The bright green grass of Tempe's Barrett lawn was hardly visible as hundreds of ASU students sat on brightly colored blankets to listen to Brandon Stanton, the man who created Humans of New York, share his story.
Stanton urged everyone at the event to reach for their dreams as he shared how he started the popular photo blog that has garnered over 17 million Facebook likes since 2010.
“You need to start working towards your goal — towards your passion," Stanton said. "You have to trust the idea will become what it needs to be."
Stanton said he began his own story as a University of Georgia dropout. Looking for an answer, he pursued a bond trading job in Chicago, where he lived and breathed markets. Stanton said it was exciting at the time, because he felt the job meant he not only had life in order, but he had prestige.
“Be careful of prestige,” Stanton said.
Stanton said his younger self had a plan for attaining a paying job and then engaging in work. But once Stanton lost his job, he said his mind was freed. He decided to do work that made enough money that he would be able to do what he wanted all day.
Biochemistry freshman Laura Belmont said she was moved by what Stanton had to say about pursuing his personal goals.
“I would say the most influential thing Brandon said was to disregard prestige and focus on your goals,” Belmont said.
Piano performance sophomore Kara Lee said she also enjoyed Stanton advice to the audience members to focus on their own discipline.
“As a piano performance major, (I think) what he said about discipline was important," Lee said. "You have to practice every day, and you can’t just have motivation."
Stanton shared his first photos, snapped in New York City. Stanton's early photos were all of objects, until he took his first photo of people. He said he felt as if he was onto something — capturing humans instead of objects.
His new goal became to photograph strangers and create something new that would capture people's interest.
The rest was history. Humans of New York was born, but not the one many think of, Stanton said.
Stanton said that just as his creation grew, so did he, because Humans of New York wasn’t just about New York, the photos or the writing. It became about the people he saw and listened to, too.
“I created an atmosphere with a complete stranger. It was so powerful for me and the person to have this conversation,” Stanton said.
Stanton attributed his successes to luck, and said his goal was never to be a famous, New York Times bestselling writer. It was to be happy, to do work that he loved.
“It’s very important to realize that if you want to follow your dreams, that it’s hard," Stanton said. "The beautiful thing is that it’s work you get to choose to do every single day.”
Reach the reporter at sdave1@asu.edu or follow @simdave15 on Twitter.
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