When a child is upset, most parents reach for the same question instinctively: “What’s wrong?”

It’s well-intentioned and it comes from care. But after years of teaching conscious parenting and studying over 200 kids, I’ve seen how often that question does the opposite of what parents hope. Instead of opening children up, it can shut them down.

Emotional intelligence develops when children feel safe enough to reflect. Without that foundation, even the most caring questions can feel overwhelming in the moment.

Across my research, one sentence reliably helped children pause, reflect, and communicate more openly: “Tell me what feels hard right now.”

This magic phrase works because it matches how children actually experience emotions in real life. Rather than pushing for clarity or explanations, it creates the conditions where insight can emerge naturally.

During meltdowns, after-school emotional releases, or moments of sudden irritability, children are already on edge. The word “hard” feels human and non-threatening. It signals to your child that they aren’t in trouble and don’t need to justify their feelings, making it easier to stay engaged instead of shutting down or pushing back.

Children don’t need to label emotions precisely. They can describe a situation, a sensation, or a moment that felt overwhelming. Over time, this gently expands emotional language, allowing insight to develop naturally rather than being forced before a child has the words.

Before problem-solving, before advice, before correction, this phrase tells a child: “I can handle what you’re feeling.” Emotional intelligence grows in welcoming environments where emotions are met with steadiness instead of urgency.

Rather than demanding an explanation, this question invites reflection. The child decides how much to share and when, reinforcing a sense of agency over their emotional experience, which is an essential foundation for self-regulation and confidence.

When children feel emotionally safe, their stress response begins to settle. This phrase is especially effective when behavior feels disproportionate or confusing because it prioritizes regulation before reasoning.

By focusing on what feels hard, parents communicate that emotions can be noticed without being rushed or fixed. It teaches kids that feelings can be experienced and moved through rather than avoided or suppressed.

Children learn emotional intelligence through experience, not instruction. When parents respond with calm curiosity instead of control or urgency, they model how to approach emotions with steadiness and reflection. These are skills children eventually apply to themselves.

Our job as parents is to create an environment where our children feel safe sharing their inner worlds. When you adjust your language, you shape the emotional tone of your relationship. Over time, children learn that their feelings are important signals that deserve attention.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting and the creator of the BOUND and FOUNDATIONS journals, now offered together as her Emotional Safety Bundle. She is widely recognized for her expertise in children’s emotional well-being and for redefining what it means to raise emotionally healthy kids. Connect with her on Instagram.

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It’s often difficult to talk about a failure or shortcoming in a job interview.

But that’s exactly what Sandra Oliver wants from candidates.

Oliver, who is global assurance talent leader at accounting firm EY, tells CNBC Make It she likes to ask candidates to give an example of a goal they set for themselves and how they achieved it, as well as one goal they didn’t achieve.

“That’s the way I like to start the interviews, to see how people think about themselves,” she says. “People don’t like to ever talk about those things.”

Rather than trying to skirt this discussion, candidates should be willing to talk about failures or mistakes, taking accountability where appropriate and sharing what they were able to learn from them.

Oliver, who often interviews recent grads, says many were high-performing students who struggle talking about challenges rather than successes.

“They’re used to being the best and being successful, and I think it’s really important to learn that when you get into the workforce, success is measured differently,” she says. “It’s not the exam question, it’s not tests, it’s working as a team, and sometimes you’re not going to know things, and that’s okay. Sometimes you may try something or set a goal, and you fail at it, or it doesn’t come out how you think.”

“They’re so programmed to do everything great that it’s hard to really pause and say, okay, how can I learn from the failure?” she adds.

Psychologists have said focusing on what a mistake has taught you can help you reframe failure. Confronting any shame you have around it is key, as is adopting a growth mindset, where you believe your skills and talents can grow over time and that mistakes are part of that process.

“One of the best ways of doing that — of getting better over time — is to actually experience failure, to experience the consequences of messing up,” psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos previously told CNBC Make It. “That allows us to learn more about how to do better in the future.”

Likewise, EY’s Oliver stresses that “failure kind of is learning.”

“It’s really important to have that mindset when you’re working that you’re going to work as a team,” she says. “You’re going to maybe not have the best idea, or the way to think about it. Somebody’s going to have a different idea, and that’s going to be good, and you’re going to learn from that and take that forward.”

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Everyday living costs play a major role in how much money you need to retire.

A new state-by-state analysis from personal finance website GOBankingRates shows that the estimated total savings needed to retire at 65 can differ by as much as $1.46 million depending on where you live.

In Hawaii, retirees need about $2.2 million to stop working at 65 and cover essential living expenses for 25 years, including housing, groceries, transportation, utilities and health-care costs. That is the highest estimated minimum of any state. By comparison, Oklahoma has the lowest estimated total, at $735,284, to cover the same basic costs.

The analysis is based on the average living costs for retirees 65 or older in each state, drawn from the latest data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. From there, GOBankingRates subtracted average Social Security payments and estimated the savings needed to cover the remaining expenses using an annual 4% withdrawal rate.

The resulting figures represent a baseline for covering essential costs and don’t factor in discretionary spending such as travel, dining or entertainment. Additionally, the estimates don’t account for factors such as inflation, lifestyle changes or unexpected costs.

Housing is the biggest factor in annual retirement costs, as it varies by roughly $30,000 annually between states. Utilities and health-care costs can range by as much as $5,000 annually, the study finds.

Here’s a look the minimum amount of savings needed to retire at 65 in each state, in alphabetical order.

• Annual cost of living: $53,999
• Savings you need to retire: $789,037

• Annual cost of living: $78,449
• Savings you need to retire: $1,400,286

• Annual cost of living: $66,838
• Savings you need to retire: $1,110,019

• Annual cost of living: $54,859
• Savings you need to retire: $810,538

• Annual cost of living: $83,978
• Savings you need to retire: $1,538,508

• Annual cost of living: $63,091
• Savings you need to retire: $1,016,336

• Annual cost of living: $70,094
• Savings you need to retire: $1,191,417

• Annual cost of living: $63,152
• Savings you need to retire: $1,017,871

• Annual cost of living: $61,125
• Savings you need to retire: $967,190

• Annual cost of living: $56,395
• Savings you need to retire: $848,933

• Annual cost of living: $110,393
• Savings you need to retire: $2,198,902

• Annual cost of living: $60,818
• Savings you need to retire: $959,511

• Annual cost of living: $58,913
• Savings you need to retire: $911,901

• Annual cost of living: $55,657
• Savings you need to retire: $830,504

• Annual cost of living: $55,473
• Savings you need to retire: $825,896

• Annual cost of living: $54,613
• Savings you need to retire: $804,395

• Annual cost of living: $56,456
• Savings you need to retire: $850,469

• Annual cost of living: $56,947
• Savings you need to retire: $862,756

• Annual cost of living: $70,155
• Savings you need to retire: $1,192,953

• Annual cost of living: $73,043
• Savings you need to retire: $1,265,135

• Annual cost of living: $92,639
• Savings you need to retire: $1,755,055

• Annual cost of living: $58,176
• Savings you need to retire: $893,472

• Annual cost of living: $57,869
• Savings you need to retire: $885,793

• Annual cost of living: $52,524
• Savings you need to retire: $752,178

• Annual cost of living: $54,674
• Savings you need to retire: $805,931

• Annual cost of living: $67,452
• Savings you need to retire: $1,125,377

• Annual cost of living: $56,272
• Savings you need to retire: $845,862

• Annual cost of living: $60,572
• Savings you need to retire: $953,368

• Annual cost of living: $67,084
• Savings you need to retire: $1,116,163

• Annual cost of living: $70,401
• Savings you need to retire: $1,199,096

• Annual cost of living: $56,825
• Savings you need to retire: $859,684

• Annual cost of living: $77,773
• Savings you need to retire: $1,383,392

• Annual cost of living: $59,835
• Savings you need to retire: $934,938

• Annual cost of living: $56,087
• Savings you need to retire: $841,254

• Annual cost of living: $57,009
• Savings you need to retire: $864,291

• Annual cost of living: $51,849
• Savings you need to retire: $735,284

• Annual cost of living: $68,681
• Savings you need to retire: $1,156,093

• Annual cost of living: $59,650
• Savings you need to retire: $930,331

• Annual cost of living: $69,664
• Savings you need to retire: $1,180,666

• Annual cost of living: $56,825
• Savings you need to retire: $859,684

• Annual cost of living: $56,395
• Savings you need to retire: $848,933

• Annual cost of living: $55,473
• Savings you need to retire: $825,896

• Annual cost of living: $55,780
• Savings you need to retire: $833,575

• Annual cost of living: $60,879
• Savings you need to retire: $961,047

• Annual cost of living: $69,848
• Savings you need to retire: $1,185,274

• Annual cost of living: $61,493
• Savings you need to retire: $976,405

• Annual cost of living: $69,971
• Savings you need to retire: $1,188,345

• Annual cost of living: $54,122
• Savings you need to retire: $792,109

• Annual cost of living: $60,019
• Savings you need to retire: $939,546

• Annual cost of living: $58,545
• Savings you need to retire: $902,686

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The start of 2026 means many employees are seeing their PTO balances refreshed for the year. With some strategic planning, and travel know-how, you can make your vacation days go the extra mile.

One popular strategy, sometimes called “PTO-maxxing” on social media, involves tacking vacation days onto holidays and weekends to maximize your time off. By doing so, you can get around 40 days off by using just 10 to 15 days of PTO this year, some estimates say.

Of course, PTO-maxxing may not work within everyone’s schedules, team needs and employer policies. But every day you can place strategically adds up.

The U.S. has 11 federal holidays this year, several of which fall on Mondays. If you request off the Friday prior or the Tuesday after, you suddenly have a 4-day getaway using just one day of PTO. Likewise, for holidays that fall on Fridays, requesting the Thursday before or the Monday after creates a 4-day vacation.

The extra day can also save you some money if you’re planning on traveling.

“If you can build in one vacation day on a 3-day weekend, that gives you a little bit of an advantage because you’re not flying on the exact day when everybody else is flying,” says Tom Carpenter, co-owner of travel agency Huckleberry Travel.

For bigger holidays like Thanksgiving, where many people travel to be with family, you might request off Monday through Wednesday, and Friday if your employer does not already designate that a company holiday. With the two weekends on either side of Thanksgiving week, you’d have off 9 days for using 4 days of PTO.

And for those who travel frequently for work, consider adding PTO onto a business trip where possible, since your company has already covered your travel and you’re at that destination already, Carpenter says.

Travel tips

When maximizing your PTO, you’ll also want to bear in mind some tips to stretch your dollar too.

Pay attention to events happening where and when you’ll be traveling that could affect hotel and home rental availability, pricing and crowds. (If you’re not expressly going to the Winter Olympics, February might be a bad time to visit Milan.)

The best window to book a flight is 1.5 to 4 months out as any earlier doesn’t yield any real advantages, and any later will start to see prices increase, Carpenter says. As for flying, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays tend to be cheaper than other days, he adds.

For shorter getaways, look at direct flights from your airport so you can minimize your time in transit and spend more time on the ground at your destination.

Wherever you’re going, plan ahead.

“If you’re looking at a holiday weekend when a lot of people are going to be traveling, that inventory is going to go sooner than on a random midweek trip,” Carpenter says. “There’s no such thing as a last-minute deal.”

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If Indiana University wins the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday, fans will owe some thanks to one of the football program’s biggest financial donors: billionaire Mark Cuban.

Cuban, whose net worth is estimated at $9.6 billion by Bloomberg, graduated from IU with a degree in management in 1981. He’s a longtime donor to his alma mater, including $5 million for a sports media center in 2015 and $6 million for IU’s rugby team in 2024.

While Cuban hasn’t disclosed the size of his recent donations to IU’s athletic department, it was a “big number,” the billionaire told CBS in October 2025. The team’s recent success under head coach Curt Cignetti, hired in 2024, inspired Cuban to open his checkbook again: The school is “happier this year than last year” after his latest donation, Cuban told Front Office Sports on Jan. 7.

Now, Cignetti’s team is just one win against the University of Miami away from a national championship and Cuban says it’s because the coach understands the most important aspects of building a successful organization.

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“I’ve been part of championship organizations and putting together a team isn’t easy,” Cuban told Bloomington, Indiana’s The Herald-Times on Jan. 10. The billionaire was the majority owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks when that team won an NBA championship in 2011, and remains a minority owner of the team today.

Cuban discussed team-building strategy with Cignetti and came away impressed, he said. The coach assured Cuban that the team would use his donations to recruit a well-rounded roster of players, rather than putting the money toward chasing after just a few high-profile recruits, said Cuban.

“It’s about getting players that know their roles, work as a team, continue to improve and work in the system,” Cuban told the newspaper. “When you have a coach and organization that understands that, that’s how championship teams and organizations are built. That’s why I’ve been so excited to support them.”

Cuban has previously spoken about how good leaders build successful businesses through hiring the right people. Leaders should avoid hiring people who don’t fit their company culture, “because you can’t have conflict on what the vision of the company is,” he said on a March 2021 episode of the “Starting Greatness” podcast. “You’ve got to hire the right people for the right roles.”

Every winning team, or successful business, needs those employees who excel in their specific roles, like the “glue guys” on a basketball team, Cuban added on “Starting Greatness.” Culture and competency are the two biggest considerations for leaders when building a team, Cuban said during a MasterClass course released in February 2024. 

Cuban chose to attend IU because, at the time, the university offered the cheapest tuition out of the country’s top 10 business education programs, he’s said. He’s credited his time at the school for exposing him “to all kinds of different people [and] ideas” while nurturing his early entrepreneurial skills: Cuban opened and ran a local bar as an undergraduate, and picked up extra cash teaching dance lessons.

“Just watching the team I grew up with from the time I was 18 years old [and] to be part of this, wow,” Cuban told The Herald-Times. “What it gives me is far more than anything I could give to IU. No one would know who the hell I am if it wasn’t for Indiana University.”

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