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.

Are you modeling this? Beauty to the Stoics was far deeper than appearances. If your choices are

beautiful, Epictita 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. And 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.

As we get close to the end of 2023 and the start of 24, are you making beautiful choices?

What's your diet look like? What are your sleep habits like? Are you stuck in your comfort zone?

Are you practicing good boundaries? Are you challenging yourself to grow and change?

Each day presents us with plenty of opportunities to make beautiful choices. There's the little choices we have to

make daily, what you eat, how you talk to people, whether you pick up the phone or a journal,

what you think about. And some days there's bigger choices, whether you stand up for what's right,

whether you reach down to help someone who needs it, what kind of work you do, what standards you hold yourself to. If you want a beautiful life, there's no escaping it. You have to make beautiful choices. If you want your kids to have a beautiful life, they will need to get in the habit of making beautiful choices. And if not you, who will show them how to get in that habit? well, the new year is almost here and it's a great chance to get in the habit of making beautiful choices. For the six straight year, Daily Stoak is running this new year, new you challenge. It's one of my favorite things. I do it every year. I get better for it every year. My whole aspiration for the year actually came from something that I came up with while I was doing the challenge, this idea of doing less, saying no more. If you want to do that with me and thousands of other Stoics, if you want to make a beautiful choice to kick off the new year, I would love for you to do that. It's 21 days of consecutive Stoic-inspired challenges that make you a better parent, better person. All of that, I'm excited to do it with you.

And you can sign up right now at daily stoic.com slash challenge. And I hope to see you there.

This holiday season, I want to give a gift to my loved ones that I know will make them feel special

because it made me feel special when someone gave it to me. I'm talking about storyworth.

Storyworth is this great online service that helps you and your loved one preserve precious

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