Hold the Mindset Loosely, Stay Attached to Growth
Keep the growth, hold the 'mindset' loosely — nailing it down turns growth into a fixed mindset
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
Colonna's critique of how 'growth mindset' gets misused: the ego converts any framework, even growth mindset itself, into a rigid rule ('I ought to always have a growth mindset'), which is the very fixedness it was meant to cure. The remedy is to stay attached to actual growth — staying present to a changing world and responding to it — while holding the concept of the mindset loosely, without attachment. A useful antidote to complacency fear is self-compassion rather than anxiety.
Origin
Jerry Colonna, drawing on Zen Buddhism ('everything's falling apart all the time'), Peter Senge on the difficulty of challenging the assumptions that made you rich, and the Zen idea of beginner's mind.
Core principles
- 01The ego turns a growth mindset into a fixed mindset by nailing it to the floor as 'the right way'
- 02Everything is falling apart all the time — even your growth mindset
- 03Success breeds attachment: it's nearly impossible to challenge the assumptions that made you rich
- 04Anxiety is the socialized cure for complacency; self-compassion is a stronger, more sustainable motivator
How to run it
- 1
Notice the ego fixing the framework
Watch for the ego labeling things 'this is a growth mindset / this is not,' 'this is good / bad' — the moment a mindset becomes a rigid rule it has become fixed.
Watch out 'I ought to always have a growth mindset' is exactly the fixed-mindset trap.
- 2
Stay attached to growth, hold the mindset loosely
Keep your attachment to the actual work of growing — staying present to the world as it is and responding to changing dynamics — while holding the concept of the mindset lightly, without attachment.
Pro tip 'Point your cart in that direction and head there' without white-knuckling the destination.
- 3
Watch for success calcifying into dogma
After early beginner's-mind success, the ego says 'aha, this is the way to do it' and freezes the approach; recognize that life keeps changing and yesterday's winning assumptions expire.
Pro tip Recall Peter Senge: it's virtually impossible to challenge the assumptions that made you rich in the first place — so deliberately revisit them.
- 4
Replace anxiety with self-compassion as the driver
Notice that fear of complacency is just socialized anxiety tied to conditional love. Substitute unconditional positive regard for self — self-compassion — and let satisfaction from hard work, not fear, motivate you.
Pro tip Test it: 'to get satisfaction out of hard work is a much greater motivator than fear of complacency.'
In the wild
Colonna explains the ego's 'funny little trick': it takes the useful notion of a growth mindset and freezes it into rules about the proper way to do things, which sets you up for attachment and therefore suffering.
→ The reframe — 'stay attached to the growth and hold mindset a little loosely' — preserves the benefit while avoiding the rigidity.
At a meditation retreat Lenny worried that non-attachment kills ambition. The teaching he received: don't attach to the idea, but 'point your cart in that direction and head there.'
→ Reconciles Buddhist non-attachment with sustained ambition — direction without white-knuckling the outcome.
Common mistakes
Turning growth mindset into a rigid identity
Declaring 'I ought to always have a growth mindset' is the ego nailing the concept to the floor, which recreates a fixed mindset and produces attachment and suffering — the opposite of the intent.
Using anxiety to ward off complacency
Relying on fear as fuel ties your effort to conditional love ('achieve or lose their love'); it's brittle and self-punishing, whereas self-compassion sustains motivation without the suffering.
Is it for you?
Best for
Ambitious operators who fear that easing anxiety or embracing non-attachment will make them complacent or less driven
Not ideal for
Contexts needing a single fixed methodology executed consistently, where deliberately holding the approach 'loosely' would undermine reliability
From the transcript
“This is what Buddhism has taught me is that everything's falling apart all the time. even our growth mindset.”
“stay attached to the growth and hold mindset a little loosely.”
“Peter Sang says it is uh virtually impossible to challenge the assumptions that made you rich in the first place.”
“the way we've we're socialized to ward off complacency is anxiety”
“unconditional positive regard for self otherwise known as self-compassion can be a powerful motivator”
From the episode
How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?
Jerry Colonna (CEO of Reboot, executive coach, former VC)