2 - The Human Venn Diagram - Christina Wallace on Being intentional about a Portfolio Life

Christina speaks about how she has zigged and zagged across her career across music, arts, Broadway, Startups, Academia and much more. She speaks about how she has kept a certain fluidity across her various pursuits and her identity!

Christina calls herself a human venn diagram where she is an intersection of many circles. She urges us to be broad about what the circles are – think skills, passions, hobbies, childhood pursuits, perspectives and much more!

Christina speaks about how the venn diagram is who we are and the portfolio is what we do! She also emphasizes how we need to design our portfolio in line with the seasons in our life.

Christina speaks about how we should communicate our competence as a package when we have a portfolio that includes many pursuits at a point in time and over time. The unidimensional approach of a ranking breaks down because we are playing in multiple playgrounds, not one.

Christina speaks about how we should think about pursuing one big thing or a portfolio. She brings it back to how we should reflect on what we want from life in the season we are in.

Christina makes the case for being patient with ourselves and not flaming out too early in the pursuit of glory in our 20s and 30s. She urges us to be patient and try a few experiences and combine them creatively to make them count at the back end of our journey.

Christina urges us to think about our portfolio along the lines of a financial portfolio. She urges us to look at our needs and goals given the season we are in do determine what to take on and at what intensity.

Christina speaks about the different types of portfolios that people can have. Moonlighters  – pursuing one big thing and having another pursuit that you spend time on at night. Zig Zaggers – people that try different things at various points in time. Multi-hyphenates – people who are multi-talented and pursue many things in parallel.

Christina speaks about how we could prioritize across the various priorities in the different seasons in our life. She speaks about how 20s and 30s are often a time to experiment and sow seeds across a broad range of areas and then as life unfolds in 40s and 50s, we are able to bring various elements to bear and construct our portfolio.

Christina mentions that it is easy to measure one element of our life such as Financial Assets, number of promotions, Compensation, Health parameters and so on. But how does one take stock of the health of the portfolio as a whole?