The Daily Dad

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Are You Modeling This? Dec 20, 2023

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Beauty to the Stoics was far deeper than appearances. “If your choices are beautiful,” Epictetus said, “so too will you be.”

It’s simple and it’s true. You are what your choices make you, nothing more and nothing less.

Isn’t this what we try to teach our kids? That, yes of course, we love them unconditionally and unequivocally, and have since the moment they were born, but they have this incredible power to choose what kind of person they’re going to be. The reason we read to them, the reason we tell them things, the reason we have rules and punishments and incentives in our house is to try to instill in them a good compass for making good choices.

We created the 2024 New Year, New You Challenge for that person and for that reason—to help you create a better life, and a new you in 2024. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. It’s 3 weeks of waking up each morning, opening the email, and making a beautiful choice. And it will require 3 weeks of discipline and sacrifice and following the process.

But when you see the results? Well, it will take your breath away. So sign up NOW to join us in the 2024 Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge!

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You’re Responsible Too Dec 19, 2023

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Each of us is responsible for what we do as parents, but we’re also responsible for the dynamic that exists in our homes and in our relationships. Just because you’re the nice one, just because you do the repairing, just because you’re not as hard on your kids—that doesn’t mean that you’re not complicit in the stress or strain that’s being inflicted.

It’s our job to create a safe and loving and supportive home. We can’t make excuses—Oh, he’s just under stress at work. Oh, that’s what she learned growing up.

And this pertains to more than just punishment. It’s our job to get on the same pages as our spouse, our co-parent, their step-parent, our ex, whatever, and figure out how to do this right. If we’re struggling, if we sense something’s wrong? Well, we can’t deny it.

We can’t make excuses for it. We can’t just leave our children to fend for themselves with it. Because what they’ll end up doing is blaming themselves…and eventually, inevitably, you too.

For those tired of making excuses, we announced last week the 2024 New Year New You challenge. This set of 21 actionable challenges—presented one per day, built around the most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy—is really a set of 21 choices. Every morning, the email arrives in your inbox, and you have to choose. Will you take the easy way or the hard way? Will you read the email and leave it at that or will you take on the challenge? Will you get better this year?

That’s the question. That’s the choice. That’s the responsibility you can accept.

It’s Ultimately This That They Judge You On Dec 18, 2023

Show notes

There’s no question Hemingway was a great writer. He was the voice of a generation—The Lost Generation. He redefined prose style in the English language. His books have sold millions of copies. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

He wrote beautifully on love and family (A Farewell to Arms). He wrote beautifully on struggle and perseverance (The Old Man and the Sea). He was also a pretty awful husband and father. As one of his sons said, to Hemingway “family life [was] the enemy of accomplishment.” It was a thing that interfered with his greatness, his craft, his books. “On several occasions,” Patrick Hemingway recounted that Hemingway “said being a a good husband, being a good father…all of [these things were] not recognized by a reviewer when he reviewed his book.”
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Ryan Holiday And Whitney Cummings On Self-Awareness And Better Parenting Habits Dec 16, 2023

Show notes

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks to American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, director, producer, and podcaster Whitney Cummings on self-awareness, the ability to update the script, and the impressions we leave on our children.
IG, X, and Tiktok: @WhitneyCummings

To follow her on OnlyFans @Whitney

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This Is Something To Be Glad About Dec 15, 2023

Show notes

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 come with being a dad can be so overwhelming and complex. It’s a rush of a million feelings: love, joy, fear, absurdity, exhaustion, responsibility, motivation, and primal attachment.

No one prepared you for any of this…and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever dealt with before. How do you express it? How do you let your family know what they mean to you? How they have you wrapped around their finger, how they are your everything?

Maybe the line from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse will suffice. “Sometimes I want to say I love you all,” says the mole, “but I find it difficult.” “Do you?” says the boy. “Yes, so I say something like I’m glad we are all here.”
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Don’t Try To Make Them Happy Dec 14, 2023

Show notes

A parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child, goes the expression. And even if that wasn’t true, even if it didn’t directly impact our own happiness, would any of us want our children to be unhappy? Of course not. We love them so much. The last thing we want is for them to feel pain.

We want their lives to be wonderful. We want them to have fun. We want them to have a great life. We want them to be happy!

There’s nothing wrong with this…except that oftentimes trying to make someone happy is a recipe for failure. “Happiness is not my ultimate goal for my own kids,” Dr. Becky Kennedy writes in her amazing book Good Inside (which we continue to rave about). “Unhappiness certainly isn’t my goal for them, but here’s a deep irony in parenting: the more we emphasize our children’s happiness and ‘feeling better,’ the more we set them up for an adulthood of anxiety.”

Why Not? Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

He was a young man fresh out of the Naval Academy and a stint in the submarine service. He was being interviewed by Admiral Hyman Rickover for a coveted spot in the nuclear program. Then he got the question that changed his life.

“How did you stand in your class at the academy?” Rickover asked. “Sir, I stood 59th in a class of 820,” future president Jimmy Carter answered. “But did you do your best?” Rickover asked. And when Carter could not honestly answer that he has always done his best, Rickover simply said, “Why not?” and then ended the interview.

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Let Them Know They Have It Dec 12, 2023

Show notes

We wanted it so badly and we never got it. We still haven’t got it. Dad was withholding, dad was hard to please—we wanted to make him proud, but we just couldn’t. That’s partly why we’re working so hard today.

There’s some part of us that thinks if we can just accomplish enough, make enough money, win enough awards, surpass him then maybe, finally, we’ll get that begrudging pat on the back. We’ll get him to acknowledge us. He’ll let us know he respects us, loves us, and appreciates us. But somehow it never seems to be enough.

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You Have This Freedom Now Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

There are things you would have never done before. You’d never have sung a crazy song in public. You’d never have painted your nails. You would have vomited before you sucked snot out of someone’s nose (as Hasan Minhaj did). You’d have rather starved than put on a McUniform and work extra hours at some job you hate.
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How To Raise A Resilient Child Dec 10, 2023

Show notes

“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.”

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan reminds us to raise a resilient child by resisting the urge to intervene, helping them manage their emotions, showing them that everything thing can be figured out, and lastly leading by example.
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