'It Challenged Me To Develop Deeper Relationships'

The Daily Coach caught up with Polina Pompliano to discuss lessons in starting her own business and what she's learned about high performers in her years of research.

April 08, 2023

Polina Pompliano had her dream job.

She was working at Fortune magazine, writing a daily newsletter and interviewing some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.

"I thought I would never leave," she said.

And yet, the possibilities about where she could take her newsletter, "The Profile," continued to pull at her.

"What would happen if I could focus 100 percent of my energy on it? What types of interviews would I do? What ways could I grow the readership?", she asked.

Pompliano eventually took that leap of faith, and years later, is continuing to examine the habits and mental frameworks of leaders across business, entertainment and sports.

Her first book, "Hidden Genius," is set to be released in June.

The Daily Coach caught up with Pompliano recently to discuss how she persisted through childhood adversity, lessons in starting her own business, and what she's learned about high performers in her years of research.

This interview has been condensed and edited for brevity.

Polina, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us a little about your childhood and some lessons from it.

I was born in Bulgaria, and my parents won a green card in the green card lottery in 1999. The U.S. green card lottery has been called “the unwinnable lottery” because only one quarter of 1 percent of applicants actually end up getting it. We moved to Atlanta in 2000, and as you can imagine, those early days were unspeakably difficult. When we moved here on April 17, 2000, I couldn’t speak, read or write in English. Today, I make a living by playing with the same words I once couldn’t spell.

I've learned that the ability to build — and re-build — our lives deliberately is what gives us confidence in the face of uncertainty. So anytime I face a new challenge, I remind myself of those early days in the U.S. and how my parents and I had no choice but to figure it out. That experience gave me a level of grit that is impossible to learn inside of a classroom.

You went to the University of Georgia. What was your career plan while you were there and did it change at all?

My career plan when I was a freshman in college involved graduating with a full-time job as an investigative reporter. I got my degree in journalism and graduated with zero full-time offers and a move back home to live with my mom for a year. I had to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and figure out how to make money. I started freelancing and creating my own daily schedule of pitching stories and applying to jobs. It taught me the financial discipline that is invaluable to me today as a business owner.

You worked at Fortune for several years. How difficult was the choice to leave and what ultimately led you to it?

When I was making the decision, I read Anna Quindlen's 1999 commencement speech in which she says, "I am successful on my own terms. Because if your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all. Remember the words of Lily Tomlin: If you win the rat race, you're still a rat.” And I started thinking about that every single day: "How do I define success?" and "What does fulfillment mean for me?"

For me, ultimately, it came down to independence. There is no better feeling than the freedom to decide what you work on, how you spend your time, and who you do business with. And I really learned this from my parents who left an entire country in the hopes for independence. And I was doing it now on a much smaller level.

You launch “The Profile” and have obviously had great success with it. What’s gone better than anticipated and what’s been the biggest obstacle for you? Were there any points where you really questioned your decision?

I can honestly say I've never questioned my decision, but like any entrepreneur, there have been some challenges. In the beginning, it was difficult to convince certain people to do an interview with me because it would be published in The Profile rather than in a well-known publication.

It challenged me to develop deeper relationships and work harder to prove that it would be a worthwhile conversation. On the other hand, many people who had previously been burned by traditional media found the independent path refreshing, so I was able to land a ton of interviews by building that trust as an individual.

Congratulations on “Hidden Genius.” Take us through the process to complete it and what did you maybe learn about yourself in all the hours you put in?

It was amazing and crazy and thrilling all at once. It was February of 2022, and my daughter was three months old at the time. I received a message from Harriman House editor Christopher Parker on Twitter with a simple, “If your thoughts ever turn to writing a book, we’d love to chat with you.”

From there, one thing led to another, and I submitted a one-page book proposal, a proposed table of contents, a sample section, a sample chapter, and it somehow all snowballed into a full book.

I truly wrote this book in "the edges of time." I ended up writing in intervals — during the baby's 20-minute naps and several-hour stretches of sleep at night. It feels so wonderfully fulfilling because I truly did this book for me. While there was chaos and uncertainty in the world, I knew that every single night, I would go into my room and write in peace, and it felt really, really good. For anyone who's feeling lost right now, find one thing you enjoy doing, and make it a point to focus on it for 20 minutes every night.

The most surreal feeling in the world was when I got to see my daughter hold the book and flip through the pages. She had just turned 1. Every single hour I spent furiously writing was worth it in that moment.

The teaser for the book says high performers don’t use tricks or hacks. They use mental frameworks. Without giving away too much, can you expand on that a bit?

I am so tired of the cliche advice we see on a daily basis about waking up at 4 a.m. and doing cold plunges. Sure, some high-performers do that, but that's not what this book is about. For example, I have a chapter on how to clarify your thinking and see reality more objectively, and I share some practical frameworks to do that.

For instance, the co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, Julia Galef, explains how some people process information like a soldier or a scout — one is focused on winning while the other is focused on observing and seeing reality more objectively. She offers certain lenses we can use to see the world by using a visualization exercise to "divorce our beliefs from ourselves," playing with perspective, and how we can celebrate being objective and not just right.

That's not a hack. That's a fundamental shift in how you see the world that can benefit you for decades to come.

What do you most hope readers take away from your book?

I hope to pique readers' curiosity about their own interests and make them rethink their definition of success. In the conclusion, I leave the reader with 10 questions that they can ask themselves in order to discover their own hidden genius.

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