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. Don't be so nice that nobody likes confrontation, nobody likes having to enforce our boundaries,

nobody likes having an awkward conversation with their parents or the boss or the mechanic who is

working on your car. But you know what? We should like even less being burned out when we get

home, not having patience or energy left for our kids, not having a shred of slack left to deal with the inevitable stresses that will occur in the course of picking them up from school, getting them dinner, and getting them to bed. So guess what? If you don't want to be guilty of the ladder, you're going to have to be proactive about the former. It would be wonderful. It's wonderful that you want to be nice. You want low

drama, that you don't want to be the squeaky wheel, that you rather just let stuff go. But if you're too nice, you'll run out of kindness by the time you get home. If you bottle it all up in the course of the day, it'll explode all over the people you care about most. If you're not protective enough of your space, of your time, of your worth, you're not going to have any left over for the people

you're supposed to be protecting. As parents, we have to

stand up for ourselves at work in the course of the day against all the things liable to intrude on

our lives and our sanity, because it's also a way of standing up for our kids. It's a way of showing

them not to be doormats. It's a way of showing them what good

priorities look like, that mainly they are our priority.

Hey, you're listening to the Daily Dad podcast.

One meditation a day inspired to help you do your most important job, which is be a great father.

These are meditations inspired by ancient wisdom, psychological research, and just great strategies from normal dads just like you.

Thanks for listening.