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.

Here's where to be a competitive parent.

Way too many parents are competitive. They see the car, their neighbor is driving, and they want to get a better one. They hear their friend's kid got into a fancy school and they think, my kid is smarter. I've got to get them in there too. We want to make more money than other parents. We want our kids to beat other kids in sports. We want our kids to be cuter than other kids. We want our houses to be

cleaner. Needless to say, this is mostly toxic and negative. But that competitive urge is hard

to get rid of. So where should we channel it? We've told you about Janie Gaffigan before,

whose haunting story of a surprise, pear-sized tumor changed her and her family's life.

She found a good outlet.

She explained that during her recuperation from the surgery,

her husband brought out a new side of himself and created a healthy, positive dynamic

in their relationship.

She said, I noticed that Jim started learning all about the day-to-day stuff out of necessity but i feel like

in my recovery he has a whole different level of appreciation for me he do things like my son was

going to all these bar mitzvahs every weekend because everyone was turning 13 and i'm bad at tying

ties but i would do it because jim't home. And then Jim would be like

when he does something better than me, he brags about it. He said, who ties the better tie? So there was a lot of

this kind of fun competition about who made eggs better. And it was a different level of our relationship

because before he was not doing that stuff.

Don't compete with other dads or other families.

Compete with your spouse.

Compete with their mother.

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