners. Like, what happens when you are involuntarily suffering? Because life will present that as well.

And then, do you know Anthony Ray Hinton? Have you heard of him? I have. Yeah, but tell our listeners who he is. He wrote a great memory called The Sun Does Shine. But basically his story is he was in the, I think it was in the 80s. he was a black man in Alabama and he was wrongfully imprisoned, put on death row for 30 years. He was on death row and he watched like 54 people walk fast as hell to get electrocuted.

So he, for 30 years, was in this tiny prison cell at times in solitary confinement. And he talks about how when he was in solitary confinement, in order to not go insane, he would use his mind to travel to England to have tea with the queen to like marry Hallie Bair. things like that. He was like, I never used my mind for garbage. I just used it to get out of some really lonely times. And I think it's interesting if you think about this idea that pain and suffering can exist as a place. So there's Courtney's Pain Cave. There's David Gagins as like dark room. And then there's Anthony Ray Hinton's solitary confinement cell. And I think about this a lot, this quote by David Gagins. He says, when you go into this dark room and face yourself, if you don't break, you'll transform. So I kind of

I've loved the idea of like pain is a place. It's like a place of metamorphosis. You go in one kind of person and you come out the other side, a different person. I mean, it's fascinating stuff. And obviously, I've read David's books and he transformed his body and he went through the pain of all that and created these new habits. And you and I both know that habits are super important in making your life better. You are what you eat and you are what you consume. Am I wrong?

I mean, if you're reading, if you're scrolling. doom scrolling, Twitter or Instagram, or you're reading, you probably have different thoughts. Am I wrong? Absolutely. No. Tell us a little bit about you are what you consume. Yeah. I developed this idea of like how we all have our diets, like what we eat on a regular basis,

but we also have a content diet, which is kind of to circle back to what you said in the beginning. It's like a pie chart with all these different parts inside. And if you look at your life as like, I need a content strategy. and you conduct an audit and you're like, what do I listen to? What do I watch? Who do I hang out with? I think is a big one that people don't often think about as part of their content diet because those conversations turn into thoughts, which then turn into beliefs. But like all these different things, read, listen, watch, talk to people about they're part of your content diet. And in the book,

I talk about like David Brooks. He's a New York Times columnist and he wrote this speech, a commencement speech too honest to deliver in person. And he wrote, a column about it. And he said, like, have you ever noticed that people in their 20s are kind of like more interesting than people in their 30s, those same people? And it's because when you're in college, you're forced to grapple with really hard material. You have to write essays on things you don't, you would never read on your own. You have to debate topics you probably have never thought about before. And you read like really hard literature. Then when you get out of college, you're just like on your own and you're scrolling and you're reading clickbait and just or just headlines or tweets. You

don't take the time to really dive deep into something difficult. So he calls it the theory of maximum taste. Like, what is your level in your brain? Special for high quality content tends to lower as you get older. And it's like, I talk about the idea of a content diet because the way that you, what you consume essentially becomes how you see the world. So when I was in my early 20s, I would watch a lot of crap like, love is blind and the bachelor and the bachelorette. And I started seeing the world through a lens of only relationships. What do they think of me? Are they talking about me? Are they mad at me? Like all this stuff. And it's like it's garbage content. So when I started the profile, I was kind of like forcing myself to put more interesting ideas into my brain.

Then I would send out in this newsletter and have people that have conversations about what. So I just love this idea and I think about it all the time. You know, I wanted you to share it with everybody because I think it's brilliant. I also want you to share becoming a mom and how it's changed you. Okay. How old is Sophia, by the way? One and a half. Okay.

Well, congratulations. Thank you. How did it change you? Oh, my gosh. In weird ways. When she was born, I was like, oh, my God, I have no time to do anything. Yet all of a sudden, I wanted to do more. I was like, I barely have time to write the profile, let alone, like, do anything else.

But then when she was like three months old, I was like, um, maybe. maybe I should write a book, but that only happened because I was like, I need to do, I need to take 15 minutes a day just to do something for myself. And that to myself was writing. So, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there turned into a one section, then into a chapter, then into a book. But I think A, it's forced me to do that. And B, it's forced me to like, my parents were really young when I was born. My mom was 19. My dad was 24. And they always tell me that their biggest regret, they were getting their master's degree in college. And they were like, our biggest regret is that you spent so much time with family and not with

us when you were like a baby baby. So I had always thought, I was like, I want to be here for these moments. And I actually dedicated the book to Sophia. And I said, every moment with you is extraordinary because I realized that like these ordinary things with time, I'll look back. You'd be like, damn, like I really missed that. Like, that was really extraordinary, you know? I think it's beautiful.

I wanted to share it with people. Let me step back for a second and ask you something. One of my best coaches said to me that we are the sum of the people that we hang out with. You're the weighted average of the five people that you spend the most time with. Do you think he's right? Absolutely. So there's a chapter on clarifying your thinking and how so many of us have blind spots and biases. And like we're just unwilling to change our beliefs.

Even if our beliefs are ridiculous, it's really, really hard to get people to change them. And they're like, why? And it's through research. And a lot of studies have found that basically because you're surrounded by people who share those beliefs and they reinforce and validate them time and time again, it's hard to change your beliefs because that also means you need to change a friend group. And James Clear says that the reason it's so hard to change our beliefs is because we're not asking people. to change their beliefs. We're asking them to change their tribe. And I think that's really interesting. I remember one time Tim Urban, who's the author of the blog, Wait But Why, he said, you know, if you're wondering whether you're in an echo chamber at the next like family gathering, say,

I've been thinking about the points that the other political party that you normally support has been making. And I think he may have some valid points and see how people react. And it's that reaction that keeps us locked into these tribes and it's really hard to get out. So ultimately, like, if you look at your group of friends as a cult, you have to think, like, do I agree with what the cult members and, like, the beliefs that we share? Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think it's that. And I think it's also we've tunneled into our confirmed biases now.

You know, when you talk about being in your 20s, my 20s are very different from the 20s of people that are being raised in the 2020. You know, if you were born in the year 2000, you're 23, your prism of looking at the world is different than mine because we had a couple of networks. We did have cable television. We certainly had no internet, no social media. And we were all getting the same information. So we could have disagreements, disagreements on politics or policy or ideas or way to live. But we weren't really disagreeing on the facts.

Now, because of all the tribalism, you know, we're sitting around. We can't even have the argument because we don't even. agree on the facts. You know, one person's version of the facts is coming from Fox. The other version's coming from MSNBC and there's nobody meeting in the middle. Yeah. You know, it's probably not a great question to ask you because you're, you know, not in politics, but I guess it is a good question to ask somebody that studies relationships. How do we bridge the gap? Is it possible anymore to bridge these gaps, Polina? Well, I think so. It's just it would require a lot of people moving to rationality instead of just like dogmatic beliefs, which is where I think we are at now. I think that

changes with perspective. I think a lot of the people that you talk about who are very, very tribal, haven't had a lot of experiences. I think the reason that I don't see the world so black and white, and I know that my beliefs are very gray scale is because I was born in Bulgaria. We moved here, I went first and second grade there. We moved to Atlanta, Georgia, of all places when I was eight. And then from Georgia, I moved to New York City as an adult. So, like, Like, I've seen three different, completely different perspectives. And I've always kind of felt like an outsider in every group that I've been in. So I'm never like, I 1,000 percent, like, agree with this belief.

Because I just know that that's not how some people see the world. Or it's not, even if I go back to Bulgaria, like I'm too American and I see their things completely differently. So by never feeling like you're in the in group, you can have more of a varied, belief system. But I also think, like, what you're talking about, like, people can't agree on the facts. Like, those aren't even facts. Those are just beliefs presented as facts. I think Robert Evans, like the Hollywood producer says, there are three sides to every story, yours, mine, and the truth. Yeah, right. Exactly. You know, there's also, somebody said to me once, a great litigation attorney, he said people have a tendency to remember things the way they need to, Paulina, not the way they

actually have. Exactly. So that's another, that's another big issue. You're journalism professor had a great quote, right? No one is inherently boring, right? They're only boring because you haven't asked the right questions. So what did I miss, Polina? What should I have asked you? No, I think, okay. The reason my professor told me that is because I was doing an assignment.

I had to write a profile on a fellow classmate. And I was like, oh, I have to change the subject. Like, this person is the most boring person in the world. And so he was like, no one's inherently boring. you just haven't asked the right questions yet. That means that everybody has a story, and it just means that, like, you haven't found a way to get the good stuff.

And I think, like, a sign of a great interviewer isn't necessarily about, like, the questions that they're asking. It's about listening and learning or paying attention to the subtext. So it's like, what's the subtext of this conversation? You asked me a question that nobody ever asked me, which is how has being a mom changed you? And not only did you know that, you also knew, like, the name of my daughter,

which is also rare. But it's like it shows that you went beyond just like, what's her book about? Let's just talk about that. It's like the subtext of all of that. How does that all tie together? Well, I know your old man, though, too. I mean, I want to just tip everybody off that I do know Mr. Anthony Popliano. So I do know a little bit about your life. I'm not a, I'm not stalking, but I do know a little bit about your life. I'm obviously a huge fan of the both of you. Thank you. This is sort of a big picture question. How can we do? discover who we really are. How do we know, you know, how do we find ourselves? There's so much mystery. I mean, people are really being honest. There's just so much mystery to their own self.

You know, sometimes I think I'm going to react a certain way to something and I don't. And other times, you know, like I interviewed Robert Green who wrote the 48 law of the power. And he said something so brilliant. He goes, we think the bad guys are the other people, but we have abandoned us. We're all roughly the same. You know what I mean? Oh, that guy's jealous. Have we've ever been jealous, oh, that guy's angry. Don't you ever get angry? We think it's the other person, but it's not us, right? I know. How do we find ourselves, I guess, is the question. How do we, how do we, how do we get to know ourselves? I have an answer to this. And then I want to ask you a question, because I think you have a brilliant, like, point of view on this. So, first of all, yes, exactly.

We're like the protagonist of our own stories, right? And we rely on the narrator, which is the voice in our head. And a lot of times we don't realize that we are the unreliable narrator of our own stories. And I think Lynn Manuel Miranda once said like, oh, well, when I broke up with my high school girlfriend, I was like this heartbroken, emo, like, ex-boyfriend. But actually in her story, I was just the obstacle on the way to her real love story. So it's like two people, same situation. They see it differently. But I think the way that we discover our hidden genius or ourselves, as you say, is that when I graduated college, I had done all this stuff in college. So I was, I was the editor of University of Georgia's newspaper.

I interned at CNN. I interned at USA Today. I had all these things that were supposed to lead me to a full-time job. And everybody told me they would. And then I graduated, bam, no job offers, unemployed, back to my mom's couch in Atlanta. And I was like, what did I do wrong? I did all the right steps. But the outcome was not what I expected.

And I realized, I had this existential crisis because I would go to parties at 21. And people would be like, oh, so what do you do in a group of other 21-year-olds? And people are like, I'm an analyst and an investment bank. And I was like, I didn't know how to answer that question because I didn't have a job title. And I think like for anybody listening right now, it's like ask yourself, when somebody asks you, so what do you do? You'll likely answer with your most impressive identity, right? And for a lot of people, that identity is their job title.

But what I found and I realized after that college experience is that up until that point, I always had a label. I was always an intern, a student, an editor, whatever. When I graduated, had no label. It was just Paulina. Like, that was it. That was my only label. And so what I realized is, like, you were most powerful when you tie your identity to your own name. When people say Anthony Scaramucci, they know exactly who they're talking to. You don't have to say, I'm so and so, and this is my title, because you do a whole host of different things. And I think the point is that any time that we get a little bit, a taste of a little bit of success, we start to become complacent and we start to tie our identities to things that are external that could be taken away

from us. So, okay, some people tie their identity to their job title, other people to their relationship. Oh, I'm the wife of so-and-so. Other people to their material possessions, I have a boat, I have a car, I have a whatever. But like all those things can be taken away from you. Like Oprah, Oprah said once, don't tie your identity to something that you could lose in the blink of a board meet. And I think about that constantly because it's like the reason I started the profile, while I still had a full-time job at Fortune was because I realized when I would walk into a room, like, reporter and editor at Fortune Magazine sounded really, really important. And I knew that I was starting to wrap. I was starting to do the same thing again. But like tomorrow I could get laid off.

So now I have the profile, which nobody can fire me from. Even if it fails, you know, spectacularly, it's my own name and it's my reputation that I'm in control of. So like, I think people can find themselves by real. realizing that their identity is not just one thing, and they should bet on themselves and start something solely for themselves. It doesn't have to make money. Just start something that you can tie your own name to. And I just wanted to ask you, like, how did you feel going from like business to White House to all these different experiences? Like, did you feel like you knew who you were in that? Or did you kind of have a before and after life? Well, no. I mean, it's a good question,

but no, I've never felt any different, you know, one way or the other. I guess my White House experience, I got to see the gnarly, ugly side of media exposure. And I also got to see, honestly, who my real friends were versus the phony friends, you know. I like the joke and tell people when I was named White House Communications Director, I was getting three or four thousand emails a day. When I got fired, it dropped from three to four thousand emails a day to about 150. And they were all spam emails from like timeshares, you know, buy a timeshare in Boka, that sort of thing. Yeah.

So, you know, my thing about all this is that it's, you know, look, it's fine. I don't think you want to be cynical. Ultimately, we can have this appreciation for others. My grandmother had a great line. She said, the best among us choose not to judge human frailty so harshly. And her point was that, yes, you're. friends are going to be disappointing to you at times. You're going to have situations in your life that you wish were better or different. But the worst thing that you can do is to close down

or not be forgiving, you know? And so for me, you know, I let things slide because it's better for me, right? You know, the anger that you're feeling, Paulina, is the poison you're drinking, hoping the other person dies. The other person's out dancing. I don't care about your anger. You know what I mean? That's what, and it's exactly what you said earlier. It's like a lot of us right now have this like moral high ground where we're like, oh, that we would never do that or you should be judged for that. And it's like, you have probably done worse things in some area of your life. And it's, I love what your grandmother said. You should like print that out. But it's like, yeah, by judging other people so harshly, in my opinion, it's that we see something that we recognize

in ourselves that we don't like. And it's kind of almost like projecting on that other person. Exactly. So, so, you know, and that's the whole thing about victimhood. You know, you can't play the victim in life because you start out in life. Here are the axiomatic facts. You're going to have a struggle for sure. Everybody does, no matter how rich or poor you are. Some things are going to go really right for you. Other things are not. If you live long enough, you're going to have people in your life that you say goodbye to you, meaning, you know, people are going to die that you love. And so therefore you have this, it's a constant, it's a constant, acceptance of lost life is. Okay, it's a very stoic way of thinking about, a very Marcus Aurelian way of thinking about it. But the minute you can get your arms around it, well, you can get really comfortable being present and living today versus being overly anxious about tomorrow or sad about the past, right? Remember what Lao Zhu once said. He said, if I'm thinking too much about the past, well, of course I'm going to be depressed because I have made mistakes. I should have gone left as opposed to right and a result of which I'll have regret. But if I'm thinking too much about the

future, well, the future worries me because it's so uncertain. I don't know what's coming down the road. So therefore, I have to just relax into today and live in the present, right? Exactly. Exactly. Finding the, finding the extraordinary and the in the ordinary moments today. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So we're at the portion of this podcast where I am going to read out five words. Cool. And then I want to get your reaction to those words. You know, it can be another word. It could be a minute, a second, a sentence you pick. Let's start with the word success. Man, you really got that one. Okay. So with the profile, I say I study successful people in the book, you know, the secret ways of thinking that power the world's most successful people.

The biggest criticism I get is from people who say, oh, you study successful people. That's just hero worship. And my point is that's kind of that. By somebody telling me that, I see how they measure success. They measure success in terms of wealth, status, something, you know, like how many cars they have. That's how they measure success. Success to me, if you read the book, you see that there are all sorts of people who don't fit the traditional definition of success. So to me, success means a fulfilling life and a life where someone has achieved something that they wanted to achieve, failed miserably, learned from it, and then gone on to achieve again and have another chapter and then share those lessons with everybody

else that's going to come after them. 100%. You can't get there without failure. Okay, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Michael Jordan. They all have their stories. That's really well, really well put. Potential. So, okay, so I think that in my mind, everybody has potential for something great, but a lot of people are stuck in situations that they'll never realize that potential. So if you're really creative person, but you're working as an accountant. It's really hard within your line of work to do that. So maybe you can start something on the side that will fulfill that will allow you to live up to your full potential. Greatness. Greatness. So the way I live my life is like I aspire for greatness. But to me, greatness is like being the best most fulfilled version of myself. And in the book,

of course I talk about the greats like Kobe, like all sorts of people. But what they did, what Magnus Carlson, who's a chess champion, what Kobe did when he was starting his career, is that they went to their grades and they asked them like, how did you do it? What mistakes did you make? What did you have to sacrifice to get here? And they learned that greatness doesn't exist in a vacuum. There will be sacrifices and there will be things that you give up that may not necessarily be, make the path as linear as you think it is. Very well said. Genius. I think genius is not this philosophical, like rhetorical thing that it was just Einstein. I think genius exists within, within every one of us. It's just that you have to draw on your

specific skill set and your specific experiences to find it. And at the end of the book, I actually have 10 questions that will hopefully help you find that. Some of them being like, what is something that you can do to unlock your creative potential? or what is something you can do to start betting on yourself today and things like that. Okay, my last one. You ready? Polina Popliano. So good.

Okay. So, and again, this is like, I will answer with a bunch of words, which is just like mother, wife, writer, entrepreneur. Like, I have all these different facets of my identity that I honestly don't know how to answer when somebody asks me, like, what do you do? It's like, I am not one type of person. I just do many things. You're eclectic, but very passionate, right?

And you have a lot of enthusiasm for life, right? It's a fun life, right? I love that you can tell that. Yeah, listen, you're great. I love following you on Twitter. I'm a substack subscriber of yours. Oh, man, thank you. And they give a lot of interesting content, and your book is fantastic.

The title of your book is Hidden Genius, the secret ways of thinking, that power the most successful people. And it will be a bestseller. and I'm thrilled to have you on Open Book. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope we manifest it. I hope it is a best seller. Thank you. No, it will be. As I said to Polina, this book will undoubtedly be a bestseller. But what I love about this book the most is the positivity. Ultimately, super successful people are grounded in positivity. They have a element of resilience and they don't take themselves too seriously.

In reading Paulina's book, I am reminded of something I always say to my children. If you're only here for 100 years and there was roughly an infinite amount of time before you got here and long after you're gone, there'll be an infinite amount of time. Therefore, infinity minus 100, more or less equals infinity. If you stop and think about that concept for a second, then that is definitional and proof that we're all the same. So ultimately, we have to treat each other with dignity. We have to treat each other with dignity. We have to treat each. other with kindness. And the best among us choose not to judge human frailty too harshly. And we stay positive and we stay optimistic in the face of adversity. These are all things that are embedded in the story of hidden genius. And these are all things that I know for certain that you. That's right, you, you have it in yourself, all of these things. And so if you read Paulina's book, you'll get that lesson. Just take one step forward with this great belief that life is a grand journey and you need to be on the optimistic uplifting side of it, not be one of those pessimistic victimizing whiners or wankers, as they say in the UK. So anyway, that's the final thoughts here.

I love Paulina's curiosity. She asked the right questions and the payoff is great. And it's a great book about understanding human nature. Hello? All right. Ma, you want to join the show? What do you mean? With the podcast? Yeah, the cash, as you call it, the cash pod, right? You know, like you called the cash profit. I'm like, go ahead. All right, you ready? My guest today was a woman. She's actually from Eastern Europe,

but she married an Italian friend of mine, and her name is Polina Popliano. Okay? And she's written a book about how the most successful people in the world have a hidden genius. Your grandkids say that you have genius level activity, don't they? Yeah. Yeah, so why do your grandkids call you a genius, Mom?

What are the reasons? Well, I can look at people and be perceptive on if they're good or not. So you can tell right away if somebody's full of it or not, right? Yes, I can tell. If they try to snowball you and be with kindness, I always question that because sometimes it's a mass to something else. Right. So somebody that's too nice, that sort of turns you off as a New Yorker, right? You think it's a little phone, right?

Correct. You'd rather have somebody be a little bit more honest about their true feelings, right? Yes, I think my son, Anthony. He has a few very, very good friends, and I called one for sure, and I think he's like a friend forever. And I think it's very important to have a few very, very good friends and lots of acquaintances. I sometimes have a very good friend if you snowballed by their kindness is really not their friends. So you have kind of read into it. What about your genius math skills, Mom?

You can add up the figures in your head quickly or no? Oh, my daughter had a children's shop, and we were. pretty good with customers. And at the end of the day, I would tell her what she did without her ending in an outfit. She would always be forward that I could do it in my head. That's a different fee or tree. It comes to my father.

Right. Right. And we all look like you too, right, ma? You just have my nose, that's for sure. I have your nose. I have your nose, ma'am? You don't think so? Oh, I'm just asking you.

You're the genius. What do you say? My God. No, I'm asking you. You're the genius. You're the head and genius. You don't have any doorknop, that's for sure. Oh, my God.

So my father has a doorknob for a nose, Mom? You could tell people. It's okay. My grandchildren are all without the nose, and my children, it's a miracle. Oh, my God, okay. Ask my little Anthony, because Anthony has my nose 100%. Okay, Mom. All right.

You're very unique. Keep going, Mom. How do you think people discover their true hidden genius? What would you recommend to them? I think some of it's inherited. because I think you have a business sense from few people in the family for sure. You know, you have a very strong business sense. And I think that's genetic besides you've been a genius.

Okay. You have it for sure. And your father was a worker, but he didn't have a business sense. Oh, I know. That's right. So let me ask you this, Mom. When you first became a mother, was that a shock to you? Or how did that go?

Because the woman I interviewed today, she's the first time, mom. In 1958, I had a miscarriage. And being of an Italian ethnic background, some of the Italians that were from Italy is to say, when am I going to have a baby? And they were actually making me of a block. And I became a mother at 24 to David. And I loved my children to death. My children are my treasures. And my grandchildren are like, yes. So in 1958, you were 21. Yeah, so it took a little while for you to get pregnant again is what you're basically saying. Right, and they were making me nervous and asking me what was wrong, but, but, but, but some of the Italians are wonderful, wonderful, the Italian ethic background is wonderful, but the old-fashioned

Italian was, you know, a little bit like crazy, like, you know, they used to make me nervous that I wasn't getting pregnant, but I was young. What do you got your cell phone on at the same time? What are you doing? I don't know. The cell phone's ringing for that. That's okay. I let it ring out.

All right. Let it ring out. Okay, Mom. But, I mean, that's like a cell phone ring from like 1991, though, or something like that, right? Yeah, because I have a flip phone, and I'm very happy. I'm not too good with changes. Right. I tried to buy you an iPhone.

You want to stay with the flip phone like it's like from 1996 or something like that, right? But I'm 86 years old. And I have a conceited street because the fields have very good skin. My father's people. So I have my mother's people's net. and my father's skin. Okay, so what does that mean? Your mother's neck, you don't like it?

Well, my mother died young, but her people in Italy have wrinkles on their neck, and I have a little bit of a turkey neck. Okay, that's why you wear the turtlenecks all the time? Yep. Oh, my. All right. And that's where you get your vein from. So you think I'm vain, ma'am?

I know you're vain, ma'am. Are you kidding? Okay, well, who did I get the vanity from, ma'am? Who did you get the vanity from? Yeah. Who do you think? Well, I don't know. I'm asking you.

You're the hidden genius. Who do I get the vanity from? Well, I think it comes from my family. Okay. All right. We're all a little nuts, but at least we're halfway decent looking. That's all I say. All right, John, let me ask you this.

One last question, Mark. Why, Anthony? One last question. What? When you think about your life, what is the smartest part of you? Is it reading people? Is it doing math? What is the smartest part of you?

Reading people and math. I'm very good at man. Very, very good at man. I'm not good at writing letters, but I'm very good at man. But weren't you a lefty, ma? Didn't the nuns and your mother make you right with the right hand? Yes, I was a lefty, and, you know, many years ago, Tadius thought if you wrote with your left-handed, you had the witchcraft or some damn thing.

I don't know. Right, right. Yeah, no, they got really... So then maybe switch my hands. And from that, I don't have a very good handwriting because it's not really that good, I don't think. All right, but maybe the left-handed is, is the reason why you're... reason why you're such a genius. That could be part of the reason, right? Maybe. I don't know. My grandmother Defea was lefty. Right. Yeah, well, my son James is a lefty. He writes with the left hand.

He does? Yeah. Okay, so maybe it's an inherited thing, though, because my grandmother DeFiel was lefty for sure. And she believed in the overlook. And I used to have baloney curls as a little girl, and she would constantly do the oil and mortar on me. And I used to think she was weird. But, you know, as I got older, I was beginning to wonder if it was true. You're talking about the Milwaukee, the evil eye, right? The old school Italians would state a prayer to keep the evil eye away. With oil and water. And then she would have me sitting on the counter because it was little,

and she would say it was either a woman or a man, and I used to believe it. I was young, though. All right, ma. All right. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's enough for all the podcasts, actually, today.

But that's pretty good. All right, I love you, Ma. I love you very much, me. you later. I am Anthony Scaramucci and that was open book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. You can also text me at plus one 911-9-29-96. I'd love to hear from you.

I'll see you back here next week.