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

The reason that Elon [Musk] is logical, original, but also creative is because he he's a trailblazer. The chef invents the recipe; the cook just follows the recipe. Most people are cooks; he's a chef ... 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 him creative.

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. When I started The Profile in 2017, I never thought it would become a business.

It's not about the grand gestures of romance that really make a relationship solid; it's the tiny, little mundane moments. So, [John Gottman] always says that happier couples had a ratio of five positive interactions to every one negative interaction.

There's no secret sauce—you just got to do the work. And once you realize literally nobody has a magic bullet, nobody has a secret, and everyone just does the work that ends up being successful, then you just realize 'Okay, what work do I have to do? Let's go do it.'

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.

[Anthony Bourdain] once said that traveling to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower is lethal to the soul ... It's the places that are off the beaten path and the ones that put you out of your comfort zone that are the ones that teach you something.

We think that the majority of taste comes from the taste buds on our tongue, but what [Grant Achatz] discovered is that, actually, the majority of your taste comes from your sense of smell and sense of vision.

You can always reinvent yourself, and sometimes, you shouldn't wait.

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.

[Tara Westover] 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.'