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.

Do they have a project? Everybody wants their kids to be successful. It just seems like we have a very

poor understanding of how to do that. Think of the most successful people you know,

financially, professionally, personally. Think of the people whose world-class skills you admire the

most. Think of the greats of history. How did they get there? It was almost never

on the conventional path. And yet this is precisely how we spend our time and energy directing our

children. It's a bit sad to think of all the high school kids turning their backs on building

tree houses and sitting in class dutifully learning about Darwin or Newton to pass some exam,

the great investor Paul Graham writes, when the work that Newton, when the work that made Darwin

and Newton famous was actually closer in spirit to building tree houses than studying for exams.

Mastery doesn't come from rote recitation. Comes from falling in love with something.

Comes from hard work, sure, but only when the hard work is aligned with a passionate love

of a subject or a craft or a field.

So forget credentialing.

Give them something to sink their teeth in.

As Graham writes, if I had to choose between my kids getting good grades and working on ambitious

projects of their own, I'd pick the projects. And not because I'm an indulgent parent, but because

I have been on the other end and I know which has a more productive value. When I was picking

startups for Y Combinator, I didn't care about applicants' grades. But if they worked on projects

on their own, I wanted to hear all applicants' grades, but if they worked on projects on their own,

...