#449 Polina Pompliano on The World’s Most Successful People

Polina Marinova Pompliano is the founder and author at The Profile, which is a community that studies the world’s most successful people and companies. In this conversation, we discuss the world’s most successful people, including Elon Musk, Sara Blakely, Martha Stewart, Grant Achatz, Anthony Bourdain, and many others. ======================= Want to sell your wonderful internet business? Tiny partners with founders to give them quick, straightforward exits that protect their team and culture. We’ll make an offer within a week, close the deal within a month, and keep your business operating for the long term. Get in touch at tinycapital.com, and we’ll let you know within a couple of days. http://www.tinycapital.com ======================= LVL is a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times per month for free. They have no trading fees and no spreads in the spot market. If you buy or sell more than $500 in Bitcoin on any exchange, you're spending too much on trading fees. Use LVL to save money and trade as many times you want. https://lvl.co/pomp ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 90,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Paulina Maranova Pompliano is the founder and author at The Profile, which is a community that studies the world's most successful people and companies. In this conversation, we discuss the world's most successful people, including Elon Musk, Sarah Blakely, Martha Stewart, Grant Atkins, Anthony Bourdain, and many others. I really enjoyed this conversation with Paulina, and I hope you do as well. It doesn't hurt that she's also my wife. But before we get into this episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Tiny. Do you want to sell your wonderful internet business? Well, you should go talk to Tiny. I've had Andrew Wilkinson on the podcast multiple times, and I'm a really big fan. Tiny partners with founders to give them quick, straightforward exits that protect their team and culture. They'll make an offer within a week, close the deal within a month,

• 0:57Anthony Pompliano?

  and keep your business operating for the long term. You can get in touch with them at tinycapital.com, and it'll let you know within a couple of days their level of interest. If you're a founder who's built something that has value, and you want it to be in good hands, but you want to sell it, you might want to go do something else, or maybe you just think you need help. I would highly suggest going to talk to Andrew, his partners at Tiny. Tiny just takes care of the business. They understand what founders go through, because they're founders themselves. They speak in your language, and they treat you the way that you want to be treated. That's all you can really ask from somebody in their position. So go check them out. There's literally hundreds and hundreds of companies that have engaged with them, and the reviews are all positive. Go check them out at tinycapital.com.

• 1:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, tinycapital.com. If you're looking to sell your wonderful internet business, your first stop should be Tiny. Next up is Level. It's a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times per month for free. That's right, they have no trading fees and no spreads in the spot market. It is free. If you buy or sell more than $500 in Bitcoin on any exchange, you're spending too much on trading fees. So you can use Level to save money and trade as many times as you want. Many people have asked me, how do they make money? How is this sustainable? Well, Level makes money on other products. So withdrawal fees, or they have a cash account that's FDIC insured. There's all these other products is where they make their money.

• 2:24Anthony Pompliano?

  But their crypto exchange is completely free. No trading fees and no spreads in the spot market. So stop having any sort of fee drag hurt the performance of your crypto investing and go check out Level. That's lvl.co/pomp. Lvl.co/pomp. The first free, completely free, no hidden fee crypto exchange. Lvl.co/pomp. Lastly, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 90,000 investors about business technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy to understand language while sharing my personal opinion on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Polina. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:42Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I didn't think that you would ever see me and my beautiful wife.

• 3:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, hey.

• 3:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Polina here. We're going to do an episode all about the profile of dossiers that she's been writing. She's been analyzing and studying some of the world's most successful and interesting people. So.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Let's get into it. Maybe let's just start with you telling us, what is the profile? And how's it been going since you left your job in March? The profile is a media company that I started working on in February of 2017. It started off just as a weekly newsletter and then it evolved into more properties, including the profile dossier, which is an individual deep dive into a single person who is super interesting, whether they're in business or entertainment, sports, etc. So yeah, the profile studies the world's most successful people and companies. All right. And so when you first started doing the dossier, what's kind of the point of a profile dossier?

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Somebody put it as, um, it's kind of like a better Cliff Notes. What do you mean? So let's say you want to learn more about Elon Musk. You can go down a rabbit hole of the internet that is you can look up his podcasts, videos he's done, you can read articles on him, you can read books on him, all of that. Instead, what I do is kind of I, I compile and put together all of that information for you. And I give you little snippets about like, hey, here's Elon Musk on a podcast with Joe Rogan. Here's what it's about. But then the one thing that I do, I think that's really helpful to people, is I put together a section called techniques to try.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  And that's super, super specific techniques, specific to that individual person that I've learned from them and they're very, um, they're not mushy. You know what I mean? They're not like Elon Musk says be original. Okay. Well, how are you more original? So that's kind of the premise. So speaking of Elon Musk, let's just jump into him. What exactly did you write about for him? So Elon Musk, the way I kind of start, get the ideas for these dossiers is I start with an idea first. So for me, for Musk, the idea was, okay, he's the most original, innovative and radical thinker, possibly of our time. Um, he's a self-made billionaire.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Like I want to learn more about how he develops his ideas and independent thought. And I wanted to delve into things like that. So. He has the following companies that he's founded and or is the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, SolarCity, Starlink, The Boring Company, Hyperloop, OpenAI, Future of Life Institute. So basically, he's taking on the thorniest, biggest problems of humanity.

• 6:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. And so as you're doing this, like the process, as you read as many books, articles, listen to as many podcasts, YouTube videos, et cetera on him, and what were the kind of takeaways that you took after consuming every single piece of content you could find about Elon Musk?

• 6:54Speaker 03

  So the fascinating thing about Elon Musk is that when he looks at you, when he looks at another human, he doesn't see a human being, he sees a computer. In other words, he looks at your brain as a computer and he distinguishes your hardware, your mental hardware from your mental software. So your hardware is kind of like a ball of clay that's handed to us at birth, but it's the software that determines the, what kind of tool the clay gets shaped into. So that's why you have to be very, very mindful of the type of content you're consuming on a daily basis, because if you're consuming junk food or, you know, Love Island and The Bachelorette

• 7:38Speaker 03

  and shows like that, your hardware will be shaped in a certain way, whereas if you're reading things like the profile and the pomp letter, you will be dangerous with knowledge. So I thought that was really interesting.

• 7:50Anthony Pompliano?

  And do we feel like that's why he's so smart? It's just because he read so much information and he basically just consumed more than everybody else?

• 7:57Speaker 03

  So, no, I think that Elon is, he's a very interesting person because he basically challenges the status quo in ways that most people don't. He has something he calls first principles thinking, where he keeps asking why until you can get down to the nitty gritty of like, what is scientific fact behind this? Why can't this be done? And I also think that he's just very curious. So as a kid, he used to be afraid of the dark, for example. So he would ask like, oh my God, you know, why does it get dark? Why do I get scared? And then somebody, he says, this is a quote, "But then I came to understand, dark just means the absence of photons

• 8:38Speaker 03

  in the visible wavelength, 400 to 700 nanometers. Then I thought, well, it's really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons." So like, that's literally how his brain works.

• 8:49Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, it's just fascinating to me that he's so scientific and he's also considered one of the best marketers as well. So he's able to balance that. Did you find anything in there about the balance?

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there's a really, really great, it's kind of a series of articles. It's basically a book. It's very in-depth. It's in Wait But Why? Tim Urban wrote this thing about Elon Musk and he characterized the difference between how Elon thinks and the way most people think is being the difference between a chef and a cook. So the reason that Elon is logical, original, but also creative is because he, he, he's a trailblazer. He, the chef invents the recipe. The cook just follows the recipe. Most people are cooks. He's a chef. He's able to, through his logic, through his questions, through his curiosity, he's able to concoct a recipe that's never existed before. And that's also what makes

• 9:43Speaker 03

  him creative.

• 9:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. So speaking of a chef, Grant Atkins, who is, I think at one point, the number one chef in the world, or at least was the chef at the number one restaurant in the world, he has a wild story. What'd you learn about him?

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. This is probably my favorite profile dossier that I've ever worked on just because I think Grant Atkins is one of the most creative people in restaurants, but also maybe in the world. So Grant Atkins is fascinating because he'll go to a museum, he'll look at a piece of art on the wall and he'll say, why can't I eat off of that? And, and most people don't cross their industries like that. One chef might be inspired from another chef, et cetera. But he's inspired by everything. And so he looks at a piece of art and he's like, I want to eat off of that. And who says we have to eat off of a tablecloth? Who says we have to eat out of plates and use forks and use this motion

• 10:40Speaker 03

  to eat? Like, these are things that we just take for granted. And we are like, of course you eat from a plate. What do you, what else are you going to eat from? But he considers his cooking and his dining experience. A, he, he calls it, it's called a linia. It's in Chicago. He calls it one-third laboratory, one-third sensorium, and one-third theater. So he looks at the whole idea as a story.

• 11:04Anthony Pompliano?

  And I think the part that's so interesting about Grant is if you get to know his story, he basically got cancer on his tongue and he couldn't taste anything, which as a chef, it's kind of difficult. But he not only continued being a chef, but it really forced him to focus, I think you said like, not on what does the food taste like, but from memory, remembering what it tastes like. But and then that allowed him to focus on the other aspects of eating, not just taste, but experience.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  And not just memory. Also, we think that the majority of taste comes from the taste buds on our tongue. But what he discovered is that actually they, the majority of your taste comes from your sense of smell and sense of vision. So the way something looks. So one of his favorite things that he does at his restaurant is he makes a tomato that looks like a strawberry. So you're in your brain, you're like, I'm about to eat a strawberry, I'm about to eat a strawberry. And you're like, oh, my God, I think this tastes like a tomato. But it's, it's, it's tricking you. You know what I mean? It's magic.

• 12:01Anthony Pompliano?

  That's magic. All right. Sarah Blakely, who is one of the best entrepreneurs in the world. What did you learn about her?

• 12:10Speaker 03

  So Sarah Blakely's story is super interesting because she's one of those people that she's, she was so naive when she started her entrepreneurial journey, that she always saw opportunity in failure, when most people would see failure as just plain failure. So, growing up, she wanted to be a trial attorney, but then she bombed the LSAT. After college, she auditioned to be goofy at Disney World, but she was too short. So she ended up at 27 years old, moving back to Atlanta, living with her mom, selling fax machines. And so, that was kind of a dead end job. And she was like, she kept telling herself, like, you're better than this, like, you're meant to do more than this. It's all about mindset for her. And

• 12:50Speaker 03

  one night, she decided to wear her new white pants to a party, but her underwear left unflattering panty lines. So if you're a woman, you know exactly what I mean. And so when she, when she saw how good her butt looked, she was like, this is an opportunity. So she cut the feet off of her pantyhose, created Spanx, became the youngest self-made billionaire.

• 13:11Anthony Pompliano?

  And so when you read through kind of all of her story and her content and everything, what do you take away in terms of like those tips and techniques?

• 13:20Speaker 03

  The, the thing that's interesting about Sarah Blakely is that when she was growing up, her dad would make the whole family, as they sat around the table and had dinner, to go through and tell him, all the kids had to tell their dad, one thing they failed at that day. And she said that he'd be genuinely disappointed if it wasn't like a good meaty failure. And I think that that shaped her brain, again, the software and the hardware, to think, oh, something's a failure, that means like I'm trying, I'm taking a risk. So that's, that's why she started Spanx with no business experience, no business background, no investors. She didn't even tell the idea to her family and friends until she launched.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  So I think just being naive can be good. And she also says that being an outsider to the fashion industry, she, she didn't know anything about fashion, but she said that allowed her to see things with fresh eyes, where everybody's like, this is how it's always been. She was like, but why does it have to be this way?

• 14:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Another person that you covered that's an original thinker and talks a lot about kind of the way they think is Malcolm Gladwell. What did you learn about him?

• 14:29Speaker 03

  So Malcolm Gladwell is possibly one of the best storytellers I've come across. You know him for books like Outliers and The Tipping Point, right? That's one of them. He, he, Talking to Strangers recently came out. He, he basically says, what I'm really interested in is joy and intellectual play. The unexpected turns that ideas can make is, to my mind, one of the greatest pleasures of being alive. So he talks a lot about idea generation. When you don't have an idea, he, he recommends like go on a walk. Take like, make, make it a point to notice things in your neighborhood you've never noticed. Go to the library. He says that when you use Google, it kind of makes it, it kind of makes it like, Google recommends things that it thinks you will like or that are the most relevant.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  So the, the most common ideas come up first. When you go to the library, you search books, things that are around. But like, you can get fresh and original ideas. One of the, my favorite things that I learned from Malcolm Gladwell is, you know me, you know how Much I care about like things being perfect and things being done well and right and okay.

• 15:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Like me.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  And I, I, I just really care. And what you always tell me is forget perfect, just get it done, get it out the door and then you can evolve the idea, right? So he says that people are actually often drawn to things that are done imperfectly. So it's art, movies, books. People talk more about the flawed things that get stuck in their heads than the very, very perfect things, right? So he says, you want an aftertaste and that comes from not everything being perfectly blended together. The question is, what is interesting? And that's what has to drive any creative act.

• 16:13Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. And he's written how many amazing books?

• 16:17Speaker 03

  So many.

• 16:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Of the way that he takes these ideas and basically articulates them back for people to read. Somebody who I knew nothing about until you covered them was Tara Westover. Let's maybe start with just the story first and then what you learned.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Tara is, she wrote Educated, which is one of my favorite memoirs. She was born to Mormon parents in the mountains of Idaho, Mormon survivalist parents. So that means that they didn't believe in anything government funded. So she didn't get to go to a hospital when she almost like cut her hand off and she didn't get to go to school. So, so her family life was incredibly turbulent. She was, she decided to self educate and take the SATs. Because she had an older brother who had gone to college, so she was inspired by him. She was 17 years old when she first set foot in a classroom and that was at Brigham Young University.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  I, I mean, it's incredible. And there, that's where she studied history and learned for the first time about world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. There's a point in the book where she raises her hand. She's like Holocaust, like, well, what do you mean by that? And all her classmates are like, oh my God, she doesn't believe the Holocaust happened. She's like, I genuinely don't know what that is. And it's, it's.

• 17:37Anthony Pompliano?

  It's kind of sad.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  It is sad, but like, what, what do you think about when you heard her story?

• 17:42Anthony Pompliano?

  I think it's just, you know, there's people like that all around the world that we just don't consider living in the United States or North America with internet access and great education and things like that.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Yup.

• 17:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, but at the same time, you know, if you kind of think back to, um, I knew people who had never traveled outside of the state they grew up in or the city they grew up in. Um, and so this is like that on steroids, but I, I think it's more common than we probably realize. Uh, and for most people who are listening to this podcast, for example, uh, you know, you are likely to be seeking out new ideas or, or kind of new pieces of content, trying to, you know, really just build an understanding and educate yourself. Uh, and so it's no different. Um, it's just done in a different format, you know, kind of what she went through in the story.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  So, and, and one thing that's really interesting that I learned from her story, and I always remind myself of this, is to consider your echo chambers, right? So because of her upbringing, uh, she held racist, homophobic and sexist views because of her, her views were her dad's views. Like she didn't know anything else. Um, the only way she says she was able to change her mind was that people let her express her beliefs out loud, which allowed her to hear the way it sounded, uh, when they would challenge why she thought that she would get to explain, et cetera. So she says, "They weren't really my words. They came from somewhere else." But here's, here's what she says about education that

• 19:08Speaker 03

  I, I really love. She says, "Education, I really believe is a privilege. We always need to be attacking the bigotry and the prejudice, but I don't think we should be attacking people for not having an education that there's no way they could have possibly had." I think that's so important.

• 19:26Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the people who has had, uh, the most education in the world via experiences and not a traditional classroom is Anthony Bourdain.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Yup.

• 19:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Anyone who's seen his story, who's watched his work, I think is a general fan uh because of the way that he carried his life out. The sad part of the story is obviously he passed away. Um, and so you went down this deep rabbit hole and I remember when you told me you were gonna do it. I was like, wow, you're gonna learn so much. Uh, basically tell me everything. And then you wrote this uh piece and it's a grand slam. So what were the tips and tricks that you took out of Anthony Bourdain and kind of the way he lived his life at a hundred miles an hour all the time?

• 20:11Speaker 03

  He did, and even though he, he lived his life at a hundred miles an hour, he always knew and appreciated the position that he was in. He knew that he got lucky. He got chosen to be in this position, whereas, you know, lots of other people wouldn't. So he, he really did live life to the fullest, if you will. But um, he traveled to more than a hundred different countries. And um, one of the things that he says is you should go rogue when you travel. So he once said that traveling to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower is lethal to the soul. Because you're actually, i- it's the places that are off the beaten path and the ones that put you out of your comfort zone that, you know, are the ones that teach you something, right?

• 20:54Speaker 03

  So he says, uh, we tend to be over concerned with safety and with cleanliness in ways that stand between us. So he had a rule, whenever he went to a different country, whatever they gave him, he would eat. He, he, he didn't, it doesn't matter what, there was one, can I tell you?

• 21:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  Okay, so they ripped a snake uh through the middle, grabbed its still beating heart, put it in a thing and then you just chase, not chase it, shoot it like a shot. He did it. It, it's wild, but he always did that. And, and he says that it's the human awkward moments when you don't speak the language of somebody else, when there's a little uh miscommunication. Like, like Malcolm said, it's the, it's the imperfection, the things that leave an aftertaste. Those are the memories that you probably have.

• 21:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, basically, he's like, look, I'm not going to travel around the world and just go see all the places everyone else sees. I want to go actually experience them as if I was a local living here. And I think anyone who's traveled before knows that is the best way to travel. And then talk a little bit about his thoughts around like sharing memories with people over a meal.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, so one of the biggest lessons I learned from him is that, he says, no matter where you go, the one tip as a traveler, as a tourist, you should have is that you shouldn't be a snob. A lot of people are, they go somewhere, they're like, oh, I don't do that. Ooh, I don't like that. This isn't, environment isn't clean enough for me. He says, the dish you're eating is nowhere nearly as important as where you are sitting and with whom you are eating it with.

• 22:27Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a great piece of advice. Somebody who did a fantastic job in their life, minus one big situation where maybe they could have used some better advice, is Martha Stewart. Now, you haven't published this one yet, but we're going to talk about it.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Give you a little sneak peek.

• 22:45Anthony Pompliano?

  What did you learn about Martha Stewart?

• 22:48Speaker 03

  So, long before there were social media influencers, there was Martha frickin Stewart, and she was more powerful. Like, imagine Martha, well, I guess you can, because there is social media today. But when she started, if there was social media, she would be everywhere. So, in the year 2000, she had two magazines, 27 books, a weekday radio show, a syndicated Ask Martha newspaper column, a TV show on CBS, a website, a merchandising retail partnership, and a catalog. Like, and, and, and she actually is America's first self-made female billionaire.

• 23:22Anthony Pompliano?

  That's crazy.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. But then she became something nobody ever thought she would be.

• 23:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Criminal.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  A convicted felon for insider training, uh, trading. A lot of people say that, you know, they kind of wanted to make an example out of her, but she actually voluntarily served that sentence before she was, uh, anyway, it doesn't matter.

• 23:40Anthony Pompliano?

  So what did you learn?

• 23:42Speaker 03

  I think that Martha Stewart is super interesting because there's a lot of people who can reach the top, right? Like, they can build this empire. It takes a lot to stay on top. And she's been able to do it and redo it with generation after generation. And she went from, she took something called women's work, which is cleaning, gardening, cooking, and turned it into a billion-dollar empire. And the way she did that is she kept innovating, and she kept trying new things, even when it could have been dangerous for her brand. She did a partnership with Snoop Dogg, like, and they're best friends. And that went really well for her. She got into CBD at a time when it was still like, oh, and it turned out really

• 24:25Speaker 03

  well for her. Her magazine, Martha Stewart Magazine, was one of the first to use a digital layout to lay out the pages and to go digital on the internet, whereas other magazines were like, oh, we're just gonna stick with print. She is not afraid to do that. And one more thing that I learned that I think is actually very valuable, learn how to not give a damn. She does not care if you like her. Her brand is about helping educate you, right? So there's a column that explains how Stewart's success is completely isolated from the need for likability. And unlike some of her, like, contemporaries of the time, like Oprah and things like that, she was just like, you know, I don't care if you like me. And I think that

• 25:08Speaker 03

  that's why her going to prison actually didn't damage her brand.

• 25:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's absolutely nuts to think about just how long she's been around, how relevant, and how many times she's reinvented herself and been innovative. Speaking of-

• 25:21Speaker 03

  She had a thirst trap on Instagram coming out of a pool.

• 25:26Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't know, she has thirst traps on the internet. Brandon Stanton is all over Instagram, Facebook, and everywhere else. He's the guy behind Humans of New York. He's fantastic. What did you learn when you did a deep dive on him and you also interviewed?

• 25:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, Brandon Stanton, this is one of those people that I've been admiring his work for so long. So to get to actually speak to him was really cool for me.

• 25:52Anthony Pompliano?

  He's a cool guy.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  He's a cool guy.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  He um he spent the so basically here's his quick bio in 2010. He was uh he had graduated from the University of Georgia like me and he was a bond trader. He was working as a bond trader in Chicago and then uh the financial crisis happened. He got fired and he was like he took a walk, a long walk, and he was like, what do I actually like to do? And he realized like I just really like taking pictures of people like that's what I like to. So he picked up his camera, went out and started photographing people, moved to New York.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  What I learned and and so by the way, he he started doing that just because he liked it, not because he thought that there would be a business. So the biggest thing I've learned from Brandon is like when you go to business school, a lot of people say, okay, you're gonna start a company. What's your business plan? And I think a lot of times the best businesses actually don't have a clear path to profitability or business plan or blueprint of any sort. I when I started the profile in 2017, I never thought it would become a business. And Brandon, when he started photographing strangers on the street, he never thought he would make money off of it and that would be his living. So sometimes I think just the passion overwhelms that and it just naturally pushes you to you're gonna make money somehow.

• 27:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I think also it's just like you know that if you can have people pay attention, right? You you'll always be able to monetize that in some way, whether it's ads, whether it's um you know, kind of audience supported, whether it's selling physical products. Um if if you're an entrepreneur and you've got attention, then you can always monetize it in some uh some way. Uh I want to talk about uh Courtney Dollalter.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 27:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I think is how you pronounce her name. Absolute legend.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  She's a savage.

• 27:40Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, tell her story.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  So Courtney was a tough one to do actually because um she went on Joe Rogan's podcast. She's done a few, but she's just one of those people that's very matter of fact. Like, for example, if so, she she's a she she's a really long distance runner. She won the Moab 240, which is a 240.3 mile foot race through some of Utah's most challenging terrain. It took her 58 hours and she beat the second place finisher by more than 10 hours. So she's gone through hallucination, blindness, sleep deprivation, vomiting.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  I think if those things had ever happened to me, my interviews would be so full of color and exaggeration and craziness. And that's the thing, she doesn't need to exaggerate because she's been through this craziness. So when, like, on the Joe Rogan podcast, actually, there's a point, he's like, he's like, Courtney, like, you're a savage, like, tell me, how do you do? And she was like, no, I just run, I'm fine. Like, she's very matter of fact. The thing that I like about her is that she's mastered, she believes that her strength is being able to master the art of suffering. So she's managed to stay calm through bouts of severe nausea, a bleeding head injury, and temporary blindness. And here's how. So

• 28:59Speaker 03

  she calls, she, this is something that she calls it the pain cave. So she's an endurance runner. So she talks about pain is an actual place. And I think that's really interesting because it's helpful to personify pain, because it kind of serves as a reminder that you can enter it and you can leave it. But like, you're in control. You're not just like, I'm in pain, I can't go on. And that's, and she says, she literally says, it's not a place I'm scared to enter, it's a place I'm excited to find the entrance to. So she's actively looking for that.

• 29:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I kind of like that.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  Why?

• 29:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't know. I just feel like if you've got control of it, and you know where you're going, there's this element of like, you're addicted to the pain. So you can put yourself into it.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Do you think that because you know that there's gonna be pain, you're kind of like eager to, like, your brain isn't shocked when it happens?

• 29:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course. But it's also, I think that part of what the training does, is they train for the pain, right? It almost becomes meditative at some, like, weird, like, way, right?

• 30:04Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 30:04Anthony Pompliano?

  What is not meditative is arguing with your significant other. And the last person we're gonna talk about, Mr. John Gottman, basically tries to prevent that on a daily basis. So, explain John Gottman, and what I thought was voodoo science that ends up being pretty, pretty effective.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  So the reason I like John Gottman is because he's been called the Einstein of love. But every time you talk about love and marriage and relationships,

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Things tend to be pretty mushy, right? Like, people are just like, "Oh, you gotta be, you know, do the best you can." Except Gottman's very scientific and mathematical in his approach. So, he's developed models, scales, and formulas to better predict marital stability and divorce in couples. His research focuses on the process of conflict within a marriage, the way couples fight and reconcile, and less on the content of the actual argument. And I thought that was so interesting. He and his wife, also a researcher, they teamed up and did this, like, love lab, which was essentially an apartment. And they put different couples in this apartment over a period of time, and they filmed them, their interactions.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  And they divided them into two groups, the masters and the disasters. So, they were able, within like 94% accuracy, predict whether a couple would stay married or get divorced. Isn't that insane?

• 31:31Anthony Pompliano?

  What were the signals?

• 31:32Speaker 03

  So, okay, the most important signal, there's something he calls the four horsemen of the apocalypse. So, these are certain negative communication styles that are absolutely lethal. They're criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt, which is the most dangerous one. Look them up, they're amazing. The other thing that he believes it's not about the grand gestures of romance that really make a relationship solid, it's the tiny little mundane moments. So, he always says that happier couples had a ratio of five positive interactions to every one negative interaction.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  So, literally, a head nod, a smile, like a pat, like, something small counts towards that, and that can enhance positivity. There's one that I love, and I really believe this is true. It's called answering the bid. So, when your partner, throughout the day, they make requests for connection, and that's what he calls a bid. So, say that your partner is a bird enthusiast, which I am, and they...

• 32:42Speaker 03

  And they point out a pretty bird as you're on your walk. If the other person turns their head to look at the bird, that can signify whether your relationship is going to work or not. Because over a long period of time, decades and decades, just, you know, uh, uh, um, giving that other person a, that little bit of attention, uh, builds connection over time.

• 33:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, what are the odds that you're on a walk, somebody, "Look at that bird." And the other person's like, "I'm not gonna look."

• 33:12Speaker 03

  What are the, no, no, no, it's, it's a lot more about like the ignoring and the neglect. Like if I'm like right now, "Hey Anthony, look at this cool like meme." If you ignore me, I, like, I feel a little bit slighted, right? Like, and over time, that just builds resentment and, and it kinda tears apart.

• 33:30Anthony Pompliano?

  That makes sense. All right, we've got over ten of these.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Man, I talked a lot.

• 33:34Anthony Pompliano?

  You've done a ton of them. What would you say is your favorite part about doing the profile dossier?

• 33:41Speaker 03

  I think for me, it's, I've always been a big like observer of people. I, I don't like being the center of attention. I like observing other people. And I think that this really, by listening to so many of their conversations and reading about them and, and seeing them do interviews, it lets you kinda be in their brain for a little bit and see how they think, you know?

• 34:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I agree.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  What have you learned? Because you've read every single one of them.

• 34:07Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that everyone's more similar than they are different. And the world's most successful people, uh, success can be measured by happiness, you know, crazy feats like running 240 miles, uh, being the richest people, you know, whatever. Uh, it, there's no secret sauce. Like, you just gotta do the work. And, um, once you realize, like, literally, nobody has a magic bullet. Nobody has, uh, a secret. And everyone just does the work that ends up being successful. Uh, then you just realize, like, okay, well, what work do I have to do? Let's go do it. And it, and it kind of focuses you on, uh, work rather than like the dream of being successful.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  Out of the ones that you've read, um, which like lesson or thing has stayed with you?

• 34:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Probably not just one. Um, I just like Grant Atkins, uh, Atkins.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Atkins.

• 34:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Atkins, uh, because like he was a chef that lost taste in his tongue and he was like, nah, I'm still gonna be the best in the world.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  And it made him better.

• 35:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  And, and, oh, sorry. One more thing about Grant Atkins that I've found a thread across all, every single dossier that I've ever done. The one thread is that you can always reinvent yourself and sometimes you shouldn't wait. So Grant Atkins, he blows up his entire menu every three months and start and makes everyone at the, at the restaurant start over and come up with new ideas. And they're like, Grant, this is the best menu we've ever had. And he's like, yeah, but that's, that's what brings complacency and makes you just average. Like, we have to keep reinventing and keep trying new things.

• 35:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And I think the other piece of this too, that, that's really interesting is when you think about the best way to learn, uh, to me, it's studying people who are successful.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  And why is that?

• 35:55Anthony Pompliano?

  They do. Because it's just actionable things. Like, you, you don't need to know, oh, you know, I mean, yes, you need to know two plus two, but like, there's a calculator, right? And learning two plus two isn't necessarily going to make you successful, but understanding the philosophy, the mindset, uh, and then incorporating those things into your own, you know, approach to, uh, solving a problem. It's usually the things that are outside the box. So the direct application, uh, ends up being you know, something about the world that other people don't know. It's the philosophy and kind of the persistence and, and, uh, that type of stuff that ends up being the differentiator in my opinion.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  And, and for me, it's actually that we're able to relate more to people and their stories and identify with them, be like, oh, I've been through something similar instead of like these abstract concepts where like, I never liked history because history was like, well, World War One, but if you gave me a person in World War One and their life journey and how it affected them, I would remember it, it would stick with me for much longer than just World War One. Guns.

• 36:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Where can we send people to find you on the internet and, uh, find out about the profile?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Read the profile.com.

• 37:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Read the profile.com?

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you have a Twitter account?

• 37:06Speaker 03

  Um, I do. Wait, for the profile or for myself?

• 37:09Anthony Pompliano?

  For yourself.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  I do. It's at Paulina underscore Marinova.

• 37:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you wanna promote anything else?

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm gonna give an update on my tomato plant and how that's doing for all of you who's who are curious. I've been getting a lot of those messages.

• 37:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. @pelina_marenova on Twitter and then readtheprofile.com.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. Thank you for doing this.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.