Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you

with your most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy,

by practical wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world. Thank you for

listening, and we hope this helps. This is what putting them first looks like. For his whole

career, Archie Manning had been a company man for the New Orleans Saints.

He was great, but the team was terrible. For years they had lost. For years, he had endured poor

offensive lines, poor drafting, never even coming close to contention. So you'd think it would

have been a second win for his career to be traded

to Houston and then to the Vikings. He still had years left in him, a real shot being part

of a winning team. But instead, in 1984, he retired. Why? His son, Eli. I sense that my relationship wasn't quite the same with Eli that it had been

with Cooper and Peyton at that age, Manning explained in the book, my first coach. Eli was kind of shy anyway,

and it might have been a little harder for Eli to warm up to you. I was gone and I didn't like it at all.

I remember that that was one of the real

joys for me when I retired, that I would be home, that I would be around full time for Eli.

Get that relationship that I had with Cooper and Peyton because it was a good one. We talked about

putting your kids first. Indeed, that's the first law of stoic parenting,

which we talk about in the Daily Stoic Parenting Challenge. But what does that actually look like?

It looks like what Manning did. He walked away from his career. He hung it up early,

not because his wife demanded it, not because his son was arrested, but because he could sense that not being around

enough was having an impact on young Eli. That's what great parenting looks like, what true

greatness on and off the field looks like. Would anyone have noticed two more seasons with the Vikings?

Maybe, maybe not. You know who definitely noticed and benefited from having

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