If you opened Gabriella Carr's red notebook, you might expect to find a diary, a grocery list, or her homework. Instead, you'd find an organized, numbered list of failures.That's one way to see it. Gabriella views it differently, though. To her, every entry in that notebook is a victory. @gabbies1000nos the story of why i’m doing this!! #rejectiontherapy #rejectionisredirection #chaseyourdreams #aspiringactor #actingjourney ♬ original sound - Gabriella Carr Gabriella, a content creator and actor, is embarking on a fascinating experiment she calls "The 1,000 No's." Her goal: to face rejection 1,000 times in a year. While the rest of us spend our days avoiding the word "no," Gabriella is hunting for it. She asks for opportunities she feels unqualified for. She puts herself in situations where rejection is likely.Something unexpected happened on her quest for failure: she started to succeed.In seeking "no's," Gabriella stumbled upon a life filled with unexpected "yeses." Her journey offers a fresh perspective on risk and rejection, and she's not alone in discovering the surprising power of failure. The notebook that changed everything Gabriella began her challenge in September 2025. As a creative, the sting of rejection was familiar. Casting directors passed on her self-tape auditions. Brand partners left her emails unread. The constant silence and dismissal started to take a toll on her self-worth.She switched up her approach. Instead of striving for a "yes" and dreading denials, she set "no" as the goal. This is where Gabrielle tracks her rejection journey.Photo credit: TikTokGrabbing a red notebook and a permanent marker, she scrawled "The 1,000 Rejections of Gabrielle Carr" on its front and began to track her journey.The results surprised her. Amid the rejections lay unexpected wins; she earned a spot in a national pageant she'd written off as a long shot and landed a role in a play.When Gabriella shared her rejection journey on TikTok, it resonated with hundreds of thousands of people. They recognized their own fears in her red book."My daughter shared your account with me, and it inspired me to apply for my dream job! I haven't heard back yet, but yes or no, it felt good to be so daring!" read one comment. "I need to get an internship for spring, and I'm so scared," shared another. One viewer said that Gabriella's courage inspired them to apply for a federal job. @misscuddy this challenge just gets us in side quests

Though we’ve all had to fake a smile at times, it doesn't feel good to receive or give one. Some have gotten so good at offering fake smiles that others may begin to wonder if a person’s smile is ever genuine. To put this worry to bed, a body language expert explains the tell that can separate the genuinely happy from the passively polite.Vanessa Van Edwards went on TikTok to share how to tell if someone is faking their smile. Van Edwards recommends not looking at a person’s mouth when they’re smiling, but to look at the top half of their face. In the video, she explains that a genuine smile doesn’t just reveal itself in the mouth, but in the upper cheeks and eyes. A person who is genuinely smiling has a noticeable “lift” in both their upper cheeks and the outward corners of their eyes, as if those parts of the face are also smiling alongside the mouth. A fake smile is very much concentrated on moving the mouth upward with little to no change in the upper half of the face. @vvanedwards This Is How You Know A Smile Is Real! “If you can’t see a real smile on the top half of the face, it’s not a real smile,” said Van Edwards.Van Edwards then notes that if you spot a fake smile it could be an opportunity to “dig a little deeper.”How should you respond to a fake smile?There are many reasons someone might fake a smile. While the fake is meant for deception, it’s not necessarily for malicious reasons. Maybe they want to hide their disappointment that you got the promotion and they didn’t. Maybe they don’t like the food you brought to the potluck, but they like you and want to spare your feelings. Maybe they just had a terrible day but don’t want to ruin the mood. Maybe it has nothing to do with you at all. Even with all that considered there are some folks who can still convincingly fake a smile anyway. @2000sindie the killers (2004) “The challenge with fake smiles is the cause can be from a variety of things,” facial analysis expert Brian Galke told Upworthy. “Some people were raised in environments where they were told to have a smile on their face no matter what was going on.”So, how should you respond to a fake smile? There’s no true one and done answer. Everything depends on the situation and how well you know the fake smiler. If you are good friends with them, you may want to privately ask them if there's something wrong. If there is or was, you have an opportunity to turn that fake smile into a real one. That’s not always necessary or recommended though. @janny.shiguro “If you do feel that someone is outright faking their smile for protection and it's not a sales situation, then it's okay to mention the observation,” said Galke. “Make it non-judgmental by saying things like ‘It seems like _____’ and stay away from ‘why’ questions which sound judgmental. The key is to simply mention the observation to crack the door open in case they are ready to talk.”A fake smile usually isn’t an intentional insult or harmful deception in most cases. It could be best to just take the fake smile as you would a regular one even if you clock it. After all, while they’re hiding something, it’s usually in the name of being polite, defusing potential tension, and overall wanting you to like them.if you receive a fake smile, remember it has nothing at all to do with you and everything to do with them and their mood. There have been studies, articles, and reports that say that the act of smiling, even if it’s fake, can help a person boost their mood over time. In short, the phrase “fake it ‘til you make it” applies to smiling. So, if a person throws a fake smile in your direction, it could be in the hope for it to turn into a real one the next time you see them. @mydaily.krystal Sometimes when feeling low, I like to smile to help me boost my mood

There are seemingly endless generational differences in parenting between Millennials and their Baby Boomer parents. As grandparents, many Boomers have been described by Millennials as absent. They've also been labeled with "gramnesia," a blend of "grandparent" and "amnesia," referring to how many seem to forget what raising kids was really like.One Millennial mom shared a similar take on Reddit, explaining that her Boomer parents made it seem like raising babies was far less taxing for them than it is for modern-day parents.She wrote, "Everyone I've talked to, their parents make it seem like 'back in the day' all babies just slept. They put them in their cribs and they napped and slept and had no problems and it was just rainbows and sunshine. No contact naps, no sleep training etc. Are they misremembering? Was it just easier??"Fellow Millennial parents offered experiences and insight with their Boomer parents that felt validating. An exhausted mom and her baby.Photo credit: CanvaMillennials share receipts on Boomer parentingMany Millennials agree that the Boomer perspective on raising kids is skewed:"I know one boomer who put earplugs in and ignored her baby all night. She'll tell you baby slept through the night. The grandma who lived in the house with them and actually got up for the crying baby might tell you a different story." - TraditionalManager82"My mom was like 'I thought you were sleeping through the night but your 13 year old brother was actually getting up to take care of you'." - Stepharoni523"My mom gave us dimetapp

We all know the feeling: You walk through the front door after a long day, or slam your laptop shut, and the weight of the world slides off your shoulders. Your overworked brain, desperate to relax, entices you to collapse onto the couch and scroll through your phone until it's time to sleep.But is this the best way to recharge? By doing nothing? Experts say no. @xparmesanprincessx Spending this cozy Sunday planning my curriculum for 2026

Technically speaking, Duke University professor Aaron Dinin teaches entrepreneurship. But more accurately, he teaches young people to have a healthier relationship with failure, and he does this through various oddball challenges—everything from solving a 1000-piece puzzle in six minutes to trying to beat a nine-year-old at selling cookies.In one recent video, Dinin's students were tasked with answering as many obscure questions as possible using nothing but the books in their library. Yes, just like back in the day.After tossing their phones into a box, students were given a printed-out catalog of books to help them find the answers to questions like "When was Kentucky founded?" and "What makes Pickett's Charge important?"Many Gen Zers admitted this was the first time they had ever looked something like this up in a book. Dinin quipped that, to them, the whole experience must have felt like "time travel." He also clearly enjoyed watching students come up exhausted, saying, "This is what research used to look like. This is why my PhD was so hard!"And yet, the students managed. One even learned how to use an index, aka an "underrated piece of technology."Watch: See on Instagram As Dinin pointed out, anyone these days, not just Gen Zers, would almost certainly just Google this kind of information. And because of that, "being able to answer questions isn't nearly as valuable in the modern world as knowing which questions are worth chasing in the first place," which is perhaps an even bigger takeaway for students than learning how to use a library.Down in the comments, parents and fellow teachers alike couldn't wait to try the exercise out on their own kiddos."This is awesome and I will be showing this to my 11 year old who was beside himself when I took away his iPad and gave him a physical dictionary to double check his ELA homework." A boy drawing on an iPad. Photo credit: Canva"This is brilliant! I need to do this with my middle schoolers!""What a GREAT experience! It's like Escape Room, library edition!"Others were simply grateful for the trip down memory lane."Thank you for sharing this! I remember to actually looking for info for any research paper in like an encyclopedia Britannica