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 Paths

A 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 Career

Pia 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 Shyness

For 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 sticking to it forever.

Promoting Diversity

As of late Pia has also been dedicating herself to the promotion of diversity, specifically gender diversity through the inclusion of women in technology, a passion she claims to have started with her being raised by a fierce strong woman herself.

“She really believed that anything is possible and nothing should hold you back”, she recalls with a smile and explains that she came from a generation where women didn’t have many choices for their future.

Yet, through her mother’s fierceness, and her fathers unyielding support she came to realise that if there were barriers that came with being a woman, she could overcome them through hard work.

This support and motivation from her parents is what made it possible for her to pull through in a male dominated area like law. Now she seeks to pass on the lessons that she learned from her parents, using her voice to uplift the surrounding women.

Another strong motivation for Pia is the fact that, being the mother of three daughters, she feels responsible for preparing the next generation of trailblazing women.

The Next Step

Talking about the promotion of equality within the technology market, I found it was the perfect opportunity to address some of the obstacles we are facing on the field to get more women in STEM, and what would be the next step to overcome them.

Pia summarized her answer with “keep doing it”, that is keep pushing STEM subjects in the education of young women, but also keep teaching them about finding self-worth, how to articulate with confidence and how to develop the necessary skill sets.

She also points to the need of teaching these things at a much younger age, as so many girls (too many) still reach their teens saying that they are not good at anything.

The efforts being made to include women in STEM fields have already yielded good results, but they can be even better, which is why we need to crank it up to eleven now and deepen our dedication to the women of the future.

Conclusion

What impressed me the most about Pia Turcinov was her courage and ingenious approach to life, her way of operating with full certainty that obstacles and limits are two completely separate things.

Having the courage to face challenges head first, to put yourself out of your comfort zone, to grow, is essential both for yourself and for anyone that may follow in your footsteps in the future. There is no changing the game without changing yourself.

So, for this closing reflection, I want you to think about the things that keep you from pursuing your game changing ideas, if they are valid or not, and then come up with plans of how to overcome them.