Career Advice: Why Happiness is Greater Than Power, According to William Powers

Why Happiness is Greater Than Power, According to William Powers

Interviewed by Hannah Uebele

William D. Powers is a Senior Fellow with the World Policy Institute, an Adjunct Professor with NYU’s Center for Global Affairs and award-winning author. He has worked for two decades in development aid and conservation in Latin America, Africa, and North America. From 2002 to 2004 he managed the community components of a project in the Bolivian Amazon that won a 2003 prize for environmental innovation from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has published five books, and his essays and commentaries on global issues have appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune and on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air. Powers has worked at the World Bank and holds international relations degrees from Brown and Georgetown.

Q: What did you major in?

A: International Relations and I concentrated in International Development and Environmental Studies. And so, it was blending in a cross-disciplinary way science around climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, ocean issues and other topics, and also with policy and [asking] how do you address this through international policies.

Q: Is there something special that a person must have to actually become successful in this field of work, is there a secret to your success?

A: The thing about the word ‘successful’ is, what does that really mean? For example, I know some friends who are US trained doctors who work in local clinics in Bolivia at a very low salary and they’re just completely happy and successful in the sense that they’re serving all of these people. But you never hear of them or they’re not publishing anything anywhere, so I just think it’s a very important point to make when you’re thinking about careers and all that, to get out of this US tunnel vision about ‘never stop improving’, ‘more is always better’. Ambition in some ways can be a positive thing, it gets you going, but after a certain point its negative because it forces you into sometimes lowering self-esteem due to constant comparisons…

Q: Can you tell me about a moment in your life that was crucial in getting you to be where you are in your career today?

A: One of the big turning points was in 2004 when I had submitted my first book manuscripts for publication. My AP high school English teacher read it and she said ‘Your manuscript is both good and original, but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.’ Not a very good comment, but I kind of bounced back from that, resubmitted it, and suddenly had many publishers competing to publish my book and I got a really good advance and so I was able to just kind of leave the full-time work world and just become like a writer in some ways.

For me that was the biggest thing because there’s a way to be totally free from having to work 50 weeks a year and having to be tethered to one employer. A certain amount of independence is huge and so at that point I became basically like a consultant. So I would consult on projects in West Africa or Latin America like [with] IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) or different groups, and then I was writing the rest of the time. So it was this great balance between writing books and articles and then also you know working.

What I would say for students …is if you can get like maybe the first ten years invested in really building your skill set and then you can kind of de-tether then it’s like everything changes, because since 2007 I haven’t worked a full time job at all. [At] World Policy Institute I have projects that I manage but I’m not like I have to go to the office every day and the same thing with NYU.

Q: Any advice you have for students?

A: Sometimes I wonder if a certain amount of de-professionalization is necessary, because we’re so highly trained to be on a certain track. Even if you’re not on a law or medical track, you’re still on some sort of a track.

A really good book that I would recommend to students is, Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin. It’s what really changed my whole approach to money and finances when I was about your age. I cut up my credit cards when I was 22 after college and I paid off all my loans after grad school.  I just had this approach of no debt. The other thing is paying yourself first, always pay the first 20% out of any money you get to a savings account or some sort of investment for yourself that builds up over time and then you have FI, financial independence. I’m not tied to any party line at all, like I’m not trying to get tenure, so it’s amazing the amount of freedom it gives you.