160 bpm. My heart rate shown on my Apple Watch. With help from my trainer, I barely finished a lower-body workout I really didn’t want to do. Squats and planks are hard, but lunges feel almost painfully unpleasant. But we know. We know how important lower-body exercises are, how closely they connect to our core muscles, and how they affect our lives much more than flashy biceps.

Core muscles are invisible. They don’t show easily like your biceps or chest muscles. But they are very important. And at the same time, really hard to train. It’s the kind of work we hate. The kind where results don’t show right away, so it feels even more demotivating.

Central Park Tower in New York — the tallest residential building in the world — looks stunning and holds world records. But behind that appearance were years of planning and engineering. To build such an extremely tall tower on a very narrow piece of land, the team had to overcome nearly impossible technical limitations. Designing and constructing its strong inner frame took incredible time and effort. But just like core muscles, that structure — and the work behind it — are things we never see.

I used to work as a team member making investments. Now, I run an investment firm. And I realize that the act of investing itself is just the surface. Running company actually takes much more time, energy, and mental strength to build the invisible core — the foundation. These are tasks no one wants to do. No one praises you for them. They feel boring, repetitive, and useless. But they must be done, every hour, every day, every month — and done well.

Organizing company expenses, managing meeting notes, reviewing legal documents, improving team communication while keeping culture and direction aligned, and ensuring there are no mistakes in the grammar or format of reports we send to investors — all of this is behind-the-scenes work. In the end, the visible act of “investing” is like a chest or bicep muscle — what people notice, but not what holds everything up.

Still, I remind myself: things that are shiny on the outside don’t last. To become a truly strong and compelling person over time, we need deep inner strength and character. And the best way to build something powerful — like a spring full of tension and energy — is to keep doing the hard, boring things that others avoid, consistently over time.

Everyone wants to be a tree that blooms with beautiful flowers. But flowers only bloom when a tree has strong roots, daily care, and a little luck with timing from nature. Even if you try to forcefully attach a pretty flower to a weak branch, it won’t last long. Luck and timing from nature — they’re like the stock market: impossible to predict and beyond our control. So I’ll focus on growing strong roots. And if I keep stacking those simple, boring efforts, I believe I can become a tree that blooms with a flower no one else can replicate. I believe in the power of compounding — not just in investing, but in many parts of my life.

I’ve always hated lower-body workouts. But little by little, I’m starting to enjoy them. Writing this helped me reflect more deeply on what that discomfort really means — and it’s motivating me to keep going.