A survey found that about 15% of adults have no hobbies to speak of. The same survey found that people overwhelmingly agree that having hobbies is important, and also, that they wish they had more time for them.
Anecdotally, those numbers feel low. It’s rare to find someone juggling career, a household, kids, pets, family, and friends who still manages to spend time daily in the woodshop or quietly crocheting.
“MIT Monk” says hobbies matter more than ever
Hobbies still exist, of course, but we have less time for them. Another study found that time spent on socializing, hobbies, and offline activities has decreased over the last few decades while time spent on TV and phones has shot up.
That’s a trend that severely needs reversing. It’s a simple calculus. Doing real things is good for your brain. Screens are not.
“The most successful people fiercely protect their seemingly useless hobbies,” says Sandeep Swadia. “That’s their best defense against brainrot.”
Swadia goes by “MIT Monk” on YouTube, a reference to his time spent both in Himalayan monk training and receiving his MBA from one of the world’s most prestigious Ivy Leagues. He’s also a technology executive and investor, so he meets a lot of high-performing people. His unique background makes him not only an expert in “success,” but also in inner peace and happiness.
Swadia says all of smartest people he meets have at least one frivolous hobby that they make time for. And not just CEOS and billionaires, but Nobel Prize winners too.
Perhaps even more importantly, hobbies are fun. They bring us joy, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment that’s difficult to recreate on an app or a website. Plus, they’re great for our health.
But a lot of people simply don’t know where to start when looking to take up a new hobby, even if they’re willing to make the time and put in the effort.
The “VIBE” framework for choosing the perfect hobby
Swadia says you don’t have to just hope you have a passion for something. A hobby can actually be a way to improve your life in the very specific ways that it’s lacking.
But you have to pick the right hobby for you. And Swadia says in order to pick the right hobby, you need a framework. He calls his VIBE.
Vitality
“Are you running on empty? Then pick a hobby that gets your heart rate up,” he says.
It can be fitness and exercise directly, as in implementing a workout routine at the gym or taking a group fitness class. Or you can enjoy active hobbies that have a physical side effect, like hiking.
Vitality hobbies are something fun, challenging, and non-digital to do, and they have the added benefit of improving your physical health and energy levels.
A running club is a perfect hobby that checks multiple boxes. Photo Credit: Canva Photos
Inquiry
“Are you easily bored? Then pick a hobby that forces you to be a beginner again.”
Swadia suggests learning a new language, picking up chess, or taking a formal class on just about anything. Crucially, being a beginner as an adult requires courage. It requires you to fail and face your shortcomings head on. But that’s exactly why being a beginner again is so powerful.
“Your brain doesn’t adapt or grow when you’re comfortable,” Swadia says. “A hobby allows you to struggle, to be surprised. It forces your brain to upgrade.”
Chess will make you feel like a humbled beginner, and that’s the point. Photo Credit: Canva Photos
Belonging
If you have a lot of acquaintances and distant friends, you may need to find activities that help you find deeper connections in your community.
“Try a hobby that weaves you into a tribe,” Swadia advises.
Anything group-centered works here: a book club, a running group, volunteering, etc. Anything that’s fun, challenging, interesting, or meaningful that you do specifically with other people will bond you to them in surprising and profound ways.
Expression
“Do you consume more than create? Then try a hobby that pulls something from inside of you and puts it out into the world.”
These are the classics: creating and the arts. Woodworking, painting, photography, pottery. Even cooking can be a form of self-expression.
You don’t need to be good at something in order to use it to express yourself. And getting better slowly over time is a huge part of the fun.
You don’t have to be good at art to express yourself through it. Photo Credit: Canva Photos
You don’t need one hobby per category, Swadia reminds us. Many hobbies can fill multiple needs at once. Joining a running club, for example, can improve your vitality and your sense of belonging all at once. Depending on your starting point, it can also make you feel like a total beginner (Inquiry) again.
It’s hard to go wrong when picking a hobby
VIBE is just one framework, and it can help you identify what’s missing from your life and figure out how a new activity can challenge you and make you feel more whole.
Psychology Today notes, however, that hobbies don’t have to be challenging or designed to stimulate and rewire your brain. They can also be mindless and relaxing, like coloring or reading “trashy” novels.
More important than picking the right or perfect hobby is picking one at all. Unless there are huge costs involved, you can always try something else down the road if the first one doesn’t work out. What matters is taking care of yourself in order to be at your best.
“Our 24/7 culture tells us hobbies are selfish. They’re extra. It’s time stolen from work or the people that need you,” Swadia says. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Reading is hard. It wasn’t always, but now, it is. You know that feeling: you finally sit down with a book you’ve heard great things about—Song of Achilles, for example—and then it hits you. Your brain doesn’t work the same anymore. You’re no longer that wide-eyed child, eagerly tearing through books like they’re a bag of candy. Your brain has been trained to skim, scroll, and hop from one thing to the next.
So, each night ends the same way. You reach for your phone, scroll mindlessly for forty-five minutes, and fall asleep while wondering where your curiosity disappeared off to.
Don’t worry; this isn’t a moral failing. It’s inherently a wiring issue, a flaw in your current design. One that runs on, “What have I been training my brain to do all day?”
The good news is that the same science that explains that smooth-brain instinct to reach for your phone can also help you reach for something more nourishing, like books. In his YouTube video, “How to Read More Books,” user Ali Abdaal outlines ten rules to gently retrain your mind to read again. We’ve outlined them below.
Some context
Over the last twenty years, the number of adults who read for pleasure has dwindled. It’s fallen by 40%. It’s reported that today, only about 16% of Americans even pick up a book on any given day.
At the same time, we have never had more content at our fingertips. It’s ironic, isn’t it? We are constantly consuming words: emails, Instagram captions, text messages that are nothing more than veiled scams. Only now, words arrive in bite-sized formats and notifications instead of chapters.
Here’s a secret. Most people who “wish they read more” (a.k.a. all of us) do not lack interest. Nor willpower. Our brains have been trained to operate in overstimulation mode, always expecting novelty, speed, and interruptions. It’s a far cry from the stillness, focus, and flow that reading requires, certainly. These ten habits work because they help reduce the mental effort it takes to begin reading. They can feel almost like a gentle kind of magic, slowly making it easier and more comfortable to stay with a text just a little longer. Enjoy.
Rule 1: Put the book where your brain is tired
Place your book or e-reader on your nightstand tonight. Charge your phone in another room.
That’s it! That’s the whole rule.
Behavioral scientists call this micro-shift “choice architecture.” Developed by economists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, this theory demonstrates that small, subtle changes to your physical environment can profoundly alter your behavior, with little to no impact on your freedom. It requires little conscious effort. You are making the easiest option also the most nourishing one.
By bedtime, your brain is running on automatic habit mode. It reaches for whatever’s closest, most familiar. Over time, that tiny swap makes reading feel like the natural way to end the day. Your brain begins to associate printed words with rest and comfort, not effort.
Your favorite reading app deserves prime digital real estate. Canva
Rule 2: Make your home screen a little library
The average person picks up their phone dozens, if not hundreds, of times per day.
Phew. Each glance at your screen, every flash of artificial LED light, represents a mental crossroads.
If the first thing your eyes land on is a social app, your fingers will go there before your conscious mind even checks in. However, if the first thing you see is your Kindle, your brain gets a different cue. Research refers to this instinct as “habit stacking” and “cue design.” The idea is to take something your brain already does (picking up your phone to scroll) and sneakily insert reading, gently redirecting the automatic cue. This way, each idle moment—waiting in line, commuting on public transit, a quiet moment in the morning—becomes a reading window.
So, your favorite reading app deserves prime digital real estate—the middle of your home page—while distracting apps are buried away in a folder, two or three swipes away.
Rule 3: Let audiobooks borrow your most boring moments
Commuting. Washing dishes. Dusting the annoying decorative trim at the bottom of the walls.
These moments are tedious, irksome. But they’re also perfect opportunities to treat your brains to the worlds of Tolkien, Woolf, and García Márquez. This represents habit stacking at its purest. The technique, pioneered by behavioral researcher BJ Fogg and popularized by James Clear’s Atomic Habits, exploits the brain’s existing neural pathways. Since the anchor habit (commuting, exercising) is already wired into daily routine, the desired behavior (listening to a book) simply rides in on the coattails of the existing habit.
Plus, it’s a great way to devour literature: if you spend even half an hour a day listening to audiobooks, you can easily finish 15–20 books per year.
Rule 4: Serve your brain a reading menu
School taught us to be faithful, monogamous readers. One book at a time. Cover to cover, start to finish. And no switching. Too bad adult brains don’t work that way.
The reality? Your energy shifts. Your focus changes. Some days, your mind craves ideas and changes. You want nothing more than to read about how basketball can help you succeed in life. Other times, you wish to get lost in the strange, bizarre universe depicted in Ottessa Moshfegh’s Lapvona.
The tactic: keep two to five books going at once; give your brain choices. Perhaps a novel, like 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. A challenging work of nonfiction. A cozy audiobook, maybe one read by the actual author, like Ina Garten does in Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir. Plus, something short and fun for tired nights.
We’ve all been there. It’s the book of the year. You see it stacked up in piles like a shrine to reading in every bookstore window you pass. Everyone can’t stop raving about this book. But you can’t bring yourself to read past the first fifty pages.
Guilt creeps in. You don’t want to abandon this novel; you’ll seem like a quitter. The better option? Stop reading altogether.
Give yourself a break. Destroy the bias! Realign with your intrinsic motivation: the genuine desire to know what happens next.
Rule 6: Start with what feels easy
Hey, so I don’t know if you know this: not every book you read has to be Ulysses by James Joyce. Start with whatever books pique your interest, effortlessly. Genre fiction. Thrillers. Romance. Fantasy. Short stories. So-called “literary prestige” is what’s standing between you and your ultimate reading goals.
The problem is this: if you start your reading life at the steepest part of the mountain, books start to feel like work. Flow theory, developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, suggests that the “optimal experience” happens when skill level and challenge level are perfectly synced. If the book’s too difficult, and it seems like every page requires a dictionary, anxiety strikes. Too easy? Boredom.
Reading is such a personal, private experience. That’s a beautiful thing. It can also make progress feel invisible, even to you.
Tracking your reads with an account, like Goodreads, or in a notebook, changes that. Now, instead of “out of sight, out of mind,” you can see a list of titles. A little progress bar. A challenge you’re proud to celebrate. You’re gamifying the system, and wow, does it feel good.
Psychologists have long noted that our minds do not like open loops, unfinished mental threads that your brain keeps revisiting because they feel incomplete or unresolved. It’s called the Zeigarnik effect, and it’s why checking off a bullet point on your to-do list feels so satisfying.
Welcome to the gamification of reading: annual challenges, completion badges, public reviews, and community rankings leverage extrinsic rewards to supplement intrinsic motivation. Over time, your brain begins to associate reading with these tasty little rewards, and books start to feel smoother, lighter, and more enjoyable.
Rule 8: It’s okay to go a little faster
There is no moral virtue in reading slowly. Sure, it’s nice to sit with a sentence, to luxuriate in its prose as the language washes over you like a warm breeze.
But for audiobooks, a slightly faster pace can actually improve your sense of momentum. Your mind will wander less frequently because it has to pay attention to keep up. Many find that listening at 1.25x or 1.5x speed (approximately 225–275 words per minute) is the sweet spot. This is because the average audiobook reader takes their time. They enunciate, sometimes frustratingly so, at 150–160 words per minute—well below the typical adult’s listening comprehension.
But remember, there’s a delicate balance at play here. Do not jump to extremes. Play at the edges. Notice where you still feel present with the material. Let that be your guide.
Rule 9: Remove the “should I buy this?” option
Whenever someone recommends a book—in a conversation, on a podcast, in an article—and your brain goes, ‘Oh, that sounds good,” don’t think. Get your hands on it immediately. Buy it or download it on the spot.
Think about it, how many times have you been told about an excellent book…then did nothing about it? Life moved on, and the recommendation evaporated. Lost to the tabs, shuffled to the “saved for later” cart.
Decision fatigue, the progressive depletion of the brain’s capacity to make high-quality decisions after repeated choices, is real. By the end of the day, your brain is tired. Eliminating the decision about whether to buy a book removes friction at the exact moment you’re likely to balk. A fantastic book can lead to an entire new world: one good idea can shift a career, a relationship, and your connection to the universe.
Rule 10: You are a reader. Think of yourself as one
Stop calling yourself someone who “wants to read more” and start seeing yourself as a reader. You are a person for whom books are just a normal part of everyday life.
Reading works in this way. Once that story shifts, countless tiny decisions follow. If you believe you are a reader, reaching for a book in a spare moment feels natural. Suddenly, scrolling before bed feels off. A person who views themself as a reader will notice new ways to read: during a delay at the airport, a lunch break, or in the morning while drinking coffee; not because they’re forcing themselves to, but because that’s simply who they are.
Right now, your brain might be trained for short bursts of attention, quick hits of novelty, and constantly switching between tabs. It’s tired, and that makes starting a new chapter feel even more daunting.
But brains are pliable. They change in response to what we repeatedly do. Besides, this was never about hitting some impressive “books per year” quota. You’re taking back your time and filling it with an activity that’s actually nourishing.
A book on the nightstand replacing a phone. A reading app on the home screen. A lovely audiobook playing through your headphones as you vacuum your apartment or walk around the block. Together, these small actions steadily send a message to your mind: reading is safe, familiar, and rewarding. Over time, that message becomes a feeling.
And before you know it, you are not forcing yourself to read more.
You are simply living like someone who already does.
But making your house smell good without using artificial air fresheners or sprays can be challenging.
“Keeping a home smelling fresh can be difficult because odors do not just enter and leave–they accumulate in fabrics, carpets, upholstery, garbage bins, and places with moisture,” Marla Mock, president of Molly Maid, tells Upworthy. “You have to address the underlying problem, rather than just spraying a perfume to cover it up. Plug-ins, and sprays mask an odor rather than remove it.”
Plus, keeping your home smelling good for an extended period of time can also be difficult, as many underlying odors are caused by mold, mildew, and bacteria, Kathy Cohoon, operations director at Two Maids, tells Upworthy.
Here are seven expert tips to help you stave off odors and keep your home smelling fresh:
1. Routinely clean specific areas
Eliminate odors by staying on top of cleaning certain areas in your home.
“For instance, empty your trash and clean the bins regularly, routinely check and clean areas where moisture is prone to accumulate such as dishwashers, laundry rooms and bathrooms to avoid mildew odors,” Mock explains. “You will eliminate the source of odors, and therefore your home will smell better because of that alone.”
2. Bake some fresh scents
Your pantry and refrigerator can help your home smell delicious.
“I bake a quick tray of sliced lemons with a little water, or simmer a pot with citrus peels, cinnamon sticks, and cloves,” says Jessica Randhawa, owner and head chef at The Forked Spoon. “I keep it at the barest simmer and top off the water as needed. Cooking these fresh scents replaces stale odors with a light, natural kitchen smell.”
3. Neutralize lingering kitchen odors with a vinegar simmer
The kitchen is full of sources for bad smells that stick around your home.
“If you have strong odors from cooking dishes like fish or spices, mix a cup of water and three tablespoons of white vinegar in a pot and bring it to a boil,” explains Cohoon. “Let it simmer uncovered. The acid in the vinegar neutralizes the odors in the air. For a natural fragrant boost, you can create an aromatic stove simmer by boiling water with additions like mint leaves, a lemon, and a few orange rinds.”
Which one will you try first? 🌻 #5 is a gamechanger in our home 🙌 make your home look + smell amazing with these 5 easy and inexpensive tricks 1. Place 2 tbs vanilla extract in the oven to make your home smell like cookies 2. Place essential oils on cotton balls and inside your vacuum to make your whole home smell fresh 3. And you can also place them under your bin liner to rid odours 4. Run 1 cup baking soda in your dishwasher to rid musty odours 5. And neutralise bathroom odours by mopping floors with shaving cream Hope these were helpful lovelies x #hometips#homehacks#homefragrance#homesweethome#cleantok#cleaningtiktok#cleaningtips#cleaninghacks
Fresh air is an important part of a good-smelling home.
“Air out rooms by opening windows and/or using fans; launder or replace soft goods such as curtains, throws and mats, as they absorb odors,” Mock shares. “This also prevents odors from soaking into the fabrics and keeps your home odor free.”
5. Deep clean and deodorize fabrics with baking soda
A simple pantry staple will get your fabric smelling fresh.
“Baking soda is a fantastic, non-fragranced deodorizer because its alkaline properties help absorb and kill acidic odors, grease, and oils,” says Cohoon. “To tackle smelly carpets and rugs, I recommend mixing equal parts of borax and baking soda. Sprinkle the mixture liberally over the surface and let it sit for up to 30 minutes before vacuuming thoroughly. For strong smells in enclosed spaces, I suggest putting some baking soda in a vented jar and refreshing the powder every month or so.”
6. Eliminate sneaky odor sources like smelly shoes
Shoes can be a major source of odor inside your home.
“To refresh smelly shoes, I recommend sprinkling Borax generously inside them and letting the powder sit overnight to absorb the stink,” says Cohoon. “In the morning, wipe out or vacuum the Borax powder to remove the odors.”
7. Try essential oils
Essential oils are a natural way to make your home smell good.
“A few drops of an essential oil can be great as well to give some fragrance,” adds Mock. “They neutralize odors instead of covering them up, so the space smells fresh, not scented.”
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
There are few things more frustrating than watching gas prices climb and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it. Oil prices around the world are skyrocketing, and in the United States, some people are paying as much as $7 per gallon. It’s enough to make people rethink public transit and bicycles. Because of the gut-punching fuel prices, people are looking for ways to stretch their gas.
People have been turning to social media to ask how to increase their gas mileage and save money. Some of the answers are surprising, but what people find most refreshing is that real people are sharing strategies that work for them.
Using STA-BIL
STA-BIL is a fairly inexpensive product sold almost everywhere. It’s designed to be poured into your gas tank before filling up. After you fill the tank, the instructions say to let the car run for about five minutes. The solution “cleans the fuel system, prevents the buildup of gum and varnish” and helps prevent corrosion. According to the company and commenters, a cleaner fuel system allows your engine to run at its best, improving fuel efficiency.
Under the video about using STA-BIL to increase gas mileage, people shared the pain they feel at the pump. One person wrote, “Bruh I pumped $37 in a civic! CIVIC!! before it went up it was $20 for a full fill up.” Another added, “Just paid $52 in SoCal for my civic.”
Try not to be Speed Racer
In a Reddit thread about getting the best gas mileage out of your car, one commenter warns against fast acceleration:
“Accelerate slow and always be planning ahead to see if you need to continue pressing on the gas. Often times people are still blindly accelerating up to a light that’s red, traffic that’s stopped, etc. … Anticipatory braking is big in the efficiency game. If you can slow down early and avoid completely stopping at a red light that’s a win. You want to conserve as much of your motion as possible.”
Someone else added later in the thread, “If you do any highway driving stick to the right-most lane and do the speed limit (55,65, etc) via cruise control. the MPG difference at 65 mph vs 70 mph is insane.”
Idling burns gas
It’s not uncommon for people to sit in their cars and idle, whether it’s a mom trying to have a quiet moment or someone in a parking lot scrolling on their phone. While idling may be unavoidable in cold climates, when you need to warm up your car, it should be kept to a minimum outside of those situations.
“One car idling for just 15 minutes has wasted .08 gallons of gasoline. That doesn’t seem like much, but if they idle for 15 minutes every day of the year, that’s 29.2 gallons of gasoline in one year. At a price of $3.50/gallon, that’s $102 spent in gasoline to get you nowhere.”
Consider ditching the roof rack
In response to someone on Reddit asking whether a roof rack decreases gas mileage, the answer was a resounding yes. One person added, “Yes it worsens it quite dramatically actually. I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head but I want to say a roof rack alone is an observable drop, and with a luggage case it’s a ~10-15% loss.”
Car and Driver tested this theory with a 2022 Kia Carnival equipped with a factory-installed roof rack. The outlet reported being “initially disappointed in our observed fuel economy.” After suspecting the rack, they spent 10 minutes removing it.
“Upon removal, we instantly saw increased efficiency numbers, prompting us to make a second attempt at our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test,” the outlet revealed. “In the second run, we bested our prior attempt by 3 mpg (25 mpg to 28 mpg), a 12 percent increase and also better than the EPA’s highway figure of 26 mpg.”
Check your tires
This is a quick and inexpensive fix for improving gas mileage. Cars don’t alert you to low tire pressure until it drops significantly. The recommended PSI is listed on your tire, and one mechanic says keeping your tires properly inflated can help boost gas mileage.
“Keep your tires inflated to the proper pressure,” Andy’s Auto Advice said in a TikTok video. “If you run your tire pressure too low in your vehicle, it’s going to cause more friction between the tire and the road surface, thus reducing your overall MPG. So by keeping your tires at the proper PSI, it’s going to give you the optimal fuel economy for your vehicle.”
Routine maintenance is more of a long-term strategy, but Andy’s Auto Advice and other mechanics say it’s the most important.
According to the Associated Press, removing excess weight can help you get the most out of your gas tank. Apps like GasBuddy show you the cheapest gas stations near you, so use them in conjunction with these tips to stretch your dollar at the pump.
Isn’t it wild to think that spies are actually real? Governments all over the world send secret agents to other countries to steal information or conduct missions. The key element that makes a spy, of course, is the secretive nature of their work. They go undercover, sometimes even wearing disguises, and carry out their missions without attracting attention. That means they’re masters of psychology and social science rather than combat and weaponry.
In a revealing interview with Steven Bartlett on his “Diary of a CEO” podcast, former Secret Service Special Agent Evy Poumpouras shared how to get people to do what you want them to do. The key, according to Poumpouras, is to understand what motivates them. Once you know the psychological framework behind what makes them tick, you can persuade them to behave as you like.
“The biggest mistake people make is they talk a lot,” Poumpouras said in the video clip. “Steven, if I’m doing all the talking and you’re doing all the listening, you’re learning everything about me. You’re learning about what I care about, my values, my belief systems, getting a good read on me and I’m learning nothing about you.”
The former Secret Service Agent says that you should listen to determine the subject’s motivational mindset. Are they motivated by money, sex, admiration, status, freedom, relationships, or safety?
“Everybody’s motivated by something different. But I have to hear you and pay attention to you to understand what that is. Everybody’s purpose is different,” she continued. “If you give people enough space, they will reveal themselves to you.”
To be clear, Poumpouras isn’t in the business of helping people trick others. Instead, she hopes the techniques she teaches will, “Increase your self-confidence, your self-worth, and your ability to trust and believe in yourself.”
The commenters on TikTok loved the advice:
“People are so interested in themselves and want to talk about themselves… We give our power away by talking.”
“Changed my life when I was told to stop filling the silence”
“As a parent, I needed this reminder too.”
Yes, the parents came out in full force to support Poumpouras’ tip. Perhaps no one, other than espionage experts, better understands the importance of learning how to get other people to do things without threats and violence. (OK, sometimes there are threats).
It’s also a wonderful tactic because your subject will have no idea they are part of a manipulation because they are the ones doing the talking. It’s nearly impossible to give yourself away when you’re sitting in silence.
Understanding what motivates people is essential when protecting the safety of the nation’s most important assets and dealing with shady, dangerous people. But it’s not only useful for spies and double agents.
This so-called “trick” can also benefit the layperson by giving us a framework to understand people better. Knowing what motivates someone is very important, whether you’re on a date, in a business deal, or in a leadership role at work. It’s also very important when raising children or training an animal.
The data agrees. Forbes writes about the experiments of Dan Ariely, who found that, “People are much more likely to go above and beyond for tasks that they’re emotionally (rather than financially) invested in.” So, if you want people to do things that benefit you, sure you can pay them or convince them that it’s in their best interest, but you’ll have far better luck if you appeal to their core principles and desires. To do that, you first have to listen and find out what they are.
Understanding your personal motivators is also essential for making the best choices in life.
It helps us determine which actions will be genuinely beneficial. It’s also a great way to ensure that we are involved with people, organizations, and activities for the right reasons.
In other words, digging into someone else’s (and your own) core beliefs and motivation can be used for good! Not just protecting state secrets and preventing assassinations.
Productivity consultant Ashley Janssen says the key to understanding your motives is knowing your values.
“When you know what you value, you can identify how an activity or goal will support and foster those values,” Janssen writes. “When you decide to try something, consider whether it’s what you think you should want to do or what someone else has said you should do. Those conditions are often not enough to sustain a behavior or activity. It’s hard to keep moving forward on something that you don’t really care about or are not invested in.”
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
The evolution of candles from lighting necessity to scented ambience creator is kind of funny. For thousands of years, people relied on candles and oil lamps for light, but with the invention of the light bulb in 1879, fire was no longer needed for light. At that time, people were probably relieved to not have to set something on fire every time they wanted to see in the dark, and now here we are spending tons of money to do it just for funsies.
We love lighting candles for coziness and romance, relishing their warm, soft light as we shrink from the fluorescent bulb craze of the early 2000s. Many people use candles for adding scent to a room, and there are entire candle companies just for this purpose (Yankee Candles, anyone?). As of 2022, candles were an 11 billion dollar business.
With their widespread use, you’d think we’d know a thing or two about candles, but as it turns out, a whole bunch of us have been burning candles wrong our entire lives without knowing it.
Wax on wax off: avoiding the ‘memory ring’
A recent post on Twitter X started the education session:
“Just learned that my fiancé, who buys candles all the time and we literally always have candles burning, did not actually know how they work and blew out a medium first burn candle 30 minutes after I lit it when I wasn’t paying attention and ruined it,” the user wrote.
Many people had no idea what she was talking about. In fact, the original since-deleted post went viral with hundreds of people asking: Huh? So the OP explained.
“If a candle is not burned for long enough on first burn to melt edge to edge it will create a ‘memory ring.’ Once a candle has a memory ring, it will continue to tunnel and never burn all the way across.”
Now THAT’S something almost everyone has experienced. Candles are pretty expensive, so it’s frustrating when all that delicious-smelling wax gets left behind. Apparently, a short first burn (in this case, just 30 minutes) is one of the main culprits of a ruined candle.
Memory rings are also called ‘tunnels’
Tunneling is the name of the phenomenon where a narrow tube-shaped area of candle continues to burn deeper and deeper, leaving lots of “waste” wax around its edges. Experts agree that the first burn should last 2-4 hours at least to avoid an uneven or narrow memory ring. However, burning a candle for over 10 hours at a time can cause carbon buildup on the wick.
“This is why you should not light a large candle at night, which is unlikely to burn all the way across before you need to blow out to go to bed. Allow at least one hour per inch of candle width,” she went on.
So that’s why candles always end up with a hole in the middle, making us think the candle companies are just running a scam to make us go through candles faster. Nope. It’s a user error, and many people were flabbergasted by this realization.
“This is the most useful information I’ve been given my entire adult life,” wrote one person.
“This skill should be taught in schools,” shared another. “The amount I’ve wasted on half burnt candles is outrageous, the amount of times I’ve used Algebra since leaving school = 0.”
“When I worked at Pier 1 in the 90s I got to go to some candle workshop that taught us the correct way to use (and therefore sell) candles and that is probably some of the most useful knowledge I’ve carried in my head this long life,” shared another.
Well, never say ‘never,’ because here’s the good news: a tunneled candle can be fixed!
How to fix an existing tunnel
Probably the easiest way is to avoid tunneling your candles in the first place by burning them long enough upon first burn to liquify the entire top layer of wax. Again, that’s usually 2-4 hours.
It also helps to care for the wicks regularly! Good wicks allow for a clean, even burn. Trim the burnt ends before lighting the candle and, if possible, use a snuffer instead of blowing out the flames with your mouth. Using a candle warmer is another way to get an even melt; with the added perk of making the scented wax last much, much longer.
But even if you do accidentally “ruin” a candle, it can be recovered. Placing a ring of foil around the candle with just a small opening at the top for the flame will help trap heat and help the edges of the wax melt on the next burn. Once the memory ring evens out, you can burn the candle like normal again.
In fact, you can even use a candle warmer to melt the wax back to even and then resume burning. Some clever candlers even put candles on the hot pad of their coffee makers as a DIY hack.
What about indoor air quality?
The candle posts also prompted a separate discussion about candles and indoor air quality and the volatile organic compounds that are released when they are burned.
Some people equated burning candles with having a small engine running in your living room, though according to the Cleveland Clinic, there’s scant evidence that the amount of toxins released by burning candles is actually hazardous to your health, especially if you use high quality candles in a well-ventilated area.
But if you tolerate them, feel free to enjoy as recommended,—just make sure that first burn melts the wax all the way to the edges to avoid the dreaded tunneling.
This article originally appeared 2 years ago. It has been updated.
Doing laundry can be a bewildering process. For starters, most people don’t know how to properly use a washing machine (or what wash cycles actually do.)
Laundry also presents challenges when it comes to removing odors. And many people don’t know how often they should *really* be washing their sheets.
Even for the most seasoned launderers, there is always a new laundry skill or lesson to learn. On Reddit, a wife struggling “for years” to remove sweat stains in the armpits of her husband’s undershirts shared what finally worked for her.
Wife removes husband’s pit stains
User Bupperoni shared with fellow laundry enthusiasts on the social media platform that she discovered the laundry hack after being fed up with her normal go-to detergent.
“I have been at a loss with my husband’s undershirt pit stains/buildup for years,” she explains. “Recently, I learned that my detergent is crap (All Free & Clear) and it was recommended here that I try adding Biz until my detergent runs out.”
Next, she explains that she “took around 20 of my husband’s undershirts” and applied Biz to them by creating a paste.
“I put some Biz in a cup with water to make a paste and one by one I poured the paste onto each armpit (inside and outside) and lightly scrubbed with a toothbrush. After that I let them sit for an hour,” she explains. “Then I added 1/2 cup of Biz to the washer, added the shirts, then added detergent. I washed with hot water and did an extra rinse cycle.”
The end result was a major success. “They came out so good! They aren’t perfectly white but the greasy deodorant, sweat, and dead skin buildup is gone!” she added.
What is Biz?
Biz is an enzymatic laundry powder that contains a number of enzymes (including lipase) to break down lipids (fats) and oils. It also comes in liquid form.
It was invented in 1968. Laundry lovers on Reddit sing its praises, with many calling it “the best kept laundry secret.” One fan of Biz shared:
“I had given up hope on the armpit stains on our workout clothes, but today, I decided to soak them in Biz before washing and it’s like they were never there! I didn’t even bother making a paste and leaving them on the pit area — just 1/2 cup in a medium load using the auto soak feature in our washing machine for 1 hour. I wish I had before and after pics!”
It is also affordable. A 60 ounce box of Biz powder (available at Walmart) sells for $6.53, which can take care of 40-60 loads. The cost breakdown is about 11 cents per wash.
Lipase is one of the most important ingredients in laundry right now, and here’s why you should care!!! Lipase is an enzyme that breaks down fat and oil and is the same thing your body uses to digest a greasy meal. In detergents and stain removers, it targets sebum, which is the body oil your skin produces constantly. Sebum is the number one stain on your clothes, and when it builds up it causes yellowing and body odor. Here’s how enzymes work: think of them as tiny scissors. They cut big molecules into small ones so surfactants and water can actually wash them away. And unlike surfactants, enzymes aren’t destroyed in the process, they work over and over, which is why a little goes a long way with enzymatic pretreatments. The most important thing with enzymes: give them time. Just like digestion, they need to sit and work. Minimum one hour, maximum one week. When you’re reading ingredient labels, look for lipase, protease, amylase, cellulase, and mannanase. Each one targets something different. I like to keep my enzymatic stain remover on my hamper and pretreat stains when I take my clothes off. Do you want me to talk more about the different types of enzymes in laundry products? #laundry#detergent#cleantok
Professional dry cleaner explains what causes pit stains
Zachary Pozniak, a professional dry cleaner who runs YouTube channel Jeeves NY, breaks down why removing sweat stains can be so difficult. He explains that the root cause of pit stains is sebum.
“Your body produces around 40 grams of oil everyday. It’s called sebum,” he says. “It lubricates and protects our skin and hair.”
He adds that sebum is the main cause behind body odor and acne, and also causes yellowing of clothing.
“Over time, sebum will oxidize, or turn things yellow,” he shares. “This is the same exact thing that happens to apples or avocadoes, and this is commonly seen on the underarm area.”
Iced coffee is a must for many Americans. A 2025 survey from the National Coffee Association reported that 31% of Americans have iced coffee daily.
And Americans are shelling out their hard-earned cash for it. Data from food research firm Technomic found that in 2023, Americans spent $17.7 billion on iced coffee drinks. Coffee prices in the U.S. are also on the rise, and an August 2025 report noted that the average cost for hot coffee was $3.52, and $5.47 for cold brew.
Frugal people looking to save money on their daily coffee fix took to Reddit where a trucker shared his affordable iced coffee recipe. It’s earning major praise from his fellow frugal foodies.
49-cent iced coffee hack
User asu3dvl explained how he keeps his iced coffee costs down while on the road:
“Trucker here. Every morning I mix two tablespoons of Great Value 100% Columbian instant coffee into my 20 oz Stanley tumbler. A splash of Hazelnut creamer and add water and ice. Shake it up,” he shared.
He noted how affordable it is, as well as how “It’s like $0.49 a day, lasts me all morning and keeps me sane when I roll through your town as you people try to kill yourselves around my 40 ton 18 wheeler. 🤣🤣🤣 The coffee and the large creamer last around three weeks.”
He also added, “Tastes just as good if not better than the fresh brewed stuff we get out here, anyway.”
A former barista commented, “I worked in a coffee shop for years and I drink instant now. Its come a long way.”
Fellow iced coffee drinkers offered their best iced coffee tips to save money.
“I really like Cafe Altura instant coffee. They have one of the best instant coffees I’ve ever had and it’s a medium roast! It’s a bit spendy, but def less if you’re buying coffee from a coffee shop.” – 4077
“Juan Valdez makes great instant coffee too.” – jameson71
“Try Bustelo instant!” – disasterous_fjord
“I use about a cup and 1/3-ish of milk, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, a couple of ice cubes, 2 scoops (I think they are tsp, but I have them heaping) of instant coffee. And a tiny bit of vanilla. I put it in a blender and tastes like a Tim Hortons Iced Capp. Instant coffee is super handy for iced coffee drinks! To make black coffee, I don’t like instant, but with milk and brown sugar, its so good!” – Just_Cake4512
“Cold brew concentrate is another good one for anyone who wants to level up from instant without spending starbucks money. throw ground coffee in a mason jar with water overnight, strain it in the morning, and you’ve got concentrate that lasts like a week in the fridge. cost works out to maybe 30-40 cents a cup. but honestly 49 cents a day for something that keeps you sane while driving an 18 wheeler through traffic is probably one of the best ROI purchases anyone in this sub is making lol.” – Couponpicked
“Try Taster’s Choice medium dark, next time you get a chance, also available at Walmart.” – ditto3000
“There’s a somewhat famous finance youtuber who had pretty much the same recipe for his “20 cent iced coffee” compared to coffee chains’ iced coffee:
– make a pot of coffee (i think he grinds his own beans) – put the whole pot in the fridge overnight – add mocha creamer (or whatever) to taste the next day. 20 cent (or is it 10 cent) ice coffee. save $5 (this was at the time, save more $ now).
I think the main part is the overnight icing of the coffee in the fridge. if you just add ice cubes to making it straight away its not the same.” -Silly-avocatoe
Despite the massive amount of time we spend on the Internet, if we’re honest with ourselves, we bounce between the same five or six websites every single day. Which is fine! But living like that makes it easy to forget how vast and weird the Internet can be. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of sites out there that are truly useful little gems that make you feel like you’ve discovered some kind of cyber secret. These are the kinds of websites you bookmark immediately.
Luckily, Reddit made discovering these Internet gems much simpler. User @powerfulsites posed the following question: “What’s the most powerfully useful underground website that most people don’t know about?”
And the Internet responded in droves. (Guess the Internet enjoys talking about itself.) We grabbed 10 of the best, most wonderful recommendations, from powerful image editors to science-backed white noise generators. And once you know about them, you’ll wonder how you got along without them.
In 1971, a college student named Michael Hart typed out the Declaration of Independence on a university computer and uploaded it for anyone to download. It was free forever, and that small act of Internet generosity became the foundation for Project Gutenberg (PG). More than 50 years later, PG has grown into an incredible library of over 78,000 free eBooks in 60+ languages. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Every classic you can think of, available in seconds, at no cost.
You know that annoying, nagging feeling when you’re reading through an article that references a new study (about Internet addiction, or candy consumption, or why people feel the need to buy those AMC popcorn buckets at ridiculous prices) and you wish you could see the actual data? Google Scholar fixes that. It’s a free search engine for academic papers, journal articles, and dissertations—over 160 million documents—that anyone can use, no university login required. Just type your question and find out what scientists actually found. It’s a superpower most people don’t know they have access to.
Photo credit: Etymology Online – Screenshot of Etymology Online.
Did you know “disaster” literally means “bad star”? Or that “salary” comes from the Latin word for salt? Douglas Harper spent years building Etymology Online, a free dictionary of over 50,000 word origins, to provide information just like this to the masses. Here, you can trace the origins of modern English words back to their ancient roots. It’s the kind of site where you look up one word and resurface forty-five minutes later, cognizant of the terrifying origin of the word “nightmare.” You’re welcome.
Science confirmed what coffee shop regulars always knew: a moderate level of ambient noise makes you more creative. Rainy Cafe bottles that affect into two sliders: one for café sounds, one for rain. Blend them to your taste and get to work. No ads, no account, no upsell. Writers and remote workers have been quietly using it for years.
Removing a background from a photo used to require Photoshop skills or a graphic designer friend. And something called a “lasso tool”? Now it takes about five seconds. Drop your image into Remove.bg, and its AI cleanly cuts the background out, including tricky edges like hair and fur, then hands it right back to you. The site processes over 150 million images a month, which is, like, so many images. It feels almost like cheating.
Browser bookmarks are where good intentions go to die. Everyone has hundreds of them. Nobody can find anything, no matter how many late-night sessions you spend obsessively reorganizing them. Skip the hassle and head to Booky.io, a clean, private bookmark manager with color-coded collections you can navigate with ease. Works on every device, has a browser extension, and—crucially—doesn’t track you or sell your data.
Amateur astronomers and star enthusiasts have a very specific weather problem: “Is it going to be clear enough tonight?” Unfortunately, regular forecasts don’t answer that. But Clear Dark Sky Charts does. This beautifully nerdy site delivers hour-by-hour predictions for cloud cover, transparency, and atmospheric “seeing” for over 6,100 locations across North America. If you’ve ever wanted to stargaze but never knew when to try, start here.
Sheet music is expensive. Buying a tuba, even if it’s used and from eBay, is expensive. IMSLP is not. The International Music Score Library Project hosts over 855,000 free, public-domain scores—you’ll find Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and thousands more—that any musician or music lover can download instantly. Before this site existed, tracking down a rare orchestral score meant haunting university libraries. Now it’s three clicks away.
In 1997, an 11-year-old in Orlando named Alyssa had trouble remembering HTML codes. So, she built a website to keep track of them…and accidentally became one of the Internet’s first teachers. By her early teens, her site had 500,000 monthly visitors. Lissa Explains It All is still live, still free, and still one of the warmest places on the Internet to learn the basics of building a webpage.
In conclusion…
The Internet is bigger, stranger, and more generous than the algorithm usually shows you. These 10 sites are proof. Bookmark them. (Or, use Booky.io!) Enjoy the feeling of having found something genuinely worth finding.
