Brandon Stanton: The Hard Work of Dreams
The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show
Chase Jarvis
4.8 • 641 Ratings
🗓️ 23 November 2016
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2010, Brandon Stanton started taking pictures of people on the streets of New York City and posting them on a blog. After thousands of conversations and pictures, Brandon realized he wasn’t a photographer. Rather, he was a believer in connection, in community, and in basic human sweetness. In large part, Brandon’s work has been so influential because he removed himself from the equation and allowed the communities he documents to speak for themselves.
Brandon’s blog Humans of New York has accumulated over 20 million followers worldwide and turned into two NYT-bestselling books (Humans of New York and Humans of New York: Stories). It has also spawned an entire genre of similar blogs. Hundreds of aspiring documentarians have followed in HONY’s footsteps, telling the stories of countries, cities, and communities across the world. Brandon is also a dedicated philanthropist. He has spearheaded crowdfunded initiatives that have raised over $2 million for causes including victims of Hurricane Sandy and a scholarship fund for students in Brooklyn.
Of course Brandon and I discuss his backstory. How he came to start Humans of New York and how it’s evolved, but we also:
* go a layer deeper around his philosophy in sharing the work. He says “the more I disappear, the more influential HONY becomes.
* talk about growing and cultivating an audience
* following dreams is hard work
and much much more.
Enjoy!
This episode first appeared on CreativeLive as part of the 30 Days of Genius series. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.chasejarvis.com/podcast.
This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world's largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts -- Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody, how's it going? |
| 0:06.0 | I am Chase Jarvis, and I want to welcome you to another episode of the Chase Jarvis live show here on Creative Live. |
| 0:12.0 | This is where I sit down with the world's top creatives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders with the singular goal. |
| 0:19.0 | Actually, that's wrong, two goals, One goal to have fun. Goal two |
| 0:23.1 | to unpack a bunch of actionable and valuable insights that aim to help you live your dreams |
| 0:28.4 | and career in hobby and life. My guest today is Brandon Stanton, the creator of the |
| 0:36.7 | Humans of New York. You know that site. If you don't know that |
| 0:40.6 | site, well, you're one of the few people in my ecosystem who doesn't. I don't want to blame you |
| 0:45.2 | because they're, I don't know stuff all the time. You are either a person who's like, oh my God, |
| 0:48.9 | I love humans of New York. I go there every single day. Or if you're not that person, |
| 0:53.7 | you need to become that person. |
| 0:55.5 | That's how good it is. In short, this is a cross-section of the human condition in New York. |
| 1:02.8 | And it's actually, spoiler alert. He goes beyond New York. He goes all over the world and studies |
| 1:08.0 | some refugees and whatnot. But his study is a very simple process. |
| 1:11.5 | He photographs them and then asks them what their biggest stories are, their biggest challenges, |
| 1:16.4 | these moments in their life. And people, it's just, it's extraordinary. We are all in this together. |
| 1:22.6 | And no one shares that concept better than Brandon Stanton in his project called The Humans of New York. |
| 1:29.3 | He is a multiple number one New York Times bestselling author on the back of this work that |
| 1:35.9 | he's been doing for I think five years now. He's shot photos and posted stories every day, multiple |
| 1:42.7 | stories for like five years. |
| 1:45.0 | In this episode, it's not just about photography and about the stories of the human condition. |
| 1:50.0 | We also learned from Brandon what it's like to look at your work as having responsibility towards a mission and a vision and how much easier it is to get out of bed in the morning |
... |
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