Markeiz Ryan, 36, had a pretty good childhood growing up in Maryland, but the 2008 financial crisis changed things.

“It wiped my mother’s job away and it really made things tough for us around the time I graduated high school,” Ryan tells CNBC Make It. “I didn’t have much of a financial security blanket to fall under. The best thing for me was to join the military so I wouldn’t have to put my family into any more debt and I think that was the right decision.”

Ryan joined the U.S. Air Force in 2010 and was stationed in various countries around the world, including Korea, Germany, and throughout Africa. In 2016, while living in Korea, Ryan got in trouble for breaking his curfew. He lost out on several months of pay, was restricted to his military base and demoted from staff sergeant to senior airman.

“After this, I was very depressed and very sad,” Ryan said. “But that depression and sadness make you think about where your life is going and it makes you redirect your life into the right direction.”

In that period of time that Ryan was restricted to his military base, he planned a trip to visit a friend in Vietnam.

“It just looked like so much fun and it really lived up to all the hype,” he said. “I ended up having the best time of my life, and that depression was [just] gone.”

Ryan says that after that first trip to Vietnam and seeing how happy he was, he didn’t want to let go of that feeling. He started planning his return to the country.

The veteran returned to his life in the Air Force and completed his service on a military base in Wyoming before being honorably discharged in 2019.

Soon after, Ryan relocated to Vietnam, where he lives off roughly $4,000 a month, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Ryan suffers from spine arthritis, respiratory issues, auditory pain, and mental health challenges from his time in the military. He receives disability from Veterans Affairs.

His monthly income stems from several sources, including approximately $1,500 from VA disability, $1,000 from the GI Bill while he’s pursuing a master’s degree, and $900 to $1,300 from teaching English. Ryan also does occasional odd jobs like voiceover work, where his pay can range from $200 to $600 a month, and is an avid fan of day trading, where he averages about $300 a month.

“This might not sound like a lot in America but trust me, this is more than enough to be middle or even above middle class in Vietnam,” he says.

Ryan lives in Ho Chi Minh City and has a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in one of the country’s tallest residential towers. He pays $850 a month in rent and his utilities round up to about $130, which includes electricity, water and housekeeping.

In addition to those expenses, Ryan also pays $1,000 a year for health insurance and $3 a week on gas for his motorcycle. What he spends on groceries varies from $100 to $400 a month, as he often alternates between cooking his own food or dining out frequently.

“Vietnam is the number one safest place I’ve ever lived. I never have to look over my shoulder here. I noticed that there’s this great level of calm,” Ryan says. “People are more focused on their day-to-day life and they’re less focused on what’s going on politically. It’s a much more calm feeling.”

Although Ryan loves living in Vietnam, one thing that irks him is the noise pollution.

“There’s a lot of honking, street sellers and sometimes karaoke really loudly, so if you are very intolerant to noise, this might not be the place for you,” he says.

Since moving to Vietnam, Ryan has made an effort to learn the language, but he admits he’s still not the best at it.

“I can never claim that I’m fluent in Vietnamese, but I do a lot better than most of my peers here,” he says.

Ryan has been living in Vietnam for six years now, and says he has no plans of leaving.

“If I leave, it’s because Vietnam told me to leave. In America, I felt very unmotivated. I felt like no matter how hard you work, you’re still in poverty. You’re constantly chasing a standard that you can’t really achieve,” he says. “Here in Vietnam, it takes a lot of the monetary pressure out of your day-to-day. You focus on what makes you happy, who you want to become and how you’re going to get there.”

This experience, he says, is the complete opposite of what his life was like back in the U.S.

“Every day I wake up with a long to-do list of things I want to do, not the things that I need to do, and it’s a completely different way of living. Even if you need to work 40 hours a week here, you’re doing it as an investment in your future. Getting out of survival mode makes things infinitely more human.”

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Every parent hopes their child will grow up and still want a close relationship with them. But close bonds don’t happen by accident — they are built through small, everyday interactions that make a child feel safe, seen and valued.

As a conscious parenting researcher and coach, I’ve studied over 200 families. I’ve found that the way you respond to your children from the day they’re born determines how strong your relationship with them is when they’re adults.

If you want your kids to always trust, respect and want to be around you, no matter how old they are, start doing these seven things early on.

Children need to feel safe and comfortable sharing their feelings. But when they hear “you’re fine” or “it’s not a big deal,” they start believing that their feelings aren’t important and eventually stop sharing them.

Instead of dismissing emotions, acknowledge them. To help them feel heard, say things like: “That sounds frustrating” or “I see you’re upset.” Emotional safety isn’t about fixing problems — it’s about making sure they feel understood.

Parenting based on fear, punishment or constant correction creates distance. Kids will then learn to hide parts of themselves to avoid disappointing you.

Parents who remain close with their children don’t demand obedience. Instead, they prioritize building trust. Simple moments — laughing together, listening without judgment, showing empathy — help children feel safe.

When kids feel emotionally secure, they continue seeking your support well into adulthood.

When parents make all the decisions, kids start to think: My actions don’t matter anyway, so why have an opinion on anything?

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to becoming a master communicator

Instead of deciding everything for them, ask “What do you think?” or “What feels right to you?” Let them make small, age-appropriate choices, like picking their clothes, hobbies or what to eat.

Parents expect respect from their kids, but they don’t always model it themselves.

Apologizing teaches kids that respect goes both ways. Saying, “I overreacted earlier, and I’m sorry” shows them that relationships aren’t about power, but mutual understanding.

Children raised in homes where accountability is the norm don’t fear making mistakes. Instead of hiding their struggles, they trust they can come to you without shame.

A strong relationship isn’t built in one big conversation — it’s created through small, consistent moments.

What shapes your bond isn’t just the time you spend together, but how often your child feels prioritized. Sharing a meal, reading at bedtime or simply checking in about their day strengthens the bond.

Kids who feel valued in small ways will naturally stay close to you later in life.

If a child feels constantly compared or judged, they start shrinking themselves to fit in. Over time, they learn to hide their real thoughts, interests and struggles.

Helping kids accept themselves starts with how you respond to them. Instead of pointing out flaws, celebrate their uniqueness. Encouraging their interests, even when they don’t align with your expectations, lets them know that you love them exactly as they are.

When kids grow up feeling accepted, they won’t have to choose between being themselves and staying close to you.

There will be moments when you and your child don’t see eye to eye. If you always push to be “right” at the cost of connection, they will learn your approval is conditional. They may comply in childhood, but will distance themselves in adulthood.

Instead of proving a point, focus on understanding. If your child disagrees with you, resist the urge to shut them down. Respond with curiosity: “Tell me more about why you feel that way.”

When kids know they can express themselves and still be loved and respected, they grow into adults who trust the relationship rather than fear it.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting, a certified coach and the creator of BOUND — the groundbreaking parent-child connection journal designed to nurture emotional intelligence, self-worth and lifelong trust. She is widely recognized for her work in children’s emotional safety and strengthening the parent-child bond. Follow her on Instagram.

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As a former world champion debater, Kate Mason, PhD, knows that the way you communicate can matter just as much as your message.

Mason, who lives in Sydney, Australia, spent a decade working in communications at companies like Google and YouTube before becoming an executive coach and founding her own strategic communications firm, Hedgehog + Fox, in 2017.

Through her work as a communications coach, Mason noticed a pattern she calls “imposing syndrome”: many professionals, particularly women, are overly self-conscious about ruffling feathers or “being a bother” at work, she says, which often causes them to stay quiet and minimize their accomplishments.

These self-deprecating habits have “an insidious effect on their work and their standing,” she says.

“It leads to underestimating themselves and their work by extension,” she continues.

Mason’s goal in highlighting these communication patterns isn’t to point out “all the ways we’re doing it wrong,” she says. Instead, she hopes to provide resources for leaders, especially women, who are interested in changing their communication patterns.

“It’s more like a kind acknowledgment: this is a thing, and if that’s not serving you, maybe you want to experiment a little bit,” Mason says.

She shares her top insights in her first book, “Powerfully Likeable: A Woman’s Guide to Effective Communication,” which debuted earlier this month.

Here are three phrases Mason recommends all professionals avoid in the workplace, along with stronger alternatives.

‘It’ll just take a second’

People who use this phrase are often acting on a “very kind, emotionally aware impulse” to demonstrate respect for others’ time, Mason says.

In reality, prefacing your conversation with “It’ll just take a second” can have the opposite effect, according to Mason.

Firstly, “you’ve set an expectation to the other person that this will be very quick,” she says, but “literally nothing takes one second.”

Providing an unrealistic time estimate can annoy or disappoint the person you’re speaking to, Mason says.

“That person, a couple minutes in, is already a bit irritated because they’re like, ‘Wait, this was only going to be a second.’”

Moreover, the phrase also sets the expectation that whatever you have to say is minor or unimportant, Mason says, which can undercut your actual message.

A better way to articulate your request is, “I’m going to put in an hour for us next week. I really want to talk through A, B and C. Let me know if that time works for you,” Mason says.

With that rephrase, “suddenly, I look like I’m coming to you with something substantive and meaty and worthy of us spending that time together,” she says.

“It just does the idea — and yourself — a lot more justice to reframe it that way,” she continues.

‘No worries if not’

This phrase is commonly used to ‘soften’ a direct request, Mason says, but it’s usually not factually true.

“There often is a pressing concern,” she says. “It’s very rare that we make an ask and genuinely think, ‘Oh well, if they get back to me, we’ll see.’”

Saying “No worries if not” communicates that your request is a low priority, Mason says: “It does a bit of a disservice to the ask.”

For her part, when Mason hears this phrase, she mentally places that task lower on her to-do list, she says.

“If you’re communicating with an exec or someone who’s busy and you’re telling them ‘no worries if not,’ and there is a worry, then we can get ourselves into a bit of an unnecessarily sticky situation,” she says.

Instead, Mason suggests specifying the purpose and time frame of your request. For example, “I would appreciate if you could send me your edits by this afternoon, because the final draft is due tomorrow.”

As Mason cites in her book, a psychological study from the 1970s found that people were more likely to comply with a request if they were given a reason behind it.

With that context, people are “usually happy to help,” she says.

‘I’m not an expert, but…’

This phrase will instantly make you seem less credible, Mason says.

According to Mason, prefacing your point with “I’m not an expert” reduces your authority and telegraphs uncertainty: “It immediately deescalates your status.”

People often minimize their accomplishments when they’re feeling self-conscious, Mason says, especially if they view themselves as the ‘odd one out’ in a group.

Whether you’re the youngest in the room, or the newest to the company, “whatever that imbalance may be, we’re hyper-aware of it,” she says.

Being conscious of your place in the professional hierarchy isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Mason says, but instead of downplaying your value, she recommends embracing the unique qualities you bring to the table.

“You weren’t hired because you have the same expertise as that vice president or C-level exec,” she says. “You were hired because you have your expertise.”

Leaning into your strengths can be “really empowering,” Mason says.

“Once you start realizing like, this is the thing I was hired for, and that is the value I can bring, and that’s what they want from me, it just lets you put down a lot of that hierarchical, status-oriented anxiety.”

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Yannique Ivey may be going back to the office, but she’s open about the fact that you won’t catch her first thing in the morning. Wait too long in the day and you’ll miss her, too.

Ivey, 27, works for a tech consulting firm in Atlanta and says she drives into the office once or twice a month. When she’s there, she commits to an 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule — just in time for a catered lunch, to catch up with colleagues for a few hours, and head out before traffic stalls her in a “hellish” commute home, she tells CNBC Make It.

She and her team are open about this arrangement. Spending a few shortened days in the office each month “takes needed time away from the actual work” to socialize and build community, she says, but “I’m a lot more productive when I’m home, so I get started there and wind down from there.”

It’s a new arrangement picking up across the U.S.: Workers are showing up for required attendance, but that doesn’t mean they’re sticking around for the full day.

More than half, 58%, of hybrid workers admit to “coffee badging,” or the act of going into the office building for their morning coffee, earning an imaginary badge for it, and then going home to work for the remainder of the day.

That’s according to a June survey of 2,000 people from Owl Labs, a company that makes videoconferencing devices.

Another 8% of hybrid workers say they haven’t tried coffee badging just yet but are interested in doing so.

Despite the half-days (or less), the coffee badging trend doesn’t mean people are sneaking out and slacking off for the rest of the afternoon, says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs.

As he sees it, the practice could mean people are seeing the value of their office and enjoy being there some of the time. Survey respondents say they value being in-office to meet with colleagues, catch up with work friends and take meetings.

On the other hand, Weishaupt says, there may be another subset of people who use coffee badging as a way to “show their face in an old traditional way that we used to work” without having to be there for the full day.

Some office attendance guidelines only dictate a number of days bosses want people in, but not always the hours people should be present. So, “coffee badging gives you the opportunity to maintain your flexible schedule, which is incredibly important to employees,” Weishaupt says.

Weishaupt himself does the reverse of coffee badging, where he’ll start his day from home, drive in mid-day to avoid morning traffic, and finish the rest of his day from the office.

“The standard has been set around flexibility in terms of where you work, and now the standard is starting to become flexibility in when you work,” he adds. The traditional 8-hour workday from the office “just doesn’t seem all that relevant.”

In the Philadelphia area, Kynisha Gary, 30, says coffee badging helps her find balance as a parent and Penn State student. She reports to her nonprofit’s office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and sometimes leaves around lunch to pick up her son from school and then finish the day from home.

It’s a major productivity boost, Gary says: “I get all my work done — nothing goes missing on the days I go home and finish work from there.”

She enjoys having control over her hybrid schedule even more than when she worked for a company that was fully remote, she adds. “I looked forward to getting back to into the office and being interactive,” she says. “Being exclusively at home was double the work and harder to get away from work.”

Ivey says the flexibility “helps us feel that we are more in control of our work-life balance and lifestyle in general, not feeling the demand and pressure to have to integrate back into the office all the time.” She says the arrangement feels natural in her work environment, where her company wants to “ensure we’re happy outside of the work we’re doing.”

Men are more likely to show up and leave early (62%) than women (38%). Age-wise, millennials are the most likely generation to do so, followed by Gen Xers, then Gen Zers, and finally baby boomers.

“There are still trust issues between employers and employees as it relates to productivity,” Weishaupt says, and “the reality is we’re in this state where employees want flexibility, they’ve proven they can do it, [and] they don’t need to be hired to be watched doing the job.”

Ultimately, Weishaupt says, “the office still has a place. I don’t think anybody would question that.”

Meanwhile, some companies like Meta, Google, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase say they’re cracking down on office attendance through badge swipes and other methods, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other businesses track not just when their employees come into the office, but how long they stay by logging things like when they badge into another floor or use their phone to print documents.

Office attendance monitoring is “a trust killer,” Weishaupt says. “If I feel like I have to be sitting at my desk at 4:30 on Friday, even though I’m not doing anything productive, [because] my boss might call me — there’s a trust issue there”

“This isn’t grade school,” he adds. “We’re not hiring people to watch them work. We’re hiring them to do a job. And it’s the culture of accountability and leadership setting the right tone to be able to measure productivity that makes all the difference here.”

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Check out: Offices remain half full after latest round of RTO mandates: Taking away hybrid could be a ‘betrayal’

In 2015, I packed up my life in Austin, Texas and moved to Madrid. I was 35 and it wasn’t my first attempt. I had spent more than a decade dreaming, trying, and failing to make Spain home.

Since then, I’ve built a life in Spain and created She Hit Refresh, where I’ve helped hundreds of other women move abroad. 

Along the way, I’ve experienced moments when my life in Europe felt like a movie. Like the time I stumbled upon a flamenco dancer in a hidden square, sipped wine at a Parisian café while the world passed by, or rode a Vespa past the Colosseum in Rome.

But these moments aren’t everyday life, and not everything about moving abroad is just as you imagine it to be. Here are the six myths I hear most often about relocating.

Many countries can feel more affordable than the U.S., but living abroad is probably not as cheap as you think. Costs are rising around the world, especially housing prices. House prices in the EU went up 57.9% between 2010 and the first quarter of 2025, while rents increased by 27.8%. 

My advice: Run the numbers based on today’s reality, not outdated blog posts. And remember, what feels affordable to you on a U.S. salary may still be unaffordable for locals. Don’t overpay. It only fuels the problem.

The real pressure comes from tourism, not the relatively small number of Americans moving abroad. And while anti-tourism sentiment exists in crowded cities, it’s not really about Americans, or even expats at all. The bigger issue is affordable housing — or, as I mentioned, the lack of it.

But smaller towns across Europe want new residents due to depopulation. If you’re serious about integrating, consider looking beyond hotspots like Lisbon, Barcelona, or Amsterdam. 

Regardless, in my own experience, when you learn the language, contribute, and connect, you’ll usually be welcomed with open arms.

Of course you’ll miss family and friends, but community abroad often forms faster than you’d expect.

Other Americans and English-speaking foreigners are eager to connect. Between meetups, language exchanges, and expat events, you’ll have no shortage of opportunities to meet people.

That said, deep friendships take time. I’m an extrovert, and it still took me around 2.5 years to feel like I had a strong community in Madrid. Many of my closest friendships came from hosting my own meetups.

For deeper integration, friendships with locals are key, though those are definitely harder to form. Many locals already have tight circles, and breaking in takes patience and persistence. Learning the language is essential, and it takes time. Most people are still beginners after a year.

Living abroad can absolutely improve your quality of life — whether it’s a slower pace, a relatively lower cost of living, or easier travel, there’s a lot to love. But it’s not a fairy tale.

You’ll still deal with bureaucracy, taxes, and logistics like finding an apartment, setting up bank accounts, and making appointments with doctors. And sometimes the grocery store will just be closed on a Sunday when you need it most.

The hardest challenges are often personal. I’ll never forget when I got the call that my father had passed away. It was in 2009, during one of my earlier stints in Spain, getting my master’s degree. I learned then that the highs and lows of life still happen abroad, and the lows are tougher when you’re far from home.

Your first move abroad doesn’t have to be your forever home. Think of it as a starting point, not a lifelong commitment. As someone once told me: It’s a move, not a marriage. 

When I moved to Madrid in 2015, I thought I’d never leave. But in 2020, I moved to Málaga, and now I’m considering heading back to Madrid again.

I’ve seen this with others, too. Cindy Sheahan, for example, moved to Porto, Portugal, but then decided Italy was a better fit and relocated there a year later.

Giving yourself permission to pivot can help you avoid getting stuck in research paralysis, trying to make the “perfect” choice before you even start. There are plenty of things you just won’t know until you’ve actually moved.

I was 35 when I moved and thought I was already too old. At the time, I only knew of students and retirees moving abroad, not people in the middle of their careers. But at 45, I can say without hesitation that it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

And once I got here, I met so many people my age and older who had done the same. People make the leap at every age — 30s, 40s, 50s, even 70s.

In fact, moving in your 30s or later has advantages, since people tend to arrive with more financial stability, better self-awareness, and the wisdom to navigate challenges with perspective.

Cepee Tabibian is the founder of She Hit Refresh, a community and resource platform that helps women aged 30+ move abroad. She’s the author of ”I’m Outta Here! An American’s Ultimate Visa Guide to Living in Europe″ and host of the She Hit Refresh podcast. As the daughter of Colombian and Iranian immigrants, Cepee grew up in Houston, Texas, before becoming an immigrant herself in Spain. For tips and real talk on how to move abroad, follow her @shehitrefresh

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