Lean Into Their Strengths Rather Than Disdain Their Weaknesses

Marcus Aurelius was clearly torn about his fellow man. He was loving and kind and spoke repeatedly of serving the common good. He was also clearly frustrated and disappointed with the flaws of the people around him. Like many great men, he had trouble understanding that not everyone had his gifts, not all of them were capable of what he was capable of. You can see in Meditations how he wrestled with these feelings.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more, including the Premium Leather Edition of the Daily Stoic Journal.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  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 in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius was clearly torn about his fellow man. He was loving and kind and spoke repeatedly of serving the common good, who was also clearly frustrated and disappointed with the flaws of the people around him. Like many great men, he had trouble understanding that not everyone had his gifts. Not all of them were capable of what he was capable of. You can see in meditations how he wrestled with these feelings. In the opening passage, he talks about just how obnoxious and annoying and awful the people he was likely to meet in the course of the upcoming day were. And then, just when you think it couldn't get any more depressing and dark, he turns around and reminds himself that they were doing the best they can, and that it's not their fault that they have been cut off from truth.

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  In the passage that inspired "The Obstacle is the Way", Marcus is less forgiving. He talks about how the people who obstruct or bother us are irrelevant, how we can shut our minds off to them. It's a theme that comes up a lot. People are the problem. People are weak. Push them away. You get the sense that he would have been hard to work for, hard to have as your father, hard to please, even for talented and committed people. If only Marcus Aurelius could have heard the fictional advice from his adopted grandfather, Hadrian, written in the prize-winning book Memoirs of Hadrian. "Our great mistake", the author has Hadrian say, "is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has." How much happier Marcus would have been had he been more able to see the good in people, and how much better a leader he could have been had he leaned into their strengths rather than disdaining their weaknesses. Each of us would benefit from that advice as well. We have to focus on what we can learn from other people. We have to focus on what is special and unique about them, what they bring to the table, instead of zeroing in on where they are not as good as us. We have to be forgiving and patient, kind and appreciative. We have to make the people around us better, not write them off as hopeless and broken.