This show is sponsored by Better Help.

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.

Give them a little more than feels safe.

It's scary.

It's especially scary for women whose careers are almost invariably set back by having kids in their prime working years.

But it's scary for men too because when we say work-life balance, what we're really talking

about is trade-offs.

Spending time with your kids costs something.

It costs money.

It has opportunity costs.

Even if you work for yourself and run your own business, the time you spend at home is not time spent at the company.

It manifests itself in revenue not earned, new ideas not had.

Just like for the career person, it's shown in missed meetings or being passed over

for promotions or new projects. So it's a scary question then. What's the balance? How much time should we

spend? And there's no general answer, but perhaps this rule should help. Give your kids more than you

are comfortable with. Make a schedule that

scares you a bit. It feels like it's costing you. There's a great clip we posted on Instagram a while

back of the actor Michael Keaton talking about his decision to take a break from movies while his kids

were young. He was saying, as we said here in an email recently, that you'll never regret the time

...