The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 464: Polina Pompliano - Profiles Of The World's Greatest Performers, Makers vs. Managers, & Building Trust Through Consistency

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Text, Hawk to 66866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help. you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my new book,

Starting point is 00:00:35 The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 66866. Now on to tonight's featured leader, the great Paulina Pompiliano. She is studying the world's most interesting people and companies at The Profile. She's a former writer at Fortune.

Starting point is 00:01:00 Some of the people she's written a profile on are Martha Stewart, Keanu Reeves, and The Rock. I am personally a paid subscriber to her work and find it both entertaining and extremely useful. She's a brilliant writer. A few of the topics we discuss, why consistency is the best way to earn trust. Then Paulina shares what she learned from the Rock. rock, then how to find new, unique, innovative ideas, then how to better organize your day and why you should bet on yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a great one with Paulina Popliano. All right, Palini, so good to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome.

Starting point is 00:01:49 Thank you for having me. Okay. I want to talk about something that I've read you write about that's important to me, and that is consistency. And so I'm going to read something you've actually written, and then let's talk about it, okay? You said, consistency is the best way to earn trust. I like this next part. Name a relationship in your life where you trust someone who was inconsistent. You can't.

Starting point is 00:02:19 I am a huge, I've published this podcast every Sunday for seven years, never missed. written 303 consecutive Mindful Mondays, never missed. Those are my email newsletter. And so I'm right with you, Belina, when it comes to consistency. Can you share more about why leaders need to be consistent, specifically when it comes to the foundational elements of a relationship, which is trust? And I really identify with this part. Yes. So a lot of people talk about, oh, if you're an entrepreneur or you're selling a product or you have a newsletter that you write, you need to earn people's trust. But for me, it was always very mushy, this idea of like, how do you earn people's trust, right?

Starting point is 00:03:06 Like, these are complete strangers. They maybe sign up for your newsletter. They maybe listen to your podcast. But how do you earn total strangers' trust? And I think for me, it kind of clicked. I was listening to this podcast and all of a sudden they were talking about, how trust is built over time. And then I was like, of course, it's, it's a promise. Whatever promise you make to your reader, to your customer, or to your partner, if you keep that promise and you

Starting point is 00:03:38 deliver, you're consistent with that promise over time, which is where I came up with that formula like consistency plus time equals trust. So if you're consistent over a long period of time, people learn to trust you. So like you, when I started the profile in February of 2017, it's now been a little over five years. I've never missed a single Sunday because of exactly that. I know that when somebody signs up for something, they expect that product. And so it works in personal relationships. It works in professional relationships. If you learn to be consistent and deliver on your promise over a long period of time, you can eventually charge people money and they're happy to pay you because they know that you're not just going to take their money and run

Starting point is 00:04:28 with it. Well, so I happily pay you. I'm a paying subscriber of the profile. Now, the interesting thing about that is there is a lot of stuff you publish for free. But part of it, like one of the other writers I pay for is Tim Urban. I pay his Patreon because I'm a big fan. I'm sure you're a fan of Tim as well. All good writers love Tim. But I'm so I say that one to let you know like I obviously really value your work. I value you can tell the work that you put into it. I love your consistency. I think it's an amazing quality that leaders should really strive for. But for those who don't know what is, can you share more what the profile is and a little bit of the backstory when you got started as well as what you were doing and, you know, leaving in the middle of a pandemic, all of that.

Starting point is 00:05:15 I'd love to hear that many story. Yeah, so I actually, the profile didn't start with the idea that it would one day be a business or that I would leave my full-time job to pursue this thing. At the time, this is in February of 2017, I was working at Fortune Magazine. I was covering technology and venture capital and small business. So I, it was all interesting. I really enjoyed my job. But at the time in 2017, I remember thinking, God, there's a lot of click base. just media was going to one of its cycles where a lot of people were getting laid off and a lot of like crap was being published. So I was like, there is still really, really good content out there. And I wanted to put together an email basically where I curate seven or eight long form profiles of interesting people that I would share with family and friends and we would talk about them. And these profiles would span across sports, entertainment, you know, like sometimes politics, but I try to kind of stay away from that. But it was just really interesting because I was writing, so I was writing the profile every single Sunday morning. And then in August of 2017, I took over term sheet, which was Fortune's Daily News,

Starting point is 00:06:40 about deal makers and MNA and, you know, what startup is raising funding. So the only day that I wasn't publishing a newsletter was Saturday morning. Every other day I was just, you know, it became my life. But it taught me, again, this idea of consistency keeps coming up. Like something can start is something really, really bad. So if you look, I mean, it's public. It's online. If you look at the first editions of the profile in 2017,

Starting point is 00:07:10 They're bad. Like I always say the formatting is bad, the tone is bad. It's super casual because I was writing it for family and friends. But over time, is people that I didn't know signed up because it kind of grew word of mouth. I still haven't done like proper marketing or advertising or anything for it. It grew word of mouth. And when I saw other people signing up, they started giving me feedback.

Starting point is 00:07:35 So they would be like, I hate your tone. Like this is not professional. You need to professionalize. why the hell is there a GIF in the middle of the email? And to be honest, I have no idea why I included a GIF. I think at the time, like, GIFs were cool and I was like, this is interesting. So I took out the GIF. I professionalized the tone. I began kind of really thinking about like, hey, could this become something bigger than just an email to family and friends? And over time, it did. So one thing led to another. And in 2020, I started thinking about, sorry, I started thinking about what would it look like

Starting point is 00:08:14 if I actually could do everything that I wanted to do with the profile. The problem was that I was working at a media company, which means that working on something else in content was a conflict of interest. So I couldn't technically create original content outside of fortune. So the profile was only curated. It was articles like, hey, you can read it here, you can read it here. And then I was like, but I want to do original interviews. I want to write original articles, all this kind of stuff. So I started thinking about it in January of 2020. And then by March, I had given a fortune notice that I was going to leave to work on this newsletter. I can only imagine what my coworkers thought because at the time, there still weren't that many reporters leaving their jobs to write

Starting point is 00:09:02 substacks. And the only person that I knew was Robert from the browser. And I talked to him. And I was like, I mean, it seems doable. Like, it seems like it could work. And then I had no idea that there was a global pandemic on the horizon. But it worked out. Thank God. It was crazy. Wow. Now two years into it. How's it going? It's better than, so I just looked and in 2021, revenue grew 33% year over year compared to 2020. So it's growing. And I am continuing to add value for the people who have paid for a premium membership. And the reason that I call it a membership and not a subscription, like a paying subscription, is because I think, the way I look at the profile is it's a community of people who share an interest in long form

Starting point is 00:10:03 journalism, but also improving their content diet and their content diet is something I talk a lot about. Like, you really, like the food that you put in your body really informs how you feel and the information that you put in your brain does the same thing, but we don't think about it like that. So to me, it's like if you become a member of this community, my promise to you is that I will help elevate your content diet week after week. So that's what I continue to do. Even though I've been working on the profile for five years now, two of them have been running it as a business and not just a free newsletter.

Starting point is 00:10:44 Outside of that, how is it? I found that building a platform and consistently shipping every week has created these amazing, so I left my full-time job in 2017 to do this and then explore and expand upon the other opportunities that arise because of building a platform, which you're doing the same thing, just more written form, mine's more audio, or those still written. Which has been cool is all of the amazing people gotten to me as well as the doors that just continue to open because you regularly ship and because you regularly provide value to people's lives. So, So in these two years since you've gone all in, what other streams, if any, of revenue are you

Starting point is 00:11:30 working on? And what are some of like the coolest opportunities that have come about since you've, you've gone all in on this? Oh, my gosh. So many. So it's really interesting. When I first left, I was so nervous that I wouldn't make enough money to match my salary at fortune. Because to me at the time, success meant you will leave your job and you will make the same or more in money that you did in salary at Fortune Magazine. When I left, I wasn't making that. I think it took me three to four months to match it and then go of it. That's fast. That's really fast.

Starting point is 00:12:10 I think there's something to be said about like when you go all in on something like you just said, when you're 100% laser focused on something, what you can make work. And I think in those early days, it wasn't just subscription revenue. I also freelanced. I also, I did a licensing deal with a media startup that would pay me for articles and I would provide for them. And then I also have a syndication deal with Business Insider. There's all these like sorts of different revenue streams that I didn't even know were a possibility until you, you, you, you know, you, you, you kind of start working on it. And the thing that I think I was most fearful of when I left my corporate job was that I thought,

Starting point is 00:12:56 oh my God, why would I ever leave this safe, comfortable job that pays me a salary and it is just so safe? And I kept focusing on the word safe. But then I started thinking about it. And I thought, well, especially with COVID, so many institutions were rocked by this global pandemic. They laid people off. They fired people. They restructure. They did all these things that you had no idea that could happen. And I'd like to think I was good at my job at fortune, but I'm not, you know, I'm replaceable. Like they could find somebody to do what I did for less

Starting point is 00:13:34 money. So when you do something on your own, though, what I've learned is that you actually have more of a safety net because you have different sources of income that if one dries up, you still have four others left. So that's kind of, I try to diversify the number of revenue streams where my money was coming from so that if one went away, I wasn't left like high and dry. And I like one of the great philosophers that you quote about this and that, of course, is Beyonce. I don't like to gamble, but if there is one thing I'm willing to bet on, it's myself. I really identify with this. Can you share more about your gamble and betting on yourself? Yes. So I think that probably the biggest realization I've had since leaving fortune is that

Starting point is 00:14:32 basically you have to bet on yourself and there is nothing more powerful than tying your brand to your own name, just like you've done, just like I've done. Basically, nobody can take that away from you. You can always get fired. You can always like, somebody can break up with you and you lose your relationship, your job, your career, you can lose everything. But if you've built a brand on your own name, that's the one thing that you ultimately control and nobody can take that away from you.

Starting point is 00:15:04 And I just really like that because you choose who you work with. You choose who you do business with. And there's no, when you work for a large corporation, for example, You don't exactly control the decisions that are made at the executive level, even if you don't agree with them. This way, you have so much freedom to do whatever you want. And you're much more careful because it's your own name and reputation attached to it. Okay, let's, I'm with you 100%. Let's get into some of the things that you've written about and then we're going to expand on them and riff on these.

Starting point is 00:15:39 So one of them is when you're writing, so obviously you do profiles on people, but you're also thinking of ideas. And one of the things you've written about was how to find ideas. Because I think this is important regardless if you're a writer or you're a leader within a business, I think thinking and finding of unique ideas and themes and ways to build a team or your culture or whatever it is are important. And you said you've written, for me, it's about being obsessed with the details. Love that. A great idea typically masquerades as a question in a friend's text message, a quote in a documentary, a line in a book or an observation on a walk. All those things you mentioned can't happen if your schedule is jammed back to back to back

Starting point is 00:16:25 to back to back without time to think, without time to observe the world, without time to really be a noticer of things, as Seth Godin might say. Can you share more about why this is, in a way I'm kind of talking about time management and creativity and finding ideas, but this is not just for you and me. This is for people who are leading teams within big organizations of how to create a schedule to be creative, to find ideas, to innovate within your place of work, that this is so important that you're finding a lot of times in dead spaces, text messages, documentaries, a book, a walk, right? Can you share more about that. Yes. Yeah, I've said before how I think my best ideas come from walks just because it's,

Starting point is 00:17:14 yeah, like you said, like it's allowing yourself space away from whatever you are working on. For example, I can't sit in front of a blank screen on Google Docs and come up with an idea of what to write about. It's really, really hard for me. Luckily, I published this thing on Wednesdays called The Profile Dossier, which is a deep dive on an individual person. One of the first, of the very first ones I did in 2020 was on Malcolm Gladwell. And he talked about how you need to basically create a world where like ideas come to you. And he talked about creating an environment that facilitates falling into intellectual rabbit holes. So what he said was there were three things you could do. First, you could take a walk through your town or city and look at the buildings and look at

Starting point is 00:18:05 things that peak your curiosity. The way that manifested for me was in March of 2020 when I was walking down 42nd Street in New York City, I was like, oh my God, like all these businesses are closed now. I wonder the people behind the business, like what they're thinking, what they're going through. So I contacted a few small business owners. And I asked them like, it was a snapshot in time. It was their feelings exactly in that moment when everything was so uncertain. And they were honestly, like, terrified. And they didn't know, like, would they shut down forever? Would they not?

Starting point is 00:18:41 But the idea is, like, that whole series that I did came from one observation that, like, there's seven stores on this block that have completely shut their doors. The second thing that Malcolm Gladwell said is when you're on Google and when you're searching for things, like, let's say you have an idea and you're searching on Google, the algorithm is trained to show you things that are very much related to the thing that you're already searching for. It's very, very hard to allow room for serendipity where you might come across something that you hadn't thought about. So his idea was like, get yourself physically into a library and identify books that you've liked reading in the past and look around

Starting point is 00:19:27 on the shelf to discover something new. Because the books around them, are probably tangentially related, but maybe not at all. And you could get a new idea that way. So basically break out of like the algorithms that run your life. And in the final suggestion that he had was look at the footnotes in articles or books that you like, because those things often lead you to other sources. And those other sources lead you to other sources. And that's a really, really easy way to fall into like intellectual rabbit holes.

Starting point is 00:20:01 And the other thing that I often think about is James Clear. When I met with him one time and he told me basically he, when he doesn't read enough content or books or high quality content, he actually doesn't have that many great ideas to write about. So if he's finding himself stuck in writing, he knows he needs to read more. When I interviewed him for the profile, he actually told me that he's created this environment, this idea generating environment by stacking books on his desk and just, but everywhere. Also, like near the dining room table, near the kitchen, wherever he is, he can just like pull a book and it's easy. It's an easy habit instead of having to go to, you know, your bookshelf far away and look for books.

Starting point is 00:20:54 I love that. or create a big fan of James. He lives about an hour away. So we've got to hang out a few times and talk about that. I remember when he's like, I got the title for my book. I'm like, really? What is it? He's like atomic habits.

Starting point is 00:21:07 I remember being like, I don't know. I don't know if that's. Oh, really? I don't know. And then it came out. I'm like, yeah, that's a pretty good title. I think it worked out okay, man. But no, I like the idea because like one of the things we instituted our house was like,

Starting point is 00:21:20 we do the family reading nights where we just read for 15 minutes. You have to read an actual physical book though. and then each person in the family would kind of go around and just talk a little bit about what you learned in those 15 minutes. And that actually generated so many ideas, obviously from what I was reading, but from what everybody else is reading to, even if they were children's books. So little things like that of like creating the environment to find ideas, I think is critical. So Paulina, you're a professional writer. And longtime listeners know that I have been beating the drum. that leaders must be both readers and writers for years.

Starting point is 00:22:00 In fact, I'm sure they're tired of hearing me talk about this. But the reason I bring it up is because nothing in my life has forced more clarity of thought than getting the ideas from my mind down onto the page. So can you share how the process of how much you're learning and becoming so much of a better communicator each time you sit down to get the thoughts from your mind down onto the page. Yes. When I was at Fortune, one of my editors, I was working on a long form feature that took me six months. And the first draft that I handed to him, he told me, I can tell that you're thinking is sloppy because you're writing is sloppy. And he was right. I was writing in absolutes, which is a very,

Starting point is 00:22:46 very kind of juvenile way to write where you say, you know, everybody at the company hated the executive. First of all, hate is a very strong word. I'm sure there's one person who loved him. Everybody is also, you know, that's an absolute. So his point was basically like instead of doing that, you should do enough reporting and enough reading and enough talking to people where you can write this where every single word means something and every single word is precise. So since then, I've kind of learned to write with precision. And I know that I haven't either thought about something enough or read about something enough or learned about something enough if my writing is filled with these everybody, this all or nothing thinking, basically. It's very generic.

Starting point is 00:23:39 It weakens your writing and it shows that you don't have clarity of thought. So true. I'm just enlightened by it because I was thinking, Recently I interviewed Dan Pink. He's written a number of amazing books. And one of the things I just kind of randomly said, hadn't even really thought about it leading up to it was, Dan,

Starting point is 00:23:59 every time you respond, it sounds so reasonable. And it's almost, he lives in the gray. What I mean by that is there are people who are like black and white. Like it's either this or it's that. But in the reality, the world is so messy and people are so messy that it's almost never black.

Starting point is 00:24:19 or white or A or B or one or two. It's almost always something in between. And I like this idea of being reasonable, of not thinking like, well, it's all or nothing or everybody or nobody. And I think as you do more work on yourself, as you read more, as you become more knowledgeable, as you interview more people, right, you become more reasonable. You live more in the mess, more in the gray and less in this black and white, you know? Yes. And that's exactly what you just said. I think the all or nothing type writing and thinking is very emotional, right? It reminds me of a little kid that's like, well, you always do this and you never say this. And it's like, well, okay, that's not true. But as you grow and as you read and as you talk to people, I love this idea of becoming more

Starting point is 00:25:13 reasonable because you learn how to use more of your lot the logical part of your brain versus the emotional yeah um i'm a big big fan of that so uh i also saw that you've written about daniel ek and daniel ek has talked and you can share more about his backstory and spotify and everything but specifically um i wrote about from the paul graham article on the makers versus manager's schedule getting back to leaders and creating space but um this is I published this in my first book, Welcome to Management, this little section on makers versus managers and building your schedule. And this is a book specifically for managers, trying to actually create a schedule more like a maker, even though they were managers. Can you expand on this

Starting point is 00:25:59 and what you learned from him in this makers versus manager schedule? Yeah. So he, I thought that was really interesting because he's the head of this massive international company with so many arms and so many people in different places and different time zones. Yet, when you look at his calendar, you won't see a bunch of meetings. I believe he said that his first meeting always starts after 10 a.m. And then the idea is that when you're operating on a manager's schedule, your calendar is littered with meetings that other people put on. Makers, on the other hand, they create a schedule with a lot of blocks of time

Starting point is 00:26:42 free time, basically unstructured time where you can think. Because if you think about it, you can't be creative in 15-minute chunks of time. You need to allow yourself to kind of read different things, connect ideas that are normally not connected. But in order for you to do that and for the ideas to marinate, you need big chunks of free time. So what he does is he creates those blocks and he's very intentional about the meetings that end up on his schedule. And the other lesson that I learned from him is he says, know the role that you're playing in a meeting. Never go into a meeting, not knowing what role you're playing. So as the CEO, obviously, he's sometimes the approver, the approver of things. While other times, he's just like a thoughtful participant where he

Starting point is 00:27:33 offers feedback. But the idea is like he needs to know exactly. what his part in this play of a meeting is before he enters, because otherwise it's a waste of everybody's time. What do you say to the leader? I get so much pushback on this one, or I rolls, or they're like, dude, you don't understand. Yet this guy is, he's a CEO of Spotify, correct? So this guy's CEO of Spotify. He's got tens of thousands of people that report up to him, tens of thousands of people that want him on their calendar, that want to get on his calendar. So for the person who's rolling their eyes saying, Paulina, Ryan, you guys, yeah, it must be nice. You can do this stuff as these creatives who create stuff, right?

Starting point is 00:28:19 But you don't get it. I'm an SVP of whatever. And so that's just how it has to go. What do you say to that person? It just, to me, when I hear that, it just means that you haven't optimized your life into systems, like, or your work. It means that there is a lot of kind of messy organizational things where you haven't, it's not clear who reports to whom and what meeting is for what purpose. And I think this is exactly where people should do some sort of like content slash time audit.

Starting point is 00:28:54 Color code your calendar and look at exactly where you're spending the most of your time. So if orange is you're spending time with the team, red is your, spending time with executives, et cetera, just look at where the majority of your time is going and then ask yourself, am I really necessary for this particular meeting? Whereas my time better spent thinking of ideas that will further the business instead of just being a cog in the wheel all the time. Is consulting, coaching, advising, is that part of your revenue stream? Is that part of your business? No, but there's like one-off things that I do. Do you want it to be? I don't know. I've thought about like the idea of I've written so many of these profiles and I've learned so many things that I should just kind of distill all the learnings into one like book or or a class or something like that. But not there yet. We'll see. Do you like teaching? Do you like? I'm curious because you're doing it right now. I mean and I know it's some of it's off the cuff. I didn't even. I sent you some of it's

Starting point is 00:30:04 notes and this was not part of it. So like I'm curious like if that's something that you want to do. I so I would I would love to. I like identity wise I can't see myself as a teacher because I think I think better when I write and I think my ideas are better written. But I love doing podcasts and I love doing things where it's kind of more spontaneous than super controlled like writing something. So this is this is great for me because it. forces me to think about all the people that I've profiled and really what I've learned from them and how I've incorporated it into my life. So I want to talk about criticism.

Starting point is 00:30:45 Okay. You've talked and you, or I think you quoted her and maybe you've talked to her, I'm not sure, but one of my all-time favorite leaders and favorite guests on this podcast, it's episode 78, so it was years ago is cat cold. Great. So one of the biggest lessons she's learned after years is how to put your ego aside and improve from criticism. She said, anytime you're criticized, assume first that it's correct, the act of simply considering that a fraction of the criticism may be accurate will keep you learning,

Starting point is 00:31:15 unlearning, fixing, and ultimately gaining respect. How do you deal with this? What do you think about this when it comes to criticism? Because in a way, if I combine that with some of Brne Brown stuff, where she's like, if you're sitting in the cheap seats, I don't have any time for you. I'm not listening to what you're saying versus this cat Cole saying, hey, if you get criticized, let's consider that it may be right. So there's kind of two competing forces there, which I think I agree a little bit with both of them. What do you think about this when it comes to criticism? It's so hard. This is one of the things that I, over time, it's taken me a while to become more thick-skinned. But when I was first writing as a reporter, I was pretty good at compartmentalizing. So I was

Starting point is 00:32:02 would be like, oh, it's okay. You know, if somebody didn't like this article, it's all right. But I wouldn't get that much feedback until I started writing a newsletter every week and then the Fortune one every single day. So when you do that, it's this like super intimate experience where you're in somebody's inbox every morning. Your name is right there. Your, you know, thoughts right there. It's probably the first thing they see in the morning. So when somebody disagrees with you or they don't like something that you did, they will let you know. And I wasn't used to that. So when I first started writing term sheet, the fortune news letter, I remember very specifically, in the beginning, I was really nervous because these were some of the most important people in venture

Starting point is 00:32:49 capital in Silicon Valley. There were founders, executives, investors, like all sorts of people. And it was a very well-respected readership, but also the author of this news that are there, had only been two before me and they were both fantastic. And they were both very well-respected and well-liked. Nobody had any clue who I was. So when I started writing it, I tried to mimic and imitate their voices, the previous author's voices, even though it wasn't my style. I try to sound serious and knowledgeable.

Starting point is 00:33:24 And then that didn't really work. So then I tried to be more like fun and that didn't work. And they let me know. It wasn't until I was like, you know what, screw it. I have to try to develop my own style because I can't keep doing this. People don't like it. But the very first critical email that I got, people felt like it was a condescending tone. They felt it was too juvenile. And the first one, I I was like, oh, what does this idiot know that, you know, I'm a great writer. But then I kept getting the same thing over and over again. I was like, okay, well, maybe they have a point. And I think it's about respect. The Brne Brown and the cat call, the way they converge is you should consider it first, but when it comes from a well-respected customer or readership or something like that, I'm not going to listen to every troll on Twitter who, you know, their intention isn't good. So if the intent is good and not malicious, I think you absolutely have to take it into consideration. It's all about the intent. I think it's like I found it to be so useful to create like a board,

Starting point is 00:34:40 essentially. And I've thought about actually formalizing this and paying them. Like I've talked to some people about like even though a solo entrepreneur or business that is surrounded by contractors to help with editing and all the other things that I do. But have this board who you trust, you admire and respect and you know. And I mean, this is actually a certainty. You know that they want what's best for you. And I found that like, and I feel really lucky that I have this informal board currently that I can regularly go to. And that's made a massive difference. It's these like really solid, great relationships where you feel like the love that they they so badly want you to do well.

Starting point is 00:35:25 You know what I mean? So I'm curious, what do you think about that when it comes to relationship building and surrounding yourself with a little bit of a team to help you? Because it can be lonely doing this type of stuff. But when you're surrounded by them, I found it helps a lot. Yes. Yes. I think it was Troy Carter, who was Lady Gaga's, like, first.

Starting point is 00:35:45 manager, he said that he has like a personal board of directors in his personal life, where these are people who he knows, like, they want me to win. They have no other investment other than like they just were friends. They like me or their mentors. And he's like, sometimes it feels like a gut punch when they tell you, no, this is, you know, you need to do X and you're doing Y and you're going down this path where I think you should be going down this path. But it's just like so helpful to have those people that, you know,

Starting point is 00:36:15 you know they won't like bullshit you just to gain favor. Those people are really important. And you can do this professionally as well as personally. I think that's the cool part. Yeah. How do you do this in your life? Yeah. So I mean, so when you're basically, I'm a one person team right now. I write, I read, I do all of these things that some people have, you know, editors, they have a lawyer looking over their stuff. Like there's all sorts of things you can do. For now, it's just me. So what I've done is I have a handful of people is, again, a gut check, but also like, hey, can I send you this article and you can look it over and tell me if it makes sense or I'm totally just like off? And I know those people will have an honest, honest feedback. But it also doesn't mean that you should always like listen to

Starting point is 00:37:12 if that makes sense. I talk about like you should be quantitative and qualitative in your decisions. I look at Google Analytics. Like I'm maniacal about the data. What did people read? How long do they spend engaging with it? All this stuff. But then I also, you know, do a survey at the end of the year asking people like with

Starting point is 00:37:35 words, tell me what you liked and didn't like. Because if you look on the profile website, my most popular. article is one about relationships. And now it's like, oh, is it because, you know, I should steer my content towards relationships more? Or is it because the internet in general loves reading relationship content? And that's probably what it is. So, you know, when you don't know, just ask. Yeah. What did it feel like? I'm all over the place, but that's because I have a ton of thoughts. What did it feel like when the rock lifted you up and said, look at this. Lena is amazing and tweeted out your work on the work that you've written about it. What was that

Starting point is 00:38:17 like? I would love to have been in your house that day just to see how that, if there's a celebration or like, what do you do? I mean, that was pretty cool. It's still cool. It's been a while. So, okay, I will tell you exactly what happened when that happened because it was, I was in like disbelief. So it was the day before Christmas. I think it was Christmas Eve. And I do these dossiers every Wednesday, right? Like, I don't always talk to them. the person. It's mostly I do research on every podcast. They've done video they've done every profile that's written about them. And then I try to synthesize all these things into a one pager about like, here's what you can learn from this person. So I had done one on The Rock,

Starting point is 00:39:01 but I thought that it was a little bit too inspirational rather than practical. So I was like, I don't know if this is my best work, but it's interesting. So let me publish it around Christmas. I don't know if, you know, whatever. So I published it and then I tagged The Rock on Twitter. And then I went on a walk with my dad in Atlanta. And we were on a walk. And all of a sudden, my phone started like,

Starting point is 00:39:32 people started calling and texting. But I wasn't looking at it because I was trying to be present. But at one point I was like, I think, like I think I might have done something where I got canceled on the internet because this is not real long. That was my first thought, Ryan. I don't know why. So I was like, let me just check. And then every text message was like, oh, the rock, the rock.

Starting point is 00:39:52 And I was like, what is happening? And he ended up, because I tagged him on Twitter, he saw the article and then he ended up tweeting four more times about it. And then he shared it on Facebook. He shared it on Instagram. I'm from Bulgaria. So then I got calls from like Bulgarian television. like, oh, you know, come talk about the rock.

Starting point is 00:40:13 I'm like, I barely speak Bulgarian. But it was great. It was just a flurry of craziness. And I think the one thing that you learn from that is I talk about David Porell has this. I once read, he wrote this and it just stuck in my head. He said everything that you put out into the world is a vehicle for serendipity. So, you know, when you write something, you just never know whose eyes it's going to land in front of. So take that extra step of tagging them on Twitter or forwarding them to someone who may know them.

Starting point is 00:40:47 For example, I did a dossier on Danny Meyer and one of my former editors knows him. So she forwarded my dossier to him and he contacted me. He was like, this is great. Like I really enjoyed this. Thank you for featuring me. And that led to an interview that I did with him later. Do you offer this as a paid service? The dossier is.

Starting point is 00:41:10 No, no. I mean, I mean like me paying you to do a dossier on me. I'm doing me as an anybody. Have you thought about that? I've thought about it. I've thought about it. It's just, it's a very fine line between like PR and true, you know, not, not journal. Like Packy does this, but you know, you follow Packy McCormick's.

Starting point is 00:41:32 But like, he has his one that is not paid. And then he has the one that is paid. Usually they're about companies. but in a way I feel like I mean not trying to be an advisor here but like a lot of people would would because you're so good at it I think a lot of people would would say I would love for polina to do a deep dive on my life even if there's going to be some negative things written too because it's this it's it's a it's a great storyteller that then can tell my story and then someone like if you know you could say hey just read this dossier on me like you know what I mean when it comes your business. or building, building whatever it is. You know, I don't know. I thought that may be an interesting thing to do. Yeah, that's actually a great idea.

Starting point is 00:42:14 I hadn't thought about it like that. Because I think, but I also think you're rare in the, even the negative stuff. I would be open to being one of your paying clients, honestly. I'm not just fluffing. I mean, I really, I think that would be kind of cool. Because I learned so much through like somebody doing that work. Like one of the services I provide for people, I do these 360s. And so I interview a ton of people above the.

Starting point is 00:42:38 the side and below, like within organizations and others that they know and write this, this giant comprehensive report. And then we create an action plan. And it's at times, I hope it's life changing. And so I think when somebody does a deep dive on you, it can really hopefully, and they do it with the mode of being a storyteller. I think you'd be kind of cool. So, you know what I mean? Yeah. And I also think that it's interesting to have, do you ever think about like, how do other people see me? Of course. Because you think you see yourself in a certain light. And then I think it's actually very, very hard. I was surprised that the Rock liked it so much because it's very hard to do something like that without ever talking to someone and capture their essence,

Starting point is 00:43:18 essentially. But if you read enough about them and you watch them enough, you kind of get an idea for it. So I think that's a great idea, another revenue stream. Anyway, I'm in line as one of them. I seriously, we'll email after. But the funny thing about the Rock, big mahalo to Paulina for her profile d'assay on my 56 favorite subject myself. I really enjoyed this read and think you all will too, especially the parts, and this is cool, especially the parts about my arrest as a teen for theft, fighting, and check fraud and joy. And I thought like, so he liked the fact that you didn't just cover the, oh, he played football at Miami and then he was a wrestler. Like, I think he seemed to like the fact that you, you went there. So speaking of that, storytelling. Okay. Storytelling is a skill

Starting point is 00:44:05 that can be developed and should be developed by leaders. So, for example, if you're a VP of sales at a company, you probably have town hall meetings. You have national sales meetings. You have these meetings where you are addressing your team. And if you show up and you put the boring Excel sheet up about, here's our growth, it's 2% year every year, quarter over quarter, here we go, let's go team. Or versus a guy like I worked for named Brian Miller, one of the best VPs ever,

Starting point is 00:44:34 Brian was so intentional about showing up with an amazing story from somewhere out in the world. And then he did it was so great at tying it back to us. And I mean, I worked for more than 10 years ago and I still remember his town halls. Now, he worked his butt off on these things. He was really intentional. I say I share this, Paulina, because you've developed this skill of storytelling. What are some ideas and overall philosophy on how. anybody could become a better storyteller.

Starting point is 00:45:10 Yes. Okay. So this goes back to the idea of you got to get rid of like the generic, absolute fluffy writing. And the way you do that is by concentrating and looking for the details and the little tiny nuggets of what separate you from me from somebody else and what makes this story. unique in this moment. One of my favorite profiles, which it's so funny that it's one of my favorite profiles given that I do not care about the subject at all. It's on Justin Bieber. It's in GQ, I believe. And the reason it's so good, it's written by Katie Weaver is because it shows you things about him that you would, you and I probably would know, probably would know

Starting point is 00:46:04 but wouldn't think to include that in the story. So, for example, when she talks to him, he's this young guy, he's a teenager. This was a few years back. And he's kind of lonely. And to show that he's kind of lonely, she used certain anecdotes of like, hey, Justin Bieber wants to go bowling. But in order for him to go bowling, they need to shut down the entire bowling alley just for him.

Starting point is 00:46:31 And he's there like bowling by himself, playing games. It's like, it's really sad. That's one thing of it. Another thing is like, okay, but how does he act? Like, I can't visualize Justin Bieber. I just think of like some spoiled celebrity brat. But the way she talks about him is he's actually kind of like awkward and he doesn't understand humor and sarcasm. So to show the person, the reader that she says, when you talk to Justin, he just kind of stares at you. And there's no back channeling. He breaks back channeling norm. and back channeling norms are what you're doing right now, which is like nodding when I'm talking or making certain gestures to let me know that like you're listening to what I'm saying. So little things like that make you picture exactly what's going on. And Katie, the profile writer, I listened to a podcast with her. And she said that the reason that she thinks that people enjoy reading profiles on people so much is because, in good profiles, obviously,

Starting point is 00:47:34 is because she read somewhere that when human beings see things in slow motion, the brain really enjoys watching things in slow motion because it allows it to take in all the details and see everything. And that's like very satisfying to the brain. It's the same with profiles or good stories, good storytelling. You have enough detail where the person can take it all in. and it's not just generic, you know, Ryan went to the store and then he saw this interesting dog and whatever. It's a lot of vivid details and vivid imagery that gives you the satisfaction you want. Wow.

Starting point is 00:48:14 So much there. I am curious, though, from your profiles that you've done, what are a couple that stand out that, like, whether they were so fun to write or they changed? changed your mind or they really made you rethink or like, oh, God, this is amazing. Like, are there like the first couple, I'm thinking of people who are going to go and look at your stuff for the first time of, I know the most popular one. I didn't know that prior to talking to you was the relationship one. But what are some of the profiles that you would say, hey, you should go check this one out. So there's one that I did.

Starting point is 00:48:51 I'll give you one where I interviewed the person and one where I didn't. The one where I did not interview the person was Keanu Reeves. So I knew nothing about him at all. And then I started looking into his story and oh my God. Like he has like what a life he's lived. It's he doesn't really do media like press. He doesn't really sit down for interviews. I think he's done like one profile where he's like agreed to work with the writer and be interviewed.

Starting point is 00:49:22 But otherwise like he's very, very private. And it's because he's had a lot of tragedy in his life. like his longtime partner died in a car accident. He lost a child. His dad went to prison. He's gone to all these things, but he's kind of become a really, really kind,

Starting point is 00:49:46 generous person because of it. Yeah. And so he's, Kenne Reeves is known as a nice guy, but I didn't really know why. And then I started reading, and it was just like, you know, from the Matrix series,

Starting point is 00:49:57 he gave a percentage to the cost of, human design and the special effects team because he's like without them there's no movie like why don't you get a proceed of the of the earnings and all this stuff so anyway he's he's just like a cool dude and i would have never known anything about him if i hadn't sat down and just studied um studied him and there's so much to be said even if you never talk to someone you can learn a lot about or you can learn a lot from watching them speak and watching them do interviews so he's very reserved in the way he sits his body language. He's very kind of soft-spoken. And you learn to embody those traits if you're trying to learn from someone and if you want to be

Starting point is 00:50:43 more like them. The other person that I've interviewed, that I've actually interviewed, that I thought was fascinating, was Brandon Stanton, who's the creator of Humans of New York. So I went to the University of Georgia, so did Brandon. But we were a few years apart. And since I went, since I was in college, I was just fascinated by Humans of New York because I saw it to rise. When I was at the student newspaper in college, we wrote an article about him. It was Georgia alum, like moves to New York and has 10,000 followers on Facebook, like for his little blog thing that he posts pictures on. And we were like, I mean, he's made it. This is viral, viral.

Starting point is 00:51:27 Now he has like over 20 million across social. It's insane. But he's the type of person that I had never seen anything really in the press. It was really hard to do a dossier on him because he's very private and he pushes his work very much in front of himself. It speaks for itself. He doesn't, he's not really the spokesman for it. So when I got to interview him, I think it was in 2021 last year, maybe. It was so interesting because I noticed that when I was asking him questions about his work, he was very eloquent. He could speak forever about it. But when I asked him questions about himself, he kind of shut down. He was like, I don't, like, I don't want to talk about it. There's just last week there was a profile in New York Magazine on him. That's also very interesting.

Starting point is 00:52:19 But it's fascinating to see how much you can tell about something. somebody by interviewing them. Yeah. So cool. So over the years, you've read so much. You've personally interviewed people. You've taken the next step to write about them, right? You've curated a lot of stuff. So I'm curious, Pauline, when you think about all these people and think about the commonalities of them who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, what? What are some of those things that those people have in common behaviors, virtues, traits? What are some of those things? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:53:03 So the first one that comes to mind is you have to be obsessed with whatever you're doing because I think that obsession translates to your customers or your readers or your employees. I've done so many dossiers where, you know, in business school they tell you, you need to start any business, you need a business plan, you need to figure out who your target demographic is, like all this stuff. But if you think about some of the most interesting work that's out there, it didn't originally start as a business. I mean, the profile. No, I never started this as a business. Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York did not start it to become this, you know, massive phenomenon that now I think he raised $8 million for people last year.

Starting point is 00:53:55 just from his platform. And it started as like a genuine curiosity or passion that you have for something. And then because you obsess about it, other people will obsess about it. I wrote this somewhere. Oh, okay. Mark Lour, he's a serial entrepreneur, diapers.com, he sold it to Amazon, and then later at Jet.com. He said, building something that customers love is the hardest part.

Starting point is 00:54:24 and then later you can work backward to get a profit. And I would even go a step further to say it's not what your customers would love. It's like what you would love. And then you can always back into making money. Like we just talked about, I would do these dossiers all day, every day for free. But there's always like you just said, you can commission, somebody can commission a dossier for you to do on them. That's a revenue stream. You can always back into things that you genuinely love doing.

Starting point is 00:54:54 The second thing that comes to mind is that really, the really, really exceptional people, the people that you like leave behind a legacy are the people who know that they may fail multiple times, but they can always reinvent themselves. So I'll fail. I'll hit rock bottom. You can take everything away from me, but I'll still come back and build something else. Martha Stewart, perfect example of this. I mean, she, there are very few people who can appeal to both to my grandmother, to my mom,

Starting point is 00:55:31 and to me, like three different generations, one person. It's wild. But, you know, she started in the 90s. She had an empire. Then she went to prison. Then she came out of prison. And then she started working with like Snoop Dog and started using the cutting edge technology, things that she knew what she was doing.

Starting point is 00:55:50 It was very, it was very well planned. calculated and that's why she's so successful. Another person like that is Taylor Swift. She transitioned a number of different genres. And a third person is, I mean, you may hate her or lover, but Kim Kardashian. I think she's incredibly intelligent in the way that she's actually, the thing that I just talked about, she's paired obsession and loyalty and reinvention. The people who follow the Kardashian family will follow them anywhere. And they proved that with their e-show canceling that and starting a new. I'm sure the loyal viewers will follow.

Starting point is 00:56:33 And also, the Kardashians are, I mean, if you think about what she started as, she had a sex tape and a reality TV show, then she reinvented herself. she started like she had a store, then she started a company, she started this game, then she went to law school. Like you can see the constant reinvention and there's going to come a period of time where maybe Gen Z doesn't know how Kim Kardashian started. They see her as this, you know, advocate for human rights that gets people out of prison. So it's just, I think it's very interesting.

Starting point is 00:57:10 If you think about success, yes, it's great, but it's actually like, can you repeat it over and over and over again? And those are the people that last the longest. And they all have what I would say is movement. I interviewed John Maxwell a few times, you know, the leadership legend, hundreds of books. And he's, you know, he's at an age where a lot of people would be retired and living on the golf course and flying around and private. But Jett says as he's earned enough to do that. And I remember, I'll never forget it. He said, Ryan, nobody wants to follow me when I'm sitting my butt in the sand. You know, not that I won't go enjoy myself from time to time, but he's moving. He's like, you got to move. That's where like growth

Starting point is 00:57:56 happens through movement. And if I'm trying to impact people and make a difference and lead, I got to be moving. And that's, I've always like, yeah, that's a good point. And the people who make it happen, they don't, they're not sitting their butt in sand all the time. They may, like I they may have celebrate and go have a good time for a little bit, but after a few days, we're like, it's time to go. It's time to go, you know? And that's also how you fight complacency, ultimately. Last one I'll share with you, Grant Ackett, he's this chef who had the number one

Starting point is 00:58:27 restaurant in the world called Alinia in Chicago. It's very, like, experimental, it's very beautiful, it's very interesting. And he basically would have, there was. would create this menu and this menu would kill it. Like it'd be the best one they've ever done. And he would tell his team after six months, blow it all up. I want a brand new menu. And they'd be like, what are you talking about? This is the best one we've ever done. And he's like, no, because if we don't do that, then we are at risk of becoming complacent and you're not constantly innovating when you're forced to start from scratch over and over again. I love it.

Starting point is 00:59:06 One more, Pauline, if you have time. to somebody who's a bit earlier in their career, maybe they graduated college in the last couple of years, and they want to impact people in a positive way, leave a dent in the world, right, do it in an admirable way. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person?

Starting point is 00:59:28 Yes. So absolutely, I would say, don't tie your identity to something that can be taken away from you. I learned this lesson the hard way. I think when you're young, you're very eager for status and prestige, especially from your peers. I remember feeling very jealous of my friends who were working at these big companies and they were like making money. And it was, I was just like, oh my God, like I, at the time, I didn't have a job.

Starting point is 00:59:57 So I was like freelancing. And I couldn't really tie my name to anything. So when you go to a party, they're like, what do you do? You're like, oh, I don't know. So I think the biggest thing is no matter where you are, no matter how prestigious like your job is or where you work or who you're with, you have to do something on the side that you only solely do for yourself. Because one day, if everything goes away, your entire identity doesn't crumble, which is what happens when a lot of people retire. They're like, oh my God, who am I? Like for 20 years, I tied my identity.

Starting point is 01:00:38 name to this company and now it's gone. So early on, just make sure that you're doing something for yourself, even if it doesn't make money, even if you do it, you know, once a month, that you know, hey, this is one thing I do for myself and only I control it. Nobody can take it away from me. Love it. I highly encourage people to go to readtheprofile.com. This polina's work, it's a substack and sign up and pay for it. The reason why is, one, it's supporting amazing work. Two, and this is selfishly for the reader, this is like Ramit's book buying rule, Ramit Sati's been on the show a few times. And that is even if you get one idea, one, and let's say you spent whatever, is it 50 bucks a year? I'm not sure exactly what it is.

Starting point is 01:01:22 Yeah, $10 a month. Right. 50 bucks a year, whatever it is. If you get one idea over the course of an entire year and it only cost you 50 bucks and this idea potentially change the trajectory of your life, that's the greatest bargain in the history of the world. That's why you should buy books. That's why you should sign up for these for for for subsacts like Polina. Like I mean, you can tell I mean this because, and I do it. Because you support excellent writers and excellent work. You support people who are putting their their life into something. And it's not a charity. It's, it's for you. It's for the reader. It's going to potentially change your life. Like, I don't know which article or which one will do it, but I would be willing to bet that there will be some stuff there that will really help you out.

Starting point is 01:02:14 So I'm a big believer in it. I love that you do it. I'm a fan. And so I'm just so appreciative of you being here today, Polina. I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. That was a great conversation. We could have gone another two hours. Love it.

Starting point is 01:02:28 Thank you. All right, Paulina. Okay. I am a huge Paulina Pompeliano fan. Love her work at the profile. You could probably tell how much I appreciate how precise of a thinker and writer she is. As we talked about on this episode, a few of my notes. Sustained excellence comes from being obsessively curious about what you do and knowing that failure is part of the process.

Starting point is 01:03:03 It's how you choose to respond that really matters. And then the advice she received from David Perrell, also previous podcast guests, David said, everything you put into the world is a vehicle for serendipity. And how about that story that she wrote on The Rock? And he loved it so much. He shared it all over the place. It really helped change the trajectory of Paulina's business. And then create your own personal board of advisors.

Starting point is 01:03:35 listen to criticism, but only from people who want you to win, only from people who care about you and love on you and want you to do well, not the trolls online, not the ones as Bernay Brown would call in the cheap seats. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did with Paulina. and I would love it if you would tell a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with Polina Pompliano. I think it'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you continue to write reviews on Apple Podcast and rate the show, hopefully five stars,

Starting point is 01:04:21 you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 464: Polina Pompliano - Profiles Of The World's Greatest Performers, Makers vs. Managers, & Building Trust Through Consistency

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