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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

No, the world is not conspiring against you. Sometimes it can feel like you're surrounded by small-minded idiots, especially when you're trying to do something new, important, or good.

All of a sudden you're dealing with insane red tape in competence or worse, vehement protests from people who plain don't know what they're talking about.

We can feel this in the course of ordinary life. Certainly, Marcus Aurelius did. He opens book two of meditations with a pretty accurate picture of people.

They're surly, aggressive, dishonest, mean, pedantic, stupid, and they constantly get in the way of people who are not any of those things.

Put together, it's enough to make us not our head to that famous Jonathan Swift quote, when a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him.

Except that this is not a very stoic or productive way to live because it makes it other people's fault. Even Marcus Aurelius realized that for all the negativity in that first quote, what he really believed and tried to live by was this idea, blame yourself or no one.

Instead of getting angry at other people's poor execution, focus on the deficiencies in your instruction. Instead of resenting their protest, examine whether you've been persuasive enough.

Don't get mad about red tape. Think about all the bad ideas this process has actually helped stop. Be forgiving of other people's stupidity or rudeness because you've been plenty of guilty of it yourself at one time or another.

The world is not conspiring against us. It is not filled with dunces. If anything, we are the dunces for not focusing our energy on the only things that matter. Our decisions, our attitudes, our actions.

Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. And if you didn't know, I also have another podcast and daily email every day I write something at dailydad.com, which gets delivered to thousands of people all over the world.

I record the meditations just like this one on the podcast for free. So if you're a parent, if you know a parent, if you're an expecting parent, I think you'd really like it. It's called Daily Dad, but has nothing to do with gender. I'm a dad. That's why it's called that.

We'd love to have you over at dailydad.com. And of course, subscribe to the Daily Dad Podcast.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

American born businessman George Cohan, the founder of McDonald's Canada, was never satisfied with the status quo throughout his career. George was always searching for new ways to innovate and revolutionize the way he did business.

At McDonald's, that innovative spirit let him to do something truly extraordinary. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, host of Wondery Show Business Movers.

We tell the true stories of the business leaders who risked at all the critical moments that define their journey and the ideas that transformed the way we live our lives.

In our latest series, George Cohan gives up his career as a Chicago attorney to open the first McDonald's fast food restaurant in Canada.

But as George moves up the McDonald's corporate ladder, a chance meeting with members of the Russian Olympic Committee gives George an opportunity to shake up the status quo once again.

In the midst of the Cold War, George sets out to open the first McDonald's behind the Iron Curtain. Find out how, follow business movers wherever you get your podcasts, and you can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.

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