Shows / The Daily Dad
The Daily Dad
The audio companion to DailyDad.com’s daily email meditations on fatherhood, read by Ryan Holiday. Each daily reading will help you find the wisdom, inner strength, and good humor you need in order to be a great dad. Learn from historical figures and contemporary fathers how to do your most important job. Find more at dailydad.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
- The Daily Dad
Books Are Door-Shaped Portals
"A while back, we gave you Kipling’s poem “If.” Well today, you have another job, to read some of Margarita Engle’s poem about books."Listen to the poem in…
- The Daily Dad
This Is Something to Be Glad About
"It can be hard to express your feelings as a father sometimes. Not so much because men are expected to bottle up their emotions, but because the emotions that…
- The Daily Dad
What Is Your Anxiety Doing to Them?
"You’re anxious. You’re stressed. You want them to be safe. You worry about what they’re doing when you’re not there. You worry about their future. You worry…
- The Daily Dad
Help Them Become Who They Are
"Bruce Springsteen has three children: Evan, Jessica, and Sam. One of them is an Olympic-level equestrian (which can not have been a cheap or easy interest to…
- The Daily Dad
Don’t Let Your Kids Be Worse
"Arthur MacArthur was a vain and conceited man. He was a war hero at age 18 at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. From there he went on to become a colonel, then…
- The Daily Dad
What Legacy Are You Providing?
"Harry Truman was not a good businessman. The clothing shop he opened with a friend was a disaster—and he was paying off the debts through his senate career…
- The Daily Dad
What Will They Learn From This?
"Right now, you and your family are stuck at home. Or you trying to dig yourself out of the wreckage of a situation that wasn’t your fault, that is stressful…
- The Daily Dad
These Are Also Magical Words
"Last week, we talked about some words that become magical when you become a dad. Although “I love you” is always powerful, suddenly, when you have kids, the…
- The Daily Dad
It Feels Good to Get Them Things
"Sometimes it can feel like being a dad is just an endless series of errands. It’s the call from the bedroom that they need a glass of water. It’s the call…
- The Daily Dad
Can You Teach Them to Give It Their All?
"We talked before about Kipling’s poem “If,” which was written as advice for Kipling’s son, John. It’s a beautiful poem about toughness and virtue, honor and…
- The Daily Dad
Show Them What They’ll Get Out Of This
"Most schools and most parents teach reading all wrong. They bully kids into doing it. They pressure them. They tell them, 'Reading is what smart and…
- The Daily Dad
These Are Three Wonderful Words
"Before you had kids, 'I love you' was that powerful three word phrase. You said it to your future wife or your future husband and you loved hearing it. But…
- The Daily Dad
You Have to Listen
"...As parents, we tend to do a lot of talking. There are all the things we tell our kids. The things we remind them about. The lessons we try to teach them…
- The Daily Dad
Now Is The Time For Wisdom
"It doesn’t matter how old you are or how old your kids are. You have more experience than them. In some cases, that’s a couple decades. In other cases, it’s…
- The Daily Dad
Lift Them Up, Don’t Hold Them Back
"Family is wonderful. None of us would be here, the writer Aaron Thier once put it, if people hadn’t taken care of us when we were small. Somebody birthed us…
- The Daily Dad
This Is the Main Lesson
"There is so much we want to teach our kids—so much that fathers are expected to teach their kids. How to ride a bike. How to swim. How to throw a punch. How…
- The Daily Dad
Character Is Fate. Never Forget That.
"These are challenging, uncertain times, no question. What’s at the root of it? How did we get here? And what can fathers do about it?The answer comes to us…
- The Daily Dad
How Will You Use This Time?
"Right now, most of us are stuck with what you might call dead time. We’re trapped indoors. We’re working from home… or not at all. Kids are out of school, and…
- The Daily Dad
You Have To Treat Them The Same
"Does your dog’s gender matter to you? Like have you ever once thought about whether they were capable of this task or that task because of their sex? Has your…
- The Daily Dad
Never Make Fun Of Them For This
Your kids will do all sorts of ridiculous things. They will trip and fall, and yes, you will sometimes laugh. You will tease them about this and that. They’ll…
- The Daily Dad
They Must Learn How To Compete
It wasn’t until many years into his coaching career that Pete Carroll really settled into his philosophy—the system by which he built his teams, and his…
- The Daily Dad
You Must Find The Stillness
This change we’ve made, this decision to become dads—it has uprooted everything. It’s like we were hit, suddenly, with a crossfire hurricane. The house is a…
- The Daily Dad
Why Don’t You Know?
By now, you’ve almost certainly lost count of how many questions you’ve been asked by your kids. From the moment they can talk, that’s what fatherhood…
- The Daily Dad
It’s Your Fault They’re This Way
F. Scott Fitzgerald knew the long term damage of being spoiled rotten. Not only was he a prime and painful example himself—as we’ve written about—but as he…
- The Daily Dad
They Need You To Be Calm
The world is a scary place right now. Your retirement accounts have taken enormous hits. Events are getting cancelled. Government officials are failing…
- The Daily Dad
What Will You Regret?
On their deathbeds, fathers think about a lot of things. They think about the world they’re leaving to their sons and daughters. They think about how they…
- The Daily Dad
Teach Them Early, Teach Them Often
Each of us, no matter how old or successful, has things we wish we knew how to do. We wish we could speak another language, or change the oil in our own car…
- The Daily Dad
This Makes Us Crazy
Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge our biases. And one of the biggest biases in our lives is our kids. Not just a bias in the sense that we prefer them, but a…
- The Daily Dad
What Do You Never Want Them To Think?
Imagine that you’re gone and able to look down now and see your kids from above. Or imagine that somehow you had magical powers and could see inside their…
- The Daily Dad
You Come From A Strong Tradition
If you’re in your 30s, then your parents raised you through the global financial crisis, SARS, the bursting of the tech bubble, and 9/11. They saw two wars in…
- The Daily Dad
You Have One Job Today
Your job today as a father is to do one thing. It’s to read this poem, which dates back to 1895, and then to think about how to incorporate its lessons into…
- The Daily Dad
What You’re Doing Is Important
These are strange times to be a father. Fathers have never been expected to do more—around the house, in their children’s lives. This is wonderful. It’s also…
- The Daily Dad
Imagine What This Is Like For A Kid
Seeing your own parents now, as an adult, is stressful. There’s a great Ram Dass line that the comedian Pete Holmes has used in relation to his own parents…
- The Daily Dad
Here’s The Only Silver Lining
People are freaked out. Events are cancelled. Schools have been let out. You’re working from home, or, at least, not going out like you used to. Money is being…
- The Daily Dad
Tell Them of Cincinnatus
Do you know the story of Cincinnatus? He was a Roman general who had retired to his farm until he was called to rescue his country from an invasion. Made…
- The Daily Dad
Your Job Is To Keep Them Safe
It’s in moments like these—a pandemic or a hurricane or a terrorist attack—that we fathers are thrown back into a more primal role. Yes, there are so many…
- The Daily Dad
You Have To Help Them Discover This
Almost every talented and successful person can remember their introduction to whatever it was that became their thing. In Mastery, Robert Greene explores…
- The Daily Dad
Nobody Wins in a War of Attrition
Because you’re in charge, because you’re so much bigger and stronger and smarter, it’s easy to get trapped into a battle of wills with your kids. Don’t do that…
- The Daily Dad
If They Don’t Get It From You, Where Will They?
We know that our kids want to feel good, feel safe, feel loved. We know they want to feel that someone is proud of them, that they’re talented, that they’re…
- The Daily Dad
It Is Always Scary To Do This
There has never been a father—a good one anyway—that did not at least occasionally look at what was happening around them and question the world they were…
- The Daily Dad
You’ll Want Them To Come To You With Problems
When your kids mess up, what’s your reaction? Do you freak out? Or are you calm? Do you make the situation better...or worse? Can you actually listen? Or are…
- The Daily Dad
What Are They Learning From How You Carry Yourself
From his dad, Bruce Springsteen learned about shame, about broken pride, and struggling with demons that you can’t quite conquer. It’s an all too common story…
- The Daily Dad
They Feel Bad Enough Already
It happened again. Your kid screwed up. They did something stupid—from drawing on the walls to getting caught drinking. They hurt someone or they lied. They…
- The Daily Dad
Give Them Access To This Wisdom
For thousands of years, humans have been expressing wisdom to each other through fables. Whether it’s Aesop or the Bible or Leonardo da Vinci or Hans Christian…
- The Daily Dad
You’d Trade Anything For This, Yet…
When Kobe Byrant took off in his helicopter from downtown Los Angeles on January 26th, he was a 5 time NBA champion. He was a 2x Finals MVP. He was a 2x…
- The Daily Dad
The Trade Off Is Worth It
These kids have changed your life. There are so many things you used to do that you no longer can. Traveling with no notice. Staying out all night. Sleeping on…
- The Daily Dad
If You Feel Upset, Do This
You’re upset because you just blew it in that meeting. You’re kicking yourself because you meant to get up early and ended up sleeping through your alarm and…
- The Daily Dad
Raise Them To Be a “Why” Child
In one of F. Scott Fitzerald’s funniest short stories, “Head and Shoulders,” a certifiable genius falls in love with a showgirl. The plot and moral of the…
- The Daily Dad
Don’t Let Them Get Discouraged
We’ve all done it. It’s happened to almost all of us. We see a thing. We want to try it. It’s hard. And…we give up. Whether it’s karate, business, piano…
- The Daily Dad
You’re Doing Better Than You Think
It can be easy to question your parenting. To feel like you’re not doing good enough, that you’re not nearly enough. You see what other parents are doing, or…
- The Daily Dad
They Are Always Listening
Have you ever heard your kids say something that just stops you cold? One of those remarks that instinctually makes you do a double take? It can be an…
- The Daily Dad
Make Sure They Spend Time Around Old People
In his book, The Vanishing American Adult, Senator Ben Sasse pondered what might strike a person from the distant past as odd about our modern society. Aside…
- The Daily Dad
This Is Something to Work Towards
Have you ever watched someone sit and play with a little kid for hours? Like totally engrossed, never checking a phone, never rushing, never getting bored or…
- The Daily Dad
Introduce Them To The (Friendly) World of Ideas
General Jim Mattis has talked about his idyllic childhood in Pullman, Washington. There he spent time outdoors, explored, got in trouble, and had an…
- The Daily Dad
You Can't Prevent Them From Making Mistakes
Nobody wants to see their kid make a mistake. That’s why we spend so much time teaching them right and wrong, why we try to be a good example, why we try to…
- The Daily Dad
Don’t Let Your Kids Down
Do you know the story of the 300 Spartans? Maybe you do. It was first immortalized by Herodotus, and then has been passed down through the ages from Simonides…
- The Daily Dad
Why This Is So Important
This is just my personality, we say. I just don’t have any energy when I get home from work, we complain. I’m in a bad mood today, that’s all. My parents…
- The Daily Dad
This Is All You Can Want For Your Kids
Douglas MacArthur was a complicated man. He was ambitious. He was vain. He made many mistakes. It’s very unlikely that he was a perfect father. In fact, it’d…
- The Daily Dad
Where Will They Get Their Degree?
What schools are your kids attending? No, not what college or prep school. This is more of a “school of life” question. Charis Denison, a relationship…
- The Daily Dad
You Can Give Them This Gift
In 1982-83, Jim Valvano coached the North Carolina State basketball team to a National Championship title. The Wolfpack was a mid-ranked team that entered the…