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.

Work with them to find their lane. You want them to be successful. You want them to be ambitious.

You want them to fulfill the potential you see in them. Every parent does. You have this idea of where

you think they ought to go. And of course, they have other ideas. John Adams, Sr. wanted nothing

more but for his son to go to college. John Adams wanted to do anything but go to school.

He often skipped to go fishing or hunting or fly his kite. He didn't like his teachers. He didn't

think he was learning anything useful. He had no interest in furthering his education. So when he

declared that he wanted to be a farmer, his father took him down to the salt marsh to cut thatch

and weighed through muck, showing him what the work

would actually be like. The next day, John went back to school. But soon enough, Adams was struggling.

I don't like my schoolmaster, he told his father. He is so negligent and cross that I can never

learn anything under him. The next day, Adam's father enrolled him in a private school down the road.

There, under a schoolmaster

named Joseph Marsh, Adams made a dramatic turn. He was studying, he was reading, he saved up money

to buy a copy of Cicero's writings, and in less than a year, the 15-year-old was pronounced,

fitted for college, and the following fall he enrolled at Harvard. We talked to Austin Cleon over at Daly Stoak a while back

about how our job as parents is to put our kids in environments in which they can learn. Our job is to

create or find the space for them to become who they are. Our job is to work with them to find

their lane. That environment may not be the first school we drop them into. It may take several

tries. It may take patience. It might take some experimentation. Our ideas might be proven right

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