Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from parents just like you all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Everyone has something going on. As NFL teams opened training camp for the 2022 season,

there was all sorts of speculation about Tom Brady. Why had he retired and unretired? Why wasn't

he playing in the preseason games? Why wasn't his wife seen at games? Why wasn't he practicing

on Wednesdays? At some point, at one of the team press conferences,

Brady partially addressed all the speculation. I'm 45 years old, he said, there's a lot of

shit going on. More recently, it became clear that what was going on was a divorce, an end to his

13-year marriage. Now, some have taken this as an opportunity to speculate about causes and

blame or enjoy some schadenfreude, considering all the heartbreaking losses that Brady has

inflicted on their favorite teams over the years. But one of the most important lessons we can

take from all this, since it's really none of our business, has to do with that quote from Brady,

because we all have a lot of shit going on. Your employee has been showing up late because their kid

is in the middle of a sleep regression, or maybe their marriage is on the rocks. Maybe all the stress of

work and family has gotten to your neighbor, and that's why they're not taking care of their side of

the street. Maybe that stranger has a sick kid or a just-no mother-in- neighbor, and that's why they're not taking care of their side of the street.

Maybe that stranger has a sick kid or a just-no mother-in-law, and it is eaten up every ounce of their attention or patience. Almost certainly that kid who is picking on your kid is being

picked on by someone else in their own life, in their own house. We all know how hard our home life is. We know how it

affects us, weighing on us, distracting us, making us act out. Well, we can safely assume the same

is true for everyone else. So we should then act with the corresponding empathy and understanding.

Everyone is going through something.

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