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.

Teach them to be particular.

Kids are picky.

They don't like this.

They don't like that.

They need this to be exactly like that.

But that can't possibly be what John Lewis's mother meant to encourage when she repeated her motto to her kids when they were growing up.

Be particular, she'd tell them.

What she meant, David Halberstram would write in his powerful

book on the civil rights movement was be careful, be responsible for yourself, and always be well

prepared. This was a set of standards that she tried to hold her kids to not only when they were

little, but all their lives. In the 1990s, when her son John was now

Congressman John Lewis and well into his 50s, she was still reminding them of her motto.

When John faced off in a series of political fights with Newt Gingrich, Willie May Lewis called her

son and said, now, Robert, I want you to be particular with that man. Meaning again, as Halberstam writes, that he was to be careful in his criticisms of Gingrich,

any attack had better be factual.

Not picky, but particular.

Not peculiar, but particular.

Be exacting.

Get your facts straight.

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