There’s no such thing as a perfect parent, says Tovah Klein.

“Being a parent is so humbling. It’s throwing at us probably daily [reminders that] we are far from perfect,” says Klein, a child psychologist, author and director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development.

Fortunately, making mistakes and owning up to them is one way that parents can actually help teach their kids how to become healthy, successful adults. “Perfection is impossible, but it’s also important that we’re not [perfect], because our children learn how to handle real life,” Klein tells CNBC Make It.

Even so-called experts are no exception. In her latest book “Raising Resilience,” which was published in September, Klein shares some examples of moments she let her emotions get the better of her when raising her own three now-grown children.

Like most parents, Klein raised her voice in heated moments on more than one occasion: “I could really yell at my kids,” she says. She points to “rough times” in the evenings when her children were younger and could become rowdy between dinner and bedtime.

The rowdiness could sometimes devolve into loud arguments that left Klein “embarrassed if people would have come over to my house at 6 p.m.,” she says. Yelling is common, even understandable, in the heat of an argument, she adds — but it’s far from ideal, and parents should commit to repairing the situation once everyone has calmed down.

“I wish I had never been that parent who went over the top and really got into battles with my children. But I did,” Klein says. “And, when I did, I had to very shamelessly own it.”

In her book, Klein writes about how these difficult moments create a “disconnection” in the relationship that can have harmful effects if they go unaddressed. Raising your voice or lashing out, even in a heated moment like a toddler’s tantrum, can be disruptive and potentially scary for the child. 

A child might mistake their parent’s outburst as something more serious and long-lasting. That can lead to self-blaming and shame, which can cause negative long-term effects to their mental health. Children who are regularly yelled at are more likely to develop behavioral problems, low self-esteem and depression, according to a 2013 study published in The Journal of Child Development.

Parents should quickly apologize to repair the relationship and put their child’s mind at ease, says Klein. She recommends being “honest and direct.” That can be as simple as saying, “I’m sorry I yelled,” or, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Apologizing models exactly the sort of positive, mature behaviors parents want their children to emulate, according to Klein. It “brings relief to your child and provides a model of how to deal with anger and disruptions in other relationships in their lives” going forward, she writes in her book.

Accepting the fact that you can never be perfect, and being open with your kids about your mistakes, will benefit both you as a parent and your kids as they grow into mature adults, says Klein.

“I’m most proud of the moments that I could catch myself and [remember], ‘You’ve got to be the adult in this room,’ even when it was really hard to be,” she says.

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In 2021, my husband Evan and I sold our small urban farm in Louisiana and set out on a continent-spanning adventure that would change our lives.

We spent five years on the outskirts of New Orleans, where we taught ourselves how to garden, keep honeybees and raise chickens, selling our honey and eggs. I ran my photography business, and Evan worked as a licensed massage therapist. 

We liked aspects of our life in the city, but over time, we realized how much we wanted a more rural, self-sufficient existence. We couldn’t afford to do something at the scale we wanted in the U.S., so we decided to dream big and look at other countries.

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Evan speaks Spanish and Japanese, which narrowed down our search. We spent the next 15 months traveling through Mexico as full-time house- and pet-sitters before ultimately deciding to plant our roots in the Japanese countryside, arriving at the beginning of 2023. 

Today, we run a small guesthouse and honeybee farm on Japan’s Ōmishima Island and own two formerly abandoned homes that we restored back to life. The move is the best decision we ever made.

We emigrated to Japan on a Startup visa, which is meant to help foreigners set up businesses here. 

The home that is now Benton Guesthouse was built in 1953. It had been sitting abandoned for 10 years when we bought it in the spring of 2023. It is built in the traditional Japanese style, with massive wooden beams, interlocking joinery, tile roofs, sliding screen doors and tatami mat flooring. 

We purchased the property for $9,292 — $7,500 for the house itself, $1,500 in transaction fees, a $212 one-time real estate acquisition tax and an $80 annual property tax.

When we got the keys, it needed a lot of cleaning and restoration to make it inviting once again. We did much of the work ourselves, to help keep costs low. We also hired some expert local contractors. 

We lived in the guesthouse throughout the renovations, and completed the work in under six months due to the time constraints of the Startup visa. We wanted to show that we had a viable business and host our first guests before our visa extension application at the five month mark. 

All told, the renovation, including the rental license and amenities cost $29,000. 

We pay about $40 for the internet, $15 for water, up to $120 for electricity and $10 for gas. We spend about $400/month on groceries, and $100 for our phone bill.

We have a small truck that we bought for $2,000 and pay $300/year for car insurance. 

We bought our second abandoned house, around the corner from the guesthouse, in September 2023, for $18,500. The property, which used to be an inn, includes two plots of unmaintained land.

This home is now our primary residence, and we are in the process of renovating and rehabilitating that space as well. 

We opened our doors to travelers in November 2023 and since then we have maintained a near 5-star rating. To set ourselves apart, we offer a private full-house rental.

To date, we have earned approximately $14,000 in revenue from Benton Guesthouse.

Great care and effort went into decorating the house in Showa-era style, which lasted from 1926 to 1989. We wanted our guests to feel like they were walking into a Japanese grandmother’s house.

To us, even the smallest details can make a space special. We sourced a Nintendo Famicom system from the 1980s, for example, for our entertainment room.

We have so many ideas for future renovations, including restoring the former wood-fired bathtub, adding a second bathroom and building an outdoor barbecue patio.

We plan to plant a garden for the guests to enjoy and set up an educational hive on the outskirts of the property. 

Once these additional renovations are complete, we will be able to comfortably increase the number of guests we host from six to 10, which will boost our revenue.

Over half of our bookings are cyclists groups, but there are some couples and solo travelers, too.

We also plan to turn the guesthouse’s detached garage into a retro-style roadside farm stand, where we will display and sell vintage items, including antiques, furniture, tools and cookware — many of which actually belonged to the previous owners of both properties. 

We started with 10 honeybee colonies, and by next spring, we will have 20. We plan to increase each year. 

Beekeeping in Japan has a bit of a learning curve, so we’re fortunate that a local beekeeper has taken us under his wing to help teach us about the different challenges and predators honeybees face in Japan.

The area is known for citrus orchards, and our first batch of honey this spring had a delicate citrus flavor that people seemed to love. It sold out very quickly.

We also sell tomatoes, tomatillos, and various hot peppers at local farmer’s markets. The long term plan for Benton Homestead is to make hot sauce and salsa, in addition to our honey.

In hopes of sharing as much helpful information as possible, we’ve been documenting each step of our journey on the Benton Homestead YouTube channel and blog.

On our budget, it wouldn’t have been possible to do this in the United States.

Ōmishima Island felt like home from the moment we arrived. At this point, we can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Dani Benton is an award-winning photographer and the owner of Dani Benton Photography. She lives with her husband Evan, cat Ponkan and dog Bosco on Ōmishima Island, in rural Japan. Together, Dani and Evan run Benton Guesthouse and their growing honey business. To learn more about their homestead and home renovation experience, follow them on YouTube and Instagram.

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In college, a friend of mine would always mock my sense of direction. No matter which way I went, my first step was always met with: “You never know where you’re going.”

To her, the comment was innocuous. I couldn’t stand it.

Despite being close friends, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that the jab made me feel incompetent. It seemed dramatic to address something so small. Instead, I let quiet resentment build until one day I snapped at her.

My conflict is not unique. Suppressing your annoyance can lead you to where I ended up: cranky about a throwaway comment and bursting with pent-up emotions. There are better ways to deal with unwelcome observations.

A cutting comment can make you feel “diminished,” says June Tangney, a psychology professor at George Mason University whose research focuses on shame and guilt.

“The times we feel hurt, it’s typically when we feel rejected or criticized or put down in some way, and that’s not so much embarrassment as it is shame,” she says. “And sometimes when people feel shame they do buy into the notion that they are flawed in some way.”

This is when anger and conflict can creep into the picture. “Hurt feelings [can] elicit aggression, but I think hidden in there is this sense of being rejected and being found wanting,” Tangney says.

Even though having your feelings hurt is a universal experience, telling someone that what they said upset you can feel singularly embarrassing, says Judy Ho, a neuropsychologist and professor at Pepperdine University.

“We don’t want to admit that someone can have such a big effect on us, but the truth is connections and relationships are a vital part of what makes us human,” Ho says. “It’s OK to admit that someone’s words had an impact on you. It happens to all of us.”

The best way to handle a comment or joke that made you feel bad is to treat it like a problem you and your friend can solve together, says Matt Abrahams, a Stanford University lecturer and communication expert.

The next time you find yourself thinking that your friend said something tactless or hurtful, try to see things from their vantage point. If you can’t grasp their motivation or reasoning on your own, Abrahams suggests recruiting their help with three words: “Help me understand… ”

In order to have a healthy conversation that might result in mutual understanding, he suggests taking these steps:

1. Pause. “It is very common to have an emotional reaction and to want to respond right away,” Abrahams says. “Giving yourself a little space can help focus your thoughts.”
2. Think about the other person’s perspective. “Try to determine if the person’s intent was laudable, but expressed poorly,” Abrahams says.
3. Ask your friend for help. Invite your friend to collaborate in addressing the issue. You can start the dialogue with “Help me understand.” For example, you can say, “Help me understand why you don’t trust that I know where I’m going,” or, “Help me understand why you think these shoes are funny.” This indicates that you’re hurt, but willing to work it out. “It also reminds you to focus on understanding rather than correcting or proving that you are right,” Abrahams says.

Responding this way when you’re hurt won’t be easy, Ho says. But if the relationship is rooted in mutual respect, the other person deserves — and might even be grateful to know — that a joke made you feel bad.

“It validates that this person is an important person in our lives, and hopefully that can motivate us to improve that relationship by using direct communication,” Ho says.

Eventually, my friend and I worked past this spat. But perhaps it would have been a smoother process if I had taken a beat, considered her intentions, and approached her from a place of understanding rather than aggression.

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TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett has four words of advice for anyone looking to be a better boss: Talk less, listen more. 

Each month Duckett, 51, hosts “jam sessions” with small groups of employees so they can share their ideas, concerns and perspectives with her directly. 

It’s a routine Duckett started when she became president and CEO of the insurance giant three years ago, she shared recently on LinkedIn’s “This is Working” podcast. 

“Coffee and T —T is me — is where it’s always no more than 10 people, and the intentionality is that there’s something in common with that group of 10,” whether it’s their job title or years of experience, Duckett explained.

Duckett, who was featured in CNBC’s 2024 Changemakers list, says these sessions aim to figure out what employees like about working at TIAA, where they see progress and where they see inefficiencies. 

It can be hard to encourage people to speak candidly in front of the CEO, but Duckett says she has a go-to question she “always” asks employees to get them talking. 

“What would be the one thing that you’d change if you were [in my shoes], like, ‘Finally I get to be the CEO and I can get something done’?”

By asking that one question, you “immediately connect” with your employees, Duckett said. “I get sharper … it allows me to never forget what’s on the mind of everyday employees.”

Making “Coffee and T” a recurring meeting on her calendar has helped Duckett create a culture where employees feel “heard without judgment,” she wrote on LinkedIn. 

Research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has found that when people feel they can contribute their ideas and speak up with concerns, they become more engaged, perform better, and are less likely to quit.

Duckett is smart to encourage open and transparent communication among her employees, Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller tells CNBC Make It. 

Fuller has spent the better part of a decade studying some of the world’s most successful people, from Fortune 500 executives to Nobel Prize laureates.

The best bosses, he’s discovered, are the ones who create an environment where employees feel valued and heard and foster a sense of trust. 

“Trust is one of the strongest indicators of a happy, thriving workforce,” he explains.

Asking open-ended questions and giving people a safe setting to share their unfiltered thoughts — like Duckett does with “Coffee and T” — is a smart way to gain trust and respect as a new boss. 

“Well done,” Fuller says of Duckett’s strategy. “Interacting with a broad swath of employees in an informal setting makes her more approachable as a leader and it encourages employees to spread goodwill on her behalf — if the coffee chat goes well, people will brag about it with their co-workers — so it has a multiplying effect.”

But it’s not a strategy that’s guaranteed to work every time, he adds: “You have to take employees’ feedback with a grain of salt, because their suggestions might not always be feasible, or could be motivated by self-interest.”

Fuller says Duckett — and other leaders trying a similar strategy — should actively listen to employees and express gratitude for their feedback, but never promise to take action on all suggestions. 

Still, Duckett recommends the strategy to other managers, stressing that it’s been “instrumental” in helping her lead TIAA. 

“You will not regret doing this,” she wrote on LinkedIn. “Your willingness to be present will contribute significantly to the development of a rich and positive culture in your organization.”

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Mark Cuban is no fan of jargon — and the billionaire is far from alone.

It may be tempting to try slipping in a more complicated word when you want to impress someone, like your boss or a potential employer. But using jargon words when you could opt for something simple and clear instead, typically has the opposite effect, according to Cuban.

“Always use the simpler word,” Cuban told Wired in an October video Q&A.

When asked for the “business buzzword” that annoys him the most, Cuban immediately had one in mind.

“There’s no reason to ever use the word ‘cohort’ when you could use the word ‘group,'” he said. “A cohort is a group of people. Say ‘group.’ You sound stupid when you use the word ‘cohort,’ because you’re trying to sound smart.”

Corporate jargon and buzzwords often wear on the nerves of those who hear them repeatedly. Terms like “new normal,” “company culture” and “circle back” topped a recent list of most annoying examples, according to a survey of more than 1,500 Americans conducted by language learning platform Preply.

Cuban is in agreement with the likes of fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, who likes to keep things as simple as possible. Buffett writes his annual shareholders letter as if he’s speaking to his two sisters — which, of course, means no jargon — he said in 2019.

Elon Musk, currently the world’s wealthiest person, also disdains jargon, especially in the workplace.

“Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication,” he wrote in a 2018 letter to Tesla employees. “We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.”

Using overly-complicated words in order to sound intelligent actually has the opposite effect: It makes you sound less intelligent and can also muddle your message, studies show.

“We use jargon when we’re feeling insecure, to try to help us feel like we have a higher status,” Adam Galinsky, a Columbia Business School professor of leadership and ethics, wrote in an August article for the school’s website.

That creates an effect where using overly-complicated terms, where simpler ones would easily suffice, gives off the impression that you’re insecure about your own intelligence and trying to overcompensate. Instead, you’re better off speaking plainly and concisely, according to experts.

“People who have higher status are more concerned with articulating themselves and communicating effectively,” Galinsky wrote. In other words: It’s the most effective way to get your point across, and it’s more likely to impress than overreaching with jargon.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

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