5 Lessons from Humans of New York Creator Brandon Stanton

I recently had the honor of being in the audience to hear Brandon Stanton, creator of Humans of New York, speak to a sold out crowd at the University of Florida. It totally blew me away and I am not exaggerating when I say it will be a highlight of 2015 for me.

Before I share my experience of the talk, are you familiar with Humans of New York? Considering the site has 16.4 million Facebook followers and over 4 million Instagram followers there is a good chance you have. However, if you are not familiar with the site or the creator, Brandon Stanton, consider it your lucky day as I introduce you to THE best thing on the Internet. Humans of New York is Brandon’s project where he photographs people on the streets of New York City and interviews them at the same time. He posts a portrait of the person with the most interesting/moving/funny comment from the interview. And that’s pretty much how simple it is. But like most simple things done well, the effect is extremely impactful. The magic is not in the photograph, it is in what he pulls out of his subjects – complete strangers on the street.

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Imagine if you knew the stories behind the people you just walk by every day? In the 5 years since Humans of New York began, he has taken over 12,000 portraits. Recently, he has gone on special assignments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently to Jordan to photograph & interview Syrian refugees. In my opinion, his work is doing more to break down the fear and prejudices in our culture than any celebrity or political figure. He is moving people’s hearts through the simplicity of a photograph and a few words. To put it lightly, I am in complete awe and admiration of the work he is doing. There are countless of examples of times when he has shared someone’s heartbreaking story, which in turn moves his mass of followers to help the stranger they have never met.

With all of that being said, when my neighbor and friend Julie told me Brandon Stanton was coming to our neck of the woods to speak at University of Florida, I knew I wanted to go. He was invited by Accent Speaker’s Bureau, the university’s speakers bureau. The only problem with that is that students get first dibs on the tickets. Non-students get whatever is left. Fortunately, we missed the Facebook post that said the event was sold out, so we drove up that night with expectations to get in. We found out that there were no spots available unless students turned in unused tickets. Miraculously, two students turned in unused tickets, and we were in! I’m going to breeze over the fact that we felt like old geezers since were double the age of the rest of the people there and just tell you how elated we were that we got in!

Humans of New York creator Brandon Stanton speaking at the University of Florida

Brandon Stanton explaining the evolution of the site.

Brandon knew that he was speaking to college students and did a phenomenal job of sharing his story, the impetus behind Humans of New York and most importantly, the lessons the students listening could glean from his experience. And although we were not college students, Julie and I also learned quite a bit as well. Here are a few of the takeaways:

Follow the path of your curiosity and passion. Brandon started out his story sharing how he loved interviewing and talking to people in high school. He was good at it and enjoyed it. But when it was time to go to college, he let that go by the wayside and tried to follow the expected path (minus the joy). It led him him to an uninspired college experience, and then a job as a bonds trader that paid well but he hated. He grasped onto the ego boost he’d get when people would ask what he did but he admits he was stuck in a job he hated because of the outside’s world view that it was a “good” job.

Don’t let the fact that a career pays well cloud your judgement on whether it is right for you. Two years into his bonds trader job in Chicago, he got fired. It was at that moment of rock bottom that he decided he had nothing to lose. He would take the little money he had and use it to give himself a few months in New York City to take photographs, something that he was excited about, but had no experience with. Everyone he knew thought he was crazy. At this point, he stopped caring about what “others” would think and followed his intuition to do what he felt called to do.

Practice your craft relentlessly. Once Brandon decided that he would head to New York, he would go out and take pictures ALL. DAY. LONG. He basically had no money, and was living in a space with just a mattress on the floor. He didn’t go out for drinks, to events or shows. He just took photos like it was his job. I loved that he emphasized how unglamorous and difficult his journey was because when you are looking from the outside it is easy to think success came quickly. He pointed out that he meets many people who call themselves  writers that don’t write, musicians that don’t make music and artists that don’t practice their craft daily. Whatever path you choose, to become great, you MUST put in the time.

Be ready to pivot when the time comes.  Brandon’s initial idea was to take create a website where he would post the portraits he took and plot them on a map. The goal was to get 10,000 New York portraits on a map of the city. On his path to doing that, he had a day where the portrait he was sharing was not as interesting as he would have liked. So he decided to include a snippet of what the woman had told him while he was taking her picture in the caption. That photo had the most comments and engagement of any other he had taken yet. It was a breakthrough moment for him. From that point on, he started adding captions to all his photos. And that is where Humans of New York took off to become what it is today. Brandon wanted to underscore the lesson that he could have never known how the vision would morph, but that when those pivotal moments came, it was important to recognize and embrace them.

Don’t obsess over having the perfect plan. Which brings us to the final and the one Brandon asserted the most. He pointed out how the Humans of New York we know today is nothing like the site he set out to create when he first moved to New York. He encouraged us in the audience to not waste time planning for the perfect career, the perfect business plan, the perfect idea. Just start! Start and you can make adjustments along the way. So many of us get stuck because we feel we are not perfectly ready. But the lesson learned from Brandon’s story is that the KEY is just getting started.

Julie and I in the audience waiting for Brandon to come out.

So thank you, Brandon. Thank you for the incredible and inspiring work you are doing. Thank you for sharing your message and your story in such a vulnerable way that we can learn from it. And thank you mostly for using the Internet to actually make us feel more connected to each other, instead of less.

If you are interesting in hearing the specifics of Brandon’s story, a great option would be to listen to this Chase Jarvis Live Podcast interview with him. I listened to it earlier this fall, and I am pretty sure it was the catalyst for me going from an avid admirer of Humans of New York to a mega fan of the creator behind it.

Are you familiar with Humans of New York? What do you think makes it so special?

Posted by Ale & filed under Learning. This post has 6 comments.