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.

A much better way to motivate.

As we said recently, it is true that by withholding praise or pride,

you may succeed in creating a driven kid. It's just that they'll be driven to get that one thing

and one thing only, and they won't care where and how they get it. You'll be creating a motivated

machine. You're not making them strong. In fact, they'll be incredibly vulnerable.

That can't be what you want. It's important that we look for examples of people who have done

great things as a result of their parents' ability to believe in them, support them, and make them

feel secure. We've talked about Jim Volvano many times and tell the story in Daily Dad about

how his dad packed his bags and told his son

that he was ready to watch him coach in the final four. We posted a great video of the comedian

Andrew Schultz recently. Andrew told his father that his dream was to perform at Madison Square Garden

someday. Everyone else laughed or dismissed it. His father looked at him and said, I can see it.

Again, hunger is a powerful motivator, a craving for the approval of a withdrawn parent, a hard-to-please-parent.

This can instill in a person in intensity, an unstoppableness, a desire to achieve. But you know what else can make for a great champion? A strong sense of

self, a support network, a belief that they have what it takes, a sense of what's possible

and understanding that however long it takes, however it goes, no matter how many attempts,

their value as a person hasn't changed and that eventually, inevitably, they're going to do

something great because they are great.

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