#231 Polina Pompliano - What Most Millionaires Don't Tell You

Polina Pompliano is the founder of The Profile, a new media company that features longform profiles of successful people, millionaires and 8 / 9 figure companies each week. 

She is also the Author of 'HIDDEN GENIUS' a book that helps readers build a mental toolkit to help them tackle thorny problems, navigate relationships, and use creativity and resilience in times of uncertainty.

In this episode, we explore Polina's journey from journalism to entrepreneurship. She shares unique methods on cultivating clear thinking, leveraging alter egos for personal and professional growth, and the importance of building authentic relationships. Polina also shares how Taylor Swift's build a cult following and fostered unbreakable loyalty amongst her audience. 

We also discuss decision-making frameworks, the significance of unplugging for creativity, and the holistic measurement of success. 

Enjoyed the episode? Like, comment, subscribe, and share for more!

Connect with Polina:
Hidden Genius: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61885166-hidden-genius
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/polinamarinova/


My Socials:
Instagram: Darrenlee.ks
LinkedIn: Darren Lee
Twitter: Darren_ks


(00:00) Preview & Intro
(01:20) Taylor Swift's Cult Following
(04:29) Clear Thinking and Effective Decision Making
(08:37) How to Overcome Limiting Beliefs
(11:44) The Role of Alter Egos
(17:50) Best Lessons Learnt from Millionaires
(20:29) Transition from Journalism to Entrepreneurship
(23:05) Polina Pompliano’s Decision-Making Frameworks
(28:15) Improving Creative Process and Content Consumption
(35:55) Importance of Relationships
(42:06) How to Measure Success

Transcript

Polina: 0:00

Who is my aspirational self? Maybe my aspirational self is someone who thinks clearly, who doesn't snap at people, or you can create like an identity, a true identity. When he was writing Atomic Habits, his own habits were just in complete disarray. I'm working on this like really in-depth article that I'm gonna publish in the profile on the techniques that the world's truly best interviewers do.

Darren: 0:27

Before we start this week's episode, I have one little favor to ask you. Can you please leave a five-star rating below so we can help more people every single week. Thank you, let's kick off. I really appreciate this. Where I want to start is I want to get your opinion on something. Do you think Taylor Swift has built the biggest cult in the world at the moment?

Polina: 0:46

I really do. When I wrote that dossier, I mean she was big but she had kind of disappeared. She was in london somewhere, um, and it's like her fans were still so loyal. And then when she re-emerged now she's even stronger. So yes, 100% I do.

Darren: 1:06

Why do you think that is? Because it's not like a one hit wonder. Yeah, she's been around for many, many years, right, and it's a continuously snowballing and it's a flywheel effect. Every time we go around it gets bigger and better and stronger. So why do you think that is?

Polina: 1:20

Yeah, fun fact, I know one of her ex-boyfriends that she went to high school I think homecoming with I don't know His name was also Taylor, so that was hilarious. But no, so I followed Taylor Swift since I was in high school when she was still doing country, followed her career. I really like her, obviously as an artist, but also as a businesswoman, and I think that when you read a lot of the press around Taylor Swift, it's always people refer to her as calculated and manipulative and things like that, and it's like no, I think she's just like a very savvy businesswoman. The thing that Taylor does that has built her brand so big and her cult following so loyal, is that she does things that are not scalable and that, on its face value, like doesn't make sense, like why would you do things that aren't scalable? And it's that. That's what builds that hardcore lifelong loyalty to a brand or an artist, and she's mastered that. Most artists who are so big would never do things that aren't scalable, like what's in it for them.

Polina: 2:33

What she does is she'll surprise fans at their weddings by showing up Like. That takes a lot of time, effort, money, energy, but she does it. She also invited, she went through her Instagram and just found random fans and DM them. Imagine getting a DM from Taylor Swift on Instagram and invited them to her house to bake cookies and listen to her new album ahead of time and she called these like secret sessions Great name too.

Polina: 3:04

And she'll'll like, sometimes she'll send random fans gifts and it's just like why? And the reason is, once you've converted that person, they will be with you for life. But it's not just that person has ripple effects. That person will then tell someone, somebody will talk about this secret session and it's like it's almost like oh my gosh, I know someone who went to her house. I know someone who went to homecoming with Taylor Swift. Like all these things start to seep into the culture and you know that she is a human being who does human things. Because what most people successful people and artists especially get wrong, I think, is that the bigger they get, the more um, the less human they become. And that's kind of my newsletter, the profile. It's like how do you make these people human?

Darren: 3:54

I completely agree, like I worked in scale up companies as well as like fortune 500, fortune 50 companies, and the bigger they get, the more that they lose their customer. But often the scrappy startup that got to the 1 billion valuation sat with their customers for many years, and it's the same with an artist and most companies are founder-led, brand-led at this point, whereby it's people like you almost forget that, but it's almost like what got you there. You need to evolve, for sure, but you also need to. You can't forget the fundamentals you write about, um, thinking clearly, uh.

Darren: 4:29

This is something I really try to filter in my own system and even like the education we have with our podcast and the profile, and I think we've been on a similar path because you've been interviewing so many high profile people and similar to myself how can someone think clearly and really think on their own without a lot of outside interference?

Polina: 4:49

his own habits were just in complete disarray and his publisher said don't worry, that's normal. A lot of people write the book they need to read and it was like that for me the thinking clearly chapter. And I write a lot on the profile about clarifying your thought. The reason that it's so I enjoy it so much, it's because I myself want to think more clearly. And there's a part in the book where I talk about Julia Galef who came up with this framework of you know you have when you're trying to defend or when you're sharing an idea with someone and, let's say, they push back, there's two ways you could go about it. There's your soldier mindset. You could be a soldier, you could defend your idea, you could fight to the death and all this stuff.

Polina: 5:56

But you don't see clearly because you're clearly defending a side versus a scout, which the scout's job is to go out to the terrain, survey it, make a map of all the things that they see who are the key players, just very objectively evaluate the circumstances and then bring back more accurate information because they've evaluated it dispassionately, without strong emotion. A soldier has strong emotion. They want to win. And so if you kind of look at your life like that. In what areas are you just emotionally drunk with, where you cannot see the terrain clearly, and maybe you know it's just adding one more step of before, when I have this idea.

Polina: 6:52

Let's say you have an idea for a business and you get all this outside interference, like you said, and feedback and things like that. What if in the beginning stages you just try to evaluate each piece of feedback as dispassionately as you could before you make a decision? And I think that's really valuable. The other thing that Julia says is that a lot of times we attack each other instead of attacking the idea. So at Catmull, at Pixar, the way that they think clearly or come to think clearly, is that actually you take a lot of passionate people, put them in a room and have them start attacking and debating the idea, because that makes it better instead of attacking each other. And I think it's incredibly hard to do. But once you kind of get it, you start looking at the world that way, like am I a soldier or am I a scout, and it can help you clarify your thinking.

Darren: 7:59

I like that because a lot of people it's conditioning and examples you have. You know it's a condition from when you're young and you set out a set of beliefs and then you get into jobs that you follow down and you even do businesses and you stay in them. But it's almost. If you ever read the Creative Act by Rick Rubin, he talks about the beginner mind, you know, always having the ability to go from zero. And I'm curious from your perspective, like when you left the journalism world, like how did you detach from that, I guess, idea that that's what you wanted to do initially? Because that was actually quite me in the VC world, in the tech startup world, and I had left that world then to come into the media space Very similar setup to you to be honest.

Darren: 8:37

Very, quite similar.

Polina: 8:39

It's so hard. It's so hard because you have these deep-seated beliefs. You don't even know where they came from, but you feel them so strongly that you take them as fact. For me, a few of those were from college. I've been in journalism like all my life. So when I was in college I would constantly hear professors, people I respected and trusted, tell me that if I want to be a journalist, just get ready to make no money. You're never going to make money as a writer, nobody's ever going to pay for your work. So that kind of like stuck with me. It became my belief system. So then when I first worked at a media startup, that did not pay me well. But then when I got to Fortune, I was like, wow, fortune magazine, like they actually pay you for your work, they pay well. Maybe that belief isn't quite true, but maybe there is a ceiling. I still have that.

Polina: 9:37

When I was at Fortune, the other thing I thought was I'm a writer and this is my identity and I could never be an entrepreneur. I could never be these other things because I am a writer. And I once heard well, once I read Tara Westover in her book Educated talks about like who put those ideas in your head. You know like did this come from your dad? Did this come from your best friend from high school? Did it come from your teacher that you respected in college? So it's like once you identify whose voice that is because oftentimes it is not your clearly thinking voice you can start to dispel it a little bit. And when I left Fortune to work on the profile full time, suddenly I wasn't just a writer, I was an entrepreneur, I was a plumber.

Darren: 10:28

I was an accountant.

Polina: 10:32

And so it's like it's. Sometimes those beliefs go unexamined and they can wreak havoc on your life. But I think it was Elon Musk who said basically, like be careful what you let into your mental firewall, because those things will define who you are and how you see the world.

Darren: 10:54

Yeah, it was very similar for me. I felt like I wanted to become like a chief product officer and I was like on par for it. That's what I wanted to do, that was part of my identity, and then when I left, it was chief, everything officer. Right, that's what an entrepreneur is. And it was just that combination of what I thought I could do versus what I could actually do. And the thing is is that you could fill the gaps very easily right, not very easily, but you could solve the problems because it was built up so much, and Leila Hormozy talks about like fear is a mile wide and an inch deep and it's just very easy once you kind of get forward momentum to keep on going.

Darren: 11:29

So of course it's an absolute shit show. There's no doubt about that right. But I think removing that limiting belief could have saved me four or five years. I put it that way and and I'm happy that I discovered it still in my, you know, mid to late 20s. Being like this is not what I wanted to achieve.

Darren: 11:44

I want to ask you about the alter ego opinion, right, and alter ego approach. So example you use a Goggins and a lot of people that will listen to this. Do you think it's, it's worthwhile creating that frame? Because a lot of guys will create an another frame like I don't want to go back to a nine-to-five, I don't want to go back to a job, I hate my boss, boss, I hate that lifestyle. So it's almost like they create that devil and then they work towards, like the heaven analogy then, which is what could be from what they can build in the future.

Polina: 12:14

Yeah, in the book I talk about how it's easier to know who you do not want to be before it is who you do want to be, not want to be, before it is who you do want to be. So, for example, francis Ngannou, who's an MMA champion he talked about, he grew up in Cameroon, very poor, and his dad was like this violent guy who abused his mom. He would get in fights like all the time. So Francis said he's the best role model I had, because he showed me who I do not want to be. That's not who I want to be as a dad, that's not who I want to be as a friend, as a husband. So it's easier for us to identify the things that we don't want to do or the people we don't want to be. And then once you have that, that's like, like you said, like that's the hell part. Then you turn to who is my aspirational self? Maybe my aspirational self is someone who thinks clearly, who doesn't snap at people, who's very, you know, even keel, or you can create like an identity, a true identity, the my ideal, my aspirational self is a worldwide, you know, famous, like, respected boxer. And what does that person, what are their habits that I can start implementing today.

Polina: 13:29

In Francis's case, it was um, they don't drink alcohol. Uh, they, they work out every day. Um, they take care of their body, they sleep well. So he started doing those things as a teenager and all his friends were like, what are you doing? He's like I am an elite athlete. He became his aspirational self before he ever reached it.

Polina: 13:52

So I think you'll see, a lot of the successful alter egos are something of that sort. They name them, but then they also give them the habits that they want to embody. For Beyonce, it was Sasha Fierce I'm going to be extroverted and a powerhouse. I'm going to go out on that stage and I'll be very intense. That's not who I am in my real life, but that's who I aspire to be. And then, over time, as you create these habits, you kind of end up um, they, you. You end up becoming more of that person. Uh, and then you don't need the outro for me. Like I mean, if you had met me 10, 15 years ago, I was super introverted, I was super shy, I would never say yes to a podcast. But it's like, over time is you start to believe in this identity.

Darren: 14:45

You can become it and what I love so much about your work is I went quite deep in it and I know your story, that you know you came and you're quite shy and you didn't speak English in America. But what's so amazing to see is the fact that you've taken so much inspiration from people who document in their profile that I started almost embedding into your like, your downloads, your, your actual downloads and I was actually a close friend of mine who's actually from Ireland as well, but you know we both live outside of Ireland and he's based in Dubai. He sent me a note recently being like the more I analyze your work, the more I see like the 200 people you interviewed just show up and show up and how you just act like how I run my business, how I interact, and that's not.

Darren: 15:25

That's neither negative nor positive, it's just the traits are being, uh, not replicated, downloaded effectively. So I'm interested to see, like when did you start seeing that tick for yourself? Because a lot of people will look at like newsletters and podcasts as like an additional thing you should do. It's not something you should do as your core focus, but for you it was your core focus and for me it's been my core focus, so it's been my main source of information back to the original part of this conversation, so it's been my main source of information.

Polina: 15:51

Back to the original part of this conversation. Yeah, I think for me specifically, it's about how I learn and I know that I'm very impressionable in terms of if I spend a lot of time watching a video of Oprah doing interviews, or if I watch someone for a long period of time, read their work, listen to their podcasts, I start to kind of absorb not their thought patterns, but maybe even just like the way they talk and the way they sit and their mannerisms. Maybe it came because I was that like really shy eight-year-old that was like how can I be American? And it's like here's, you know, they talk with their hands. I've always had that. They're more extroverted, things like that and I started like picking up on that. So for me, I know that if I spend a lot of time with someone out, naturally it'll start to seep in. For example, right now I'm working on this like really in-depth article that I'm going to publish in the profile on what the techniques that the world's truly best interviewers do and it's not the oh. They listen intently and they, you know, are present and like we all know that they all do that.

Polina: 17:13

But I want to get in the super, super specific. How do they interrupt? What kinds of questions do they ask when the person is not giving them a good answer? Or you know how do they get you to open up when you're super closed off. Do you mirror them, do you like? Joe Rogan does that a lot where he won't ask a direct question, he'll just repeat the keywords of your last statement and then it forces you to like tell him more, because obviously you feel like he's not satisfied with the answer and you want to elaborate. So things like that.

Polina: 17:50

As I'm watching all these videos, I find myself kind of implementing them. Like I was watching Oprah's interview with Megan and Harry and Megan at one point reveals something that she did not plan to reveal in this interview. She gets super uncomfortable and Oprah goes hold on, hold on. I'm going to stop you right there. She makes this whole like the interruption becomes the moment, and that went on to be viral. That was everywhere it was talked about and nobody expected that moment. But Oprah knew very well what she was doing. She was like you just said something, really like it was a bombshell statement. I'm going to take that and I'm going to like magnify it. So, as I'm watching this, I'm learning and I'm like, ooh, I'm going to use that in my next interview. You know what I mean. So it's just like if you, if you admire someone's qualities maybe not their life, but if you admire some of their qualities and characteristics, just watch one week of YouTube videos that they've done. You'll see how you, kind of like, start embracing some of them.

Darren: 19:03

It's a synthesis of all information coming and I want to read that the second it's published, because that's my main focus as an interviewer is like, how can I move the conversation in a way that's relaxed for the guest but at the same point, like bringing them to a point and making it, making it unique to right, like having that unique spin that I try to bring across kickoff sessions? But that that's the game right. And what's funny here is the fact that from the observation, from the outside, it's just, oh, it's just interviewing someone, but when you're playing the infinite game, it runs continuously. I want to ask you about your observation from when you were observing to when you were actioning. I know you mentioned that you felt almost like a hypocrite at times and I was definitely that. Right, I was still working for a company interviewing entrepreneurs, right, and it was. It came a hundred episodes later I was like, all right, I gotta do something about this. So for you, what was that kind of almost pain internally to be like, okay, I need to go fucking do something about this information.

Darren: 19:57

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Polina: 20:29

I think it always shows up as pain, which is weird, like I um when I started thinking about so. So, yes, I felt like a hypocrite because I was analyzing people's companies without ever building anything on my own, and I was like, yeah, like you can't be a good analyst, that's possible, but I still felt like a hypocrite. That's possible, but I still felt like a hypocrite. So I was like, once I started thinking about what would it look like if I left and I tried to be an entrepreneur and build something of my own. Once I had that thought, I was like, no, that's stupid, you could never. So I tried to like I try to not think about it. And that's when kind of the pain comes in. You start reading things that make you think about it again. You start listening to things and you're like, oh man, that's such a good idea and such a good point. I had never thought about it that way.

Polina: 21:21

And then the pain comes of. Everywhere I turn, I see signs that I should do this, but I don't have the courage to do it, and it's like that cognitive dissonance that has to be solved, otherwise you're just in your head all the time. It's a miserable place to be the day that I decided that I would leave fortune and go do this. It was like the birds were singing, everything was calm, just because I had just made a decision, and I think the indecision is where it's like really painful and yeah. So I think that until you solve the cognitive dissonance whether it's you know what that's it I am not that type of person. I'm never going to do this, so I'm not even going to try, or I'm going to try. I might fall flat on my face, but at least I'll have learned something that I can then go apply again, whether it's in another job or another company.

Darren: 22:17

And the thing is funny thing is you're never going to turn back, right, we say we're going to go back, but you never turn back. But I describe it as the itch. It's like the itch that you have and I think it comes with different stuff right. So for me it was leaving the job. It was actually giving up alcohol, just like you know, as a party boy when I was younger, just giving up alcohol. It's like you get the idea like maybe drinking alcohol is not a good idea, and then you just kind of like slowly iterate it. And then it was even like for hiring. You know, like we've hired like quite a lot do this and it's a constant battle. What I'm trying to lean more into now is more like analyzing from a risk perspective and then, if it makes sense logically and financially, just do it. Because I don't know, you're familiar with the one-way door versus two-way door process. It's, I think it's a bezos. Are you familiar?

Polina: 23:05

with that. I think of that.

Darren: 23:07

Yeah, yeah so so one-way door is an irreversible decision. So you want to make irreversible decisions like slowly so one-way doors. You go there, you can't make, you can't turn back.

Darren: 23:16

So let's say, let's say deciding this, deciding to sell your business let's put it. Let's put it that way right, you can't unsell your business. A two-way door is like you can bet you can go back on it. So two-way door is we run a new marketing campaign. So that's just basically my only decision-making process for basically whatever I do in life anymore, because I can always make that decision. Now there's a few other variables coming to play, but it's allowed me to be less anxious about the scenario and more focused on the input to deliver the outcome that I'm looking to achieve, and it's just been a good mental model. I don't know for yourself how you process that and it's just been a good mental model.

Polina: 23:53

I don't know for yourself how you process that. Yeah, I have a quote like that in the book. That's like make reversible decisions quickly and irreversible ones deliberately, because the reversible ones you should make them quickly If they're reversible, if you make them quickly, you actually learn more from it, even if they fail. The irreversible ones you have to make slowly and deliberately because, like you said, selling your business, you can't unsell it. Maybe you can buy it back later, I don't know. But having kids once you have a child, you will be a parent for the rest of your life. Like you just cannot not be a parent. So it's like that's a really big decision not be a parent. So it's like that's a really big decision. And I think a lot of people ask me now that you have kids, what do you want them to know? What's the best thing about raising them? And my husband actually said this and I agree it's that if you can teach them to be good decision makers, everything else takes care of itself. You can teach them morals and values. And don't steal, that's bad and whatever. Or, by the way, if you steal, that's kind of an irreversible decision you might go to jail for 10 years. That's not worth it. So if they can become good decision makers, then it's a frame of mind, like you said, to look at everything in your life.

Polina: 25:11

And it's also funny what you just said about um. You just said about it's once you make it, you're like I can always go back, it's a reversible decision. But then you rarely do. Similarly with drinking. I stopped drinking at the beginning of 2021. Yeah, january 1st 2021. And I was like I can always start again. It's not like this is forever. This is just like for this month, like dry January, and then it's been now like four years and I still haven't, or three years, whatever it is, I still haven't gone back. But also, by the way, this is really funny that on this podcast there is a bulgarian in in, uh, in irish who do not drink.

Polina: 26:00

I just want to point that out.

Darren: 26:02

I'm one of the, I'm one of the few, I'm one of the very few but I did I probably drank enough for all of america during my early 20s and then I decided I had to stop and I was like, okay, it had to come to an end no, no, the yeah, talk about.

Polina: 26:17

If you're gonna go back the, the best test is go to like a family gathering and when they're just like what are you talking about? And you're like yeah you don't go back.

Darren: 26:28

It's a reality, though what I'd like to say about that is like it's not. Why would I, or was that? When will I start drinking again? It's why. Reality, though. What I'd like to say about that is like it's not. Why would I, or was that? When will I start drinking again? It's, why would I start drinking?

Darren: 26:34

that's a lot of that's where I look at it now because, like you know, I think it snowballs, snowballs, positively right. I want to ask you about what you learned from leonardo da vinci oh da vinci, did I really say dicaprio?

Polina: 26:46

I don't know why and I'm like I don't. I don't know, I learned a.

Darren: 26:48

I'm like I don't know I learned a lot from DiCaprio too.

Polina: 27:03

Da Vinci the other one. So I learned that he came up with this concept of that. You can, if you think about two totally different ideas, the brain will naturally start making connections between them and he actually he would take, like a sponge filled you know, a sponge filled with paint and throw it against the wall and just watch it drip down. This is like before, you know, people had phones and entertainment and he would just like watch the paint drip and he'd be like people had phones and entertainment and he would just like watch the paint drip and he'd be like, huh, I wonder what that is. And like that shape or whatever he saw in the paint would give him an idea for something else. Another time he was rock in the water, like skipping rocks or whatever in the water, and he saw ripple effects. At the same time, he heard a bell go off and he thought about I think that's how he invented the idea that sound travels in waves, because he was also seeing the ripple, the waves in the water. It's crazy, but it's cool because it's like if you focus on two different ideas, your brain somehow starts brainstorming and imagining things and you start drawing links between them, even if they are not related.

Polina: 28:15

So I do this all the time. This is, this is something that I like, thrive in. I'll be thinking about something. So, let's say, I'm looking at the world through a lens of I want to put on an event for the profile. Let's say, and I start looking at the world through that lens of like who could be an interesting person for this, or something like that? And then I'll be walking down the street and see someone and be like huh, I wonder if that type of person would be an interesting interview. Or I wonder if, you know, I'll be watching a documentary and I'll be like, oh wow, look at what this person achieved without the ability to, let's say, let's say they didn't have, like, arms or legs yet they summited Kilimanjaro True story. But like that person, that would be a fascinating interview. So I start seeing the world through this like other lens and it gives me new ideas, versus just waiting for the ideas to come to me yeah, like sitting there and waiting for a business idea to come right.

Darren: 29:23

It's like the worst idea ever, whereas at the way Rick Rubin describes it well, the way he actually does, it a few different. His is quite unique. It's mind active, body still so that's why he lies down he's quite like known for lying down flat.

Darren: 29:38

Um, and I know when huberman spent a lot of time with him, he did mind active, body still, which is the hardest form of thinking, whereas most people do body active, mind active, and that's when the muse comes in. From reading about walking like in the gym, actually, ruben actually wrote about cleaning the dishes. He was like he's had the best decisions of his entire life cleaning the dishes and you almost don't want to take that out because, like, we're so close we're in this world, we're so used to like automating everything, and I'm actually prime example for that. If I don't want to do something at home, I'll like hire someone to do it. I'm so bad for that whereas his philosophy is like no, you want to bring that kind of back, because that's when the muse comes in and that's that's for me.

Darren: 30:21

That has been everything. It's actually been everything at any juncture I've come with any massive inflection point. It's never from really just sitting down at the table and looking at an empty google doc where the idea comes from or the solution comes from. Also, sleep is a big thing. On this too, the more you can.

Darren: 30:36

Again, it's an opposite effect to work, right work sleep when you when you sleep, you actually get better ideas for work, and vice versa. So I see that I think. How do you? How do you action that? Do you keep that focal in your mind, saying, okay, here are two different elements that we want to try to find a connection to. Are you an entrepreneur who wants to build your influence and authority online? You may have tried some of the hacks and tricks, but none of it has worked. And it makes sense.

Darren: 31:04

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Polina: 31:51

Yeah, it's not always like that active, like sitting down and like looking at these two things. Um, a lot of times it's so, for, for example, when I was writing the book, I had ideas. I knew they weren't didn't make sense together, but I knew. It was like I've talked about this before. But my mind, when I'm writing, I visually, literally, see the information as like puzzle pieces and I'm like I know that one in this one are in the same puzzle, but like there's something in between that I need to figure out. And that's like how I use transitions. It's so weird. But the way that I think about it is like okay, I know, I have this piece here, I have this piece here, there's something here that I don't yet know, so I just like to let it go. And then what you're talking about this like rote activity is when most people get their best ideas. Sarah Blakely, when she invented Spanx, she got her best ideas.

Polina: 32:44

Driving. It's an activity, but you're not actively thinking about doing it. A lot of people do it. Shaving in the shower, running for me is a big one. When I run, I get ideas. So when I was writing the book, I had these puzzle pieces that didn't make sense together. But then, like in the middle of the night, when I would wake up to feed the baby, suddenly I'd be like, oh yeah, like that's how they're related. And if you read the book you'll notice like you're like. I think the most common comment I get about it is like how the hell did you make this, like tie it together in the same chapter? Because it's like really random people who are in the same chapter that don't make you wouldn't think, make sense together. So that's how. And then also I think it was I want to say it's Aaron Sorkin, it's definitely a screenwriter, I just can't remember which one, but I'm pretty confident it's Aaron Sorkin, I have it, I have it.

Darren: 33:42

You can only break the rules when you know them it's that, but also the showering. No, oh damn. Yeah, I don't remember that.

Polina: 33:51

It's. I think it's Aaron, but I'll look it up and confirm. Um, one of them used to get his best ideas when he was in the shower, so he would start showering like 18 times a day just to be in his brain to think clearly. And I think that there's something about like I know where I need to be. Sarah Blakely would do the same thing. She was like I got my best ideas on the drive to work but then suddenly, when her office was really close to her house it was a very short drive she would start like driving around the block in circles because she didn't want that brainstorm session to end. And I think there's like a bigger lesson here about, yeah, it's the road activity, but it's also being away from devices and other people talking to you.

Darren: 34:43

you just like need to be by yourself the only two times where I'm not in a device is either in a podcast I do a lot of stuff in person or walking, and as a result, I walk between seven, eight, maybe nine kilometers a day and I started walking when you're walking, no, no, okay, never yeah, never deliberately.

Darren: 35:05

So I often because, like, I write my newsletter similar to you like once a week, and people are always like where do the ideas come from? I honestly come up, think of the idea the morning, the Saturday morning, when I write it, because it's usually a reflection of the week, of what we've done with our work and our content, and it's usually just reflecting on problems and whatever. But I'll just wake up at like six, I'll walk, the sun will come up and then just the ideas will and I'll come back and write. But I started walking for health reasons, to kind of just not have to do so much cardio. That was the idea initially, just as I used to be like a bodybuilder when I was younger. So I was like if I just walk more actively, I don't have to do cardio. But then I just forgot about that aspect and just did it just purely for this and it's been crazy. So now it's actually hilarious, like I will actually spend up to two hours a day walking and actually, if you think, if you think about it henry ford said the hardest job in the world is to think and that's why most people don't do it.

Darren: 35:55

So you often see, like the billionaires like spend a lot of their time thinking and reading and I could watch a youtube video, but instead I want to read a book and it's weird, right, it's just mental models, like how we don't download information and whatnot. I want to ask you about relationships. So hidden genius is all about, like, the secrets and the background between, like, millionaires and successful people. But why are, why is relationships in there?

Polina: 36:20

because relationships are the the foundation of anything you do in your life. You can't be a successful person if you don't have a good skill set of building good relationships. People won't trust you in business. Your employees won't trust you. It'll be very hard to negotiate deals your partner like finding a partner all this stuff. It's based on and rooted in trust, and trust is the bedrock of relationships you mentioned about um how people cheat on their partner by eroding trust.

Darren: 36:55

What does that mean?

Polina: 36:56

so I heard, uh, uh, oh, my gosh, what is her name? Um, esther perel. I heard esther perel, who's a very successful couples therapist. She has a podcast, all this stuff. But I heard her say once most people, their relationships don't end because of one big blowout fight. It's not, oh, it's not as black and white as oh. She cheated on me so I'm going to leave. It's more of.

Polina: 37:25

Over the years, you erode that trust and you cheat on each other in very small ways that end up eroding the trust and breaking down the relationship. And that's, you know. You're not present, you don't pay attention when they're trying to get your attention. You're doing something else. You, you know, spend more time with some, with other people, instead of your part, like little things that just are start or you talk behind their back things that like are not you know, are not helpful to the relationship and they don't add value. And the more that you downward spiral with those little habits that you don't think have an immediate effect on the relationship, over time they're, they're the avalanche that kind of breaks it all down.

Darren: 38:13

It's death by housing cuts. That's what I describe it. It's actually just very similar to like friendships as well as client relationships. We run a client business. It's that, if it's a series of small things, it's like, as you described, it's like an avalanche, right, it's only a small bit of change and then all of a things it's like um, as you described, it's like an avalanche, right, it's only a small bit of change and then all of a sudden it kind of drops and you described it really well with like five to one concessions of positive to negative impacts, like five positive reactions per one negative or semi-negative reaction.

Darren: 38:43

And you mentioned around the best marriage advice is everything in life is a skill that can be improved. What do?

Polina: 38:49

you think about that.

Polina: 38:51

Yeah, I think me, like a lot of other people, grew up to believe that love is an emotion, like love is something you feel. The day you don't feel it like, you're done Relationship over, marriage over. And I actually, the more people that I talked to, the more that I learned. I think I wrote in that post that like I was surprised that I learned more from the people who are on their second marriages than the people who are on their first, because they had the benefit of doing something wrong, seeing the mistakes and the consequences of those mistakes, the relationship breaking down and then having another shot to do it again.

Polina: 39:32

And the second time, a lot of them at least, were applying those lessons that they learned the first time around, and it was that it was like love is something that you feel, but then over a long period of time, you can't just rely on that feeling alone. You have to make it a skill that has to be sharpened constantly, and sharpening it constantly means like not letting your bad habits take over and be like, oh, I'm in this marriage, like I'm just, I can be myself and that's, that's fine. But as you, as you get better and as you put in more effort it starts to show. Um, because I think there was John Gottman, another uh relationship therapist, who said basically, if you, if you do nothing to improve the relationship, it'll deteriorate. So you have to constantly be doing small things like the five to one ratio, making sure that you have five positive interactions a day to that one negative, so that the ecology of the relationship maintains.

Darren: 40:48

That's super interesting because it's like it's like a business, right. You guys are moving forward or backwards, it's not staying still. You know well. I'm just trying to think about how that relates to like billionaires, when the top 10 billionaires in the world are divorced, right oh well, that's a whole other thing, I think. I mean, I think, if you think, about how that relates in terms of how they don't have that time right. Do you get me? They didn't put the time into that, because they put their time into something else.

Polina: 41:15

Exactly. Their problem is not the relationships, that they're not good at relationships. Their problem is that they're good at relationships, the ones that they choose, which often are business relationships, and the personal ones suffer. That's why I say, like a lot of times yes, you think success, you think like Jeff Bezos, elon Musk, but I would very much urge people, before you start to emulate or worship, don't those people look at their life holistically and not just like one aspect of it, because those people had to make sacrifices and in certain compromises that you know nothing about, that you know, maybe they're not happy. Maybe they have billions of dollars and, shocker maybe they're not actually happy for sure.

Darren: 42:06

Um, like, wealth is a mindset, right, and there's different variables to it. So it's one is like financial and, of course, if you have two children, there's going to be a lot of implications of what you need to do to make sure that everything is okay, right. But then once that's kind of filled, you kind of want to like almost backfill to the health, um, freedom time, like about five different kind of pillars that that complete a life, right, but it's almost like people fall too far into one bucket and completely forget the other, is thinking that this will solve that specific problem and you probably you know, know that as well like in, like an entrepreneur house, right, that it's going to be the realities that you need to work on those different buckets. When you mentioned earlier about, you know your writing, or people's writing, is a reflection of where they want to be.

Darren: 42:50

I remember I spoke to sahil bloom in new york in december. I haven't had him on my show and I asked him a lot about these kind of I was effectively models for like running relationships and running businesses and he said these are things that are focal in my mind, that I'm trying to improve and he really works on the full kind of a flywheel effect of this. So it's just quite interesting, right, because someone like that, who's super, super successful in pretty much whatever domain he wanted to be in, right.

Darren: 43:16

It was that it was baseball, it was the vc world, it was now as an entrepreneur, it's as a writer, it's as an athlete, like whatever domain he's in, he's still thinking about the impact of like family relationships, time, mental health and physical health yeah, matthew McConaughey says that, like he defines success into five different buckets, as a measure of five different things.

Polina: 43:41

So it's not just you know how much money am I making, it's also am I being a good husband, how am I with kids? And he rates himself every month on those things and he's like am I in the red or am I in the black? And like you, basically the, the, the. The difficult part about talking about success is that success means different things to different people. So you and I can have an entire conversation about success, but without defining it for each other, we are talking past each other, because to you, maybe, success means building the biggest business in the world. Maybe to me, success means raising the best kids in the world.

Polina: 44:16

And it's like that's hard right, because you have to be able to measure it in a certain way. How do I know I'm achieving my goals? And, for example, if you want to be an athlete, it's pretty easy to measure like am I, what's my time on this half marathon? What's my time on this marathon? If you want to do it in your personal life, it's a little bit harder, but it is possible. You know how many? Jesse Itzler talks about this a lot like how many mini adventures did we do as a family this month? Month like that can be a measure of quote-unquote success. But it's like when you want, um, what is the quote? It's like you can't move what you don't measure.

Darren: 44:58

So if you want to get better at something, whether it's business or personal, you have to find ways to measure it so you know that you are improving I'm absolutely about that because and my partner always like laughs me for all the shit that I measure, right, but if it's in a business, you'd be measuring, like your pnl, your turn and everything but, in your personal life or in your health, or when you're running. You'll measure your times right in the gym. I'll measure my weights, my body weight.

Darren: 45:24

Even because it's an it's it's not a full reflection, but it's an indicate indication of where we currently are right and it's just a metric on a screen, on a dashboard to show you green, amber or gold, but I think without those you're spinning your wheels and that's kind of when you've well, I would fall into the kind of anxiety space because it's like where am I?

Darren: 45:43

I'm just I'm in the ether of the world floating by but it's, it's a reality though of like, kind of our brains, is the way we're kind of wired towards, like. I'm not saying more about wanting to get better, right, just wanting to improve, right. I want to ask you about, um content, and you mentioned that the average american spends 13 hours a day consuming content. How, how does that happen? Because is that a combination of like instagram and twitter, or is that like everything between, like the news telling us that the world is exploding and everything? By the way, when I was in america at christmas, I couldn't believe uh, the national, not national, the state, uh news, like it was almost like a comedy. Oh, I was in, I was in, uh, north carolina that's where my partner's from and we would actually watch it as a joke coming up to christmas and it would literally be like a comedian, like a comedy show, and you could not replicate it. I couldn't explain to you now. I'd have to show it to you and it was like.

Polina: 46:48

This cannot be real yeah, I have a hot take, which is that, uh, news on tv is not real journals. There's nothing journalistic about it. Remind me the last time that, like cnn or fox broke a news story. Uh, it's so bad, it's all horrible.

Darren: 47:07

I I don't watch it.

Polina: 47:08

I don't recommend it. But, um, if you think about I want, like whoever is listening to this podcast right now, ask yourself like when was the last time that I was bored? I had nothing to do? Because this is how it happens, right, like you're bored. That's why I asked you if you listen to something on your walks, because a lot of the time, even when we're, you know, on a walk, we're still consuming content For a lot of people. Let's say, you're by yourself, you're feeling a little bored and you get your phone and you go on Instagram. You feel every moment and it's like that's why the times where you're getting a haircut or the times where you're in the shower or driving are the only times that you can have ideas, because that time is not filled by other people's voices that's how.

Darren: 48:01

That's how it stacks up, right, because people don't realize that even looking at your phone screen time, it's not a true reflection, because it's a combination of everything and I would nearly put into that bracket too, like the you know, information of like gossip, like that constant kind of gossip and talking about it, and I'm one of my mates, uh, rob, he mentioned before.

Darren: 48:21

Like you know, if you're at a table a you know dinner table or lunch table, whatever, and if you just sit silent, someone generally brings up someone's name and that's when you should actually leave. It's like generally.

Polina: 48:31

That's like a default.

Darren: 48:32

It's like a default level, because people don't want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about, like, all the other problems, and I've actually just observed. Then you know, I could have been 100% victim to this at times, right, but it's a good observation just to say, like, what are we filling the space with? Because that's kind of what social media is. This is like you're looking into someone's life for better or for worse, and then you're taking that information. So just an interesting way to look at it, because we see stats like that and think, oh, like they're the masses, but that's not the reality. Usually it's like we're a part of that, contributing to that machine, which is why we need to unplug this podcast and go walking, go, go walk in the garden.

Darren: 49:12

So I want to say a massive thank you for this play. Now, do not, do not want to take too much of your time. Let's do our next session in person. I would love to do that in person. Uh, give it, give enough time and take it nice and easy. But I really appreciate this and I want to keep uh, definitely keep up to date with the profile, especially with some of the additions you're coming out to.

Polina: 49:30

Awesome. Thank you so much, darren, this was a pleasure.