Raising a child in today’s fast-paced, achievement-driven world is no small feat. While many parents focus on grades and extracurriculars, one of the most overlooked skills is emotional intelligence.

This doesn’t just help kids excel socially; it helps them grow into resilient, empathetic, and successful adults who can navigate challenges with confidence, foster meaningful relationships, and lead fulfilling lives.

So, what do parents who raise emotionally intelligent kids do differently? After years of studying over 200 parent-child relationships — and from practicing healthy habits with my own child — I’ve uncovered seven powerful strategies that these parents embraced early on.

They gave their child space to process their feelings and trust their inner voice. When their child was upset, they sat quietly beside them, offering comfort without words. Embracing silence can help children better navigate and reflect on their emotions.

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By verbally sharing feelings — like “I’m frustrated” or “I’m happy” — they taught their children emotional awareness and gave them words to express themselves. This helped their children see emotions as normal and share them openly rather than suppressing them.

They showed their child that mistakes are part of life and taking responsibility is a strength. Apologizing built trust and showed respect, making their child feel valued. It also modeled empathy and taught them how to repair relationships.

This might sound unconventional, but they knew kindness and respect can’t be forced. Instead, they modeled these behaviors, trusting their child to learn by example. If their child forgot to say thank you, the parent said it for them, confident the lesson would stick over time.

This takes a lot of bravery! But as a parenting coach, I’ve never told my 6-year-old to say please or thank you. Now he says it all the time on his own — because he hears me say it.

They took their child’s concerns seriously, whether it was a lost toy or trouble with a friend. By validating their feelings, they showed their child that emotions matter. This fostered self-worth, emotional safety, and respect for their experiences.

The best way to teach decision-making is to encourage children to make their own decisions. Instead of fixing problems, they asked, “What do you think we should do?” This helped boost critical thinking, confidence, and independence.

They let their child get bored, which helped them become comfortable with stillness. This built creativity, self-regulation and problem-solving skills. Their child learned to enjoy their own company and find joy in simple moments, like staring out the car window instead of needing a screen.

• Modeling the behaviors you want to see: Express your emotions openly, apologize when you make mistakes, and show kindness and empathy in your interactions.
• Validate your child’s feelings, no matter how small they may seem, and give them the space to process those emotions without rushing to fix or dismiss them. 
• Encourage problem-solving by asking open-ended questions instead of providing all the answers.
• Let them experience moments of stillness or boredom to build creativity and self-regulation.

Most importantly, focus on building a relationship rooted in respect and trust — because emotional intelligence starts with feeling safe, valued, and understood.

Reem Raouda is a certified conscious parenting coach, mother, and creator of BOUND — the first and only parent-child connection journal designed to nurture emotional intelligence and self-worth in children. She has transformed hundreds of families through her courses, coaching and tools. Follow her on Instagram. 

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As a plastic surgeon, my job involves many kinds of so-called anti-aging procedures. But while they may make you look younger, the cells in your body won’t function the way younger cells do.

That’s why I’ve spent thousands of hours over the past 10 years learning about a way of treating patients that I was never taught in medical school or in residency.

One of the most surprising and often overlooked things I discovered is that your state of mind can do wonders for your physical body, specifically having a younger attitude.

Research shows that how we think is reflected in our bodies, and how we hold our bodies is reflected in how we think.

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For example, if you smile, it can start to make you feel happy. If you slump, you can start to feel sad. Conversely, feeling sad can cause you to slump, and feeling happy can trigger an automatic smile.

You can use this to your advantage with one simple little thing: positive thinking.

Several recent studies have shown that people with good attitudes about aging have better mental health and improved quality of life as they get older.

One 2022 Harvard study of 14,000 adults over the age of 50 showed that the people with the highest feelings of satisfaction about aging were the most likely to feel better, live longer, have better mental health, and have better health habits than their more negative-thinking counterparts.

Think about some of the stereotypical differences between old and young people. Young people tend to want to learn new things, laugh often, move more, and feel cheerful — maybe because they haven’t experienced as many hard lessons and don’t have as much responsibility.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t borrow from them. Some older people like to spend time with younger people to help them stay young in their minds and hearts. They maintain a positive outlook, retain their curiosity, evolve with changing times, and don’t get set in their ways.

Here’s my best advice for keeping a younger attitude:

• Learn new things. When you try new things (brush up on a language, learn an instrument, read a challenging book, ask questions), your neurons will create new connections and even slow down the aging process of your brain. This is the concept of neuroplasticity, and it can keep your brain working better.
• Take breaks. You don’t have to work all the time. Build time into each week to let yourself relax and have some fun.
• Stop being hard on yourself. When self-doubt and negativity creep in, take a beat and remind yourself that you’re doing your best.
• Forgive and move on. One of the worst things you can do to increase stress in your life is to hold onto bitterness and grudges. There are people who will do you wrong, have toxic personalities, who have cost you time, heartache, and more. Don’t let them wrong you even more by giving them any airtime in your mind.
• Celebrate life. Holidays, rituals, family gatherings, friends — lean into milestones and opportunities to connect with the people you care about.
• Love. Love your family, your friends, your pets, your life, and especially, love yourself. Indulge in love often and offer it generously. This alone can keep you feeling young and vital.

Dr. Anthony Yuon, MD, is a board-certified plastic surgeon, award-winning author, and anti-aging expert. Recognized as a leader in the field, he is highly valued for his honest approach and ability to speak to all areas of health and well-being, not just plastic surgery. He hosts the podcast The Doctor Yuon Show, and has appeared in television shows like Live with Kelly and Mark, The Rachael Ray Show, The Doctors, and many others. He is also the author of “Younger for Life: Feel Great and Look Your Best With the New Science of Autojuvenation.”

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Adapted from “Younger for Life: Feel Great and Look Your Best with the New Science of Autojuvenation,” by Anthony Youn. Copyright 2024 by Anthony Youn. Used with permission by HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press.

For a few years in the ’80s, Tony Hawk was one of the highest-earning kids in the world.

He started skating professionally at 14, raking in $160,000 a year before he was even old enough to drive. In an appearance on the “Richer Lives by SoFi” podcast, Hawk said it felt like he had all the money in the world.

“I didn’t have very good perspective on it,” he said. “My dad was trying to guide me and sort of warn me, ‘Hey, this might not last forever.’ When you’re that age and the money comes so consistently, you don’t see the end in sight.”

Hawk wasn’t careful about his spending. He described taking his friends on trips to Hawaii and paying for everything, as well as going to Sharper Image and buying “super expensive” electronics.

“I would just go there and blow through the store, just get whatever was new,” he said. “Probably the most ridiculous purchase was a tanning bed. I thought, somehow that would be cool to have. I live in southern California, why am I buying a tanning bed?”

But not all his purchases were a waste of money. During his senior year of high school Hawk “was making good money,” and his dad sat him down to give him a piece of financial advice: Invest in real estate.

“And what I heard was, ‘You can have your own place,’” Hawk said, adding that he was excited about the prospect of inviting a few friends to live with him in his very own party house. “I was only 17 when I bought the house, so he had to cosign for it.”

The house, he said, would go on to be the best purchase he ever made. A few years later, he’d buy his “dream home,” complete with a big skate ramp. But when his income began to dwindle, he quickly found himself falling behind on his payments.

Indeed, things got so bad that at one point Hawk put himself on a $5-a-day food budget, subsisting on Taco Bell, ramen and peanut butter.

With a child on the way and a new skateboard company in the works, Hawk decided sell the dream home and go back to the property his dad had recommended he buy back when he was 17.

“That first property I bought, that was my saving grace,” he said. “I ended up moving back into that house with my new family, because my son was born at that time.”

Though he would once again have a financial windfall starting in 1999 thanks to the success of the “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” video games, Hawk learned a valuable money lesson from the experience.

“It was a wake-up call,” he said. “You should always be living so that you know you have savings.”

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For four years, actor Hugh Grant employed a fake talent agent named “James Howe Ealy” to handle his business affairs. It was actually just Grant himself using a different email account and once putting on a “pretty bad” Scottish accent over the phone. 

This story is one of many I’ve heard of people who made the same powerful decision I did early in my career: creating a fake assistant.

Today, I run a successful business generating about $18,000 in monthly passive income, according to my calculations from a recent month’s deposits, and I work just four hours a day. But back in 2009, I was a college dropout with $50,000 in student loans, trying to build a social media marketing business from scratch.

I knew I needed help managing my growing workload, but I couldn’t afford to hire anyone. That’s when I discovered the fake assistant method.

It might seem unconventional, but looking back, it was the best business decision I ever made.

In the early days of my business, I noticed a few patterns. Potential clients would try to schedule calls at all hours, haggle over prices, or expect immediate responses to every email. I was drowning in administrative tasks instead of focusing on revenue-generating work.

Saying “no” felt impossible as a new entrepreneur, but I needed boundaries. “If only I had an assistant,” I thought.

I suddenly realized that because most of my work happened digitally, it didn’t matter whether I replied to emails from prospective clients as myself or as someone else.

If I had someone else to reply to emails, I could start setting a new standard, charging more money, and holding myself accountable to growing my business. That’s when I hired my fake assistant, Olivia.

I created a professional email address for Olivia. Then I started cc’ing her on all client communications to handle tasks like scheduling calls and sending invoices. 

This small change had an immediate impact. When clients wanted to schedule a meeting, instead of the back-and-forth eating up my day, Olivia would step in: “Amy’s calendar is booked for the next two weeks, but I can offer you Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET.”

The results were remarkable. Clients respected my time more, readily accepted my rates, and treated my business more professionally. 

This method isn’t about deception — it’s about creating systems that allow your business to grow. 

You might be thinking the obvious: “But Amy, you’re still doing all this work yourself. What’s the difference?”

Here’s what I learned about how even a fake assistant who’s actually you can transform your business:

• It helps set better boundaries. Having an assistant gives you a buffer to protect your time and energy. When a client wants to schedule a last-minute call, your assistant can politely decline without making it personal. When you’re replying as yourself, you might feel a sense of obligation and find it harder to say “no.”
• It positions your business more professionally. Clients treat you differently when they observe efficiency in action. That’s what a great team can do for you. And even a temporarily fake one can help, leading to better rates and more respect for your time.
• It forces you to create efficient, transferable systems. When you’re acting as if you have an assistant, you’re creating, testing, and refining processes, workflows, and infrastructure that someone could easily step into and replicate on your behalf. This preparation made it infinitely easier to onboard and train real help when I could finally afford it.
• It prepared me to delegate. By the time I hired a real assistant, I had a clear understanding of exactly what I needed help with, how to delegate effectively, how to manage my time, and how to run my business smoothly. 

If you’re considering this method, here are some pro tips:

1. Don’t use it as a crutch. The goal is to build systems that will help you grow, not create extra work. Keep it simple and professional.
2. Remember the end goal. This is a stepping stone to hiring real help, not a permanent solution. 
3. Track your time in “admin mode.” When you realize how much time these admin tasks take, you’re getting a tangible idea of what level of assistant you need to hire in the near future and for how many hours.

Hiring Olivia meant more than just having a cheerful, organized persona with an email address. It was my first step toward building a scalable business. Today, I have real team members helping me manage my YouTube channel, books, and coaching business.

The fake assistant method taught me very real and crucial lessons about valuing my time, setting professional boundaries, and creating systems for growth. 

It also helped me discover firsthand that sometimes the best business decisions are the ones that seem a little unusual at first.

Amy Landino is a personal brand coach and the award-winning creator of AmyTV on YouTube. She is an instructor in CNBC’s online course How to Earn Passive Income Online. Follow her on Instagram.

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Positive social relationships are proven to combat anxiety, increase our happiness and help us live longer. But, as we get older, maintaining certain bonds, specifically friendships, can feel more challenging.

On a recent episode of Jay Shetty’s podcast On Purpose, author Mel Robbins attempts to demystify why it’s so hard to find friends in adulthood.

“The rules of friendship completely change when you hit your twenties,” Robbins, who authored “The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About,” told Shetty.

For a friendship to work, three different factors need to align, Robbins says.

“When you were little, you were in proximity to people your age all the time,” Robbins said.

School, groups sports, or church made it so we were constantly surrounded by people who were our age.

Today more than half, 58%, of Americans don’t live near or in the community where they grew up, according to 2018 data from Pew Research Center. This means that many of the friendships they had growing up probably are harder to maintain.

To really be someone’s friend, seeing them consistently needs to be easy.

The older you get, the more people you’ll meet who are in different phases of life.

“Everybody’s on different timelines,” Robbins said. “Some of your friends are getting married. Some are going to graduate school. Some are now pursuing jobs.”

Finding friends who are experiencing the same hurdles and hitting the same milestones makes it easier to connect.

How much you and another person have in common might change over time. And if your values don’t align, it’s hard to maintain a bond.

“You can have fantastic energy with somebody, and then if you decide you’re not drinking anymore, the energy is off,” Robbins said. “If you decide to get really focused on fitness, the energy is off. If you have very different political beliefs, the energy is off.”

When an adult friendship fizzles, it’s usually because one or more of these three pillars dissolves. And while it’s hard to accept “you can’t force those things,” Robbins said.

To continue making friends when you’re older, focus on who is close to you, what they are going through, and how much you two have in common. Being more intentional about who you approach means you’re more likely to meet the right people.

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