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.

You want tough but practical kids.

The hunter Stephen Rinella was raised by a tough father,

and he spent his whole life working outdoors,

tracking and hunting in some of the most inhospitable places on earth.

You've got to be tough to do that.

And whatever your thoughts on hunting,

any parent would be proud to raise a kid that could survive

like Ronella can, let alone master a profession they enjoy.

Rinella, whose wonderful book American Buffalo, is worth reading, has talked about something

he thinks about on nearly every hunt.

There's a fine line between being practical and being a candy ass, he writes, which is a word my father used to describe someone

whom he considered to be the opposite of tough. When I'm in the woods and I run into a situation

that seems like a bad idea, whether it's climbing up a steep, icy mountainside, or taking a canoe

through a nasty stretch of rapids, I always ask myself which of these two words,

practical or candy ass, best describes my decision-making. As we follow this philosophy of

Lutger et emergo, that's the challenge coin we have here at Daily Dad, the idea of letting

our kids struggle so they can become tough and

independent, this is an important distinction.

We want them to be tough and resilient and sturdy, but we want them to be practical also.

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