Hidden Genius: The secret ways of thinking that power the world's most successful people

by Polina Marinova Pompliano

What distinguishes the truly exceptional from the merely great?

After five years of writing The Profile, Polina Marinova Pompliano has studied thousands of the most successful and interesting people in the world and examined how they reason their way through problems, unleash their creativity, and perform under extreme pressure.

The highest performers don’t use tricks or hacks to achieve greatness. They use mental frameworks that fundamentally change the way they see the world. They’ve learned how to unlock their hidden genius in order to reach their full potential.

This book will help you do the same. After learning from the world’s most successful people featured inside, you will have a mental toolkit to help you tackle thorny problems, navigate relationships, and use creativity and resilience in times of uncertainty.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Personal Development, Business, Personal Growth, Productivity

252 pages, Hardcover

Published June 20, 2023

Reviews

[Matt Hutson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing people have amazing stories and each of us have a bit of amazing in us. Discover the art of hidden genius by immersing in the stories of exceptional individuals. Learn from their distinct qualities and adapt them to your own style.

Here's a concise summary of the primary takeaways from each chapter including 10 questions to help you find your hidden genius.

Chapter 1: Unleashing Your Creative Potential:
Add surprise to experiences, make connections, and cultivate creativity with flexibility and the ability to make connections. Creativity is a trained muscle, not just an innate gift.

Chapter 2: Mastering Mental Toughness:
Endure pain, adopt the 40% rule, and cultivate mental toughness. Develop self-talk, set goals, and intentionally regulate emotional responses for resilience.

Chapter 3: Unlocking Healthy Relationships:
Build trust with time and consistency. Understand the metaphor of the trust battery and aim to keep it charged over 80%. Make new mistakes, focus on positivity, and aim for 5 positive interactions for every negative one.

Chapter 4: Telling Better Stories:
Include conflict, show intent, and use "but," "accept," and "and then" in storytelling. Ask questions, personify pain, and view fear as a bully to master the art of storytelling.

Chapter 5: Becoming a More Effective Leader:
Realize someone is learning from you. Focus on playing the next play instead of the scoreboard.

Chapter 6: Taking Risks in Times of Uncertainty:
Be a risk technician, observe your breathing, shift perspective, and focus on one task at a time. Competence breeds confidence.

Chapter 7: Clarifying Your Thinking:
Avoid becoming a slave to beliefs. Treat beliefs as grayscale, seek intellectual humility, and play status games wisely.

Chapter 8: Building an Engaged Community:
Differentiate between an audience and a community. Overserve, build goodwill, and create moments of serendipity to build loyalty.

Chapter 9: Optimizing Your Content Diet:
Follow through matters most. Consume a mix of fashionable and unfashionable things. Deliberately wonder to generate new ideas.

Chapter 10: Discovering Your Hidden Genius:
Build habits to become the person you want to be. Reframe labels, bet on yourself, and understand you are more than one identity.

10 Questions to Discover Your Hidden Genius:
1. What is the biggest, boldest, most original endeavor you can conceive of?
2. How can you introduce moments of elective hardship into your week?
3. How many positive interactions have you and your partner had within the last day?
4. What could you learn if you told your personal story from the perspective of a different chapter in your life?
5. Where can you adopt a systems based mindset?
6. Is the decision I'm about to make reversible or irreversible?
7. What is one area of your life where you could examine and update your beliefs?
8. What is a meaningful activity or project you can pursue to better your community?
9. How can you improve your content diet now?
10. What is something you can create today that allows you to tie your identity to your name?

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read many books on business, leadership, and productivity. Hidden Genius stands out by summarizing frameworks and identifying the common patterns amongst the stories of top performers, while making it an enjoyable read. What I enjoyed the most was that both the frameworks and stories are not the usual that we’ve encountered before in books and the media. The author did a tremendous job at highlighting ideas and people that are new to most readers.

[Mrs C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of straightforward info with all the info nuggets highlighted at the end of the chapter. It features a lot of heavy hitters on the top of their game - mostly in tech like the founders of Canva, AirBnB, SpaceX etc. The author also slips in a few concepts in learning and mind conditioning that can be used to change how one looks at finishing a difficult task. For those who are impatient to get to the nitty gritty of things, this book delivers. Punchy and lively, it reminded me a bit of the book, Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

[Jack Swenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nuggets of inspiration here and there but the stories underwhelm in their attempt to bolster the content of the book. Liked the idea of optimizing your content diet but other chapters missed the mark entirely and didn’t resonate (ex - power in building community). The book is marketed as something that will give you tried and true frameworks for how the most successful people operate and think… not the case

[John P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been following Polina for years, and after reading 'Hidden Genius', it's exactly what I expected. AWESOME! Throughout the book, Polina introduces different mental models/ways of thinking before supporting those frameworks with numerous real-world examples (it reminds me of How to Win Friends and Influence People in that regard). The book is very straightforward and to the point. Highly recommend it to anyone who likes self-help, biographies, and true stories.

Polina Marinova Pompliano
Hidden Genius: The secret ways of thinking that power the world’s most successful people

[Staci · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reads like a summary of a lot of interesting self-help soundbites but nothing truly groundbreaking or insightful.

[Ferhat Elmas · Rating 2 out of 5]

She had 1,300+ profiles to mine for patterns. The result is shallow.

The first half works as a quick tour of mental models. The second half thins out when it reaches broader topics like community and content diet.

The deeper problem: no mention of survivorship bias or how these lessons generalize beyond handpicked winners. No causal thinking. No structural forces like timing, family, inheritance, location, or macroeconomy. Grit is praised without discussing when to quit, pivot, or avoid burnout. Risk and uncertainty are conflated. Remote work and technical leadership get almost no attention.
I wanted to see the cost of idea evaluation in the creativity section, not only generating more.

Good airport book.

[Sadewo Dewobroto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suka bagaimana cara penulis menyusun buku. Sekian banyak brief story kisah inspiratif sarat quotes dan key messages. Buku nonfiksi yang nggak bikin bosen.

[Jesus David Valverde · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reminds me of those high school essays where you had to hit a certain word count, so you played with font sizes, repeated phrases, and stretched things out just to make it longer. That’s exactly what this book does—it overuses bullet points without going in-depth, dedicates entire pages to single sentences, and fills space with superficial summaries and an excessive number of reference pages.

The result is an extremely short book, which wouldn’t be a problem on its own, but it feels like the author just wanted to cash in on their existing reader base.

Beyond the format, the content itself is incredibly basic. The issue isn’t just that it’s simple, but that it relies on scattered examples and one-liners without offering any real depth or valuable insights. It’s little more than a collection of clichés.

I get that some well-known bloggers turn their work into books to introduce new readers to their ideas or provide longtime followers with a physical copy of what they’ve already read online. But that’s not the case here—this is just a mini compilation of famous quotes that doesn’t feel worth the price.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title of this book doesn’t really reflect its content. It’s not about the facts behind “hidden geniuses” (who comes up with these titles anyway), it’s basically a book of great ideas for leadership and life. The ideas aren’t bad, they’re actually good, but it’s a book that parallels ten zillion other books in this genre, and given that there are umpteen number of ideas to spread your genius in this book (no one could possibly implement all of them), it seems to me exactly like any another book in this genre with an umpteen number of other (or the same) great ideas to spread your genius!

Indeed, here are some other things to read to spread your genius: The Hidden Habits of Genius; The Six Types of Genius, Sparks of Genius; Mind shift, It doesn’t take a Genius to Think like One; Cultivating Genius; Double Down on Your Genius; Story Genius; The Genius of Jesus; and perhaps my favorite, The Lazy Genius.

A skeptic might think that some book editor figured out that to sell a book, just put the word “genius” in the title, but of course I am not a genius, so I wouldn’t know.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pastiche of ideas gathered from interviews with individuals Pompliano dubs successful across an array of fields, this is less a book than a strung together set of anecdotes and quotes. It comes across as both sincere and superficial, likable and trite, and ultimately an intro to a passing set of propositions.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I will for sure go to back to multiple times. It is full of interesting stories, lessons, and actionable insights to apply to your own life. Extremely well written and inspirational for any audience.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s the type of book that I don’t want to finish, not because I hated it but because I’d love to read more and know more inspiring/insightful stories of people. 🥹

I’m so happy to have chosen this when I was contemplating on which book to grab that’s within the $30 voucher gift from a friend. And luckily this one costs $29.98 and got a gummy burger because the cashier says I need to buy more like a candy in order to fully use the vouchers 😅.

I’ll edit this review tomorrow or this weekend to take note of the things that learned from this. For now, 💤.


Things that I like to remember:
- Molchanov recommends shifting your perspective to see it as a challenge that you will enjoy overcoming rather than a situation you must suffer through. “Try to feel pleasure through the process”.
- Grant Achatz.. who lost his sense of taste and still built the number-one restaurant in the world.
- Naval Ravikant believes that Trust = Consistency + Time. If you consistently do what you say over a long period of time, then trust is inevitable. Then vice versa.
- Make a conscious decision to elevate the information I was consuming (not just on the books you read, videos or movies you watch but also on the people you spent your time with)
- If there’s a gap between your relationships with others and the way you expect them to be you’ll feel loneliness, by nature we want to have a sense of belongingness. Join a community of like-minded individuals. (I can definitely relate to this, I need to find a community)😌
- Dan Gilbert - Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pompliano did the hard work of culling information from so many resources for project self She has created a superb book, something I needed to read so much at this point in my life.

I will be on the lookout for more of her books and I’m enjoying her newsletter.

[Bistra Stoimenova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Тази книга за мотивация е писана от българка, но не звучи като писана от българка. Не го казвам като негатив, в интерес на истината. Просто на няколко пъти се хванах, че си припомням този факт.

Самата книга е пълна с вдъхновяващи прозрения (*и цитати), съвети и лични истории на кого ли не. Чете се бързо, но осмислянето отнема повече време.

Препоръчвам!
(*това е краткото ревю на момента, по-дълго такова ще последва по-нататък във времето)

[Luigi Alcaneses · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very good mainstream book because there is most definitely going to be at least one chapter or one example that is relevant to someone out there. Not exactly what I was hoping for because it felt too tidbitty than I wanted.

[Mark McFerren · Rating 2 out of 5]

“If you say everything, you say nothing.” - Thomas Aquinas

Pompliano’s book purports to unearth valuable nuggets of life advice using a method she calls “people-focused learning.” This consists mostly of emulating the rich and successful in the hopes that what worked for them will work for us. The problem at the core of this approach is that each morsel of “hidden genius” (an annoying phrase developed mostly for branding) is almost certainly confirmation bias at work. The founder of Spanx dedicates an entire day to one task, and look at her now, she’s rich!

Extrapolating phenomena from single examples is the antithesis of scientific thinking. If you really want to discover how to be a better entrepreneur, artist, or husband, you would need to study a set of individuals large enough for a real pattern to emerge. What worked for Hugh Jackman or Nick Saban may not work for you in your specific circumstances, and trying to emulate them could prove to be a big waste of time.

Luckily, Polina’s advice tends to be generic and obvious enough that arguing against it is pointless. The bullet point summaries at the end of each chapter illustrate my point. A few notable eye-rollers:

“Creativity arises from making new connections – contemplate unexpected things together.”

“Remember that victimhood is always optional.”

“You’re not always the main character in life. Playing a supporting role in others’ stories is important too.”

“Not every scenario requires the same amount of thought.”

“Beliefs are best seen as grayscale – not black and white”

ChatGPT could generate more insightful advice (and it’d probably find more reliable sources than a handful of famous folks. Maybe some research papers?) Every chapter is just a watered down version of much better books dedicated entirely to the topic. The whole thing reads like a student essay. I had to smile after the tenth time she said “in other words” and proceeded to reword a quote that was perfectly clear to begin with.

There are a few pieces of interesting advice sprinkled throughout. I love me some David Goggins and James Clear. I’m usually a sucker for self-improvement stuff to be honest. It just kills me how she boils down huge, important stories or ideas to a few sentences. We’re all better off reading straight from the source.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a lot of self help books which generally have the same sentiments about leadership thinking. This is the first I’ve read that highlights all the interesting points, has information that makes you think deeper without all the boring fluff. It’s not about the strategies but about what makes you ‘feel’ successful and the perception of being successful. What influences people to become successful. How to change your perception on your thoughts using different methods.

I found a few particular concepts interesting -

1. Positive interactions. Being mindful of how these small positive bits snowball.
2. Making decisions based on uncertainty. the way this was described was so easy to read. It may seem simple but the way it was written is not as complex as other books.
3. Consumption of positive content. More about being mindful around the things you consume and the people you’re around
4. I thought the study on positive and negative social media content and the influence it has on people’s overall positivity or negativity is something we need to look into more.
5. False narratives/curiosity = not making an ass out of yourself based on assumptions
6. Getting the other person to tell you their thoughts first before telling your point so they won’t be influenced by your answer. Easy and effective.

[Ally Kornberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polina came to my office last year as a guest speaker and spoke about The Profile and her switch from corporate to writing her newsletter full time. I really loved the event and hearing her story. There were so many great takeaways from her book.

My favs being -
- Bet on yourself
- The concept of conducting a content audit and being intentional about the content you are consuming & elevating your content
- Reducing your decision making by making reversible decisions quickly and irreversible decisions slowly
- Introducing moments of “elective hardship” into your day to build resilience
- Divorcing your beliefs from yourself - when someone disagrees with you, picture them attacking the belief itself and not you personally

Love the Bourdain quotes too -
- “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s OK. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind”
- “It’s those little human moments that are the ones that stick with you forever, the random acts of kindness”

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a huge advertisement for Polina's Pompliano newsletter. Wait! Not in a bad way! The author got a new subscriber in my person. Already from the start of the first pages of the book I was hooked on the idea of people telling/sharing stories in order to teach others. The idea itself sounds pretty trivial, because it seems like there is nothing new, but the way the story is told, for it to be applied to a specific lesson and having it just that - as a personal anecdote, not a text book theoretical material - this is in fact rare if not new.
The book combines anecdotes of these kinds and quotes of great people in their fields and those were amazing to read. The only problem with the book - already after less than one week of reading it, I forgot what the book was about. I could blame myself, but as much as I liked it while reading, it didn't impress me that much, and little about this book has imprinted on my mind, therefore, only 3 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Janine Sneed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hidden Genius - Pomona Marino a Pompliano

- common ingredients for creativity-whether you're a scientist or an artist-include "flexibility of thinking, the ability to make connections."

- creativity is primarily the result of hard work and study

- Failures that led to success: Up, Ratatouille, Taylor Swift songs

- most important conversation is the one you have to have with yourself

- the “40% rule”, when you tell your mind that you can’t go any longer, you’re probably only 40% done

- Great stories happen to those that can tell them

- there are three sides every story: yours, mine, and the truth

- there is someone somewhere who is looking at you and learning from you

- build competence so you can have confidence in times of uncertainty

- the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives

- the long game feels boring but the longer you play it, the more profound the effects

[Darya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book shows you the hidden genius of many people whose journeys have taught them practical lessons can be applied to your own life if you so choose. It takes you through the journey of creativity and discovering yours because creativity and ability to generate new ideas is a skill that can be learned, trained and applied to various aspects of your life. Creativity concept lays in connecting something that looks impossible to connect and this brings most unexpected results. This book is full of facts and stories and what makes it truly inspiring is that you can find the story that truly reflects your aspirations for creative state of mind, understanding that in life you need to get on yourself and not other people or circumstances. Success should be defined on your own terms, not the terms that society pushes on you.

[Barrett Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun and quick read for me over a weekend trip to the east coast. It’s the curated learnings from Polina’s research and work both as a writer at Fortune and as an entrepreneur and writer at The Profile.

Throughout the book, Polina’s shares patterns of behavior and thought from studying some of the world’s top performing people. The book is a combination of Polina’s own insights from her work writing about leaders, as well as quotes and lessons learned from specific individuals she has researched or interviewed.

I’d especially recommend this book for students, young professionals, and folks on the brink of a creative leap in their own lives. That said, there’s something here for everyone. My copy is full of highlights and notes on how I could apply lessons to my own work and life, as well as my own ideas to build on the ones in the book.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Skittles bag of success tips. Could be useful for people who just want tiny little tastes of what might occasionally be good advice. So, for example, if people learn about Gottman from this and then decide to read the whole book, then that would be good. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert.

Otherwise, this is mainly the standard unhidden unsecret stuff about self-confidence and persistence, along with the standard problem of no control group of all the people who did the same things and still failed.

[David Petersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I would actually give it 3.5 stars. I feel like the target audience is youngins full of piss and vinegar. Maybe I was that way once upon a time but not now. Basically the author picked 10 traits she has seen in super successful people (creativity, mental strength,...) and then told brief vignettes to demonstrate her point. We meet lots of very impressive people in the book and how they have mastered an aspect of their human condition to overcome great obstacles and become a leader in their field or industry. I didn't find most of the stories that helpful because they just aren't that realistic for the 99.9% on the planet who are just pretty regular normal people. If it had been more relatable than I would have given it a better rating.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This looked like more of the same: a blogger who collects examples of successful people to find their recipes of success. The same formula as “Think and Grow Rich”. I got it from an audible promotion and it was a short audiobook, so I decided to give it a try. The start was as I expected, predictable and containing nothing new. The “take home messages” at the end of each chapter make it look like an undergraduate textbook, written for people who have difficulty thinking for themselves. But it moved onwards and became quite interesting. The chapters on pain and on relationships convinced me that this was worth reading / listening to. Thankfully it was short. I would not particularly recommend it, but it’s ok. I would not have finished it otherwise.

[Bread and Random · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I normally don't spend my personal time reading self-help non-fiction. But I have a job that requires me to. So here I am.


Fun shit. She can fucking write. You know when you read something from someone who can write, you just want to keep reading. This is superb for non-fiction, it kept you intrigued, I went through the whole book with ease, and less than 2 days. Good hook, framework, and examples, all combined with a personal voice that rather motivating.

It made you feel like you could be a seven-time world champion f1 driver if given time, even though it's not likely. But it just makes you feel a little bit good, you know. Like, it could happen, again, it's not likely. You have to start carting at 5 or you're finished.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine hiring someone to study a ton of successful people and distil their stories, wisdom and strategies into bite-size snippets. This is exactly what Polina has done in this book.

Filled with quotations, mini biographies and concise strategies without the fat, the insights are organized under 10 themes:
1: Unleashing Your Creative Potential
2: Mastering Mental Toughness
3: Unlocking Healthy Relationships
4: Telling Better Stories
5: Becoming a More Effective Leader
6: Taking Risks in Times of Uncertainty
7: Clarifying Your Thinking
8: Building an Engaged Community
9: Optimizing Your Content Diet
10: Discovering Your Hidden Genius

[C.A. Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays grouped around the theme of inspiring traits, and highlighting inspiring people who exhibit them. I thought the first half of the book was more compelling than the last, and the first chapter was (to me) by far the best: it was about cross-disciplines in seemingly unrelated subjects creating something extraordinarily creative and new. I love that idea, that gaining experience in one area might benefit another, or combining your skills with someone else who possesses skills of a completely different type might produce something far greater than the sum of its parts.

[Ashish Arora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though most of the content of this book was not new for me. I liked the flow of the book and just was reminder to how the most successful people in the world operate.
A few things that I did liked from the book was the story of Grant Achtaz incredibly inspiring.
Two quotes that I loved and struck a chord with me:

“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.” -Anna Quindlen

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.”