The Daily Dad

“Your kids screwed up. They failed a test. They forgot their homework. They hit their brother. They scratched your car and lied about it. They got caught drinking. They got caught cheating. Worse, yet, you have talked to them about these things so many times. ” Learn why it’s imperative that you practice patience and discipline with your children, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If you enjoyed t...

“You want your kids to be successful. You want them to be ambitious . You want them to fulfill the potential you see in them. Every parent does. You have this idea of where you think you ought to go… and then of course, they have other ideas.” Ryan discusses why you should help your children realize who they were meant to be, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we...

On the first longform episode of the Daily Dad podcast, author Ryan Holiday and editor Nils Parker discuss the unique challenges they've faced as parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Stoic Parent is a 10-day course that will help you become the best parent you can be. Each day you receive a new challenge with exercises and advice that will guide you to raising your kids the best way. Learn mo...

“When he was a young teenager, Lewis Puller Jr. got himself an afternoon paper route. It was one of those things that his parents insisted on so he could learn responsibility and hard work and all that. And it was certainly good for that. It was also good for something even better. One day, Lewis’ bike got a flat tire, so his dad (Chesty Puller, the most decorated Marine in US history) drove him o...

“You clean and the house is dirty. You do the dishes and then five minutes later, the sink is full again. Literally before you’ve even finished helping them put their toys away, they’re splayed out across the floor. The new clothes you just bought them are now filthy and frayed. This can drive you nuts. Or you can learn to love it.” Ryan explains that raising is an art that shouldn’t be taken for...

“If you’re not careful, their whole lives get filled up. Soccer practice. School. Cello lessons. Chores are home. After all, you don’t want them in front of screens all day. You want them to make something of themselves. You don’t want them to waste their life or fall behind.” Learn how to be mindful of your kids time and schedule, and why it’s your responsibility to protect them from burnout,  on...

“You’re angry. That’s understandable. Your boss has been awful. The contractor still hasn’t finished fixing the bathroom. You just spilled coffee on your shirt. Or maybe it’s one of those days with the kids: One kid lied to you about doing their homework. The other talked back to their mother. A third still made scrambled eggs and forgot to turn the stove off. ” Ryan discusses a Stoic tactic for t...

“We picked up our political beliefs somewhere. From books we read, from how we grew up, from what we’ve seen in the world. We got started in our industry for so many reasons--luck, a natural inclination, because the money seemed good.” Learn why you should be actively revising your perspective on life, and how to teach your kids to do the same thing, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If you enjoye...

“When Bessie Carter, President Jimmy Carter’s mother, was 68 years old, she saw an ad on television for the Peace Corps that said ‘Age is no barrier.’ So she joined. Almost 70 years old, she went to India and taught nutrition and family planning!” Learn how Jimmy Carter’s mother inspired him to never stop making a difference, even when the clock was ticking, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If yo...

“We talked recently about Springsteen’s choice for parents: Will you be an ancestor or a ghost? Haunt them or help them? The story he tells about how he came to this understanding comes from his own struggles with his own father. As he explained on Broadway, when he and his wife were expecting their first kid, his father--who had always been distant and harsh--drove something like five hundred mil...

“You’re stressed. You’re busy. You have so much on your plate. Time to read? Other than kids books? Get out of here. Except maybe the latter is the solution to the former. If you want to be less stressed, you gotta make time for yourself--to read, to think, to learn. The great William Osler (founder of John Hopkins University) told his medical students it was important that they turn to literature...

“After a long and arduous hunt, Theodore Roosevelt finally got the bull caribou he had been tracking. ‘It was one of those moments,’ he later wrote, ‘that repay the hunter for days of toil and hardship; that is if he needs repayment, and does not find life in the wilderness pleasure enough in itself.’” Ryan explains why we should always focus on the present moment, because it’s where the true rewa...

“This whole thing can go by so fast. Because you have so much going on. Because you feel like you’re barely keeping your head above water. It’s understandable, but if you don’t slow down and wrap your head around this parenting thing, you can end up missing so much that matters.” Ryan explains why you should pay close attention to the time you spend with you kids, and how you can make the most out...

“Marcus Aurelius’s father died when he was young. But then this young boy who was cursed by tragedy received a great gift--a gift that the children who have received it, know to be one of the most incredible things in the world: He had a loving stepfather.” Learn why you must embody the traits that you want to pass down to your kids, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s pod...

“Lyndon Johnson grew up poor. Like, log cabin, almost 19th century poor. He was not, like his future running mate, John F. Kennedy, unaware of the economic crises of his time. He was not sent to the best schools. Yet, he did alright for himself, didn’t he?” Ryan discusses how LBJ’s own mentality harmed him, and why you should teach your kids that they are enough, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. We c...

“Is there anything sadder than a person whose work is their life? They neglect their family, they put in crazy hours, they have no interests, no hobbies outside what they do at the office. Maybe your parents were like this. Perhaps you are like this.” Learn why you should shift your perspective to the things that actually matter, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. This episode was brought to you by Mag...

“You don’t need your kid to be a rocket scientist to be special. You don’t need to teach them 15 languages or the cello. It’s not a degree from Harvard or a perfect SAT that’s going to vault them into the elite category—not the elite category that counts.” Ryan explains how to give your kids what truly matters, on today’s Daily Dad podcast.  We created the New Year, New You Challenge to help you c...

“They say it all the time. When will this be over? Are we there yet? Why is this taking so long? Do we have to? It’s whiney. It’s annoying. You ask them to stop. But in getting upset, you miss the real opportunity. To teach them. To explain to them what they’re really saying.” Learn why you should’t take the only time that you have with your kids for granted, on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If y...

“In his Broadway show, Bruce Springsteen—whose songs have often focused on the painful legacy of our parents—explained the choice that all of us have as fathers. “We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives,” he said at the beginning of Long Time Comin’. “We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we f...

“When Martin Luther King Jr. took over Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL, he insisted on a small social shift after his sermons that was immediately noticed. As he mingled with his parishioners on Sundays, he wouldn’t ask them what they were doing , the way previous pastors had. Instead, he looked them in the eye and said How are you doing?” Learn more about this story and why the que...

“For his whole career, Archie Manning had been a company man for the New Orleans Saints. He was great but the team was terrible. For years, they had lost. For years, he had endured poor offensive lines, poor drafting and never even coming close to contention. So you’d think it would have been a second wind for his career to be traded to Houston and then to the Vikings. He still had years left in h...

“At some point in the future your kids and your grandkids are going to ask you. They’re going to say: Dad, when there were 200,000 cases and 2,000 deaths a day in America during the pandemic, what were doing?” Ryan lends some perspective to the choices we are all making about how we behave during the pandemic on today’s Daily Dad Podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you t...

“Why do we tell our kids stories? Why do we tell them about history? Teach them about Martin Luther King, George Washington, Cincinnatus , Florence Nightingale, Jesus, Marcus Aurelius ? Because it matters.” Ryan explains the importance of teaching  kids about history’s greatest men and women on today’s Daily Dad podcast. *** If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review o...

"There he walked, along the trail, carrying his young child pressed up against his side. Sometimes the kid would get a burst of energy and call to be put down. I want to walk. I want to walk. So the father would set the child down and they’d walk together, hand in hand. Soon enough, they’d get tired again and need to be carried. Other times, the father stopped briefly to readjust, putting the chil...

"You read an old book and it’s pretty common: Dads didn’t used to be present for the birth of their children. Sometimes they weren’t even in town—they’d heard about it in a letter or a call, and not meet their own kids for days or weeks or months until after they were born... Things are way different now. A lot more is demanded of fathers and also of mothers. It’s hard, but also… what a gift!" Rya...