We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP561: Discovering Your Hidden Genius w/ Polina Pompliano

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. On today's episode, I'm joined by Polina Pompiliano. For the past five years, Polina has been studying and profiling the most successful and interesting people and companies in business, entertainment, tech, sports, and more. She curated all of her most impactful findings into her new book called Hidden Genius, which we'll be covering today. During this episode, we discussed how Polina defines success,

Starting point is 00:00:25 how we can master the skill of mental toughness, How to ensure we have a healthy content diet? Why you should bet on yourself by tying your identity to your name and so much more. Another topic I found really interesting during this discussion was the topic of creativity and developing the ability to connect the dots between two different fields. Charlie Munger has made famous the idea of developing a lattice work of mental models and to develop the skill of connecting interrelated disciplines. That is one of the really fascinating things about Plina's book.

Starting point is 00:00:56 The individuals covered in our book aren't really in related industries, but we can pull the most useful lessons and implement them into our own lives, which makes people-based learning so powerful. Later in our conversation, Plena shares her own method for connecting the dots between different disciplines and ideas. I really enjoyed Polina's book and certainly will be revisiting it in the future. With that, here is my conversation with Polina Pompiliano. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we study the financial market, and read the books that influence self-made billionaires the most.

Starting point is 00:01:33 We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Investors Podcast. I'm your host today, Clay Fink. I'm absolutely thrilled to be joined by Polina Pompiliano. Polina, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Clay.

Starting point is 00:01:56 It's always a pleasure to be here. Well, I just finished your new book, The Hidden Genius, and I really enjoyed it. I just think that a good place to start here is with the question that changed the trajectory of your life. So, Plena, I want to ask you, how do you define success? This is a great question because I was on the subway when I read this speech by Anna Quinlan and it talked about how she defines success. And she says something like, if success looks good to everybody else, but it doesn't feel good in your heart, then it is not success at all.

Starting point is 00:02:30 And I think when people hear that the profile studies successful people or that the book features successful people, I think most people just kind of like scoff and brush it off and they're like, ugh, like another book about success. But that's because I think most of us define success as a measure of wealth, of fame, of status of some sort. But that's not at all how I define it. And if you read the book, you'll see that a lot of the people are not your traditionally successful people. To me, success means that you've had like a life well lived. Or when I think of like a successful person, I think of somebody who's been through the ups and downs of life. And they've made it out on the other side with lessons to share with other people. And that's why in the profile, you'll notice in my newsletter, I share stories of like failure, persistence, and then redemption.

Starting point is 00:03:22 Like I want to see the people who have succeeded, failed, learned, succeeded again, and then like explain to others their men. missteps, they're like everything because I think as you learn about successful people, you always have to ask yourself the question. Am I willing to make the same missteps, the same sacrifices, the same tradeoffs as this person? Because if not, then that is not success to you. If you want to be like Al Pacino, but you don't want to have like, you know, failed marriages and whatever, then then you won't follow in those same footsteps. But it's because that's not what success looks like to you. It reminds me a lot of Warren Buffett's living by an inner scorecard and judging yourself by your own values and what you truly believe in rather than seeking these external

Starting point is 00:04:10 validations from others. And in your newsletter called the profile, you profile all of these successful people in various walks of life. I'd like for you to talk about what you call people-focused learning and touch on why you dove into this approach to learning of studying great people and trying to emulate what they do well. People focus learning to me is the notion that people and their stories are at the center of any learning pursuit. So whenever I want to learn about something, I don't just go learn about the idea. Instead, I pick a person who best embodies that idea that I want to learn about.

Starting point is 00:04:48 So if I want to learn about decision making, for example, or decision making in times of chaos and uncertainty, maybe I look at Annie. who's a former poker player and she has to make decisions quickly with limited information in times of uncertainty. And you can learn so much from people, I believe, because people trigger emotion in you and empathy and emotion triggers memory. So every time that if you think about like the memories that you have something going on in your life, it was probably tied to some sort of emotion, whether it's excitement, sadness, whatever. So that's how I learn when there's an idea I want to learn about. I go through the people and try to put myself in their shoes

Starting point is 00:05:33 and be like, hmm, what was that person feeling when they made this decision or what was that person thinking and how they evaluated this? It's just so much more helpful to me and it makes more sense to me to learn from people's stories because as humans, we love stories and storytelling, then it is to just dive into like cold, hard facts about an idea that may not stay with you. And then your book starts out by discussing creativity. And I generally think a lot of people associate creativity with something you're either born with or you're not born with. And you talk about how creativity is actually a skill that can be learned and improved upon. And you tell the story of a chef named Grant Aitchett, who he'd create this element of surprise and he'd build this experience off of the meals that he served because he was a chef.

Starting point is 00:06:21 And in our modern world, creativity seems to be more and more important. with the things like the rise of AI and computers and technology. And a lot of these technologies lack creativity. So what were some of the breakthroughs you discovered in studying creativity and the people that you profiled? Okay. So Grant is absolutely an incredible chef. His restaurant, Alinea, is kind of this super innovative, super cutting edge restaurant in Chicago.

Starting point is 00:06:48 And it's so fascinating to me. So there's three things that I think I learned about creativity just in general. but they all apply here. One time when I was studying Malcolm Gladwell, he said something that really stuck with me, and I think it's why AI is not very good at creativity. But he says that people are often drawn to things that are done imperfectly

Starting point is 00:07:10 and that kind of leave a taste in your mouth. So he says that, you know, whether it's art, movies, books, music, people talk more about the flawed things than they do about like the super perfect, you know, obvious. things. So he has a great quote here. He says, you want an aftertaste and that comes from not everything being perfectly blended together. And that aftertaste, obviously, is something that a human creates. There will be imperfections no matter how hard you try. AI may create something quote unquote

Starting point is 00:07:42 perfect, but according to whose standards. Like, what is perfect? So I love this example because Taylor Swift had this song called Blank Space and she had a lyric in there called, it was like, got a long list of ex-lovers, but people kept mishearing the lyric as all the lonely Starbucks lovers. So it was really funny because that's literally what it sounded like. But that imperfection in her song led it to become super popular. And it was on the, I think it was number one on the charts for nine weeks in a row. So it just shows you like the imperfect things are things people talk about, people want to discuss.

Starting point is 00:08:16 Like it's much more human. And I think that's why we're drawn to it. The second thing I learned, and this is, I definitely learned this from Grant, is that, a lot of the most creative people in the world, they borrow ideas from different disciplines and apply it into their own industry. So it's really interesting because the human brain, this is based on research, naturally forms relationships between two different inputs, no matter how dissimilar they are. So if you like think of two things, after a while, your brain will naturally start making connections between the two. So Grant, for example, he, yes, he is a chef, he deals with food and the

Starting point is 00:08:52 restaurant business, et cetera. But he's always kind of looking at the world through this kaleidoscope of food is what he calls it. So if he's at a museum, he's looking at a large scale painting and he's like, wow, that's beautiful. I want to eat off of that. Suddenly, that thought turns into the tablecloth of Eidolina is now a piece of art. They drawn it with all sorts of different sauces and whatever and make it look like a piece of art that you're eating off of. Or another time, he was listening to a song by Rage Against the Machine, and he was like, wow, all these peaks and valleys, like the way the song flows,

Starting point is 00:09:31 kind of mirrors what I want the dining experience to be. I wanted to be a story. I wanted to have these really high highs and these really low lows, and as you're going through it, I wanted to tell a story. So he's using music and art and whatever to take ideas from those disciplines and apply it to his own. And I think everybody in a creative field who is considered very original actually does a lot of that. And the third thing is that I think a lot of people think of creativity is inspiration or amuse or something divine that just happens to you and have to be in

Starting point is 00:10:06 the right mindset to create. But actually, I learned that creativity is less a fleeting moment of inspiration and it's much more like a muscle that can be trained or a skill that can be learned. And it's something that's done through consistency. So the more consistent you are in your work, the more ideas you'll generate. So Grant, he was at one point the best chef in the world he was considered. And then ironically and crazily enough, the best chef in the world got stage four tongue cancer. Like of all the places, he got tongue cancer. So it was interesting because suddenly like he couldn't taste. He was going through chemotherapy. He lost a bunch of his taste. He lost a bunch of his taste buds. And what he learned from that experience is that actually, taste is a very small

Starting point is 00:10:52 portion of the taste buds in your mouth. Actually, a lot of it is from visually how you see the food and the smell too. So taste is kind of like an all-encompassing experience. Your mouth and your tongue is just one part of it. And so he became even more creative because he started thinking about like, how can I not think my way to creativity, but how can I use everything I've learned to make this menu even crazier, even more innovative. So he started playing with visual things, like visual illusions. He would take a strawberry and make it look like a tomato, but taste like a strawberry. And then he would take a tomato, make it look like a strawberry and have it taste like a tomato.

Starting point is 00:11:35 So all these things like basically he's learned over the years, not just from the taste in his mouth, but to study every day, in and out, in this industry. And I think that that's probably the biggest misconception about creativity is it's not a muse. It's just butt in chair doing the work. And one of the other interesting insights I found related to creativity is that those who have like the true breakthroughs in a field are those who are, you know, the creative types. Whereas everyone else is just the followers to use this food analogy, the trailblazers are the ones that create the new recipes and then everyone else just kind of uses those recipes and

Starting point is 00:12:15 uses them in their own life. And I think that's really interesting. And you talk about Steve Jobs as well in this chapter and he's just been a trailblazer and all of what Apple's done. And then everyone else is just kind of following their lead trying to do what they've already done. Yeah, it's like what Tim Urban said about Elon Musk. He said there's chefs and then their cooks. The chefs create the original recipes and then the cooks follow that blueprint. But even if they make a new dish, it's a dish that's already derivative of what's been done before based on the chef's recipe. It's really hard to be a chef. Another common theme you discovered in your profiles was high levels of mental toughness. And naturally, the first person that pops into my

Starting point is 00:12:56 mind is David Gaggins. And you talk all about him in your book. He's a former Navy SEAL and someone who's just built a brand around mental toughness. What are the three tools that Gaggins uses to master this scale of mental toughness. Yeah, so the three tools that I talk about in the book that I found personally useful when I was training for a marathon, but also I think you could apply it to everyday life is the first rule that David learned came from the Navy Seals. So it's called, he dubbed it the 40% rule. And it's basically why, you know, it's the reason that when most people hit a wall while running a marathon, you know how they say like, you're going to hit the wall at like mile 18 or 20 or whatever, once you hit a wall, even though you think there's absolutely no way I can run

Starting point is 00:13:43 six more miles, you still do. And that is, he says, basically, when your mind is telling you that you're done, that you're exhausted, that you cannot possibly go any further, you're actually only 40% done. So he's trying to say that like a lot of times your mind has these exit ramps where it's like, I'm exhausted, let's just take the easy route. But then he knows this and he knows that he still has, he's only 40% done, so he doesn't stop. He compares it to kind of like a governor on a car. A lot of times the governor will stop, it will prevent you from going like 120 miles an hour, even though the car can go 120 miles an hour. So depending where your governor is set in your mind, you can push past that, but that's kind of when you'll feel, oh my gosh, I'm done.

Starting point is 00:14:31 The second tool that he talks about is the accountability mirror. So it's kind of a way that he uses to undergo like controlled emotional duress. So before he became a Navy SEAL, David was actually, he had crushingly low self-esteem, he had asthma problems, he was overweight, all of the things he had that he personally didn't like about himself. So he wanted to change and he wanted to become a more confident version of himself. So he created this thing he called the accountability mirror. And what that meant is he went into the bathroom, he looked in the mirror, and he looked at himself, and he said, you're fat, you're lazy, you're dumb, like, what are you going to do about it? And to most people, that sounds really harsh to say to yourself, but he says, you can't change

Starting point is 00:15:17 unless you tell yourself the truth. So to him, that's what he saw in the mirror. So to begin to change those habits, he started posting little post-it notes all around the mirror saying, like, okay, what are these tiny goals that I want to set if I want to not be this person that I am now. So it would be like, go in a two-mile run, go one day without lying to people for affirmation or validation or whatever. All the little habits he wanted to change, he just posted them around the mirror. So every time he looked at his reflection, he would be like, yep, did that today, did that today, did that today. And I think he talks about the accountability mirror, but then he also talks about going into this dark room. And he's like, in this dark

Starting point is 00:15:59 room is where metamorphosis happens. When you go in, you're one person. When you come out, you've transformed. And he says, if you don't break, you'll transform. And that's his whole message. Like, mental toughness, I mean, it's hard for a reason. Like, a lot of us buckle under pressure, especially when it has to do with our self-image or the way we think people perceive us. But his hidden genius is very much in that, like radical honesty with himself is what has allowed him to completely change the trajectory of his life. And in the third thing that he does is he says, you have to get up every day and do one thing that sucks that you don't want to do. And so a lot of times that means like you're acting against your first instinct. If you wake up and you're like,

Starting point is 00:16:46 oh, it's like 6 a.m. I'd rather sleep one more hour. I don't want to go on a run. He's like, go on a run anyway. It's just like, whatever your first instinct is, do the opposite. And it's like, my house is a mess, but I'm too tired. Clean it anyway. Because those little moments build trust. with yourself because you're keeping your promise with yourself. So it's basically, he says that he brainwashed himself into craving discomfort. It's possible because obviously he's done it, but it's really, really hard. And I think those three things are really like practical things you can do to sharpen the way you think and to increase your threshold for mental resilience.

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Starting point is 00:21:32 That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show. Two things that really stick out to me here related to the physical aspect, because you know, Gagins is an endurance athlete. It's what he does. I think that when it comes to like the physical aspect of working out and pushing your body to its limits. I'm reminded that it's very much a mental game. You know, training your mind and

Starting point is 00:22:00 training kind of that mental toughness muscle, it carries over into other areas of life. So, you know, if you're sticking to your plan, whatever you do, and running a marathon, going to the gym, whatever it is, a lot of that mental toughness, I think, really carries over well into other areas of your life. And it teaches you that you can do hard things and you can do that suck. And the other thing that ties into that, I think, is when you train yourself to be able to endure very hard things, it can prepare you for, you know, just really difficult things that can come in the future. And that just puts you in a much better position relative to a lot of other people because, you know, our world's just highly uncertain and you never know what sort of things can come

Starting point is 00:22:38 across, whether it be personal, like losing a job or going through a recession or things like that. So, yeah, those are two things that really stuck out to me when you're talking through Goggins' this framework here. Exactly. It's like, it's kind of like your future self will thank you for the work you're doing today because, I mean, it's, we cannot escape. There will be recessions and downturns and crazy things. Like when I was leaving my job at Fortune to work on my newsletter full time, I made a

Starting point is 00:23:07 list of the risks that could pop up, including like, oh, we're at the tail end of a 10-year cycle, like there might be a recession on the horizon, all this stuff. And I had a solution for every single one of them. And then I gave my three weeks notice. And in those three weeks, the entire world fell apart. And there was a global pandemic. Like, that was not on my list. But if I was a little bit more mentally resilient, maybe it wouldn't have mattered as much.

Starting point is 00:23:30 You know what I mean? Yeah. And sometimes you just get really unlucky. You know, no matter how good you are, you just get really unlucky with things. Tying into what you mentioned there, when people are going through difficult periods of their life or reflecting on how we can improve, I think it can be difficult to work through some of the internal chatter or self-talk. Since no one's really perfect from the beginning,

Starting point is 00:23:52 I think there's always this imperfection inside of us and we're internally dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. And to help with this, you propose another tool that Goggins uses, which is to develop an alter ego. So could you describe what an alter ego is and why it works for him? Yes. Like, the way I think about an alter ego is kind of like

Starting point is 00:24:15 your aspirational self, like who you would love to become one day and who you may not be. So the alter ego is basically a lot of people do this, athletes, performers, Beyonce was really, really introverted in real life. Like she is an introverted person. But then she had to perform for audiences of like thousands and tens of thousands of people. So to overcome that, she needed to be this like powerhouse on stage. How do you do that? You create so-called alter ego. Hers was called Sasha Fierce. And so she was like, when I am on that stage, I wear things I wouldn't normally wear. I dance in ways I wouldn't normally dance and have a presence about me. That is Sasha Fierce. It's not Beyonce. Kobe Bryant used to do this, like you said,

Starting point is 00:25:00 in really chaotic situations, he at one point in his career, every time he stepped out on the court, he would get booed by the audience. So he was like, all right, well, when I'm hearing boo Kobe, that's not me. I come out here as the black mamba. And it's like this like long snake, whatever. So he created this version of himself on the court because you're not attacking me, you're attacking Kobe, which is a different version of it. So David Goggins likes to say that he was built, not born. And a lot of times he refers to himself in the third person and he refers to himself as Goggins, not David Goggins, just Goggins. That's because he says, like, David Goggins was a weak kid, Goggins is who, like, I want to be proud of that person. That's who I want to embody

Starting point is 00:25:47 because I built him. He wasn't born as David Goggins. So there's this notion that I learned about called I-L-L-E-I-S-M, and it's when you refer to yourself in the third person. Usually it's not well-received. LeBron James does this a lot. Trump does this a lot. It's usually not well-received because people think that you come off very egotistical and like kind of condescending. why are you afraid? I would just say I. But Goggins does this too. But the reason is because it adds a little bit of distance between you and your identity.

Starting point is 00:26:20 And a lot of times, like in therapy for people with trauma or PTSD, it's sometimes helpful because it gives a little bit of distance between what happened to you and who you are and who you want to become. So it's really interesting because Goggins does this a lot. And I realize why now. And he says, he basically says that like over. time, your identity, and the alter ego, they're very, very distant for a long period of time. But as you work to become your aspirational self, they kind of meet at some point. And at some point, you become

Starting point is 00:26:54 your alter ego or your aspirational self. I watched an interview with Beyonce and she said, oh, yeah, like I killed Sasha Fier so long time ago because basically I don't need her anymore. I am this confident version of myself. I don't need to pretend to be that anymore. But I think it's really interesting because just personally, I used to be very shy and very introverted and like doing this. Like this, our interview would never happen because I would be way too worried, way too like in my head. But as I started like being in journalism and like doing interviews, I had to be like, okay, I may be really introverted here, but on stage, I got to put on a show. You know, like this is, I'm doing this for a job. Like it matters, whatever.

Starting point is 00:27:35 So over time, though, my personality itself became more extroverted and more. confident. So now I don't know. I don't think I have an alter ego anymore, but, you know, maybe. Since our listener base is mainly in the investing world, I wanted to kind of tie this into investing a bit. And when I study the great investors, the alter ego is kind of separating you from your emotions in a way. And I think investors, we need to look at our decisions and look at our mistakes as objectively as possible. And that's the only way to really learn from it. I love this James Clear quote, you included in your book as well. It's your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you

Starting point is 00:28:20 are either consciously or unconsciously. So if you want to be a great investor, a great writer, a great journalist or whatever, then you need to start thinking and acting as if you already are one. And I just love that framework as well from Clear. Yes. It also reminds me of Francis Inganu. He is a world heavyweight champion, but when he was young and when he was little, he was living in poverty in Cameroon and he was just convinced that he would become a professional boxer. But to be a professional boxer, you need certain habits. So even as a child, he knew I'm not going to drink, even though a lot of the people around me are drinking, I'm not going to smoke because professional boxers don't smoke.

Starting point is 00:29:03 Like he was doing, I'm going to work out every day. He was doing all the things that he envisioned he would be doing. in his life as a professional boxer. So I think it's the same thing. Yeah, like it distances you from your emotional self, but it also makes you live now as your aspirational self. So whether it's like taking responsibility for the mistakes that you've made in the past or evaluating risk as dispassionately as possible,

Starting point is 00:29:28 it allows you to do those things in a different like part of your brain that is not you. Now, developing this alter ego, I'm sure you could resonate with for sure. you used to work for very large companies, CNN and Fortune, working full-time with them before going full-time on your newsletter. Was that a really difficult transition for you? Or what sort of challenges did you have to overcome to become fully confident with that new path? Especially you just mentioned how it was right around COVID when it struck. So what were some of the biggest things you had to overcome and how did you manage to work through those? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:06 So for me, it was probably the tool that I used the most was, probably the accountability mirror, I really had to look at myself in the mirror and be like, all these people that I really admire and respect want me to be some version of myself that I know I am not. To me, working at a place like fortune, the obvious next step would be for me to become an editor and then another editor and then possible, whatever. But that was the latter, right, to success. But to me, I was super honest with myself and I was like, that's not what I want to do. I don't like editing. I like writing. I like interviewing people. Like, that's not how I want my career trajectory to go. Also, I don't only like writing. I like writing and being an entrepreneur and doing other things and whatever. And I think

Starting point is 00:30:52 it's just, it's really hard for other people to understand that you don't want to be pigeonholed. So when I told people what I wanted to do that I want to leave Fortune and do my newsletter full time, people thought I was absolutely insane. But it's like, it's like to me it wasn't insane. Like I had thought through it. I knew what I wanted to do. And I was like, I write about entrepreneurship and venture capital and startups every single day. But it's hypocritical because I haven't done it myself. So it's like really, really being honest with yourself about what it is you want to do, what makes you happy and like screw everybody's, everybody else's opinion, which was really, really hard for me to do. But like once you do it is just independence and freedom is, once you have a taste of that, it's really hard to go back. For example,

Starting point is 00:31:35 Yeah, I worked at CNN and I did not like it. I thought that like my life, I grew up in Atlanta, CNN is based in Atlanta. That was my dream since I was little. I was like, I'll be at CNN, I'll be on TV, like all this stuff. And then you get there and the reality is so much different from how you envisioned it. So it wasn't for me, for sure. I knew that at a very young age when I was an intern there. Then USA Today, I really enjoyed.

Starting point is 00:32:02 But then I was like, I don't want to work for a long. national newspaper. Like, that's not, it doesn't give me any sort of excitement. Then at fortune, I loved fortune. Like, absolutely loved it. It had everything I wanted. Long form profiles of people. I ended up, like, I was writing those while I was there. And then I was like, why would I leave something so perfect? And then you realize, like, it's because you love something else more. And if you don't pursue it, you're always going to live with the regret of like, what if? And that's what David Gagan says. Like, if you're not living for yourself and making yourself, and making yourself, better than what are you doing anyway?

Starting point is 00:32:38 I wanted to jump to the part of your book where you share Morgan Howells's Three Sides of Risk. You just talked about how people thought you were totally crazy doing something really risky, but maybe they don't see the sort of risk in taking the other path. It's just a really interesting topic and something I've come across in my own life as well. Could you please describe and expand on this framework of Howells where he talks about the three sides of risk? Yeah, I found this absolutely fascinating because once you learn it, you can't stop thinking about it in your own life. But he says that there are three distinct sides to risk. There's the odds you will get hit, the average consequences of getting hit, and the tail end consequences of getting hit. And it's the tail end consequences of getting hit and of risk. The tail end consequences of risk is what matters in the long run. And those are the ones he calls the low probability high impact events. So these are the hardest to control.

Starting point is 00:33:35 but probably the ones that matter the most, like a global pandemic, like a black swan of some sort, very hard to foresee, but probably the ones that will reshape your strategy the most. One example of this is Conrad Inker. He's a legendary mountaineer, and he and his two best friends were scaling Mount Shishapingma, and they were scaling it, they were on it, and all of a sudden, they were very well trained, they were very competent, they knew the risks they were taking, and they had foreseen everything they could foresee to the best of their abilities. But the low probability, high impact event that they didn't foresee was this avalanche that came out of nowhere. And ultimately, what happened was, you know, the avalanche came down,

Starting point is 00:34:20 Inker went to the left, and his friends went to the right. And Anker suffered a number of injuries. He broke his collarbone. He, you know, a bunch of injuries. But his friends weren't, their bodies weren't even discovered for a number of years just because of a simple dumb luck decision of they went to the right and he went to the left. So I think like it's important to remember that a lot of times we look at these successful people. We try to study their paths and we're like, okay, they did this here and this there. Like maybe if I emulate it exactly like that, I will end up in the same spot. But sometimes it's the tail end of risk that you just cannot foresee and it hits you in a way that you just did not foresee. And then it comes down to just one decision that makes

Starting point is 00:35:04 absolutely no logical sense. And it changes your life. I wanted to jump to leadership here. We talk a lot about different companies on the show here that have a very decentralized and robust business structure, Berkshire Hathaway being one of them. And we even apply a similar structure here at the Investors Podcast Network. I've experienced firsthand the benefits of such a an approach. Now, in your research, what have you found with implementing this sort of decentralized bottom-up leadership approach to business rather than a top-down where you have the authority figure making a lot of the decisions? Yeah. So I think like in very small organizations or at startups, it's really easy to have a bottom-up approach, right? Because it's a really small

Starting point is 00:35:49 company. It can pivot really easily. It can move quickly. But when you grow and as you get massive, top down, you would think makes more sense because it's just easier for one person to tell multiple layers of people what to do in which direction to go. Except, I found that some of like the most successful companies that are large employ a bottoms up approach. So Daniel Eck at Spotify, and basically a bottoms up approach means that the ideas, the values, the strategies come from the bottom, come from the employees. And then the CEO's role is to help them execute quickly. and support the people who are day-to-day doing this work to support them to achieve their goals. So, for example, Daniel Eck was a big proponent of this leadership style.

Starting point is 00:36:37 But then came, the product team went to him and they were like, okay, we have an idea. We want to create a personalized playlist for every user on Spotify based on their listening habits. And he was like, I don't know. I mean, it's a cool feature, but like, I don't want you spending all your time on this. that we have other things to do it, whatever. And he told Fast Company in 2018, I would have killed that if it was just me 100%. I never really saw the beauty of it. The product team, though, despite X opinion, continued working on this without his support. And then they launched it to the public without him knowing. And he read about it in the press like everybody else. Super risky if you're

Starting point is 00:37:18 an employee. Like, oh my God. And he said to the press, like I really thought this was going to be a disaster. and Discover Weekly, which is the personalized playlist, ended up becoming one of Spotify's like most loved features. People love that. They use it all the time, the personalized playlist. So it's just like it's so many ideas get killed in the process of pitching to a CEO or leadership or whatever because many companies don't employ a bottoms up approach. Some of the key takeaways for me there is that the entrepreneurial spirit sort of gets

Starting point is 00:37:50 killed when people don't get to, you know, have autonomy over their work. You want to have people connected to the actual day-to-day operations sort of making decisions for the business because they know the customer best. And I wanted to tie into something that's pretty similar here. You also lay out many examples of leaders who simply just want to do the right thing for their employees. Brunello Cucinelli, who started a luxury brand, stated that if I give you the right conditions to work and I put you in a beautiful place where, you know, a place where you feel a little bit better about yourself because you know your work is being used for something greater than producing a profit. He thought maybe eventually that would get people to be more creative. And you also

Starting point is 00:38:33 mention the former co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates, a quote from him, he believed that employees were the cornerstone of any organization and that the employee's needs, you know, have to be known and have to be fulfilled. And I think the key distinction here is that leaders who see their employees as a long-term investment end up doing much better in the long run. And I think this approach not only benefits the employees, but it also benefits the employers long-term. So it's just a win-win relationship. So I'd love for you to touch on this as well. Yeah. So Mark Bartolini, who is now the co-CEO of Ridgewater, he was previously the CEO of Etna, and he shepherded Etna to the sale of the company with CVS. What was interesting with him is that he's had a really crazy

Starting point is 00:39:18 life. But anyway, he turned to kind of more Eastern philosophy at one point, and he developed something he calls the four levels of Taoist leadership. And it goes like this. He says, the first level is that your employees hate you. The second is that they fear you. The third is that they praise you. And the fourth is that you're invisible because the organization takes care of itself. So it's like the ultimate leader has invested in his employees to such an extent that his ultimate goal is to be replaced And I think that goes against, like, what a lot of corporate America and, like, many, many CEOs, because they're like, I want to prove that you need me. I'm irreplaceable. You know, this company will fail without me.

Starting point is 00:40:01 But actually, it's counterintuitive in that if you truly are investing in developing your employees, you are putting them in a position where this company will be successful without you there. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer. VANTA automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. So whether you're prepping for a SOC or running an enterprise GRC program, VANTA keeps you secure and keeps your deals moving. Instead of chasing spreadsheets and screenshots, VANTA gives you continuous automation across

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Starting point is 00:43:44 slaves to our existing beliefs. And you also reference another James Clear quote that convincing someone to change their mind is really a process of convincing them to change their tribe. And profiling all these successful people, what's your interpretation of what they mean by this? Yeah. So I think our biggest challenge is human beings is to back. blind belief and figure out whether our beliefs are our own or we're just parroting what we've

Starting point is 00:44:11 heard from people we admire, people we respect, our family members, things we heard as children. You will not believe how many times I say something. And I'm like, hold on a second. Do I, actually believe that? Or am I saying that because I heard my dad say it 20 years ago? So Charlie Munger, James, like all of them, I think it's, once you start clarifying your thinking and taking the emotions out of the recipe, you're left with the bare bones of your beliefs. And I think a lot of people who argue passionately and are very opinionated about things,

Starting point is 00:44:45 when you dig deeper, they don't know why they believe what they believe and they don't actually have a good reason. I remember reading Educated, the memoir by Tara Westover, and she was talking about how, you know, she never went to school. The first time she set foot in a classroom was when she was 18 in college. And she remember, she was like, I held misogynistic, homophobic, racist beliefs. But that's because those weren't actually my beliefs.

Starting point is 00:45:09 Those were my father's beliefs. And I just absorbed them as a child. I never questioned them. You don't question that as kids. And then when you're in a classroom and your opinions are being tested and challenged, but the key here is, I think we live in a world today where you say one wrong thing and then you're just like canceled off the internet. I think you need to create an environment that's somewhat safe.

Starting point is 00:45:32 I'm not sure if schools are necessarily a safe place to do this anymore, but if you have a group of people that you trust to try out these beliefs and voice these opinions, that may be kind of like, eh, and have them in a non-judgmental way, explain to you why you may be wrong or present other information. I think that's the only way that you can really change your mind. I remember Tim Urban, he wrote a post and he was like, If you really want to see if you are in a echo chamber at your next family gathering, voice an opinion that, you know, the political party that you're normally against is making some

Starting point is 00:46:10 really valid points lately and see how they react. Because if they react with absolute shock and terror and horror and whatever, you're in a cult and you're in an echo chamber. So it's like you have to work really, really hard to get out of all the cults that we are currently part of ideological cults. One of the tricks that Stig here at TIP has used with us is, you know, asking us a question and just not giving his opinion at all because once someone does this to you, you know, asks you without giving you your opinion, you've realized all the times in the past where

Starting point is 00:46:45 someone asked you a question and then they just gave their opinion before they gave you a chance to respond. And Annie Duke actually talks about this as well where, you know, you want people to put out their true beliefs without being by. biased or swayed by especially someone that's higher up or someone that's superior to them in an organization or whatever the situation is. I think that's a really powerful insight to just show how biased we really are. Yeah. So she recommends, like, if you're interviewing a candidate and let's say there's five people

Starting point is 00:47:15 around the table, after the candidate leaves, one person shouldn't say their opinion. Instead, you should all write it down. And then, like, someone should review all of them because you're not swayed by anybody else's opinion. Because as humans, we want consensus. We want to, everybody to agree and for there to be some sort of consensus. And I used to really struggle with this because, like, I was very little when we moved from Bulgaria to the U.S. I was eight. And it was almost like, I didn't want to be the center of attention. So whatever you said, I'd be like, yes, I believe that too. I agree 100%. When inside, I'd be like, this guy's an idiot. This is not true. I do not agree. Like, I just

Starting point is 00:47:53 didn't want to rock the boat. Like, why do that? And I think it takes a level of like bravery. and courage to be, when somebody asks you a question, to give them your honest opinion, because we want to be likable. Let's shift to content diet. Chapter 9 titled, Optimizing Your Content Diet, you write, one of the biggest realizations I've had in the last few years is simple but overlooked. What you eat is who you are and what you read is who you become. So what's your framework for ensuring that you have a healthy content diet?

Starting point is 00:48:24 You know what's really funny, Clay? Like, okay, so when we were talking earlier about Grant Ackett's and how he sees the world through this kaleidoscope of food, so anywhere he goes, he just sees it through this like one singular lens. It's kind of similar with content. When I was in my early 20s, like living in New York, the only television and content I would consume was reality TV. It was the bachelor. It was like these dating shows. So then when I went out into the world, I would look at the world through the same.

Starting point is 00:48:54 singular lens of like relationships. Does this person like me? Did I piss that person off? Is this person talking about me? It's like so stupid because that's not at all. Like it's a distorted reality because of the things that I was putting in my brain. So at some point I realized this and I started asking myself like what do I read? What do I watch? What do I listen to? And who do I hang out with? I think that's a huge portion of your content that you may not even realize that is very important. So then I started like making some ground rules for myself. I would read fewer surface level clickbaity articles, and I would read more long form features, long form stuff that adds context and nuance, which is partly the reason I started the profile in 2017. It was right after 2016,

Starting point is 00:49:39 which was an election year. It was chaos. It was awful. It was like everything you didn't want to read was just in your face all the time. So I was like, I'm tired of like the clickbait and the black and white headlines. I want context and I want nuance and I want to make my own opinion. I don't want people telling me what to believe. So I kind of, I did that. Then I would pick better podcasts. Like, I was listening to interesting things, but they weren't really enriching my life. So when I would go on runs, I would listen to podcasts like yours or something were actually learned. And after my run, I could be like, huh, I actually learned something here. And then, like, also made it practical. So these are nice things theoretically, but practically, how can you do them? So I deleted some like

Starting point is 00:50:22 social media apps off my phone. I would only check them if I had to like log in on my computer. Then I used pocket to save articles so I could read on the subway when I didn't have service. I used notion to write the profile. I added a section to the profile actually called videos to watch and podcast or audio to listen to. So that would force me every week I needed to find. high quality content for this section, which would force me to listen to high quality content. So it's this idea of David Brooks. He was a columnist and he gave this speech, I think it was in 2020, and he was like, he didn't give the speech. She wrote it because in 2020, like everything went to hell. But he was like, he proposed this idea of the theory of maximum taste. And basically,

Starting point is 00:51:09 he says, each person's mind is defined by its upper limit or by the content that it's capable of consuming, like the highest level content. So if you think about it, when we were in college or we were younger, in school, you're forced to put difficult ideas into your brain and, like, grapple with them and, like, debate and think, like, actually think about it. But then as you get older, you don't do that stuff. You stop reading the hard stuff. And you start putting, like, lower level, easy ideas into your brain. And so it doesn't make you think as much. So he's like, how many people have you met that were more interesting in their 20s than they are now at 40? Probably a lot of the people that I know. So if you want to improve your content diet, you just need to like conduct an audit.

Starting point is 00:51:55 Look at your day and be like, what percentage of my day am I watching reality television? What percentage of my day am I doing this? And then just look at it. Like maybe you don't want to alter anything at all. Maybe there are slight tweaks you can make where you are forcing yourself to put more substantive ideas into your brain by reading more difficult content. Another question that comes to mind here related to the content diet, you mentioned Notion. And earlier we talked about the idea of connecting pieces that aren't related, but the creative part of our mind kind of links things together.

Starting point is 00:52:30 Do you use Notion or what sort of tools do you use to make these connections and link things together? It's interesting. I'm very low tech when it comes to writing the newsletter. I use Notion. I used to use Google Docs. Honestly, I like Google Docs a lot. So my writing process is really interesting, actually. I don't write an order. So I don't go from start to finish. The way I get ideas is, I may be texting with a friend and she'll say something. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And then I'll put that in a document. And then I'll read something. And that'll remind me of that thing. And then I'll

Starting point is 00:53:04 put it underneath. So the way my book was written truly was a lot of like throwing a random kind of dissimilar ideas into a Google Doc. And then as I would walk away, like I would go on a walk, it would marinate a little bit. And then I'd be like, oh yeah, like that's like this. And like if you read the book, you'll notice that I make a lot of connections between people that you may not necessarily group together. You know, like in the mental toughness chapter, yes, there's an ultra runner, but there's also a person who was wrongfully in prison for 30 years. Like it's just, it's voluntary suffering plus involuntary suffering. We have both in our life.

Starting point is 00:53:40 So yeah, so that was kind of like the, I found links to all these people, not because of the type of person they were, but maybe of the idea that they developed and how they got to that idea. Another interesting concept, I think, related to the content diet is the people we surround ourselves with in our lives, you know, ever since I've done, join TIP as a host here. I've personally connected with so many people just from all over the world that live nowhere near where I live. And I'm sure you're in a pretty similar situation since you've started your newsletter and you have subscribers all over the world. I'm curious how you find up,

Starting point is 00:54:16 you know, a healthy balance between your in-person relationships and those that are digital and live online. Yeah. So I would say that all of my best friends, including my husband, I've met on Twitter, but I love turning online friendships into real-life ones. Like, there's just no, I don't care about virtual reality or whatever. Like, we will need in-person relationships. And it's like, I love the fact that I can talk to somebody in Kenya right now. And I love that there's a reader in London or India. But the reason that in 2019, I did these, like, kind of decentralized meetups all over the world of people who read the profile.

Starting point is 00:54:58 So they just like met up on the same day in different cities. And the only thing they had in common was that they subscribed to this newsletter. And what I loved about it is just like, we have these friendships online. But once you meet in person, it's like solidified. It's like I remember these people. We had an amazing conversation. And we will forever be linked in that way. So yeah, I love the internet.

Starting point is 00:55:21 And I think like yesterday I met Rob Henderson, who's another writer that I really like. But I had only talked to him online for like two years. And then I met him in person and I was like, whoa, this is so crazy. But it's really cool. And I think it ties into what we talked about at the very beginning with the people focused learning where there's some sort of emotional, psychological piece where you make that connection and then, you know, your relationships just changed forever. I wanted you to also tell the story of Francis Inganu.

Starting point is 00:55:50 The final chapter of your book is titled Hidden Genius. And you tell his story that I just thought was absolutely incredible. So I'd love for you to tell that story and share what you discovered from him that helped you discover your own hidden genius. Yeah. So Francis and Ghanu, first of all, I know nothing about MMA or the UFC or anything like that. But when I heard his story on a podcast, I was just like, whoa, how do more people not know this man's story? And it's just in a nutshell. It is Francis was born in Cameroon.

Starting point is 00:56:24 he was like digging sand mines as nine years old for a dollar, 80 cents a day. He lived in like poverty, many of us could never even imagine. And then like I said earlier, he had aspirations of being a professional boxer. So he was determined to get out of Cameroon and go to America and like become a professional boxer. To the point where he would be working at these sand mines and he'd be daydreaming about like the United States and all this stuff. To this day, he signs everything SF and people are like, why are, like, why are you? you're saying at SF, your name's Francis and Ganu. And he was like, oh, for San Francisco, because that used to be his nickname. Kids would be like, yo, San Francisco, because like, you know,

Starting point is 00:57:03 he would go to America one day. So he aged, I believe it was 28, he was like, all right, I got to get out of here. I can't become a professional boxer in Cameroon. So how do I get to America? So he decided, first he had to get to Europe. So he went from Cameroon to Niger, Niger to Nigeria, Nigeria to Morocco. This is 3,000 miles through the desert, guys. It's insane. And then from Morocco to Spain, he would get on a raft and cross this straight. And once he was on the other side, the Red Cross would be there and he could seek asylum. But it was really hard to get there, obviously. It took him 14 months to make that tiny trek, well tiny, but really, really treacherous trek from Morocco to Spain. He got pulled out of the water six different times. And when Moroccan police would

Starting point is 00:57:52 to pull refugees out of the water, they would drop them back in the middle of the desert or put you in a Moroccan jail for an indefinite period of time. So this happened to him five times. And then on the sixth attempt, they were able to cross and he was detained in Spain a little bit, but he didn't care because he was like, asylums basically guaranteed. From there, he went to Paris. In Paris, he was homeless living in a parking garage. But he said, this parking garage, after what I had just been through, was like a five-star hotel. He found a gym immediately. And then there was a trainer there. It was a boxing gym. And there was a trainer there who, you know, saw the potential in him. He was really, really strong and really tall. But then the gym shut down. And the trainer was like, you know what?

Starting point is 00:58:36 You should try MMA. And the MMA factory, I believe it was called. It was another gym there. And he was like, you can go train there. He's like, I don't know what MMA is. So long story short, he trains, he gets really good. He becomes the heavyweight champion of the world, comes to the United is in the UFC, and he became at the top of a sport. He didn't know even existed nine years prior, which is wild. So when I talked to him, I had so many questions about like, okay, but how did you bet on yourself, like your entire life? And he was like, the entire time that I was doing this, he was like, I kept asking myself,

Starting point is 00:59:13 what do I have to lose? And the answer was like, nothing. I can just keep trying and betting on myself and gaining the skills and learning the lessons. So from him, I learned that it's the hardest thing, but the most important thing is at some point in your life to bet on yourself. Whatever skills you have, whatever you really love, at some point, you just got to jump and be like, I'm doing this. A lot could go wrong, but I'm willing to take the risk. And he said, he told me that he's not afraid to fail because he knows that he has the skills to course correct, no matter what happens. And he said, I know that if I fail, I can start over and over and over and over.

Starting point is 00:59:52 I have that skill and you can take everything from me, but you cannot take that. And when I asked him if he identifies as like, if that's his identity, the heavyweight champion of the role, he was like, absolutely not because there have been many before me and there will be many after me. That's not what makes me me, but what makes him him is that he's a relentless risk taker and he's constantly evolving in his identity. And I found that just fascinating. There's so many great takeaways there.

Starting point is 01:00:19 When you read these incredible stories, you know, you compare it to your own life. You're just like, yeah, my goals really aren't that scary. And I should be, you know, chasing and pursuing them. And I really like how he was in Cameroon. And he was just constantly putting in the mental reps. Like, he thought he was going to be a boxer, ended up in MMA. He had the mental reps.

Starting point is 01:00:38 Like, he was going to go to the U.S. He was going to do XYZ. He was going to be a world champion. And it ties back into the James Clear deal where he knew he wanted to be a professional athlete. So then he started behaving like one. And that's, you know, what you have to do to be the top of anything and start behaving like you already are and identify with that. Exactly. Yeah. So Francis says that to know who you are, you first have to know who you are not. And I think like that's something we don't talk enough about. We're always like aspirational. Like, yes, I want to be this person. I want to

Starting point is 01:01:11 act like this. But you have to first define who you do not want to be. So for Francis growing up, his father, had a really bad reputation as like this violent street fighter. He was abusive to his mom. He had just this reputation in the city where he lived. So Francis was like, for one, this is not who I want to be. I will not be like my dad in this way, this way, this way. And that's what led him to the aspirational, like no drinking, no smoking, no fighting, you know, in the streets, whatever. But I do think that like before you embark on any endeavor, you have to first like identify. Like these are the things I will not compromise on, and these are the things I will not be. Now, like I mentioned, our show is primarily focused on investing in.

Starting point is 01:01:53 The greatest investor in the world, Warren Buffett, said that the best investment one can make is in themselves, and you hit on this idea at the end of your book. You encourage your readers to create something that ties their identity to their name, so that could be a newsletter, creating content. And in the acknowledgments, you said that your husband, Anthony Pompeyana, who I'm sure many of the listeners know, he told you never let others believe in you more than you believe in yourself. So to round out this conversation, I'd love for you to give any thoughts related to betting on yourself. And then why did you encourage readers to do something that ties their identity

Starting point is 01:02:32 to their name? So this kind of arose from a personal experience I had. But when I was, when I graduated college, I graduated and all these professors and people, around me had told me that I was set. Like, I had interned at CNN in USA Today and this magazine. Like, who wouldn't want to hire me? And I believed them. And so when I graduated in 2013, media was going through one of its cycles, as it always does. And nobody was hiring, and nobody was hiring me. And I could not get any job, not just like a job I liked. I could not get any job in media. So it was super, like, deflating. And my ego took an immense hit. But it taught me something really important, which is that up until then, I had always attached my identity because I wasn't comfortable with being just me.

Starting point is 01:03:24 I had always wrapped it around something external. So whether it's a job or a relationship or some sort of like something that gives you status, right? So like in college, the status would be, oh, you know, I'm the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Like, who cares? Nobody cares. But in my mind, like, that's what gave me status. So I had been so focused on like, okay, when I graduate and I get this job, it's going to be a great job. So I'm going to be Paulina Maranova at the time with, you know, editor at whatever or a reporter at whatever. What I did foresee is that I would be Paulina Maranova unemployed.

Starting point is 01:03:59 So from that, I kind of gathered that when you create something for yourself that you're proud of, nobody can take that away from you. Like right now when I work on the profile, nobody can fire me. Or because there's a recession, I can't get laid off. You know what I mean? I think you see this a lot with especially like career CEOs when they get fired. And then because they've identified as being a leader and as a CEO of this particular company, then they kind of lose their mind and they go through this massive shakeout and like mental whatever turmoil because they've identified one way.

Starting point is 01:04:33 Suddenly they have nothing to tie their identity around. And they're like, whoa, who am I? What do I like? What do I enjoy? And you have this massive meltdown. So when I got the job at Fortune, I could tell that I was going down the same path. I was really proud to work there. I thought it gave me some sort of respect that I myself never earned.

Starting point is 01:04:55 It was the institution of Fortune. And then I was like, yeah, I don't know. Like I shouldn't do this again. And so I started the profile while I was still at Fortune, but it was something that I only did for myself. I never thought about, oh, could it make money? Could it do this? No, like it was literally just something I enjoyed doing. So I think like whether you like knitting or running or like whatever it is, just make sure that in your day you have something that you only do

Starting point is 01:05:22 for yourself. If you're thinking about like should I do something for myself personally, selfishly, I think the answer is yes because no one can take that away from you. So when Oprah walks into a room, nobody asks her like, what do you do? She's just Oprah. Like that her name is her brand. I think the way to know if you've fallen into this trap is if you're at a party and somebody asks you, so what do you do? You're going to answer with your most impressive identity. So think about that. Like whatever that is for you, maybe it's something that you do for yourself or maybe

Starting point is 01:05:56 it's something external. Well, Polina, this was amazing. I'm super grateful you join me on the show. I'd encourage the listeners if you enjoyed this episode to go by Polina's book, The Hidden Genius. Before we round out this episode, I want to give you the chance to give a hand off to the profile, the hidden genius, and any other resources you'd like to touch on. Thank you, Clay.

Starting point is 01:06:20 Yeah, if you want to sign up for the profile, which is my newsletter, you can do that at readtheprofile.com. And if you want to buy the book, it is at hidden genius book.com. Great. Thank you, Paulina. Thank you. I had a great time. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to Millennial Investing. by the Investors Podcast Network

Starting point is 01:06:41 and learn how to achieve financial independence. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision consult a professional, this show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network.

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We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP561: Discovering Your Hidden Genius w/ Polina Pompliano

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