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The Atlantic reports that though success isn’t a conventional medical addiction, it has addictive properties for many people. Praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is connected to addictive behaviors. Success addiction is known to have a negative effect on human relationships. People choose to travel for business on anniversaries, and they miss their children’s important milestones while working long hours. Some even decide to focus on their careers and forgo marriage.

Many scholars, such as the psychologist Barbara Killinger, have found that people are willing to overwork to keep getting "hits" of success at the expense of their well-being. They shelve a much-needed rest from work and time with family and friends until after a project, or a promotion, but that day never arrives.

Bessie Williamson (1910-1982) was a woman in a man's industry. She ran a whisky distillery in Scotland at a time when women weren't managers in any business, let alone the whisky business. But Williamson worked her way up from a typist to the owner and CEO of the Laphroaig [lah-FROYG] distillery, becoming a well-respected boss and highly successful manager. She brought Laphroaig distillery through difficult times during WWII and began a far-reaching modernization process before retiring.

Williamson was known in the business as the "Islay Labour Exchange" because she found a job for almost everyone who needed one. And if workers didn't have a pension plan, she kept them on well past the usual age of retirement. Her employees were always first in her mind, even in the hard times.

Crowdfunding campaigns have been getting more and more popular in recent years. 

They can be great for small groups of people starting a new business, or smaller companies raising money for new products.

A popular crowdfunding website is Kickstarter. You can find all kinds of interesting products and services—who knows, maybe you could discover the next big thing! If you'd like to find something more unusual, I recommend the “Food & Craft” section.

Start by finding a featured product on Kickstarter's homepage.

Next, try to "sell" this product/service to your teacher. What are the positive selling points of this product/service? What's attractive about it?

The standard measure of economic performance, the gross domestic product (GDP), measures the value of goods and services produced within a country over a given period. However, the GDP doesn’t measure social factors like income inequality, domestic violence, drug addiction, or the impact of today’s actions on future generations. It also ignores sustainability and environmental destruction. It’s a very short-term view of market factors without respect to what’s happening on the social and environmental levels. As a result, the GDP gave us no warning of the impending global financial crisis in 2008.

But we continued to base our economic predictions on that metric. And it began to show economies recovering and growing—so everything’s going well again, right? But what if we factor in social and environmental realities?

Atlas Obscura, a publication about travel and culture, notes that a pub has always been more than just a place that sells beer for the British. The pub has brought communities together for centuries, and the tavern tradition of spending the evening with your peers continues to this day. Few know, however, that pubs became popular following the plague known as the Black Death of the 14th century.

The Black Death killed nearly half of England's population after it reached the British Isles in 1348. By the 1370s, it had caused a critical labor shortage. Eventually, this proved a boon for the peasantry of England, who could demand higher wages for their work and achieve higher standards of living. As a result, households selling or giving away leftover ale were replaced by more commercialized, permanent establishments set up by the best brewers and offering better food.

English is a modern lingua franca. It is a leading language in so many areas: from global affairs and science to entertainment. One of the reasons for that lies in the colonial history of the British Crown in the 17th century, when the British Empire became the biggest empire in history. With colonialism, trade relations boomed, following the progress in science, industrial manufacturing and literature. However, there were many other competing languages, such as French, Spanish and German. To know more about how English won the competition against other languages to become a global communication tool, watch this short part of the video, "Why Did English Become the International Language?" 

The UK agreement

A new free trade agreement with the UK allows New Zealand to remove export tariffs during the next 15 years. This deal promises a GDP boost of up to $1 billion.

On top of the economic elements, the agreement includes conditions for the environment, tackling climate change and creating equity in economic advancement. According to New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, it is the country’s “first bilateral trade agreement to include a specific article on climate change”. 

Another unique point of that agreement is a separate Māori trade chapter featuring the acknowledgement of the relationships between the Māori people and the British, who colonised the country. In addition, the chapter included the protection of Ka Mate haka, in which the UK promises to protect the famous ceremonial dance. 

According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), it is possible to be a business leader and still have a personal life with careful planning, but most people wouldn’t know this if they look at some of the most successful CEOs out there. Tesla CEO Elon Musk rarely sleeps or sees his kids and had a public meltdown, and Apple’s Tim Cook is on email before the sun rises.

These intense work styles are often celebrated as the only way to get to the top and be a super-productive leader. Surveys show that managers and executives describe the ideal worker as someone with no personal life or caregiving responsibilities.

Watch this video clip of fantasy writer Ursula LeGuin's acceptance speech of the 2014 U.S. National Book Award. Be prepared to summarize and discuss the points she makes about writers and the contemporary world.