Hello and welcome. My name is Marieke van der Drift and I am a student counsellor, slash career-coach. This is the start of a new series about young entrepreneurs and student-entrepreneurs, made by GreenDoor Study Advice. I advise young people on how to choose the right track in life not only about what to study, but also where to study and how to study. And I also advise people, who are sometimes stuck in their career for different reasons and who need help moving on.

I have been counselling students for over ten years and help them make the right decisions through very effective listening, testing and brainstorming sessions one-on-one and in groups. Workshops, zoom meetings and podcasts are my daily bread.

If you want to learn more about my work, please listen to my podcasts in Dutch, French or English, all accessible via Spotify or Buzzsprout. You can also look me up on LinkedIn or Instagram @GreenDoorStudyAdvice, soon via my website too.

I hope you will enjoy listening to us and if you have any questions, please let me know and if you like what you hear, you can leave a favourable rating on Spotify.

Today I am interviewing Can-David, who is a Belgian entrepreneur, living and working in Brussels. Several years ago, when he was still a student, he co-founded Altheria, a virtual reality software provider, catering to industrial companies, and offering them the best VR training content available. Since I heard such raving reviews about Altheria, I wanted to meet up with him and ask him a few questions.

But before we start with the interview, I would like to talk to you about a very important trait for all students and entrepreneurs, the GROWTH MINDSET.

According to Dr. Carol Dweck, who coined the term. A Growth Mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities, your intelligence, for example, can be cultivated through effort, strategies and helpfrom other people. The famous psychologist and educator is widely regarded as the world’s leading researcher in the fields of personality, social psychology and developmental psychology. Did I mention that her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Times and the Guardian as well as in many scientific magazines. I will leave a photo of her book on my Instagram account @GreenDoor Study Advice.

A growth mindset is not only what you get through genetics, but also through the environment you grow up in: both from nature and nurture!

A GROWTH MINDSET is a very positive trait to have, as opposed to a FIXED MINDSET. Of course we all have a bit of both, but someone with a fixed mindset does not like challenges, change or failure in general. I will give some examples later on, but it is IMPORTANT to mention that someone with a fixed mindset can change towards a greater growth mindset.

As a former teacher, I have often come across students with a fixed mindset. They thought – as they were often highly intelligent people – that they didn’t need to work to succeed. Now this might function very well in highschool where the amount of work is quite manageble, but once these students go to univerversity and are surrounded by people who are quite good students too, they are no longer on top of their classes and actually often fail and as a consequence, lose all confidence in their abilities. Which is such a pity and need not happen.

Today I will talk with Can-David, who could have done anything and initially hesitated between becoming either a doctor or a lawyer. Needless to say, he became neither of the two, but studied info-graphics for a while, before co-founding Altheria. He more or less defines the growth mindset!