On the scale of awkward things you do with people you barely know, small talk is just below the missed high-five. 

But it doesn't have to be. 

With a little conversational cunning, it's easy to turn stultifying small talk into meaningful — or at least novel — conversation. All you have to do is "break the mirror." 

TED bloggers Chris Colin and Rob Baedeker say that small talk tends to stall out due to "mirroring," that unsatisfying symmetrical happening where, due to misguided attempts at politeness, we answer people's questions directly, repeat their observations back to them, or agree with whatever claim just came out of their mouths. 

The result is boring, awkward, and forgettable conversation — as illustrated by Tracy Jordan and Kenneth the Page on "30 Rock." 

While you may have had a conversation, you missed a connection. 

Breaking the mirror is a cure to that. 

Let's go over a few examples, care of TED.

The mirrored example: 

James: It's a beautiful day!
John: Yes, it is a beautiful day!

This is terrible. 

"By mirroring James' opinion and language, John has followed the social norm," Colin and Baedeker say, "but he's also paralyzed the discussion and missed a moment of fun."

Here's a much less terrible, non-mirrored convo:

James: It's a beautiful day!
John: They say that the weather was just like this when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. If that actually happened.

While strange, it's effective. Now James and John have something to talk about.

While you don't need to invoke American tragedies in order to have a fun conversation, the lesson holds: Instead of just saying back whatever is said to you, advance the line of thought in an unexpected fashion, potentially making friends in your wake. 

"Be provocative," Colin and Baedeker conclude. "Absurdity is underrated."

For further small talk tools, watch our video:

SEE ALSO: 14 Tactics For Reading People's Body Language

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Egg freezing has become such a popular procedure that according to a recent New York Post report, parties are now being thrown for it.

A startup known as EggBanxx recently invited young professional women in NYC to an informational party at New York City's NoMad hotel to discuss egg-freezing.

During the $45-a-ticket event called "Let's Chill," over 70 female attendees socialized and learned about the egg-freezing process from fertility professionals, The Post reported.

The party was thrown to drum up business for EggBanxx, which says it's trying to make the once-rare and pricey practice cheaper. EggBanxx prices for freezing and storing eggs for the first year range between $6,500 and $7,500 — about half the price it claims its competitors offer.

And it does seem to be a growing market for maternal women of a certain age. More women over 30 are choosing to have children outside of marriage, according to The Daily Beast, which also said that the birth rate for unmarried women aged 30-34 "substantially surpassed" those of a younger age for the first time in 2012.

No wonder that the response has been "overwhelming," Gina Bartasi, CEO of FertilityAuthority, the parent company of EggBanxx, told Business Insider. "Phones have been ringing off the hook. We know the interest is high."

Bartasi told us that EggBanxx will throw another party in New York in September, eventually rolling out across the country in cities like Boston, San Fransisco, and Los Angeles in the near future. She said the company is aiming to target women 25 to 38 years old, and would discourage women over the age of 38, as "fertility is very low" at that point.

Bartasi looks at egg freezing as a positive step for the modern, professional woman. "Before, you had your career and you might have ended up with infertility treatments and years of heartache and lots and lots of expense and IVF cycles," she told us. Now, egg freezing is "an insurance policy. It's about having no regrets."

Of course, the cheaper 'no regrets' lifestyle EggBanxx offers is still pretty pricey. After the initial cost of $6,500 to $7,500, women pay an annual fee of $500 to $1,000 to keep storing their eggs. That means if a 25 year old decided to freeze her eggs until she was 40, she could have spent between $7,500 and $15,000, not including the original cost of freezing her eggs.

Chock it up to one more expense for leading the 'modern woman' lifestyle.

SEE ALSO: 13 Simple Cooking Tips That Anyone Can Use

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Los Angeles' Sunset Strip is an odd place. Not many other places on Earth let you see wildly wealthy people and homeless people on the same street, along with unkempt free-spirited folks, well-groomed hip young people, street performers, and a million tourists taking pictures of it all.

Turns out, in the late 70s and early 80s it was pretty much the same.

In 1979, at the age of 17, photographer Matt Sweeney packed up his things and moved to Los Angeles to make it as a filmmaker. It didn't quite happen right away (or at all, as it would turn out), so Matt spent a lot of time on the streets of LA, photographing the people and things he saw. 

He fell in love with photography, and the rest is history.

Recently, Sweeney began posting these old Kodachrome photos on his website. Spanning from 1979 to 1983, the photos give a great sense of how the Strip was at this point in time. Here are our favorites. 

Sweeney says he spent much of his time in LA walking, driving his moped, or riding the bus.He met a lot of unusual, intriguing characters on the Strip. Sweeney says this women obliged his request to pose for a picture, saying, "Of course, dear. We're all vain."Some people, of course, didn't like to get their pictures taken.For a street photographer, the Strip is full moments and bits of visual interest.Weird stuff was everywhere, like this nature diorama seen in the back of car on the Boulevard.Back then, the Hollywood Strip was a cool place to go for young people. Here, we see a Samurai and a cigarette girl, dressed up for Halloween, in front of a Pussy Cat Theater, a chain of pornography cinemas that is no longer in existence.Here, Sweeney's young friends climb around a parking structure and show off for a passing bus full of tourists.Of course, there were older people on the Sunset Strip, too.The Frolic Room, which opened its doors in 1934, is still in business today. It was originally connected to the Panteges Theater, located next door.People came from all around to shop at the Strip. Here, a big shoe store on Hollywood Boulevard is having a sale. The Broadway Hollywood was once a fine department store. Today, it's upscale residential lofts. The Plaza Hotel is still open, though.The famous Capitol Records building was finished in 1956 and still stands today. It's only a coincidence that it resembles a stack of records.Hairstyles were a little different back then.A women stands on a corner. Over his time photographing the Strip, Sweeney grew an affinity for photographing women in bright red.You can still see any number of interesting odd people, like this cowboy statue street performer, outside of Mann's Chinese Theater, seen here.A family poses for a picture in front of the theater, by one of the almost 200 hand prints, footprints, and signatures created by celebrities.Frederick's of Hollywood, which sells women's lingerie, still exists today as well. We're not sure this lady wants anything to do with it, though.This photo booth was just down the street from Frederick's. Remember photo booths?A scene at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. Check out how it looks today.

SEE ALSO: What It Was Like To Vacation In Hawaii In 1973

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Nothing says "I'm not an adult yet" like a fridge that contains nothing but Tabasco, packets of soy sauce, and a carton of milk (probably spoiled, let's be real).

But cooking is hard — it's time-consuming and not every young man has been taught how to do it right, let alone set up a proper kitchen with necessary ingredients and tools for making a quick meal.

Business Insider reached out to Jared Spafford, director of culinary operations at Snow Day, a maple-syrup-themed food truck launched by not-for-profit Drive Change. Drive Change employs previously incarcerated people to better acclimate them to the outside.

They also learn how to cook with limited resources.

Spafford sent Business Insider a list of items — from tools to spices — that should go inside the modern gentleman's kitchen.

If you build it, it will come, and it will be delicious.

Food processor

Food processors are a basic necessity in every kitchen. They can chop up vegetables, grind nuts, and purée potatoes. If you need to shred something, just stick it into this contraption.

Cheaper ones retail for between $24.99 and $39.99; fancier models range from $99.00 to $164.00.

Blender

Blenders require little introduction — every man's got to make a margarita from time to time. They're also useful for making milkshakes and smoothies.

Most blenders range from $14.85 to $38.25, although if you're a heavy-duty blender user you might want to consider the Ninja Professional Blender at $128.95.

Spice grinder

The name is pretty self-explanatory: a spice grinder grinds spices. If you grind them yourself, your food will be significantly more flavorful.

Most spice grinders are about $16.99 and double as coffee-bean grinders. If you're not going to be an huge user, maybe check out the cheaper $8.18 alternative.

You can get one here.

In one of the biggest divorce cases in history, Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm could have to split his $17 billion fortune with his estranged wife, Sue Ann Hamm, according to Reuters. 

The divorce trial of the founder of Continental Resources, one of the biggest petroleum liquids producer in the United States, is under a tight lockdown (in order to protect shareholders), but economic analysis has shown that Hamm would have acquired $17.6 billion during his 26 year marriage to Sue Ann.

Hamm's enormous wealth comes from his 68% stake in his 'Oil Champion' company, resulting in him potentially being the biggest owner of oil in America.

Reuters reported that if Hamm ends up with a large divorce settlement, he would have to finance it by selling Continental shares and his control in the company could dissolve.

For a divorce settlement under Oklahoma law, the question comes down to how the fortune during the marriage was obtained. In other words, were there "active efforts" by either spouse to obtain the wealth — or did it just happen?

Sue Ann Hamm's legal team would argue that Continental's growth resulted from the "active leadership and astute decision-making" of her estranged husband. While Harold's attorneys will try to prove that its growth resulted from "factors beyond his control."

Hamm founded Continental in 1967, and married Sue Ann over two decades later in 1988. She was a former attorney at the company. They filed for divorce in February of 2014. 

SEE ALSO: Private Equity Billionaire Leon Black Is About To Buy This $50 Million Townhouse On The Upper East Side

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Taco Bell is launching a new dollar menu on Aug. 18. 

The "Dollar Cravings" menu items will have 11 items, the company said in a news release. Taco Bell has been testing a similar menu for about a year. 

The $1 items include a "shredded chicken mini quesadilla, beefy Fritos burrito, beefy mini quesadilla, spicy tostada, cheesy bean & rice Burrito, cheesy roll up, triple layer nachos, spicy potato soft taco, Cinnabon Delights, Cinnamon twists, and caramel apple empanadas," the company said.

Here are photos of every item on the menu:

1. Cheesy bean-and-rice burrito.

2. Cheesy roll-up.

3. Shredded-chicken mini quesadilla.

4. Spicy potato soft taco.

5. Spicy tostada.

6. Beefy Fritos burrito.

7. Beefy mini quesadilla.

8. Triple-layer nachos.

9. Cinnabon Delights.

10. Cinnamon twists.

11. Caramel-apple empanadas.

SEE ALSO: Why Chipotle's Growth Could Come To A Screeching Halt

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One positive thing to come from Robin Williams' unexpected death is that people are actually talking about mental health. 

While "mental health days" have been part of the lexicon in companies for awhile, that doesn't mean they're the norm among employees. Taking a day off to take care of yourself shouldn't be seen as an emergency option.

"A crisis response may provide relief, but it's not really prevention," says Lloyd Sederer, medical director of the New York State Office of Mental Health. "It's about learning your own self-management, an ongoing steady attention to a healthy life."

How do you know if you need one? 

Workplace therapist Brandon M. Smith says to look for these signs:  

1. You're suddenly not sleeping well or have developed insomnia.

2. You can't shake last week's stress. In other words, your level of stress is greater than your current stressors.

3. You're snippy with your spouse, your kids, or your coworkers.

4. You feel a general sense of apathy and don't care about your work.

Even if you're muscling through your schedule, lots of folks get cold feet when it comes to taking that needed three-day weekend.

Having worked with a range of Fortune 500 leaders, executive coach Margaret H. Greenberg says there are several reasons people — especially managers — don't take mental health days.

They are: 

Feeling anxious about stepping away. "People don't take mental health days because of the anxiety it produces," she says. "They think they can't stay on top of things, that they'll miss out on things. I had an executive tell me, 'I don't want to take vacation because I'll come back and feel worse.'" 

Thinking that you don't "need" any time off. Say you set your own hours — like a freelance writer, independent consultant, or executive coach. That flexibility (and blurred boundaries) may make you feel like you don't need to take a break — until you're watching a movie with your family and sending email the whole time. The organizational psychology literature calls the separating of work and non-work segmentation, and it's necessary for preventing burnout. 

Keeping up with the perfectionism. Greenberg can spot a perfectionist; she says she's a "recovering" one herself. If you won't step away from the desk because you think things aren't going to get done perfectly while you're gone — which will be the case — then you might a perfectionist, too. But let's recall sociologist Brené Brown's advice: People don't succeed because of their perfectionism, but despite it. 

Worrying it'll set your career back. "You might think that (taking a break) is a career derailer," Greenberg says, that there are people waiting in line behind you who won't take that Friday off. "What's a bigger career derailer?" she asks. "When you're no longer creative or innovative because you're so burned out."

Even organizations with extremely long hours are learning how to make recovery from work a part of their culture.

The most vivid example might be Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow's intervention with the Boston Consulting Group, where the elite consultancy figured out a way to give team members predictable time off, an account of which she detailed in her book "Sleeping With Your Smartphone." The takeaway: You can make it OK to take time off — if you put the structures in place.  

The easiest thing is to just let your colleagues know in advance. If you put your three-day weekend on the calendar weeks ahead of time, everyone can schedule around it. That way it's not a mental health crisis; it's maintenance. 

SEE ALSO: 3 Reasons Europeans Are Way Better At Vacation Than Americans

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The unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, is posing some new questions about law enforcement and the militarization of the police.

Three teenagers from Georgia have decided to take the issue into their own hands.

Caleb Christian, 14, and his two sisters — Ima, 16, and Asha, 15 — are about to roll out an app called "Five-O," which will let users document police abuse and join together as a community to problem-solve.

"We’ve been hearing about the negative instances in the news, for instance most recently the Michael Brown case, and we always talk about these issues with our parents," Ima Christian told Business Insider. "They always try to reinforce that we should focus on solutions. It's important to talk about the issues, but they try to make us focus on finding solutions. That made us think why don't we create an app to help us solve this problem."

Five-O lets users submit the details of any incident of police abuse and rate the specific officer. The app also has community boards for different counties so that users can communicate and plan responses to any difficulties with local police.

The idea is to collect data that users can then bring to community activists, the media, and other forms of law enforcement. That way, it's not just "he said, she said," Caleb said.

And they're hoping to illuminate both the negative and the positive interactions users have with police officers. They want the good examples to serve as motivation for officers to do better.

But don't be fooled by these teenagers' young age. They are determined to make a difference.

"You’re never too young to learn, and you're never too young to make a difference," Caleb said.

The Christian siblings all have a strong background in coding, which made it possible for them to create Five-O along with two other apps (Coily and Froshly), all under their app development company called Pinetart Inc. Caleb, Ima, and Asha all participated in MIT's k12 Scratch and App Inventor program, and with their parents' encouragement (both have backgrounds in technology), continued to learn JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and Java.

Five-O will be available on August 18 for both iOS and Android devices.

Here's the video preview for Five-O:

(h/t For Harriet)

SEE ALSO: Teenage Girls Are Turning Refrigerators Into Electric Cars For A Chicago Competition

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America is known for its Californian wines, but it turns out that the best state to be a wine drinker is none other than New Hampshire.

According to new data from the American Wine Consumer Coalition’s 2013 report card (first spotted by Washington Post), New Hampshire tied with six other top-scoring states for the #1 spot, including California, District of Columbia, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

New Hampshire in particular was touted as the best in the nation by the report due to its lenient laws and access to wine. The state allows winery-to-consumer shipping, retailer-to-consumer shipping, Sunday sales of wine, grocery stores wine sales, and BYO/Corkage in restaurants.

The government doesn’t control wine sales either in New Hampshire, which means there is free market competition resulting in lower prices.

The states that scored the lowest on the list were mainly in the South and Midwest. Alabama, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Utah all received F grades and were the least friendly for wine drinkers due to their numerous restrictions and lack of access.

New York received a D+, mainly because it both prohibits wine in grocery stores, and doesn’t let consumers ship their wine from wine retailers.

The report graded the fifty states and the District of Columbia based on consumer access issues. States received points for leniency in wine-availability laws, and earned more points for more important issues, such as allowing direct to consumer shipments of wine to consumers by wineries than by allowing wine sales in grocery stores. You can read more about the methodology here.

Below is a map of all 50 states' grades.

And here's the full list of every states' grade. You can check out the full wine report here.

SEE ALSO: 10 Wine Tours You Can Take On A Budget

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A theory about why symmetrical faces attract has just fallen by the wayside.

SYMMETRY has long been associated with perfection in both art and nature. In particular, research conducted over the past two decades has shown that symmetry is sexy. People prefer potential lovers to have symmetrical faces--the more so they are, the better.

This observation is now well established. Indeed, some biologists would go further and say that symmetry between other bodily features, such as hands, is also preferred. What remains unknown is why.

The usual assumption is that bodily symmetry is a proxy for good health. Symmetry suggests orderly development in the womb and during childhood, and thus, the theory has it, captures a range of desirable things from good genes to infection-resistance.

The evidence for this, though, is equivocal. And a study just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, by Nicholas Pound of Brunel University, in London, and his colleagues suggests that in one particular at least, it is wrong.

No bias for bias

Dr Pound looked at the relationship between facial asymmetry and illness in more than 4,700 15-year-olds. He drew on data collected as part of a project called the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). This has accumulated detailed records of the childhood health of participants by sending questionnaires to those children's parents once a year.

In addition, 2,506 of the girls involved and 2,226 of the boys agreed, for a previous study conducted when they were 15 (and carried out by one of Dr Pound's co-authors, Arshed Toma), to have their faces scanned to create three-dimensional images. Dr Pound used these images to assess participants' facial asymmetry, and then looked for correlations with rates of childhood illness, as recorded in the questionnaires.

There were none. He examined the number of years in which each child had been reported to have suffered any illness at all; the rate, each year, of symptoms such as diarrhoea, vomiting and coughing; and also a child's total infection load, defined as the number of illnesses from a list of 16 (including measles, chicken pox, mumps, influenza and glandular fever) from which he or she had ever suffered.

In each case, facial asymmetry was uncorrelated. As far as susceptibility to infection is concerned, then, asymmetry is a useless indicator.

Dr Pound and his colleagues did, though, turn up some evidence for a second hypothesis: that symmetry is correlated with intelligence. They found an inverse relation between a child's facial asymmetry at 15 and the results of an IQ test given to ALSPAC's participants when they were eight.

The effect was slight--less than 1% of total observed variation in those participants' IQs. But previous studies of facial asymmetry, with smaller sample sizes, have suggested a similar effect.

Sceptics often ascribe these earlier results to publication bias (the tendency of both researchers and journal editors to prefer to publish studies that show correlations, rather than ones that do not). But Dr Pound's research, whose main conclusion is just such an absence of correlation, can scarcely be accused of suffering from that.

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Robin Williams reportedly suffered from severe depression, addiction, and alcoholism before he killed himself at his California home Monday.

We may never know exactly when and how Williams arrived at the decision to commit suicide, but one of the saddest realities about suicide is that it often results from impulsive decisions that might have never occurred again if the person had survived or backed out. 

Anywhere from one-third to 80% of all suicide attempts are impulsive acts, according to The New England Journal of Medicine. 24% of those who made near-lethal suicide attempts decided to kill themselves less than five minutes before the attempt, and 70% made the decision within an hour of the attempt.

Suicidal urges are sometimes caused by immediate stressors, such as a break-up or job loss, that go away with the passage of time. 90% of people who survive suicide attempts, including the most lethal types like shooting one's self in the head, don't end up killing themselves later. That statistic reflects the "temporary nature and fleeting sway of many suicidal crises," reports The New England Journal of Medicine.

A 1978 study of 515 people who were prevented from attempting suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge between 1937 and 1971 found after more than 26 years 94% were still alive or had died of natural causes. 

Many rare survivors of Golden Gate Bridge suicide attempts recall regretting their impulsive decisions instantly — even as they were falling. A couple survivors who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge told their stories to The New Yorker back in 2003, like then-18-year-old Kevin Hines who jumped in 2000 after pacing on the bridge for a half hour while passersby ignored him.

He finally jumped based on the thought that "nobody cares." 

"My first thought was, 'What the hell did I just do? I don't want to die,'" Hines told The New Yorker.

Then-28-year-old Ken Baldwin, like Hines, chose to hurdle over the bridge's railing rather than stand on it first because he didn't want to lose his courage to jump. Although he was severely depressed on that day in 1985, he changed his mind the moment after his leap. "I instantly realized that everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable — except for having just jumped," he said.

That indecisiveness is explained by suicidologist Edwin S. Shneidman, according to a review of his works by Antoon Leenaars:

The prototypical psychological picture of a person on the brink of suicide is one who wants to and does not want to. He makes plans for self-destruction and at the same time entertains fantasies of rescue and intervention. It is possible — indeed probably prototypical — for a suicidal individual to cut his throat and to cry for help at the same time.

The period where the chance of lethal suicide is at its highest and most dangerous is relatively short, typically just hours or days rather than months, according to Shneidman.

Of course, not all suicides are impulsive, as some are the result of extensive planning and conviction. Impulsive suicide involving decisions made in as little as five minutes is one of two types generally seen among patients suffering from depression, according to Dr. Charles Nemeroff.

The other type involves "the sort of classic notion that, I've been hopeless and helpless for so long. I'm hopeless that I'll ever be better, and I'm helpless to do anything about it," Nemeroff said. That type often includes planning, notes, and goodbyes. 

SEE ALSO: Here's One Way Of Understanding Why Some People Kill Themselves

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For most students, the college experience is not limited to their time in the classroom. Much of what a school has to offer can be found on its campus — from great libraries to standout career services to, simply, beautiful surroundings.

We looked at 11 campus-related categories from The Princeton Review's 2015 college rankings to determine which colleges offer the best campus experiences.

Click here to read our complete methodology.

There was no discernible connection between the colleges that came out on top, as they represented everything from Ivy League universities to small liberal arts colleges to technical schools. Perhaps more telling of the list's diversity is that each one of our top five schools came from a different area of the country.

Whereas last year's ranking included half of the Ivy League, this year only two members cracked the top 20. Several schools made the list for the first time, and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, ranked no. 6 last year, earned this year's top spot. Although Olin College didn't rank no. 1 in any individual category, its high placement in several categories — including Best Quality of Life, Best Career Services, and Best Dorms — earned it the outright top spot.

#20 Northeastern University

Boston, Massachusetts

Northeastern took home the top spot in the career services ranking because of its unique co-op program. The program allows students to work in real world, professional settings during the semester for credit as an undergraduate. 

Located in the heart of downtown Boston, the school also fared well in the City Gets High Marks list.

Source: The Princeton Review. To learn more about our methodology, click here. 

#19 Vassar College

Poughkeepsie, New York

The liberal arts college has a student body under 2,500 total students, but still managed to rank in the top ten of Princeton Review's best college library ranking. 

Founded in 1861 as an all-women's college, Vassar began admitting male students in 1969. Today, approximately 56% of the student body is female.

 Source: The Princeton Review. To learn more about our methodology, click here.

#18 Tulane University

New Orleans, Louisiana

Located in the heart of New Orleans, Tulane ranked second in Princeton Review's City Gets High Marks ranking and sixth on the Quality of Life ranking.

The 110-acre campus sits along the oldest streetcar line in the country, and the historic St. Charles streetcar makes the four mile trip into the downtown and French quarters of New Orleans easily accessible. 

Source: The Princeton Review. To learn more about our methodology, click here.

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When the young journalist Napoleon Hill interviewed the industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1908, Carnegie liked Hill so much that he decided he would share all of the strategies that turned him from a penniless immigrant into the richest man in the world.

From that point forward, Hill dedicated his career to understanding the work ethics of highly successful people like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, collecting them into his own philosophy and then packaging it into articles, books, and lectures for regular people wanting to achieve more in life. His 1937 book "Think and Grow Rich" is one of the bestselling books of all time.

Before he began writing books, Hill ran two magazines with articles that provided the foundation for his most famous work. In the inaugural April 1921 issue of Napoleon Hill's Magazine, Hill wrote about "The Magic Ladder to Success," an essay based on a speech he gave on a tour of the U.S. and would later adapt into a full-length book in 1930. We found it in "Napoleon Hill's First Editions: From the Napoleon Hill Archives."

After spending 12 years analyzing "more than 12,000 men and women," both successful entrepreneurs and ordinary people, Hill determined 16 elements of exceptional leaders that anyone can practice:

1. They have a definite aim in life.

Hill likens having just a vague aim to succeed to being a ship without a rudder. "Bear in mind that both your definite aim and your plan for attaining it may be modified form time to time... The important thing for you to do now is to learn the significance of working always with a definite aim in view, and always with a definite plan," Hill writes.

2. They are self-confident.

To be capable of setting ambitious goals, you need to believe you can follow the plans to achieve them. And when you believe in yourself, others tend to believe in you as well.

3. They show initiative.

The only way to rise up the corporate hierarchy or to develop your own business is to to look for other things to accomplish once you've fulfilled your regular duties.

4. They are imaginative.

A lack of the driving force of initiative and the creative power of imagination is "the main reason why 95% of the adult people of the world have no definite aim in life, which, in turn, is also the reason why this same 95% constitute the followers in life," Hill says.

5. They are active.

You may have earned multiple degrees from elite universities and have read history's most important books, but none of it means anything if you don't turn knowledge into action.

6. They are enthusiastic.

Do what you love, Hill says, or else you will lack the energy to become truly successful.

7. They practice self-control.

Hill says that he did not start to become successful until he learned that he was working against himself whenever he gave into anger or arrogance. "No person ever became a great leader of others until he first learned to lead himself, through self-control," he writes.

8. They go beyond what's required of them.

The most successful people outperform their competition, and when they make it to the top, they compete with themselves.

9. They are incredibly likable.

When you are charismatic and foster relationships with others, you build a network of people who are willing to help you without your asking.

10. They know how to separate truth from bias.

Because their actions have ramifications for other people, leaders understand that they cannot take what they hear or read at face value, and learn how to pluck truth from others' worldviews.

11. They are focused.

Successful people are able to concentrate their energy and skills toward specific goals without becoming distracted by irrelevant issues.

12. They are persistent.

Those who are able to achieve success are not stopped by the inevitable nonstop challenges and setbacks that are in their path to attaining their goals.

13. They are resilient.

"When you begin to realize that failure is a necessary part of one's education, you will no longer look upon it with fear, and lo! the first thing you know, there will be no more failures!" Hill writes. "No person ever arose from the knockout blow of defeat without being a stronger and wiser human being in one respect or another."

14. They are sympathetic.

In "Think and Grow Rich," Hill writes that it's not a coincidence that history is filled with tyrants and dictators being overthrown. The most successful leaders work in harmony with their team, not in dominion over them.

15. They work hard.

Hill says that this sounds simple enough, but it's important to remember that even if you achieve your greatest goal, you need to continue pushing yourself or risk losing everything you worked for.

16. They are empathetic.

Hill's favorite philosophical maxim is The Golden Rule, which states, "Treat others the way you would like to be treated." He uses it as the final rung of the ladder to true success. Hill writes:

The Golden Rule acts as a barrier to all of man's tendencies toward the destructive use of power that comes from developing the other qualities outlined in this ladder. It is the thing that antidotes the harm man could do without knowledge and power; the thing that guides man to the intelligent, constructive use of those qualities he develops from the use of the rungs of this ladder.

SEE ALSO: 9 Subtle Things Leaders Do That Show They Have Integrity

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Three years ago, retired Army sergeant Theresa Hannigan lost the use of her legs as a result of her time in the service. Seven years ago, Matthew Tilford suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist below. 

Today, both Theresa and Matthew are walking again thanks to the game-changing technology developed by ReWalk Robotics and Ekso Bionics.

Both companies have developed bionic suits that give people with lower limb disabilities the ability to stand up and walk again. Theresa, who uses the ReWalk, tells us that walking with the bionic suit is "very effortless."

"I noticed it was doing all the work for me," says Ekso user Matthew Tilford. "It was just so natural where I could just stand there and all I had to do was lean left and right and shift my weight a little bit onto one foot or the other."

Produced by Will Wei and Graham Flanagan. Edited by Will Wei. Series editor: Sam Rega.

GAME CHANGERS: Check out more in this series.

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It's no secret that people love lists. They're organized, require minimal effort to read, and can make complicated information easy to digest. 

Lists appeal to our innate tendency to categorize information, as well as help us feel less stressed, according to The New Yorker. Seeing information as a list makes you feel less overwhelmed by a task so it's easier to complete, which in turn makes you happier, Maria Konnikova writes.

Here are 22 list ideas to get you started: 

1. Recipes you want to try: Pull this out the next time you're stuck on what to make for dinner for instant inspiration.

2. Movies you want to see: You'll never have to sit through the "I don't care, what to do you want to watch?" scenario again.

3. Books you want to read: Next time you're reaching for another predictable beach read, look up that acclaimed novel-of-the-year, Oprah-recommended one instead. 

4. TV shows you want to watch: You'll be prepared for when you binge-watch your way through the newest season of "Scandal" and need a new addiction now. 

5. Restaurants you want to try: Keep a running list of all the places you want to try and you'll never be left without a suggestion when deciding where to eat tonight. Bonus points if you organize it by type of cuisine. 

6. Places to see: Maybe you've always wanted to visit the Great Wall of China, or even just the Statue of Liberty. Once you have a list, you'll be motivated to plan a trip.

7. Cities and countries you want to visit: Perhaps there's not a specific landmark you're dying to see, but you've always wanted to eat pasta in Italy or drink wine in France. Your list will remind of which trips you really need to take. 

8. Places to visit in your hometown: It's not as exciting as jet-setting across the globe, but you'll have plenty of things to do instead of vegging out on your couch next Saturday.

9. Passwords: Never forget if your Amazon password is SoccerStar12 or Socc3rStar again. 

10. Daily to-do list: Keep track of everything that's on your plate for the day. Plus, nothing feels better than crossing something off. 

11. Done list: Looking back at your daily accomplishments will help you learn how to be more productive — and provides an automatic ego boost. 

12. Bucket list: Everything you want to do before you die, from big things such as getting married or climbing Mt. Everest, down to small things such as baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie. 

13. Short-term goals: What do you want to accomplish this month?

14. Long-term goals: What do you hope to accomplish in the next five to 10 years?

15. DIY projects: Pinterest might be a great aspirational site, but this will help you keep track of the projects you actually want to complete, like organizing your old photos or painting the furniture in the guest room. 

16. Home improvement projects: Writing down everything that needs to be done will allow you to prioritize what you should tackle first. 

17. Grocery list: Knowing exactly what you need to buy — and sticking to it — will not only save you money, it will help you resist that box of cookies you know you don't need.

18. Important dates: Everyone loves when you remember their birthday or anniversary, so keep a list of your loved ones' significant dates and you'll never miss a chance to make their day.

19. Due dates: If you're even the slightest bit forgetful, writing down when you need to return that shirt by or when those frozen chicken breasts expire can save you stress in the long run.

20. Favorite quotes: You'll feel inspired all over again every time you read through your list. If you're still looking for a favorite, here are a few great quotes from Albert Einstein and Richard Branson to get you started. 

21. Things you're thankful for: Revisit this on your toughest days to remind yourself how great your life is. 

22. Things that make you happy: Whenever you're sad, you'll automatically give yourself several reasons to smile. 

Are there any other lists we're forgetting? Let us know in the comments. 

NOW WATCH: This Billionaire's Definition Of Success Will Surprise You

SEE ALSO: 5 Morning Rituals To Keep You Productive All Day

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