The best way to build a strong core isn’t by doing crunches and other exercises that isolate the abs. It’s by doing full-body activities that incorporate the core.

Squats, deadlifts, pushups, pullups, and sprints all strain the core, and not just in the artificial way that a sit-up does. These compound moves develop the real-world functionality that transfers to everyday movements.

There’s a similar dynamic at play for developing many of our mental “muscles.”

Take a random academic skill. Let’s take profit and loss calculations as an example.

You could spend hours and hours making theoretical profit and loss calculations. And through this, you’ll develop a surface level understanding.

But you’ll learn so much more by actually living it. By being in the trenches and making the decisions of what and when to buy, how to staff a project, how to sell, how to communicate and negotiate with customers, how to handle roadblocks, etc.

The academic calculations are like crunches. They’re somewhat effective and they’ll give you a surface-level understanding.

But if you truly want to build a strong base, you need to do the heavy lifting.

-Brandon