Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you with your

most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical

wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Better to be best at this than anything else.

Cato the Elder was a great man. He was successful at

agriculture. He was successful as a writer. He was a powerful politician. He towered over Roman life,

not just in his own time, but for generations hence. Yet it wasn't what he was proud of. That's

not what he worked hardest at or admired most in others.

As Plutarch writes, he considered that it was more praiseworthy to be a good husband than a great senator

and was also of the opinion that there was nothing much else to admire in Socrates of old,

except the fact that he was always gentle and considerate in dealings with his wife,

who was a scold, and his children who were half-witted. When his son was born, Cato thought that

nothing but the most important business of state should prevent him from being present when his

wife gave the baby its bath and wrapped it in its swaddling clothes. As we've said, the home should not be the border of your

ambition. It's good that you want to be successful at work. It's good that you want to stay in shape.

It's good that you want to invest your money wisely and build up your wealth. But still, we cannot

ever lapse into thinking that these pursuits are more important than our true purpose.

We have to excel most of all in this role

we have chosen for ourselves as parents. It deserves our greatest effort, our biggest commitment,

our highest standards, not only because it's through our children that we can have multigenerational

impact, but because this is the most beautiful and pure avenue for our ambition, to create a

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