Originally a corporate lawyer, Pia Turcinov today is a portfolio career manager, holding several positions connected through the common focus of innovation, technology and diversification.
Pia’s career evolved from legal advisor, to company director, innovation advisor, and finally to diversity advocate, a position at which she dedicates herself to changing the game by following her main principle of “navigating life with curiosity.
Having her on for a talk on Changing the Game Podcast was actually one of our first live interactions, yet we hit pretty strong by talking about her trajectory, values and mission.
Switching PathsA daughter of first generation immigrants from Austria, Pia was raised in Australia to reap the benefits of this land of opportunity down under. Opportunities which she took to start her career as a corporate lawyer.
Or rather, she settled for law after missing med school by just three points, a second choice Pia described as odd due to her being “pathologically shy”, but one that she took out of admiration “for the TV shows with the power suits”.
That is not to say, however that she did not enjoy her time in legal practice, which she describes as exciting, but at the same time “one dimensional”, for someone that was very creative at heart. Which would later make her leave law to take over the family business.
Some may find her decision to leave such a stable area like law to be strange, but often in life we find ourselves having to choose between security and fulfillment, and it takes no small amount of courage to choose the latter as Pia did.
It also takes no amount of smarts to be as successful as she is after making such a decision.
A Portfolio CareerPia attributes this risk taking aspect of her personality to how her parents raised her in a “pure working class” way, valuing tenacity, hard work and knowing how to calculate the worst possible outcome then taking the plunge anyway.
This is what led her to do what she does today, propagating the idea of “portfolio career”, which she describes as “not having to be anchored to one particular activity, or one particular source of income.”
From a practical standpoint, this career model is excellent as it doesn’t tie you down to a single stream that will ruin your life if it ever dries up. There is also a personal benefit in that it makes you immune to a very common modern anxiety: The fear of failure.
After all, when you have several things going on, it will not be the end of the world if one of them doesn’t work, and you will have the inner and outer tools to replace it at will.
Overcoming ShynessFor those of you that may know about my personal background, I’ve had get over crippling shyness myself, and hearing Pia talk about her having similar issues to the point of being “pathological” really made me relate to her.
Like myself too, she had to go out of her way to escape her comfort zone, something that she largely credits to law school which pushed her into public speaking situations, but also to her role as the step manager for the starlight children’s foundation.
This particular role involved a couple of relatively uncomfortable activities for introverts, including being the very face of the organization, leading the business aspect of the enterprise and giving a speech in front of a thousand people at a sponsor dinner.
After, saying yes and having a panic attack at home, she gave the speech, and to every scary situation from there on she would do the same thing until it came naturally.
Saying yes to things that make you scared is not easy, but it’s a necessary for our personal growth since often saying no tends to lead to worse consequences than fear, not just in the form of lost opportunities, but also of personal stagnation.
In essence, saying no to a fear can mean...
