Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is one of the highest-paid coaches in NFL history. He also still drives a nearly century-old car that he says his dad bought for $25 after World War II.

The car is a 1928 Model A, Ford’s follow-up to the iconic Model T. Reid fully restored the classic car after inheriting it from his father, who died in 1992, and still occasionally takes it out for a spin, a Chiefs spokesperson tells CNBC Make It.

Reid, 66, certainly doesn’t drive the Model A daily and can probably afford a whole fleet of new cars. He’s one of pro football’s winningest head coaches ever — he’ll aim to capture his third straight NFL championship on Sunday, as his Chiefs face off against the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl — with a contract that pays him an average of $20 million per year, according to Sportico.

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But the Model A is a legitimate family heirloom, according to the coach. His father, Walter Reid, was a World War II Navy veteran who bought the used Model A “after the war,” Reid said in a video posted on the Chiefs’ website in 2018.

When the Model A debuted in the 1920s, the car had a base price of roughly $460, according to Worldwide Auctioneers — nearly $8,400 in today’s dollars, when adjusted for inflation.

Today, restored and unrestored versions of the car can be found for sale on websites like CarGurus. Recent 1928 Model A sales ranged from $16,800 to $99,000, according to classic car insurer Hagerty.

Reid’s father drove the car for nearly five decades, and the younger Reid — a six-foot-three offensive lineman, in his youth — drove it as a teenager, he said in the video.

“He used to drive his parents’ 1920s Model A Ford to practice, and it was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen — this big old guy driving this tiny little antique car. He took up almost the entire front seat,” John Cicuto, a former coach of Reid’s at Glendale Community College near Los Angeles, told ESPN in 2020.

Reid’s dad loved to drive the Model A, and added extra horns to the car to draw attention to it when he drove his children around, Reid told The Kansas City Star in 2014.

A few years after his father died, Reid was an assistant coach for the Green Bay Packers when they went to the Super Bowl in 1996. Reid used his bonus money from that successful season to bring the classic car to Wisconsin from his home in Los Angeles and get it restored, he told the Chiefs’ website.

“I brought it up to Green Bay,” Reid said. “There were a couple of old guys there who restored these things as a hobby … We took the whole thing apart and we just started from scratch, the whole engine included, and built it back up.”

The restoration took roughly a year: The car was completely taken apart and put back together with new or refurbished parts, including the engine and wood panels that made up much of the frame.

“I saw that car before he started and I thought it should be in a junkyard,” Marty Mornhinweg, a former NFL coach who worked with Reid in Green Bay and later in Philadelphia, told The New York Times in 2005. “What he did with it is amazing.”

Reid didn’t reveal how much money he spent to restore the car. A complete restoration of a classic car can cost more than $40,000, according to Nationwide.

“It’s something you can pass down,” Reid said in the video, where he’s seen driving the car along with his son, Spencer Reid, who’s now an assistant coach with the Chiefs.

Reid said he looks forward to passing the Model A down to future generations, along with other family heirlooms like furniture and a Super Bowl ring he won as an assistant coach with the Packers. At the time of the video, in 2018, that was Reid’s only Super Bowl ring. Now he has five, and a win on Sunday would secure a sixth to eventually give to his four children and 12 grandchildren.

“That’s what it’s all about: being a dad, loving your kids and then having a chance to present a history to them,” said Reid.

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What makes people like you, trust you, and find you easy to work with? More than any other factor, it’s your manner of speaking.

Vague, wandering, wordy speech habits, for example, force people to work harder to understand you. But the worst habit that people with poor speech etiquette have is passive aggressive language: saying one thing when you mean another.

Why? Because when people sense that they’re hearing something charged or emotional but don’t know what it means, they don’t know how to respond. Are you insulting them? Did they do something wrong? It’s rude, hurtful, and corrosive to relationships. 

If you want to have excellent speech etiquette, avoid these phrases:

This version and its variants (“I hate to say this, but…”) are almost always followed by an offensive remark that the speaker didn’t hate enough not to say. The result is insincere and confusing.

What to say instead:

• “I need to tell you something you might not like.”
• “I have something I’d like to voice, if this is a good time.” 

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If used as a snide kiss-off, this conversation-ender conveys disagreement or dissatisfaction with an outcome or decision without directly addressing it, much less trying to be constructive.

What to say instead:

• “I’m not sure I agree. Something feels off about this.”
• “Let me think about it. I’ll come back if I have anything smart to offer.”

This one stinks to high heaven for sneaking anger, self-pity, and jealousy under the guise of being a pseudo-compliment. It can also convey that the speaker doesn’t deserve whatever nice thing it is they have.

Why not be generous and congratulate the speaker? Or at least be dignified and shut up? The odds are huge that you’re going to win your share of life’s small prizes. But sometimes, you’re not. Don’t begrudge others their micro-moments of glory.

What to say instead:

• “That’s great!”
• “I’m happy for you.” (Yep — just say it.)

If you’re really fine, ok, you’re fine. If you’re not, this glib, verbal equivalent of an eye-roll represents a classic refusal to communicate feelings honestly. Kissing cousins: “It’s fine.” “No big deal.”

If you hear or feel resentment in your tone — or in your gut — as you say this, be honest: Are you hiding some petty pique?

What to say instead:

• “I don’t know. I don’t love the situation, but let me think about it.”
• (Say nothing at all.)

It’s likely these words mean what they say at least sometimes. But most people hearing them understandably hear you saying, “Wow, I would never do that.” Behind the feigned admiration lurks a depth charge of judgement or criticism. 

What to say instead:

• “Wow, what made you do that?”
• “How did it work out?”

Often blurted out after a clearly intentional insult or hurtful remark, this faux-backtracker is the fraternal twin to “no offense, but…” and “I hate to say this, but…”. It’s the fake apology proffered after saying something you really know you shouldn’t have said.

What to say instead:

• “I’m sorry.”
• “That was thoughtless of me.”

This is the gold star of silent crybabies, heaped high with silent scorn, disapproval and frustration, all at once. There’s almost no imaginable usage of this phrase that isn’t passive aggressive. If you think you can say these words and not inform your listeners that you’re bitter, wake up.

What to say instead:

• “I disagree, but we’re all adults here.”
• “Ok.”

We understand: Life is complicated and it all moves by so fast. It’s hard to say the right thing every time. But do yourself a favor and think more, observe more, talk less — or at least, more slowly. Every time you use words, you’ve got a chance to help or harm. Avoid the latter. 

John Bowe is a speech trainer, award-winning journalist, and author of “I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection.” He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, This American Life, and many others. Visit his website here.

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Nine years ago, I was working two jobs and freelancing, and felt stretched thin. After reading about people earning passive income in the e-commerce space, I decided to start a side hustle of my own.

I spent $0 to launch a print-on-demand shop through Amazon, selling t-shirts. I sold my first shirt for $14.99 — it had a Loch Ness Monster design — and made my first profit, $2.58. It changed everything.

Today, I sell a wide variety of apparel to customers in the U.S. and internationally. Now I have four passive income streams: my print-on-demand business, a YouTube channel, online courses to help others start their own side hustles, and one-on-one coaching. 

I’ve found that automation and AI tools have helped me more efficiently run my business. These are some of my favorites:

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When I first started my shop, I would spend hours writing up my product descriptions, and then manually uploading and listing everything. 

In recent years, I’ve started using a platform called MyDesigns, which has really helped me cut down on the most monotonous tasks.

MyDesigns has one feature that generates product listings and publishes my products in bulk online, and another feature called Vision AI, which creates SEO-friendly titles, descriptions, and tags, which turns hours of grunt work into minutes. 

One of my favorite platforms is Zapier. For years, I used Zapier to help me build a social media presence for my Etsy shop (on autopilot of course).

Every time a product listing on my Etsy shop renewed, it would trigger a “zap” that grabbed the product’s title, image, and URL and created a new post on my store’s Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter accounts. 

This helped me organically grow my social media following with minimal effort on my end. 

This freed up time to focus more on scaling my business and launching new products.

I’m often focusing on several things at once, but I am a very slow reader. I would also consider myself more of an auditory learner. That’s why I really like using OmniReader. It is an AI-powered text-to-speech reader that allows me to listen to any webpage on the internet, especially while I’m working. 

I’m a big fan of Google’s AI assistant Gemini for a similar reason. When I open an email, I’ll have Gemini summarize the email in a single click and distill it down to the most important details.

I also use Gemini to schedule meetings and brainstorm new ideas. For example, I recently asked it for a list of 25 common professions so I could come up with some new ideas for print-on-demand t-shirts, and it fetched answers for me in seconds.

I’m no longer in school and I don’t have a corporate job, but I sometimes make slideshows for my YouTube videos. For that, I like to use Gamma’s AI-powered presentations.

The user experience is very straightforward, and as a former web developer I also draw aesthetic inspiration for my own website from the slide themes. 

HeyGen is an AI made specifically for anyone producing video content that allows you to create an AI avatar of yourself and recreate your videos in other languages, without the need for captions. 

I’ve been enjoying experimenting with it and seeing how it can help me expand into more international markets. 

Ultimately, all of these tools have made it possible for me to grow my business and run it all on my own.

Ryan Hogue is a former web developer and adjunct professor who quit both jobs to run his e-commerce business. His YouTube channel teaches people how to earn passive income using “Ryan’s Method.”

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When I was struggling in high school calculus, a teacher knocked my intelligence with this gem: “I guess you’re either born with it, or you aren’t.” 

But as an expert in leadership and mental strength, I’d argue he was wrong — and I’m pretty sure Steve Jobs would agree. 

“Have you ever thought about what it is to be intelligent?” The legendary Apple cofounder asked his audience in 1982 when he won a “Golden Plate” award from the Academy of Achievement. “Probably some of you have, right? Because you meet your friend, and he’s pretty dumb, and maybe you think you’re smarter and you wonder what the difference is?”

A lot of it, he said, is the ability to zoom out and make connections that other people can’t see. 

“You have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does — or else you’re going to make the same connections.” What comes through in stories from some of the most creative, innovative, and successful people, he said, is that “they had a variety of experiences which they could draw upon in order to try to solve a problem or attack a particular dilemma in a kind of unique way.” 

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That’s it. You become vastly smarter when you’re good at making new and interesting connections, which you’re able to do with a vast array of experiences.

Sounds simple in theory. But in practice, it’s easy to get stuck in the same old patterns and ways of doing things instead of accumulating new experiences. 

Breaking out of these periods of malaise requires mental strength — a topic I cover in depth in my book, “The Mentally Strong Leader” — and the discipline to make four commitments to yourself:

A friend told me she’d been miserable in her job for years and wanted to start over in a new city. She’d also quietly blamed her partner all that time, assuming he’d never move away from his family.

After we talked, she accepted responsibility for the pattern she’d fallen into and discussed a move with her partner, who was actually eager to accommodate.  

Sometimes we fall into a rut and look at everyone and everything around us as the reason we’re in that rut. But getting  “unstuck” starts with you. Be honest if you’ve put yourself in “park” and take ownership to get back in “drive.”

This commitment is about recognizing the specifics of the pattern you’ve fallen into and the habits weighing you down. For example: 

• You repeatedly tell yourself, “I’ll wait.”  
• You tend to avoid new challenges when they arise. 
• You’re always justifying why you’re stuck where you are.
• You’re continually convincing yourself that “things will change.” 
• You want things to change, but don’t want to change them yourself. 

You recognize patterns like these by having the discipline to step back once in a while to work on your life, not just in it. Ask yourself: Where and how do I seem stuck? Where am I holding myself back from things I want to accomplish, or the life I want to live? 

If it helps, talk these questions through with a friend who knows you well. 

When you’re stuck in a rut, you tend to repel challenges in favor of staying in your comfort zone. You’re in a mode of repetition and choose the path of least resistance. You’re not challenging much of anything — your assumptions, the status quo, or yourself.  

Remind yourself how exhilarating it can be to be challenged. Start with something small and doable. It could be anything, like attempting to play pickleball or finally taking Spanish lessons.

Begin to feel the thrill of learning, growing, and building your bank of experiences to draw from. 

It’s hard to change course if you don’t have a destination. Ask yourself: Where do I want to go? What’s my new goal? What’s next?  

When you have that goal, write it down. Research shows that just by writing down your goals, you’re far more likely to achieve them versus simply thinking about them. You’re likelier still to succeed when you tell a friend, and even more so when you regularly share your progress.

Start by taking a single, small step. Maybe you want to get out of that nowhere job and into an industry you’re passionate about. Schedule lunch with a friend who works in that industry. Maybe you want to break out of a stale routine of chores and errands you and your partner have fallen into, so you schedule a weekend adventure to somewhere you’ve never been before. You get the idea. 

Even the tiniest step can be invigorating — helping you start accumulating new experiences and making novel connections. And that’s just smart.

Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He’s a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of ”The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Follow him on LinkedIn.

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When we think of successful kids, many of us picture straight-A students, sports trophies, and college acceptance letters.

But after years of studying over 200 parent-child relationships, I’ve found that true success is more about raising kids who are confident, emotionally secure, and deeply connected to themselves and the world around them.

The parents who really understood this embraced sometimes unconventional strategies that prioritized curiosity, a love for learning, and emotional intelligence over societal expectations.

Here are nine things they did differently early on:

Instead of worrying so much about how their kids reacted to challenging situations, these parents understood that their behavior would influence their child’s level of resilience. They modeled mental and emotional strength by being mindful of how they managed their stress in front of their kids.

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Instead, they encouraged reflection with “you should be so proud of yourself” or “you worked very hard on this — how does it feel?”

While well-meaning, “good job” can create reliance on external approval. These parents focused on fostering intrinsic motivation, helping their child take pride in their own achievements.

Through quality time, active listening, and shared experiences, they made their kids feel valued, safe, and understood. This also fostered the child’s confidence to take risks and thrive.

They avoided punishment, knowing it builds resentment and disconnection, not skills. Instead, they let natural consequences teach lessons.

For instance, if a child forgot to do their homework, they faced explaining it to their teacher — a chance to learn responsibility and problem-solving. This approach built accountability and resilience.

Instead of offering rewards for good grades, they focused on cultivating a love for learning. Whether their child excelled or struggled, they kept the focus on growth and made it clear that grades didn’t define their worth.

They encouraged their kids to ask “why” and “how,” rather than simply accepting the “right” answer. This fostered curiosity and gave their child the confidence to challenge the status quo — key traits of future leaders.

Whether solving a math problem or explaining a favorite game, these moments gave kids a sense of importance. By stepping back and letting their child take the lead, these parents showed respect for their child’s abilities and nurtured their self-esteem.

Reading wasn’t a chore — it was woven into daily life. Whether picture books before bedtime or novels on lazy afternoons, reading became a natural and enjoyable part of their world, fostering creativity and a lifelong love for learning.

They treated emotions as valuable, not something to fix or avoid. When their child was upset after losing a game, for example, they might have said, “I can see how much this matters to you. It’s hard to lose something you care about.” This simple validation helped their child process emotions and build resilience.

Reem Raouda is a parenting coach, mother, and creator of BOUND, a parent-child connection journal designed to nurture emotional intelligence and self-worth. She is also the founder of Connected Discipline Method. Through her coaching and courses — including Power Struggles No More — she has helped hundreds of families foster connection and harmony. Follow her on Instagram.

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