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.

Want to give your kids the ultimate advantage? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids. Learn how to build healthy financial habits today to set your children up for greater success in the future. 

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

Want to get ahead at work with AI? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, Beyond the Basics: How to Use AI to Supercharge Your Work. Learn advanced AI skills like building custom GPTs and using AI agents to boost your productivity today. Use coupon code EARLYBIRD for 25% off. Offer valid from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, 2026. Terms apply.

The word “burnout” isn’t in the dictionary of Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of fintech company Airwallex.

“I never understand that terminology to be honest. I’ve worked 100 hours a week from [the] age of 16 for 20 plus years,” Zhang told CNBC Make It.

For Zhang, hard work meant survival. At age 15, he moved away from his hometown of Qingdao, China to Melbourne, Australia alone, to pursue better opportunities. He barely spoke English and stayed with an Australian host family.

Shortly after arriving, he learned that his parents had found themselves in financial hot water back in China, and that he would have to support himself through university.

“I [had] two choices: either I just return to China and try to go back to the education system there, or I continue to stay in Australia and figure out how to pay [for my] tuition and living [expenses] on my own,” said Zhang. He decided to stick with the latter and took whatever work he could find to make ends meet.

To pay for his computer science degree at the University of Melbourne, Zhang juggled four blue-collar jobs: washing dishes at a restaurant during the day, bartending in the evening, working the overnight shift at a petrol station and packing lemons in a factory over the summer.

Some weeks, he says, he clocked 80 to 100 hours of work on top of his coursework.

“When you’re … in that tough situation [where] you need to survive, you’re not really [thinking] about burnout. I mean, either you survive or not, right?” he said.

Not much has changed since then. Now in his 40s, Zhang still clocks 80 hours a week “easily,” he said, at his own fintech firm. As of December 2025, the company is valued at $8 billion.

After graduating from university in 2007, Zhang went into the corporate world. His first job was at an insurance company called Aviva, before he entered the banking industry.

At the same time, he also built a few side businesses, from a shipping company where he exported olive oils and red wines from Australia to parts of Asia, to a real estate development firm.

His side hustles proved lucrative. By the time he reached his 20s, money was no longer an issue. However, although he had accumulated millions through his businesses and banking career, Zhang said he had yet to find his true passion.

Everything changed when he had his daughter at age 30.

“I remember I just looked at her, I [felt] like, I hadn’t done anything [to] make her feel proud. And I think that’s the moment I [decided] I need to stop just doing these side hustles, and I need to retire from my full time job and do something big, properly,” said Zhang.

“I realized that while I always wanted money, money alone doesn’t bring [me] the highest level of happiness,” he added. Instead, he said he wanted to build something that he was extremely passionate about.

“I always wanted to find something [where] no one needs to ever wake me up and … every day I feel extremely passionate, obligated, and willing to devote my entire survival towards,” said Zhang. So, in December 2015, he quit his banking job and started the next chapter of his life.

The idea for Airwallex stemmed from one of Zhang’s side hustles, a Melbourne-based coffee shop that he ran alongside his co-founder and university friend, Max Li.

As part of running that business, the two would often import coffee beans and supplies from places like China and Brazil, which required them to wire money overseas. Through this process, they realized how expensive and inefficient cross-border payments and transfers were through the traditional SWIFT system.

“We thought, why can’t we build a … payment system in parallel to SWIFT and fundamentally change how money moves around the world?” said Zhang. They wanted to create a solution to streamline cross-border payments, and thus, the original idea for Airwallex was born.

Zhang and Li went on to bring together other friends from their university network to help work on the idea: Lucy Liu, Jacob Dai and Ki-lok Wong. Liu played a key role early on and invested the first $1 million into the startup.

By late 2015, the group officially founded Airwallex. After about a decade of more 80-hour work weeks, as of end last year, the company crossed $1 billion in annualized run rate revenue (ARR), which estimates a company’s future yearly earnings based on a shorter period of financial data.

“I’m still very excited about what’s ahead of us,” said Zhang. “I think there’s tons of opportunities ahead of us … we think we can generate [at least] $10 billion [in] revenue by 2030 so that is our next goal post.”

Want to give your kids the ultimate advantage? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids. Learn how to build healthy financial habits today to set your children up for greater success in the future.

At just 15, Tuan Le made a bold promise: He told his parents he would help them retire in 10 years.

The family had just immigrated to Canada from Vietnam, and Le’s parents worked tirelessly to provide for him and his sister.

“I remember my old man coming home at, like, 7 a.m., and my mom told me that he lost like five pounds after one week,” the 25-year-old tells CNBC Make It. “That was an awakening moment for me. That’s when I told my parents, ‘Give me 10 years, I’m gonna retire you guys.’”

His parents wanted better opportunities for Le and his sister, he says. While their family was “extremely comfortable in Vietnam,” he says, the opportunities for college graduates weren’t as abundant as they are in the U.S. Although Le says his parents “sold everything” to move the family to Canada, the move caused a lot of depression and anger for Le, who didn’t speak much English when he immigrated.

But in 2025, Le made good on his promise of helping his parents retire. The success of the video production company he founded, Toronto-based ShortsCut, allowed Le to start sending his parents $5,000 CAD — around $3,652 USD — per month. It’s enough to cover their rent and expenses living about an hour outside of Toronto. 

“My parents are still working because they told me they wanted to do something with their time, but they don’t have to work,” he says. His parents work two days a week at a farmers market stall his mom runs.

Le founded ShortsCut, which creates short-form videos for brands, in 2023. The company mainly produces videos for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. He started small, filming food for restaurants around Toronto, and says he eventually leveled up to making high-quality videos designed to go viral on social media. 

In 2025, ShortsCut brought in $1.08 million with a net profit of just over $488,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The company generally has 10 to 12 clients on its roster, including pet food and tech companies, Le says. 

While struggling to acclimate to life in Canada, teenage Le played a lot of video games, he says, and eventually started cutting together video montages of his gameplay. 

“That’s how I got into video editing,” he says. From there, “I started editing videos for League of Legends YouTubers and then finance YouTubers [and] some dropship YouTubers.”

Back then, he charged $20 CAD for roughly 20-minute videos, he says. He enjoyed the video editing process so much, he decided to pursue it professionally, enrolling at Toronto Film School a year after he graduated from high school in 2018.

One of his first assignments was to make a video on a subject that was meaningful to him, and he made a short film about his parents. The film landed in the school’s hall of fame, Le says, and at that point, just four months into his time there, he decided to drop out.

“To me it was like, ‘Wow, that’s sick,’ but at the same time, I heard this quote that goes like, ‘If you’re the best in the room, then you’re in the wrong room,’” he says.

After dropping out of film school, Le tried to land “any job” that would let him make videos for a living by cold emailing “every single CEO, production company, marketing agency in Toronto,” he says. But he lacked professional experience and didn’t receive any offers. 

Eventually, Le offered to work for a Toronto-based content production company for free for three months in exchange for training in running a business, such as writing emails and negotiating deals.

During that time, Le started shooting his own videos on the side. He messaged “every single restaurant” in Toronto asking if he could make a video for them in exchange for a meal, he says.

“I was shooting videos for a restaurant in exchange for free food, and I was living out of a suitcase with my laptop on my friend’s couch,” Le says.

He started out making videos for small food stalls and mom-and-pop shops on his phone before upgrading to nicer cameras he got off of Facebook Marketplace. Still, Le noticed the videos weren’t garnering a ton of views or engagement when the restaurants posted them on Instagram.

TikTok was beginning to really take off at the time, and Le saw that as an opportunity. He asked his clients for $2,000 to make 10 TikToks.

“If it doesn’t work, if it doesn’t get any views, I will give you your money back,” he says he told them.

The first video Le made for a client racked up 700,000 views, he says. And the next got 300,000. His strategy was simply to identify trending video formats and make similar videos promoting the restaurants. His viral videos helped one client gain 9,000 followers overnight, he says.

“After that I was like, ‘Wow, I think I got something here,’” he says. “I just took that case study [to other clients] and was like, ‘Hey, I can help you go viral.’”

After his three months of working for free were up, Le left to start ShortsCut at the end of 2022. The company officially launched in January 2023.

Le soon branched out to work with brands outside of the restaurant world, including Buldak ramen noodles and AI software company Replit.

As Le’s portfolio grew, so did his prices. Initially, ShortsCut charged $2,000 a month per client. It uses a retainer model, so the number of videos produced per month varies by client. Now, the company charges between $10,000 and $16,000 a month.

In the company’s early days, Le guaranteed virality or he’d refund the client’s money — and only had to issue one refund, he says.

“Now that I have a track record of making things go viral and have the credential to myself, I don’t have to make that promise anymore,” he says.

Le made his first hire for the company in February 2023 and as of the end of 2025, the staff had grown to 15 content creators, script writers, project managers and other personnel around the world. 

Le says he’s proud of the company he’s built and his ability to accomplish his goal of helping his parents retire, but he’s not done yet.

“I want [ShortsCut] to be doing $100 million [in revenue] in about five years,” Le says. “It’s a bit delusional, but … you’ve got to be a little bit delusional to play this game.”

Conversions from Canadian dollars to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 0.73 CAD to $1 USD on Dec. 31, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Want to get ahead at work with AI? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, Beyond the Basics: How to Use AI to Supercharge Your Work. Learn advanced AI skills like building custom GPTs and using AI agents to boost your productivity today. Use coupon code EARLYBIRD for 25% off. Offer valid from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, 2026. Terms apply.

On a brisk October afternoon, Ruin — a 15-month-old Dutch Shepherd mix puppy with a dark brindle coat and one floppy ear — takes a break from an obstacle course and perches on a red wooden box inside a barn in Livingston, Montana.

His head sinks into the crook of a Svalinn trainer’s arm, as the trainer deems Ruin one of his favorites. Two hours later, the trainer — now in a foam Michelin-man neck-to-heel suit — crouches near the box, imitating a quiet intruder. He cracks a whip onto a rubber mat. Ruin darts across the barn, leaping teeth-first into that same arm, holding his bite until another trainer yells, “Out.”

Svalinn breeds, raises and sells $175,000 dogs like Ruin who are trained to protect, live and travel with wealthy families. Up to 46 mixed-breed canines at a time live on the company’s 170-acre ranch — located in a town of 9,000 residents, 29 miles east of Bozeman — until they’re roughly age 2. Svalinn brought in $2.97 million in total income and was profitable in 2024, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. (The business hasn’t finalized its 2025 financials.)

After the drill, Ruin rolls onto his back, then licks a reporter’s nose. “What we just saw was a perfect example of the ‘on switch’ and the ‘off switch,’” Svalinn co-founder and president Kim Greene says. “To be able to deploy your dog and get them back into obedience, in just a nanosecond, is a really practiced art.”

DON’T MISS: How to build custom GPTs and use AI agents

Greene, 51, launched the company, initially called Ridgeback Ltd., in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2005 with her then-husband. It focused on security advising, self-defense training and chaperoning high-profile diplomats through unsafe areas, Greene says.

The business was exciting, stressful and expensive to run, especially while raising twin boys, she says. “We were broke as a joke for a lot of years, so I didn’t even have the luxury of thinking about personal finances. We were hanging on for dear life,” says Greene.

Now, Svalinn has never been financially healthier, she says. And it’s in the right place at the right time: When the company moved to the U.S. in 2013, Greene didn’t know how popular Bozeman would become, especially for wealthy families willing to spend on personal security.

Even if you can afford a Svalinn dog, Greene will try talking you out of the purchase, she says: “This is not a product that’s for everybody. It just isn’t.”

The canines are meant to be family dogs who happen to be highly perceptive and “deployable” if a threat approaches. The company spends two years training each dog in protection, stability, obedience, socialization, agility and, occasionally, scenarios tailored to the pup’s intended family. Svalinn even taught a dog how to ride a horse, trainers say.

Svalinn hires trainers from many different backgrounds — even prioritizing candidates without dog-training experience — so the dogs get used to hearing commands from a variety of voices, says Greene. “Our [clients] don’t need to have superpowers or massive muscles or to bark orders,” she says. “We are laypeople. The dogs are going to laypeople. The dogs have to feel very comfortable knowing that kind of individual.”

A trainer personally delivers each dog to its permanent home and spends about three days teaching the family how to work with the canine, Greene says. Often, the trainer returns 45 days later for a check-in, and many owners later bring their dog to the ranch for boarding and training alongside the younger pups, says Greene.

One customer, retired U.S. Air Force major and Delta Air Lines pilot Stephen Mazzola, says he was attracted to Svalinn over competitors because of the website’s tagline, which emphasizes the dogs’ approachability alongside their discipline: “Bred to love. Trained to protect.”

Mazzola wanted a dog who could be a best friend and keep an eye on his family’s 15-acre property in rural Montana, he says. Their Dutch Shepherd mix Jet has traveled, hiked and attended dinner parties with Mazzola and his wife since April 2024, he says.

“As far as being a member of the family, that is the thing I can’t even put a price tag on,” says Mazzola.

Svalinn’s earliest iteration didn’t involve dogs at all.

Greene met her husband in Afghanistan, where she’d worked as policy advisor to former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, she says. They moved to Nairobi, one of three major African travel hubs, to start Ridgeback — his “passion project,” she says.

When Greene became pregnant, she researched how to safely navigate Nairobi without a firearm or bodyguard. The couple adopted a Dutch Shepherd mix, Banshee, to “be both my best friend as well as my protector,” she says.

People kept their distance from Banshee’s brindle coat and intense stares, almost as if she was a forcefield, says Greene. Greene’s husband decided to incorporate protection dogs to Ridgeback’s other safety offerings, and the company sent employees to the U.S. to learn how to train the canines, Greene says.

Eight years in, Ridgeback had yet to turn a profit, and the family left Nairobi, Greene says. Terrorism threats had increased in the area and Greene wanted a more hands-on education for her first-grade sons, she says. They moved to Wyoming, and then Montana, seeking an outdoor lifestyle for their children. They also wanted their business to operate near pockets of wealth, Greene adds.

Launching in the U.S. felt like starting over, Greene says. The couple flew 30 dogs overseas, filed for new licenses, changed the company’s name and invested in branding and public relations. Svalinn focused entirely on protection dogs by 2015 and became profitable for the first time two years later, after the couple hired a budget-focused employee, says Greene.

But starting over was costly in other ways, Greene says: “We were dead set on making this happen, and it came at a very high price to our lifestyle … My former husband and I were always into the absolute hardest mountain that we could climb.” The couple divorced in 2019 and Greene’s ex-husband left Svalinn in 2020, with an investor buying a majority of the company’s equity. (Greene declined to name the investor.)

Greene initially wanted to sell her shares of the company, but “when I realized Svalinn was a blank slate, that it wasn’t someone else’s story anymore, that it was my story, I got really excited,” she says. “I realized I actually really love what I do.”

When Svalinn moved to Montana, Greene invited prospective clients to the ranch and heard “crickets on the other end” of the phone, she says. “Now, five years later, the answer is, ‘We’ve been looking to come there’ or ‘We come there once a year.’”

The American West sports a growing population of wealthy residents and tourists for multiple reasons: national parks, nostalgia for rural lifestyles and the absence of estate, inheritance and sales taxes, says Yale University sociology professor Justin Farrell, author of 2020 book “Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West.”

The ultra-wealthy are also investing in their personal and family’s security, a trend amplified by incidents of public violence toward public figures, says James Hamilton, founder of Hamilton Security Group and a former FBI special agent. Many billionaires have comprehensive security programs, which could include protection dogs, surveillance cameras, safe rooms and a fleet of staff, Hamilton says.

Svalinn’s clients aren’t usually billionaires, Greene notes, but the business is still a logical beneficiary of the trend. Yet Greene doesn’t want to train a dog for every interested buyer, she says, to protect the brand’s exclusivity and quality control. “I would much rather stay boutique and very bespoke,” she says.

Despite once referring to herself as a “reluctant leader,” Greene says she finally feels comfortable with the business and her place within it. “This is my dream life, and it’s wrapped up in my dream job,” she says. “It’s wrapped up in a business that encompasses my whole life with my children … being in this beautiful place [and] doing the activities that I love with people I love being with.”

After the October day of training, Greene takes her own dog, Highlander, onto a small hill overlooking the ranch. They see the barn, snuggled in a valley between snow-capped mountains, cloaked in amber grass and sagebrush.

After a moment of quiet, they walk back down the hill toward the barn. Together, they disappear inside.

Want to get ahead at work with AI? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, Beyond the Basics: How to Use AI to Supercharge Your Work. Learn advanced AI skills like building custom GPTs and using AI agents to boost your productivity today. Use coupon code EARLYBIRD for 25% off. Offer valid from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, 2026. Terms apply.