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What we can learn from Thor!

by Pierre Khawand on May 16th, 2011

Yes, Thor!

learn about change“At the center of the story is The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero and ends up protecting humans when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.”

What can we learn from Thor?

We can learn about “change” and more importantly changing our outlook on things to achieve meaningful things!

Two years ago, Dr. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, addressed the same issue at our lunch & learn webinars. In her presentation, she described two types of mindsets. One that she calls the Fixed Mindset and the other the Growth Mindset. The Fixed Mindset is characterized by a belief that our abilities are fixed and either we have “it” or we don’t. While the Growth Mindset believes that we can learn and we can change. While we (and Thor) might seem initially to have a Fixed Mindset, it is possible that circumstances can open our mind to learn and change and adopt the Growth Mindset–a lesson that Thor had to learn by visiting us, humans.

When it comes to productivity and to accomplishing meaningful things, embracing change and adopting the Growth Mindset are critical. One of my opening statements at the Accomplishing More With Less workshop is that we cannot make significant improvements, not to mention breakthroughs, if we don’t do things differently (in other words undergo change)!

Let us welcome and embrace what may seem to be initially difficult (even a punishment in the case of Thor) and see what mindset this might open!

 

Founder and principal of People-OntheGo, has more than fifteen years of experience in the software industry. Pierre has founded several companies including a financial software company in 1987 (Computer Trends, Inc.), an e-CRM company in 1995 (Imparto Software Corporation), raised several multi-million dollar funding rounds, and completed two successful acquisitions. In the last few years, Pierre's interest centered around bridging the gap between technology and people. He founded People-OntheGo to help corporate users manage e-mail and digital communication tools more effectively, and Digital-OntheGo to help organizations take full advantage of the new advances in digital video and web distribution, both part of the OntheGo Technologies L.L.C. Pierre holds a Master's degree in Engineering from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan), and has completed several Executive Education programs at the Stanford Graduate School of Management (Stanford, California).
Pierre Khawand
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