McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski has some career guidance to share, provided you have “thick skin.”

In a video he posted on Instagram on Dec. 10, titled “Tough Love with the McDonald’s CEO,” Kempczinski revealed the professional advice he would tell people “if I wasn’t afraid to hurt your feelings.”

That advice is, “Nobody cares about your career as much as you do,” he said.

Even if you have a great boss or mentor, it’s rare to have someone “who’s looking out for you, who’s going to make sure that you get that opportunity,” Kempczinski says.

Don’t wait for someone to shepherd you through your career, he says: “You’ve got to own it, you’ve got to make things happen for yourself.”

Bonnie Hammer, the former vice chairman of NBCUniversal, shared similar advice for young professionals in a May appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

In her view, Gen Z workers are “far less prepared” to hustle than previous generations, she said on “Squawk Box.”

“Their assumption is, ‘I went to college. I got a degree. I was always told once I graduated, I would then get a job. If I got really good grades, I’d get a great job.’ And that’s not what’s happening,” Hammer said.

Instead, young professionals have to “create the opportunities for themselves,” she said.

To get ahead, new grads should be “putting up their hand” and volunteering for “every opportunity that’s out there,” Hammer said.

The advice he still relies on

In another video he posted on Instagram earlier this month, Kempczinski shared a tip he received earlier in his career that he said he still follows today: “Be organized.”

Kempczinski prioritizes keeping his workspace neat, he said: “If you go into my inbox, I have a very clean inbox. My desk is pretty clean. I don’t have a lot of clutter on my computer,” he said.

Having a clean environment helps him stay focused “on the things that are most important,” he said.

Organizing consultant Marie Kondo also champions the benefits of a tidy workspace.

“When your office space is organized, it will result in increased efficiency because your use of time becomes much more productive,” she told CNBC Make It in 2017.

Being organized can create “real transformation in your career,” she said: “You’ll be much more comfortable in your office space and that contributes to your overall performance and your creativity.”

According to Barbara Corcoran, keeping an organized calendar is the secret to her success. Corcoran shared in 2024 that her method is to make a list of her top priorities and then “hammer them all out” in her calendar in advance.

She assigns each task on her list to a specific day: “I put all my household things that I want to accomplish on Tuesday morning, [and] I do all my organizational projects on Friday, because I’m looking forward to the next week and I can organize better,” she said.

This approach helps her keep track of her busy schedule and stay productive, she said.

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Between long office days, late dinners and endless to-dos, many working couples slip into a routine of coexisting instead of really connecting. The excuses feel valid: “We’re exhausted,” or, “We’ll catch up this weekend.” The problem is that they both end up missing the everyday moments that keep a relationship alive.

As a psychologist who studies couples and as a husband, I’ve found that people in the happiest, most resilient relationships treat their weeknights as opportunities that don’t go wasted.

Here are the seven things these couples consistently do before bedtime.

You can’t always expect your partner to walk through the door ready to cook, talk, or be cheerful. Healthy couples build in 15 to 30 minutes of guilt-free alone time for each partner — one decompresses while the other handles a light task, then they switch.

It’s not glamorous, but it’s a huge kindness. By protecting each other’s battery early in the evening, they preserve the bandwidth they’ll need to connect later on.

Some nights, even after a decompression session, you may still feel drained. Happy couples don’t force it. They start their evening together, but quietly: sitting on the balcony, lying side by side, taking a slow walk.

In psychological research, this is a form of co-regulation: the process of two people syncing up emotionally, allowing the emotions of the day to rise and fall until they feel like themselves again. A few minutes of shared quiet can reset your rhythm better than a forced conversation.

Not every weeknight has room for deep emotional check-ins. So the happiest couples keep it simple: each person shares one thing about their day, good or bad.

It could be venting some frustration, sharing a little win they had at the office or even just something funny that happened. No advice. No solutions. Just listening. This light, consistent sharing keeps them emotionally updated without draining what’s left of their workweek energy.

Even on nights when both partners want to zone out, they stick to one small shared ritual they never skip.

For most, it’s something ridiculously simple: eating dinner together without their phones, making a nightly cup of tea, or doing a word game together. The ritual becomes a daily anchor — something predictable, comforting, and theirs alone.

If I had to choose just one nightly habit to keep, this would be it. Research shows that partners who cuddle regularly report higher relationship satisfaction and commitment, even compared with couples who emphasize “quality time” together.

Cuddling triggers oxytocin (the bonding hormone) and lowers cortisol (the stress hormone). It’s the easiest, fastest biological boost your relationship can get.

Even the happiest couples feel the low-level resentment of uneven household work. That’s why they end the evening with 5 to 10 minutes of shared tidying, wiping counters, packing tomorrow’s lunches, loading the dishwasher.

The point isn’t actually about cleaning, but rather to prove that they’re committed to keeping things fair.

Instead of rehashing the day, heathy and happy couples look ahead. They share one small thing they’re looking forward to tomorrow, or even one small thing they’re dreading.

This is a brief, gentle way for working couples to stay in sync without needing to fully rehash the emotional weight of their day. You get a sense of what your partner might need tomorrow, whether it’s encouragement, space, or just a little extra support. And they get the same from you.

Mark Travers, PhD, is a psychologist who specializes in relationships. He holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the lead psychologist at Awake Therapy, a telehealth company that provides online psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching. He is also the curator of the popular mental health and wellness website, Therapytips.org.

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Many Americans are looking back on 2025 with regrets about money.

Nearly 40% of adults say their biggest financial regret from this year is not saving enough money, according to a new survey of over 1,000 U.S. adults by Intuit Credit Karma. These are the three most common financial regrets from 2025:

1. Not saving enough: 38%
2. Emotional or impulse spending: 28% 
3. Too much credit card debt: 21%

It’s been a year of major economic events, including President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, Federal Reserve rate cuts, a record-long government shutdown and rising unemployment. And 2 in 3 survey respondents say macroeconomic conditions like inflation and tariffs impacted their spending habits.

“People are feeling [the stress] very deeply in 2025 and there are not signs of that letting up as we look forward into the new year,” Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Intuit Credit Karma, tells CNBC Make It.

Around 73% of Americans say they are saving less for emergencies due to factors like rising prices and elevated interest rates, a recent Bankrate survey found. Additionally, around 24% of households report living paycheck to paycheck in 2025, up slightly from 2024, according to Bank of America Institute research.

“People are feeling trapped,” says Joey Khoury, senior wealth advisor and partner at Mission Wealth.

At the same time, the No. 1 habit Americans say they want to break in the new year is impulse buying, Credit Karma found, with 38% of respondents saying they want to curb the practice.

Here’s how experts say Americans can recover from their financial regrets and build better habits in 2026.

One of the first steps to saving more is knowing your numbers — exactly how much money you bring in each month and how much you need to spend on essentials, Alev says. As a place to start, she suggests listing out your specific monthly bills and expenses, as well as your optional costs.

“Just seeing everything in one place brings clarity and calm, even if your situation isn’t where you want it to be, at least then, you know,” she says.

Khoury agrees. “I can always tell who’s on top of their finances by asking them, what’s their monthly spend rate and what’s their savings rate,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what the savings rate is. If it’s low, if it’s high, it doesn’t matter. But the folks that know that are the folks that are paying attention.”

And paying attention is key, he adds. “A lot of people would rather bury their head in the sand,” because dealing with your finances can be stressful and accomplishing your goals will likely take time. Plus, the broader economic conditions out of your control may make saving more or paying off your debt increasingly difficult. 

“But not paying attention to it only exacerbates the problem,” Khoury says.

Another reason individuals may wind up ignoring their finances is if they figured out their spend rate once, but never updated it to factor in ongoing changes, like inflation, Khoury says.

He recommends using a budgeting app or similar tool to automatically track your spending and make it easier to see where your money is going and how much you’re spending in various categories. Over time, you’ll be able to see if price increases or impulse buys are impacting your overall spending.

“Automation is key,” Khoury says. “You must automate as much of your budgeting as possible, because you’re never going to sit down and comb through it on a regular frequency.”

From there, you’ll be much better positioned to find areas where you can cut back, he says.

Alev recommends setting specific saving or spending goals and starting with “one key priority.” That could be maintaining your current credit card balance for a time period if paying it off entirely is too big of a goal or setting up automatic transfers to your savings account, even if it’s a small amount, she says.

“It is so easy to just get paralyzed with overwhelm when you start thinking about all of the different ways that you could go to improve your financial situation, and that can really lead to you not making progress,” she says. “Turn those goals into systems and specific habits because that’s what’s gonna actually make that change stick.” 

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In November, AirHelp, a service that helps airline passengers claim compensation for flight disruptions, released its annual ranking of the best U.S. airlines.

To determine the ranking, the organization looked at on-time performance, claim processing and customer experience — analyzing data from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. Each airline was given a score out of 10.

According to the report, AirHelp considered an on-time flight to be “any flight that arrived within 15 minutes of its published arrival time.” For claim processing, the organization assessed each airline based on how they treat their customers when things go wrong. And for the customer experience category, passengers were asked to give their opinion on five factors: cabin crew, aircraft comfort, aircraft cleanliness, food and entertainment.

To ensure AirHelp’s database ranks among the most accurate available, the company says they cross-reference their statistics with a variety of sources, including airport databanks, flight-tracking vendors, and government agencies.

2025 was a challenging year for U.S. airlines, Eric Napoli, Chief Legal Officer at AirHelp, tells CNBC Make It. The government shutdown that lasted a little over a month, had a significant impact on air traffic and travel, he says.

For example, on-time performance really took a hit, he says: “We saw that operational challenge this year.”

According to Napoli, American, United, and Delta work fairly well with AirHelp to make sure that customers who file claims — flight cancellations, lost baggage — get paid.

But it’s still an area they can improve in, he adds.

“Different airlines have their own operational modes but with claims processing, they should make it less difficult for customers to actually claim what’s due to them under law,” he says.

With a score of 7.64, American Airlines is the best U.S. airline, AirHelp says. On the company’s global ranking, American Airlines came in at No. 11.

The airline had a score of 7.1 for on-time performance, 8 for customer opinion and 7.8 for claim processing.

Napoli says that American Airlines beat out both United Airlines and Delta Air Lines because it was better in one key category.

“They weren’t as efficient and quick in claims processing as they were before, but they did outdo United Airlines,” he says. “They were able to get passengers their compensation quicker.”

American is one of the world’s largest airlines. It serves more than 300 destinations and operates a fleet of over 900 aircraft.

The airline was a pioneer in loyalty programs, launching its frequent flyer program in 1979. American Airlines is also a founding member of the Oneworld alliance, which includes other partner airlines worldwide like British Airways, and Qatar Airways.

1. American Airlines – 7.64
2. United Airlines – 7.54
3. Delta Airlines – 7.46
4. Frontier Airlines – 7.07
5. Hawaiian Airlines – 6.73
6. Southwest – 6.68
7. Alaska Airlines – 5.95
8. JetBlue – 5.31

United Airlines is the No. 2 U.S. airline, according to AirHelp. It received a score of 7.54 and took 13th place in the global ranking.

It got a score of 7.4 for on-time performance, 8.1 for customer opinion and 7.2 for claim processing.

Napoli says United performed better than the rest in on-time performance and customer opinion, but ultimately fell short in the claim processing category.

United Airlines serves more than 350 destinations and is part of the Star Alliance. The global partnership includes other carriers like Lufthansa and Air Canada.

In 2025, United added routes from Newark, New Jersey, and Tokyo, Japan, to new destinations like Nuuk, Greenland; Palermo, Italy and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, bringing its total international destinations served to 147, according to Britannica.

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Cuffing season — the time of year when people frantically look for partners to help keep them warm during the cold, dark winter — is upon us. 

This year, it comes as women and men alike complain about the straight dating scene. A July New York Times Magazine cover story talked about “heterofatalism,” a term used to capture women’s exasperation with men, and a recent Tinder report finds that 94% of women and 91% of men think dating is getting harder.

Thankfully, there’s a useful way to understand what’s going wrong: market design. As a Harvard-trained economics professor, I study how markets help people find the right matches. Dating works the same way: A “market” is simply a system that connects people to the options they want. Right now, it isn’t going great for many of the people who are still searching.

There are too many options.

To those who aren’t themselves slogging through the dating apps, the fact that more potential partners makes things harder might seem counterintuitive. We typically think that having more choices is good for us. It lets us be more selective. Why settle for a partner who is mediocre when someone better is just a swipe away?

The real problem is that everyone has more choices, including the people who are deciding whether you’re worth pursuing. This means that many more people who you might be interested in dating will decide that you’re not right for them.

How should you deal with this problem? The optimal approach has two parts. 

Aggressively screen out people based on their interest in you. 

You might be used to screening out people below your bar: swiping left on people you don’t find attractive or cutting off chats when someone isn’t charming enough. 

But you need to also get in the habit of dropping people who aren’t quickly showing a strong enough desire to match with you. Are they taking a day to respond to your chats? Cut them loose. Do they cancel a date at the last minute without an ironclad excuse? On to the next. It might seem like they’re playing hard to get; chances are, they’re not playing at all. 

Quickly ditching these people and moving on can be tough, particularly because we are attracted to what we can’t have. But an analogy to a less emotional market might help. 

An employer should be eager to cut loose an applicant who doesn’t seem that interested in their job. They might only want a paycheck or a stop gap. That kind of employee may repeatedly call in sick or leave as soon as a better opportunity comes along. 

Daters hoping for a more substantial relationship should think similarly about candidates for their position.

Identify what you — and specifically you — desire in a partner. What do you particularly value that may not be commonly desired by others? Economists call these your idiosyncratic preferences, distinguishing them from general preferences that are more commonly held. 

Sure, you might like people who are classically attractive, work great jobs, and have high social status. But those general preferences attract many potential partners besides you. The chance that you happen to be the person that excites them the most — among their many options — is likely to be slim. 

In contrast, someone you like because of your idiosyncratic preferences — because they share your hobbies, have an unconventional look you find attractive, or display a sense of humor that appeals to you — is a better bet. 

Research suggests that people are more successful on dating markets when they go after people they like based on idiosyncratic preferences rather than general ones. The former group might be surprised to learn that you are interested in them and might be eager to get to know you better; the latter group already suspects you’re interested (join the club).  

And since people are looking for idiosyncrasies, you should advertise yours, too. Let potential daters know about your quirks (the kind that attract some people while repelling others) on your profile and on first dates. Sure it might send some people packing, but the ones who are drawn to you are better matches anyway.  

A focus on idiosyncratic preferences can turn the “too many options” problem of dating apps back into a plus. A larger dating pool means there are probably more people out there who are quirky in the particular ways you like. To be successful in the dating market — during cuffing season or otherwise — you just have to make sure your energy is focused on finding them.   

Judd Kessler is the Howard Marks Endowed Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of ”Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want.”

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