When Mary Braun met her husband Sébastien, they were both living in Chicago. But on their second date, Sébastien, a France native, told Braun he wasn’t planning on staying in the United States for much longer — he had been in America for 15 years and wanted to move back to Europe soon.

“He actually almost moved back but then decided to stay just a little bit longer and met me, so it was very serendipitous in that way,” Braun tells CNBC Make It.

At the end of 2020, the couple moved into a two-bedroom apartment together on the North Side of Chicago. At the time, Sébastien worked as the head of the business unit for ZF Group, a German technology manufacturing company, while Mary worked as a social media manager for a haircare company.

Both worked remotely and eventually the apartment proved too small for them, so the couple moved across the street into a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom duplex where they paid $2,585 a month in rent.

“I miss it so much. It was a really cute building that still had brick walls and Chicago character but was gutted and renovated,” Braun says.

Braun and Sébastien lived in the apartment for about a year and got through the covid-19 pandemic together there. During that time, they started seriously considering a move to Europe and which country they would soon call home. Switzerland was at the top of their list.

Sébastien was enrolled in an executive MBA program at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. “He chose it because he was able to do a lot of it remotely from the U.S.,” Braun says. “Since the long-term goal was moving back to Europe, it made sense for him to do a European program.”

Another mitigating factor for the couple was that Sébastien hadn’t been able to see his family in France for an entire year because of pandemic travel restrictions. He started actively working to get transferred to his company’s European offices.

The ZF Group offered Sébastien a transfer to an office in Germany, but Braun balked at the idea. She didn’t speak the language and there were no direct flights to and from Chicago. Sébastien was then offered a transfer to Belgium, but that fell through. He was given one more opportunity to work out of a brand new office in Bern, Switzerland, the country’s capital.

Though a move to Bern still didn’t appeal to Braun — it also has no direct flights in and out of Chicago — she realized Zurich was close enough that Sébastien could commute into the office every day.

“He really thought it was the best career opportunity for him, and at the time, the company that I worked for was willing to let me go and work remotely for them from Switzerland,” Braun says. “The stars aligned.”

By December 2021, the couple had started the process of moving to Switzerland — which included attaining Swiss visas — so, they didn’t end up actually moving until September 2022. Braun and Sébastien married in March of that year, shipped most of their belongings to Switzerland, and moved in with Braun’s parents while they waited for the paperwork to clear.

“We still had a long time to adjust to it and be with my family,” Braun says. “Which I think helped make the transition easier.”

When Braun and Sébastien finally made their move to Zurich, they lived in temporary housing — first in a furnished 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom that they paid 3,880 francs or $4,253 USD and then a 2-bedroom, 1.5 bathrooms that rented for 5,090 francs or $5,580, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“I remember sitting on the bed in the temporary housing with our dog and thinking how is this real? How are we in Switzerland? How did our dog make it here? How did everything fall into place?,” Braun says.

“This was our real life now and we had to deal with it. It was just surreal.”

That December, the couple found a more permanent living arrangement. It was a 2-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom apartment in the Enge neighborhood of Zurich where rent was 4,120 francs or $4,516.

The couple loved that apartment, but in January 2023, Braun learned she was pregnant. Living on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator became a major concern. The couple were also notified that their rent would be raised. They figured it was the right time to find a place with more space.

Five months later, Braun and Sébastien left the old apartment behind and moved to a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment in Uitikon, a town just outside of Zurich, for 3,950 francs or $4,330 a month. Braun says one of the upsides for them was that their taxes went down because they weren’t living in the city anymore.

In Switzerland, people pay federal income tax rates ranging from 0 to 11.5%, but that doesn’t include local taxes, according to H&R Block. The cantons, which are similar to states in the U.S., and municipalities also charge taxes.

A downside? It wasn’t all that easy to get around their new town without a car. When Braun gave birth to the couple’s daughter and went on maternity leave, she was employed as a social media manager for a Swiss company that wasn’t friendly towards remote work. “I was starting to get concerned about just balancing life,” she says.

There was a possibility that Braun would lose her job if she didn’t return to her office full-time when her leave was up.

“If I were in the U.S., I would have my mom or someone I knew well to watch our daughter. We started thinking that we needed to have a plan for the worst-case scenario financially.”

When Braun’s boss confirmed the worst, Sébastien set out to find a higher-paying job while she considered her options. “I appreciated that [my boss] was very honest with me, but it was a bummer because I kind of had to choose between my career or my family,” she says.

“I took the loss, but there are other bonuses to being at home with our daughter. Being a stay-at-home mom is just a different job.”

Last year, the couple and their daughter moved to a town outside of Fribourg, just under two hours from Zurich’s city center, where the family still resides. They pay 2,630 francs, or $2,883, a month for their 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment.

“We were able to save a huge chunk of change and Sébastien was making more money. It didn’t really close the gap between me losing my income but it definitely helped from a financial standpoint,” Braun says.

Plus, as French is a primary language in that area, Braun was excited to raise her daughter there, knowing she would learn the language and she could improve her own.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, Braun says she really appreciates the sense of safety that comes with living in Switzerland. She takes a lot of nature walks alone with her daughter and the family dog.

“The safety level is so different here that honestly, as a woman, I just feel safer doing things that I would probably think twice about doing in the U.S.,” Mary says. “It feels very secure and safe while still being beautiful at the same time.”

Braun and Sébastien have lived in Switzerland for over two years now, and though they miss America’s sense of celebration and having so much readily available to them like Amazon delivery and stores that stay open later than 6 p.m., the results of the 2024 presidential election means that, for them, moving back is off the table: “There’s too much uncertainty in the U.S.”

“I never want our daughter to feel like she’s not American and I want her to culturally identify with the U.S., at least the good parts of it,” Braun says. “It’s also tempting because for me, it would be easy to get back into the job market with my journalism background, especially as a freelancer, which isn’t really a thing in Switzerland.

But, “I think socially it doesn’t really make sense for us at the moment,” she adds.

The couple thinks they will eventually move again to be closer to Sébastien’s family, but that won’t happen any time soon. “To have the ability to have help and have someone to rely on and watch our daughter is amazing,” Braun says. “To have her grow up in one of her cultures, I think, would be really cool for us.”

Until then, Braun is focused on learning French to expand her career opportunities if and when they move to Sébastien’s home country and she’s ready to return to work.

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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. 

Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work. Expert instructors will teach you how to get started, practical uses, tips for effective prompt-writing, and mistakes to avoid. Sign up now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+ taxes and fees) through February 11, 2025.

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, which I write about in my book, “Younger for Life.”

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.”

Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work. Expert instructors will teach you how to get started, practical uses, tips for effective prompt-writing, and mistakes to avoid. Sign up now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+ taxes and fees) through February 11, 2025.

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.

Sometimes, you need to let kids figure out how to solve problems, or suffer the consequences of their decisions, all on their own.

That’s according to psychiatrist and bestselling author Daniel Amen. Parents too often make the mistake of “overdoing” for their kids, resulting in “mentally weak children,” Amen told the “Built Different” podcast, in an episode that aired on Tuesday.

Such behaviors — like doing your kid’s class project yourself to help them get a better grade, or giving them what they want solely to halt an oncoming tantrum — limit children’s mental resilience and sense of independence, said Amen. And highly resilient kids are more likely to become happy, successful adults, research shows.

“When my daughter would forget her homework at home, nobody’s bringing it to school. If she didn’t bring a jacket on a cold day, even though her mother told her to, nobody’s bringing her the jacket,” Amen said. “It’s so important that when a child says ‘I’m bored,’ rather than you [fixing] it, just say ‘I wonder what you’re going to do about it.’”

“If you do too much for your children, you are increasing your self-esteem by stealing theirs,” he added. ”[Humans] develop mental toughness by solving problems.”

Building a kid’s mental resilience doesn’t require a “tough love” parenting approach of harsh punishments, Barnard College child psychologist Tovah Klein told CNBC Make It last year. Trying to shield children from disappointment won’t help them build resilience either, said Klein.

Instead, you can allow your kids to experience setbacks, mistakes and other tough moments — while letting them know you still support and love them. 

“I see it as a more empathic, connected [approach]. ‘This might be hard, and I’ll be here when you’re done,’” Klein said, adding: “It’s a message of: ’I trust you to get through this hard thing, and I’ll be here no matter how it goes, whether you win, whether you lose, whether you come in the middle. I’m here for you.”

Similarly, the more you encourage children to help the people around them — from daily chores at home to their friends and classmates at school — the more they’ll gain the empowerment and responsibility they need to confidently tackle their own challenges, the American Psychological Association noted in a 2012 blog post.

“Let them begin to figure out their problems, or the solutions to their problems, rather than being overly involved with them,” said Amen.

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The day Karen Robinovitz was reintroduced to slime in 2018, she ran up to her New York apartment’s rooftop with her friend’s 10-year-old daughter and tried drizzling it all the way to the ground.

“It turned me into a 7-year-old for four hours,” says Robinovitz, 52.

It was the first time she’d felt joy in a year and a half, she says. Within a nine-month span, her husband had died by suicide and her teenage cousin was killed in the Parkland high school shooting. Amid medications, support sessions and therapy, playing with slime offered Robinovitz some unexpected relief — so she bought a handful, then hundreds, of jars from TikTok creators.

She’d stumbled onto a niche industry: Some small businesses, particularly on TikTok, have reported bringing in more than $1 million per year making and selling stretchy, elastic goo that you can squish and pop in your hands. But Robinovitz, who ran a talent management agency for social media influencers, and her friend Sara Schiller, founder of an event space company, saw a chance to sell more than just slime.

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Today, they co-run The Sloomoo Institute, an interactive slime experience — a description they prefer to “museum” or “play space” — with locations in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston. After buying tickets, which average $34 per person, visitors are handed a gob of slime and invited to smack it against a wall. Inside, they’ll find customizable slime stations, ASMR rooms and white fiberglass vats of slime with different textures and smells.

Sloomoo sells slime too, but about 85% of its revenue — up to $4.3 million per month last year, it says — comes from ticket sales. Its first four locations brought in $28.9 million in revenue in 2023, including $4.6 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

The company says its full-year earnings for 2024 aren’t yet finalized.

“Karen and I [have] a deep belief that in tapping into your senses, you’re creating an emotional connection,” says Schiller, 54, adding that Sloomoo has been profitable since the day its first location opened. “That’s so much more powerful than just mailing out packages of slime.”

Sloomoo unofficially began at one of Robinovitz and Schiller’s weekly get-togethers, at Schiller’s loft in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. Both women needed emotional relief: Schiller’s husband suffered brain-damaging strokes a couple years prior, making her the family’s sole caretaker.

Slime occupied their hands as they spoke: Such sensory-heavy activities can improve depression and anxiety symptoms, some studies show. Then, the pair watched Schiller’s daughters, one of whom is nonverbal and has limited motor skills, handling the slime together — a rare way for the siblings to connect and play with each other.

The two friends bought more than 900 jars of slime to study, Schiller says, then worked on their own recipes. (Always start with Elmer’s glue, Robinovitz says.) They attended conferences, where they met and hired slime creators, and raised $1 million from a private investor, the co-CEOs say.

They put $400,000 of their investment money aside — “If this flopped, we still had to pay rent,” Schiller says — and put the other $600,000 into refurbishing a rental space near Schiller’s home.

They invited slime, parenting and lifestyle influencers on hardhat tours mid-construction as a marketing strategy, Schiller says. Their grand opening in October 2019 sold out — 3,000 tickets — before the duo even opened their doors, they say.

“I remember this mother was crying to me, saying, ‘My daughter has to come today, all her friends are here,’ and I was like, ‘I cannot sell you a ticket, we’re at capacity,’” Robinvitz recalls. “But when I turned around, the little girl ran [in], threw off her shoes and jumped in the lake of slime.”

“There were lines down the block,” Schiller adds. “People weren’t mad they were jostled in. They couldn’t believe they had an opportunity to actually get in.”

In its first week, Sloomoo sold $1 million worth of tickets, Robinovitz and Schiller say. Five months in, the Covid-19 pandemic arrived and the business let go of roughly 90 part-time employees, keeping just the co-CEOs, a bookkeeper and their resident slime-maker.

They sold slime online, hosted virtual slime-making camps for kids, and hosted corporate workshops for companies like Google and Pfizer until fully reopening in 2021. The following year, Sloomoo raised $5.8 million in a Series A funding round led by Raptor Group, and opened its Chicago and Atlanta locations.

The company took on $5 million in debt from its investors to open in Houston in 2023 and Los Angeles last year, the co-CEOs say. They’ve paid the money back, and their future expansion plans include more locations, physical products, leaning programs, games and even live entertainment, they note.

The popularity of their central product, the slime itself, has ebbed and flowed over the decades — from the slippery, chemical-smelling slime of the 1970s to Nickelodeon’s “Slime Time Live” in the early 2000s. Since today’s TikTok-fueled slime popularity will probably fade eventually, Sloomoo’s longevity is dependent on giving visitors memorable, unique experiences, says experience economy researcher, consultant and author Joe Pine.

Experience-based businesses are successful when they’re memorable, meaningful, create a sense of awe and, most elusively, change who we are, says Pine. Interactive art exhibition company Meow Wolf and Italian food market chain Eataly, for example, check all four boxes, he says.

Sloomoo’s vats, walls and lakes of scented slime fulfill the first three, Pine notes. He’s not 100% sold on Sloomoo’s ability to transform people — but Schiller and Robinovitz say it’s certainly changed the two of them, at the very least.

“Karen and I could be SVPs at major companies, and we’ve chosen to do this because it’s really meaningful to us,” Schiller says. “We want people to know that you can choose to try, get out there and do something that’s never been done before.”

“After what we’ve both been through, what are we going to be afraid of now?” she adds.

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