Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode of the Daily Dad podcast. As you know,

sometimes we do interviews with my wife and I. Sometimes I do solo meditations. And sometimes I do

deep dyes articles I've written on specific topics, messages. I think people really ought to hear.

And today's is actually rooted in something that I put together for Father's Day.

The Free Press, which is a cool substack, a newsletter I've subscribed to for a while,

asked if I would do a piece on Father's Day about being a father.

I think it's a timeless piece.

I actually think it's about parenting in general.

And they titled that dads can't have it all either.

I guess what I would say is parenting is really about discipline and tradeoffs.

No one can have it all.

And that's the message of today's piece.

And I'll just get into it.

Parenting is all about discipline.

It's about being strict and firm and unrelenting.

Not with your kids, to be clear, that's being a disciplinarian. When I say that parenting is all about discipline, I'm talking about the only form of it that matters. Self-discipline. There's a story about one of those legendary beat parties in the early 1960s. Alan Ginsberg was hosting. Jack Kerouac was there holding

court. There were drugs and ideas and romance. There was effortless cool and artistic genius on

display. The kind of thing that a young artist would dream of being invited to and once in attendance,

never want to leave. Then all of a sudden a 20-something poet named Diane DePriam got up to do just that,

heading right out as things were getting started.

The babysitter was waiting, she explained sheepishly.

Unless you forget about your babysitter, Kerouac said to her in front of everyone,

...