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.

April 26th, the moments of leniency matter.

To err is human.

To forgive divine.

Alexander Pope

In Georgia, in the mid-1930s, when he was but 10 years old,

Jimmy Carter was fishing with his father.

As they caught fish, his father attached their

growing hall to a trot line that hooked onto Jimmy's belt loop, a point of great pride for the boy.

But then several hours later, Jimmy looked down and realized that the line had broken or become

unclipped without him noticing. Frantically, desperately, he dove into the water, searching, hoping, terrified his father

would be upset.

What's wrong, his father asked, I've lost the fish, Daddy, he said.

All of them, his father replied, yes, sir, yes, sir, was all Jimmy could say through his tears.

Daddy was rarely patient with foolishness or mistakes, Carter would reflect nearly 80 years later.

But then, after a long pause, his father smiled and said,

Let him go hot. There's a lot more fish in the river. We'll get them tomorrow.

All these years later, it was this moment of patience and kindness and forgiveness that Carter remembered. The fish no longer mattered.

In fact, they never did matter. What mattered was that his father knew what Jimmy needed in that

moment. But what about you? Do you understand the power

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