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.

How to encourage crazy dreams. It's not that parents don't believe in their kids, it's that they know the world is hard.

They know that the odds are long, and most of all, nobody wants harm or crushing disappointment to come to their children.

That's why after spending most of their young lives encouraging them that they can be anything, we end up pulling back at the last minute

when they get older. We discourage them from dropping out, from trying to make it as a musician,

from quitting their job to start a company. We're just worried. Will Ferrell, one of the greatest

comedic actors of all time, certainly challenged his parents in this way. You're going to become a sketch

comedian? What? But his father, a working as opposed to

famous musician, caught himself before that very understandable worry overrode his support and belief in

his son. When Will came to him for advice about pursuing this uncertain, unstable career.

His father said to him, you know what?

I think you have the skill, but it takes a lot of luck.

If you don't make it, don't worry about it.

He said, you can just try something else.

What his father was communicating to Will from his own hard-won experience was just how hard

and unlikely success was in one of those much-treamed career

fields. He was saying, you're talented, I believe in you, but it's going to be really hard,

so hard that if it doesn't work out, you have to understand that it's just a reflection of the

industry and not you as a person. And that is an incredible gift to give your children. Permission to try,

along with permission to fail, the signal that you'll support them either way, and that nothing

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