Jack Gindi
My brother owns a beautiful summer home in New Jersey. He worked in interior design and had an incredible eye for detail. The house is stunning, but what I loved most was in the backyard. A swimming pool, carefully designed gardens, and koi ponds just off the deck. Everything intentional. Everything exactly where it belonged.
A Lesson from Bamboo
Behind the koi ponds, he planted bamboo.
At first, it didn’t seem like much. Year after year he watered it, fed it nutrients, cared for it. Yet, whenever I visited, almost nothing had changed. You might have wondered why he kept investing in something doing so little.
Then one summer, everything changed.
The bamboo shot upward. What had once seemed insignificant suddenly towered above the ponds. Within a remarkably short time, it had grown well over fifteen feet high. To someone seeing it for the first time, it would have looked like an overnight success.
Of course, it wasn’t.
The visible growth had been years in the making. While everyone looked for signs above the surface, the bamboo was doing its most important work underground. Its roots were spreading deeper, becoming stronger, creating the foundation necessary to support what would eventually follow.
Lasting Lesson
That image has stayed with me because the older I get, the more I realize how much of life works exactly the same way.
We live in a culture that loves visible results. We celebrate promotions, achievements, successful businesses, healthy relationships. What we rarely see are the years of preparation that came before. The disappointments. The setbacks. The quiet decisions made day after day when nobody was paying attention.
As parents and grandparents, this lesson can be especially difficult to remember. We spend years teaching values, having conversations, setting boundaries, modeling character. Yet, there are moments when it feels like none of it is getting through. Advice ignored. Lessons forgotten. Teenagers rolling their eyes.
In those moments, it’s easy to wonder whether anything is taking root.
But perhaps we’re looking for bamboo shoots when roots are still being built.
The Invisible Work that Shapes Our Lives
The truth is that much of what shapes a person’s life happens long before it becomes visible. A shared family dinner may not seem important on any given night. Neither does a ride to practice, a conversation before bed, or a moment of patience when frustration would have been easier. Yet these ordinary moments accumulate. They become roots. Years later, they show up as confidence, resilience, and character.
I’ve seen this in business, too. Early in my real estate career, deals fell apart after months of work. At the time, those felt like failures. Looking back, they were teaching me patience, persistence, and how to stay steady when circumstances changed. The growth was happening, but it wasn’t visible.
I’ve also learned this lesson through grief.
Since losing my son Shaun, there have been many days when healing felt impossible to measure. Some days felt exactly the same as the day before. Others felt harder. Yet over time, subtle changes began to appear. Memories that once brought only pain slowly began bringing gratitude. I found myself smiling at stories about Shaun before the tears arrived.
During his shiva, I heard the same observation from friend after friend. They told me how Shaun made people feel seen. He didn’t simply ask, “How are you?” He would ask, “What’s going on in your world?” It seemed like a small thing, but it was not. One conversation at a time, he was building roots in people’s lives. I didn’t fully understand how deep those roots ran until after he was gone.
That may be the greatest lesson bamboo has to teach us.
The most important growth in life is often invisible while it is happening.
Nature reminds us that before there is fruit, there are roots. Before there is strength, there is preparation. Before there is visible growth, there is invisible growth.
So, if you are working on your health, rebuilding a relationship, learning a new skill, or recovering from a loss, don’t become discouraged if the results are not immediately apparent.
Keep watering. Keep showing up. Keep doing the small things that matter.
Because some of the most important growth in life happens underground. And one day, often when you least expect it, you’ll discover that the roots you’ve been building were preparing you for something greater all along.