#321: Brandon Stanton — The Story of Humans of New York and 25M+ Fans

Brandon Stanton (@humansofny http://twitter.com/humansofny) is the photographer behind Humans of New York http://www.humansofnewyork.com/. He attended the University of Georgia and worked as a bond trader in Chicago before moving to New York to pursue photography. Followed by over 25 million people on social media, Humans of New York features daily glimpses into the lives of strangers on the streets of New York City. It has been turned into two #1 New York Times bestselling books: Humans of New York http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250038820/offsitoftimfe-20 and Humans of New York: Stories http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250058902/offsitoftimfe-20. In recent years, Brandon has expanded the blog to include stories from over thirty different countries, and was invited in 2015 to interview Barack Obama in the oval office. In 2017, Humans of New York was turned into a television series that is now available on Facebook Watch https://www.facebook.com/honytheseries/. Enjoy! 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

  subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A-G-one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 1:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job each and every episode to deconstruct world-class performers, experts from various disciplines across all industries. And today, we have Brandon Stanton, who is the creator of the number one New York Times bestselling books, Humans of New York, Humans of New York Stories, as well as the children's book, Little Humans of New York. In 2013, he was named one of the 30 Under 30 People Changing the World by Time Magazine. Brandon has told stories from around the world in collaboration with the United Nations, and was invited to photograph President Obama in the Oval Office. His photography and storytelling blog, Humans of New York, is followed by more than 25 million people plus me on several social media platforms. He's a graduate of the University of Georgia

• 2:08Tim Ferriss?

  and lives in New York City. You can find his work on Instagram, @humansofny, as in New York, on Facebook, Humans of New York, humansofnewyork.com, and a video series based on the blog recently became one of the first pieces of original content acquired by Facebook. So you can find that as well, Humans of New York, the series.

• 2:31Tim Ferriss?

  Brendan, welcome to the show.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Thanks, Tim.

• 2:33Tim Ferriss?

  I really appreciate you making the time. And I've been following your work for quite a few years now. And I'm excited to have a chance to pick at some of the earlier days and explore questions that have been on my mind for a few years now.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Take away.

• 2:52Tim Ferriss?

  So the first question I wanted to take a stab at is actually one I'm borrowing from another Georgian, and that is Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, who likes to ask this question, "Do you remember the first time you got in trouble, or one of the first times you got in trouble?"

• 3:12Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  The first time I got in trouble.

• 3:19Tim Ferriss?

  Or a notable time that you got in trouble when you were younger.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  A notable time I remember, I was sitting in, my mom used to take us to the grocery store a lot of times after school, and she was just gonna run in for a few minutes and grab something. And so we were just supposed to sit in the car, and I think I was like, you know, nine or 10. And I wasn't supposed to touch anything, but there were all these buttons on the dashboard and things like that. I remember she came back out, and I think, you know, the alarm's going off, and then the keys, the steering wheel's locked, and you can't move the car. And I remember that one very vaguely, because I wasn't allowed to go to the Fall Festival

• 4:06Speaker 00

  at the school that year, which was my favorite thing to do, because they had carnival games and things like that. So going back in my mind about a painful early time of getting in trouble, that comes into mind.

• 4:23Tim Ferriss?

  As I was doing homework for this conversation, I was reading up on some of the, I suppose, earlier days, and the particular sentence that I wanted to explore was in a previous interview of yours, and it covers quite a bit, but it said, "After having flunked out of college, and later going back and graduating as a history major with straight A's," and then it goes on to say a number of other things.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:51Tim Ferriss?

  But, did you get into a lot of trouble as a kid, or what led to the flunking out of college?

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Right, well, I mean, I always say that, you know, a lot of my early trouble was coming from this thought that I had to do something really big in the world, and, you know, I'm sitting in class all day, and I'm learning these kind of, you know, very minute details about things like the Magna Carta, and, you know, the compromise of 18 whatever, and none of this really seemed important at all, because, you know, I felt that, I felt that I was, you know, my purpose had to be much greater than this, and then, how am I gonna use any of this in life? Um, and so, like, you know, I spent all of my time, you know, back then, I was smoking

• 5:40Speaker 00

  a lot of weed, um, and just like, trying to think about what my big idea and what my contribution to the world was going to be, and, instead of going to class, I was doing that, you know, instead of really kind of working to improve myself, you know, I was doing that, just, you know, pontificating, and then just like, thinking all the time about, you know, what my contribution to the world was going to be, uh, and that was the time that I flunked out, and, you know, things really started moving forward for me was when I threw in the towel, you know, I waved the white flag, I said, you know, I'm gonna stop trying to figure out, you know, what the big thing I'm supposed to accomplish

• 6:24Speaker 00

  is, and I'm just going to start doing what I was supposed to do. And, you know, I started riding the bus, and, and started going to community college, Georgia Perimeter College, I got my grades back up, I went back to the University of Georgia where I flunked out of, and, you know, I focused on becoming a disciplined person, and, you know, having a routine in my life of working out every day. Playing piano every single day, doing my homework. And, you know, it's funny because when I stopped trying to think about this big thing that I was going to accomplish in life and started just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other every single day, it began to propel me on the journey that ultimately

• 7:08Speaker 00

  led to Humans of New York, which was something bigger than I could have ever imagined when I was hitting the bong in the Cresswell Dorm at the University of Georgia.

• 7:22Tim Ferriss?

  Now, this preoccupation that you had with your big contribution to the world, I don't know how common that is. I didn't have that preoccupation. Did you, did that come from parents? Did that come from a book you read? Where did that come from?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Psychedelic mushrooms might have had a little something to do with it.

• 7:42Tim Ferriss?

  I can see that. I can see that.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  You know, I just like, I, it, it's just like, I spent so much time, you know, I had a very intelligent group of friends and, you know, so much of, you know, my 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, um, was just, uh, I guess partaking in these recreational activities, trying to figure out what is truth, you know, like what is, what is the meaning of all of this? And like all of these kind of big questions, uh, compared to which, uh, you know, these intricacies of things like calculus and algebra and, you know, verb conjugations and French

• 8:29Speaker 00

  and, you know, all these subjects I was being forced to do in school seemed so minor and not useful to what I really wanted to understand. And, you know, alongside these kind of like big questions about, you know, why are we here and, and what is this all about, came this kind of feeling, and you know, I think some sort of kind of vague spirituality was wrapped up in it as well, that, you know, this is, I, this, this world is, is so amazing, and the fact that we're here is so amazing, and doing anything less than something amazing is kind of squandering, you know, this, this

• 9:11Speaker 00

  whole reason that you're here. Um, and I, I think that's, that was the kind of thinking, you know, that brought me down this path, that I was, you know, my time was too good, and, and, and my thoughts, like, you know, the, the, the space in my brain was too precious to, you know, fill it up with all these, you know, little, this homework and this, and this stuff that seems so unimportant. Uh, and so instead, I just, you know, spent all my time just kind of grappling with these, with these bigger things.

• 9:46Tim Ferriss?

  What was it like growing up in Marietta, Georgia, am I right?

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:52Tim Ferriss?

  And were, and were you born in Georgia also?

• 9:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was born in Georgia. I mean, I am somebody who has liked everywhere I've ever been. I liked my school, I liked my college, I liked the community college I went to after I flunked out of my college. Uh, I liked Atlanta, uh, I liked Chicago, I love New York. You know, I'm, I'm generally somebody who appreciates the, the place that I'm in. Uh, I tend to find that people complaining about where they live, not always. I mean, it's, it's not, you can, there's always some place that you can be that might be better for you. But if you hate the place that you live, if you, if you kind of just despise it, um, I find

• 10:39Speaker 00

  that a lot of times, a new environment is not the key to your happiness, uh, cause I find that a lot of times, the people that are complaining about one place when they move to another place, then, you know, if it's, if they live in Atlanta and the answer's New York, then when they get to New York, you know what? New York's dead. The answer's LA. When they get to LA, oh, the American values suck. Need to get to Paris. You know, when they get to Paris, oh, you know, the West is so, you know, it's so materialistic. I need to go to India. You know what I mean?

• 11:14Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  And so I find a lot of times the place that kind of, the people who kind of externalize their environment as being the reason for their dissatisfaction tend to be unsatisfied everywhere. I'm kind of the opposite. You know, I've loved every place that I've lived. I've loved the people, um, you know, that I've met in every place I lived. Marietta was Starbucks and Barnes and Noble, but I had a great, great group of friends and, you know, I enjoyed growing up there.

• 11:42Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just piecing the connective tissue together as I go because I'm really interested, I don't know why this is the case, but particularly in the last six months, I've been more and more fascinated by the earlier stages with almost everyone I've been chatting with. The history major, you graduate with straight A's and then you end up, and I know you've spoken quite a bit about this, we won't belabor the point, but you get a job as a bond trader in Chicago is my understanding. And it was sort of right, the first time that you weren't embarrassed in front of family and friends about where your life was going. You get this prestigious job. How did, how did you go about choosing that job or finding that job? Or how did they find you from, from history, right?

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Right. So, I mean, the whole reason I became, I mean, to give you, to catch you up a little bit. Um, you know, when I first went to the University of Georgia, I was majoring in business. That's when I wasn't going to class. Uh, I flunked out. Uh, and then when I decided to go back to college, you know, I thought to myself, well, I'm just going to study something that I enjoy anyway. So it's not this kind of, you know, major force of effort to go to class and to do my work. Um, at that time I had developed a reading habit. That was really when my life kind of turned around. Because remember, you know, I, I- I stopped thinking about these kind of big problems I wanted to solve and, you know,

• 13:09Speaker 00

  I started focusing on, you know, establishing a routine and some discipline in my life. And one of the first big ones, and still probably the most monumental routine that I ever established and decision I ever made, was that I was going to read 100 pages a day, um, mostly nonfiction. And whether the book was The Little Prince, or it was something like The Wealth of Nations, you know, whether it took me an hour, or whether it took me eight hours, every single day I was going to read 100 pages. And I did that for years. Uh, even when I went back to school, in addition to my schoolwork, I would read 100 pages.

• 13:46Tim Ferriss?

  What catalyzed, sorry to interrupt, but what catalyzed that decision?

• 13:49Speaker 00

  This feeling, it's like this, it was this feeling, I mean psychologically, you know, it was like this feeling of being, you know, maybe behind, you know, I, I, I remembered, I remembered, um, you know, the, one of the very first books that I read was, uh, this autobiography of, you know, Ben Franklin. And you know, he has all these kind of, you know, he did the Poor Richard's Almanac, and he has all these kind of sayings. And I remember, you know, first of all, Ben Franklin himself was kind of the pioneer in, in getting self-improvement down to a science, you know what I mean? And, um, so, you know, his example, first of all, of how much he, you know, how much

• 14:32Speaker 00

  effort he put into improving himself and moving himself forward. And then I remember he had this one quote, you know, that, um, uneducated genius is like finding silver in the mine, you know? And it kind of, it, it, you know, made me think that, you know, I had spent all this time, kind of, you know, thinking and kind of pondering, uh, and I thought that I was, you know, that school was beneath me and school was boring. And, you know, because of that, I really hadn't been imbibing much information. And, you know, at that time, it's something kind of flipped and I felt like, you know, I've missed out on, you know, probably the last four or six years of education because

• 15:17Speaker 00

  I was just doing the minimum, you know, I was, I was just getting by and writing my papers before class, you know, I was probably looking at the person's next to me's paper, you know, a few times. And so it's like, even though I was making okay grades, I really wasn't, you know, taking in a lot of information and educating myself. And so, you know, I think that at that time, I decided I was going to become extremely educated. And, you know, I did, I did become an extremely educated person. But, you know, ninety-five percent of that education was outside of school. You know, ninety-five percent of that education

• 15:57Speaker 00

  was over the course of seven or eight years, uh, saying, I'm going to read one hundred pages of nonfiction a day, every single day. And I did it for seven or eight years. I'd say sixty percent of that was biography. Uh, I would say another twenty percent of it was history. Uh, and then, you know, I didn't, it wasn't, I would read fiction too, you know, when I was absolutely tired of eating my vegetables.

• 16:24Tim Ferriss?

  (laughing)

• 16:25Speaker 00

  And I, um, that's what I, that's what I would call, you know, the most boring books, you know, the really kind of conceptual one I just viewed as vegetables, you know, I was just like, it was some, sometimes, sometimes hard to get through.

• 16:36Tim Ferriss?

  The fiber of knowledge.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, but you, you, it, it grows and it kind, it kind of develops you. Um, but yeah, you know, so biographies were the ones that I was really, really drawn to. Um, and so, you know, at the time, you know, I started like kind of reading all these biographies and I was loving it. And biography is just history. You know, biography is the best form of history, if you ask me, because it, it cuts through the theory, it cuts through, you know, all the speculation of the author, and we get down to the nuts and the bolts of the decisions that people made in their lives. And I think that is the purest form of education that you can get. And it is the advice that I give people who don't know what they want to do with their lives. Pick somebody that

• 17:22Speaker 00

  you admire and read their biography. Read their biography. If you really want some sort of guidance in your life. Pick somebody who's done things that you want to do and that you really admire and read a nice fat 800-page biography of their lives. Find out the struggles they went through. Find out the twists and turns of their lives and the decisions they made. And I mean, I don't think there's any better actionable roadmap, actionable education, than getting down to the granular level of somebody's life and finding out how they navigated it.

• 17:58Tim Ferriss?

  If someone wanted to, let's just say that they are having a lapse of concentration and can't think of people they admire who have biographies. If you were to recommend any, let's just say, one to three biographies as gateway drugs into that world, are there any that come to mind?

• 18:17Speaker 00

  It depends upon what you want to accomplish in life. Like, if you're just flagging and you don't know what you want to do, start with Ben Franklin. Start with somebody who is, you know, very disciplined and, you know, programmatic in figuring out how to develop themselves. Again, my advice always to people who are stuck is quit looking at the big pictures. People get stuck because they want to accomplish too big a things and they don't know the right step to take. So, you know, I always say, just kind of, instead of focusing on the year, instead of focusing on the arc of your life, focus on the 24-hour period. And nobody mastered the 24-hour period more than Benjamin Franklin.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  So, it's like, if you have no idea what you want to do, start there, I would say. If you know what you want to do, you've got to pick the person that you admire the most. You know, do you want to participate in social movements? You know, pick Martin Luther King. Do you want to be President of the United States? If you want to be President of the United States, I would recommend Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson, because he was probably the President that was given the least in his life, except for maybe Abraham Lincoln. You know, he didn't go to Ivy League, you know? He didn't, um, he wasn't necessarily a great-looking guy, you know? He went to San

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Marcos Teacher College, he, you know, basically, and again, this is if you want to be president, I don't want to be president. He, you know, worked his way up through understanding how the levers of democracy work, the levers of power in our government work. And so he is a fascinating character sketch on how to be president. If you want to read a Lyndon Johnson biography, you should read the four-volume biography by Robert Caro, which is the best of those. But, you know, other than that, it's just like, it all depends upon what it is that you want to do in life. You know, there's, there's just no biography that every

• 20:21Speaker 00

  person should read. They should pick the person they admire the most and read the biography of their life.

• 20:28Tim Ferriss?

  With Ben Franklin, would it be the, a biography like Walter Isaacson?

• 20:32Speaker 00

  The Isaac, the Isaac, the Isaacson one was the one I read, and that stands out the most because it was the first. The person that I've read the most biographies on, probably Theodore Roosevelt, just because his life is so fascinating. Probably Adolf Hitler, probably Stalin. And it's not because in any way these people are admirable, but like, as a history major, to me, it wasn't the individual themselves that was fascinating. To me, it was how does a group of people, you know, Germany was a smart, industrialized country. To me, the big philosophical question that fascinated me and the, and the reason

• 21:15Speaker 00

  that I, I've delved so much into the lives and, and the practices of dictators is, you know, how is it that a group of such educated, smart, well-meaning people were, were able to be, you know, ever to be able to be organized under the, you know, the premise of committing such evil? And that to me has, has always fascinated me because I believe that people are inherently good. And you know, I've traveled to thirty or forty different countries and you know, it's funny, every place has a reputation, "Oh, don't go to this city, people won't talk to you." You know, so many times when I land in a place, they say, you know, "Oh,

• 21:59Speaker 00

  this isn't gonna work here." You know, "People, people aren't open here, people aren't friendly here." And you know, I find one-on-one, people all over the world, you know, are very, they, they, they kind of share, you know, a, a similar soul, I guess. And, you know, if people are generally the same everywhere, you know, then, then that means anywhere, something like this could happen. Right. Any, anywhere, you know, people can, can get pulled into this crowd psychology and, you know, direct their anger and their hatred and violence towards people in a way that

• 22:42Speaker 00

  would contradict their morals if you met them one-on-one. And, you know, because of that, the, the, the lives and the periods of history that have always been most intellectually interesting to me, again, it's not something I admire, it's not something I, I'm looking to duplicate, of course, uh, have, have been these periods where a very driven ideological individual has managed to, to mobilize a group of people towards ends that, looking back from a historical perspective, were brutal and violent and absolutely unexplainable. And, you know, I think it's important to understand these things to keep it from happening again. Do you remember you asked about bond trading, like?

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Oh, I do. Oh, no. Two, two questions ago, I never even talked about it. And I, the whole, well, the whole reason, I, well, I, I think, you know, I started talking about histories because bond trading was really in anomaly in my life. Um, I was really kind of wrapped up in all these things that we're talking about now. You know, I was really kind of wrapped up in, in history and, and biography mainly. Um...

• 23:52Speaker 00

  When Obama, uh, it was, God, what was it? Two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven? I think it was two thousand and seven. He was in the primary. Um, and I was, I really became fixated on this campaign. Uh, and you know, I was not, I was going to knock on doors, uh, and this was during the primary when he's going up against Hillary. And I was knocking on doors. I was going to different states and knocking on doors and, and, um, I was reading every article about the, the delegate system and super delegates.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  And you know, there was this point where I was just absolutely positive he was going to win. I was, uh, this is the primary. I was just absolutely positive he was going to win. Um, and I was broke at the time. Uh, this is not something I would ever do today. Um, but I took out five thousand dollars in student loans and I actually bet on Barack Obama to win.

• 24:51Tim Ferriss?

  Where does, where does one bet on something like that?

• 24:55Speaker 00

  Back then it was an Irish exchange. It has since gone under. It was called Intrade. Um, and I think they had him at like forty percent chance to win at that time. Um, and he had like a seventy percent chance or something. And so, you know, I, I didn't make a ton of money off of it because it took me like a week to wire my money to, um, Ireland. And in the time that I was wiring my money, he had won a couple more.

• 25:23Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, the odds changed.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  Exactly. And so, um, you know, I ended up only make, I mean, I made like, you know, a thousand, twelve hundred dollars, which for me as a college student was all the money in the world. Uh, but more faithfully, uh, I was telling that story, just like I'm telling it to you, uh, to a friend of mine who worked in Chicago. Uh, and he was a trader. He was a bond trader. And I was telling, I was telling him that story and he told me, you know, the, the one differentiator, uh, between successful traders and unsuccessful traders in our office is their, um, their comfort with risk taking.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Uh, and based on that story, um, you know, I would like you to talk to my boss. Um, and so.

• 26:12Tim Ferriss?

  Based on the extreme prudence you've demonstrated with that story.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, it's the, you know, I think, I think it was kind of the, the comfort with risk taking. And so, you know, at that time, I was, you know, I, I didn't know what I wanted to do again. I just studied history because I was, I enjoyed it and I, I really enjoyed it. Um, and so he got me in, in interview with his boss and it was scheduled. And I mean, this is somebody who went to an Ivy League school and, you know, he had studied finance his entire life and he had gotten this job. So I thought this was an opportunity I would not have any other way. And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do at the time. I was a history major. Um, and so I had

• 26:56Speaker 00

  like a month to prepare. So I read about 20 books on the market. Uh, and then I went into the interview and, uh, at that time I was very well, um, versed on how markets worked and, uh, that's how I got that job.

• 27:13Tim Ferriss?

  Good thing you had all that reading practice.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Go.

• 27:19Tim Ferriss?

  What was your first week as a bond trader like?

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Um, well, I mean, and see, this is the, and I always try to say, you know, when I, uh,

• 27:29Speaker 00

  I mean, if somebody has just listened to this interview up until this point, you know, I think it's, we, we talk about, you know, bond trading and dictators, you know,

• 27:40Speaker 00

  which really has nothing to do with my life now. Um, but you know, I, and, and I think the narrative that people in interviews always try to put on me is that, uh, cause I mean, it's a fun narrative. Oh, chasing the money, you know, doing this soul sucking finance job and then, you know, cut the rope behind him to pursue his true passion, which was taking photographs and art. And I mean, there's a, there's a kernel of truth there. Um, you know, but the, the real story is that markets were fascinating to me. I, you know, I, I, I'm still fascinated by markets, you know, they seem so tangible when you're watching CNBC and you're seeing these numbers and it seems all so mathematical.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  But in reality, markets are, are nothing but a bunch of people arguing over what something's worth. You know, it's just like, it's a, a market, if you, if you remove the computer and, you know, go back, you know, 50 years, a market is a crowd of people haggling over what something that is impossible to value is worth. And the, the, the number that comes out of it is, is really based on psychology and it's based on this, this back and forth over, over, you know, what these numbers mean. And, you know, that was always so interesting to me. Um, and, and it remains, you know, very interesting to me. So I was philosophically very interested in markets.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  And, uh, I was, I, I was fascinated by bond trading and, you know, I, I was obsessed with it, to be honest, for two years. Um, and it was a type of bond trading, we were very highly leveraged and so, you know, it was a type where there was just huge gains or huge losses, like every single night. Uh, you know, I compare it to like playing a very high stakes game of poker every single night. And so it was, it was extremely, uh, you know, I, I don't think I could do it today. I was in my early twenties at the time. It was just, there was just adrenaline pumping through my body at all times.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  And, you know, I was, in, in that, when you, when you take something that is, you're, you're naturally kind of philosophically interested in and you pair it with, um, you know, a large amount of money, uh, and a large amount of excitement, it, it creates this, this fixation. It's almost like crack, you know, where it's just all you can think about at any given time. And, you know, when I go to colleges and I give speeches on, you know, the, the path of humans of New York. And you know, what led me to kind of pursue this life that was, you know, outside of books and outside of computer screens was that, you know, I,

• 30:32Speaker 00

  after the end of two years when I lost my job, I kind of looked back at, you know, the time that I had spent that two years. And it wasn't the physical time that was lost that was most concerning to me. It was that I had spent two years using all of my intellect and all of my creative energy, trying to figure out how to be the most effective relative value trader in fixed income securities in the Asian markets. It was something, it was just something that was so narrow and so myopic and I couldn't even talk with my friends about it.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  And at the end of two years, you know, that was, we'd gone through the financial crisis. I'd lost everything I'd ever made, you know, when I, when I lost that job, it was a very lucrative job potentially. But when I lost that job, I was broke because I'd lost everything.

• 31:29Tim Ferriss?

  Why did you lose the job? What happened?

• 31:31Speaker 00

  Uh, well, I mean, the, it depends on how much personal responsibility I want to take. You know, I think the, the, the, the narrative that's most protective of the ego is that we had a type of trading that was calibrated to work during periods of low volatility. Um, the years from, I'd guess, nineteen ninety-five or whatever, or after, whenever, you know, I don't, I don't know when my math is right, but you know, like late nineties to, you know, two thousand and eight were periods of historically low volatility where the type of trading that we were doing worked.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  And during, when the financial crisis hit in two thousand and eight, volatility went through the roof. Uh, long story short, the type of trading that we were doing, um, stopped working. And, uh, the company when, that had been around for over a decade.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  Was out of business about a year after I left. Um, so that's the, that is the, the part of the, that's the way of explaining that, that avoids the most personal responsibility. Um, if I was to explain it in the way that, you know, makes myself the most personally responsible, uh, markets changed and I wasn't, uh, adaptive enough to figure it out. Uh, I kept banging my head against the same things that used to be working. Uh, I refused to, I refused to fully embrace the fact that what worked for me extremely well for a year had stopped working. Uh, and because of that, the, the, the risk calculations had changed and instead of making a lot of money every night, I was losing a lot of money every night.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Um, and I eventually got to the point where, you know, I, I was no longer a productive member of the firm. Uh, and so, yeah, it depends upon which story you want to tell. I think the truth is probably somewhere in between the two. Uh, but regardless, I ended up without a job.

• 33:34Tim Ferriss?

  Well, thank you for telling or sharing both versions of that. And no, it's, it's, it's, I think that that also reflects a level of, this may not be the right word, but sort of objectivity or ability to detach and observe that has always fascinated me about you, quite frankly, um, which certainly translates, I think in a very empathic way later, and we'll, we'll get to that. But I want to talk about the finance world and markets for just a second because as you noted, it's, it's very tempting for someone who's trying to weave a narrative of your

• 34:17Tim Ferriss?

  life into this soul sucking period, sees the light, cuts the tether, burns the ships off into the arts in true passion. But the, the markets, as you noted, are really fascinating and I was chatting with someone I've just gotten to know actually in the last few weeks. A, let's call, I suppose you could call him a wealth manager, but 75% of what he does is invest in in bonds. He probably wouldn't call it trading, but in effect, I mean, that's, that's what he's doing. And he said something to me that, that has stuck in my mind for a while now, which is, you know, I learn more in the first two to four hours of sitting down and talking to someone about money than their therapists have probably

• 35:00Tim Ferriss?

  learned over the last two to four years. And getting to see how people respond to money and loss aversion and the possibility of making money is in and of itself fascinating. Then you add in thousands and millions of market participants. It gets even more interesting. And then when, at least in, in my limited experience, when I read something, my exposure to bonds is very limited, but when you read something like Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, which I think is a fantastic book, and the, the part that stuck out to me where I was like, okay, I need to be very careful about playing this game because I'll get my face ripped off, is there's some part, and I'm going to get all the details wrong, but there's some guy who's nicknamed like Fat Tony,

• 35:44Tim Ferriss?

  and he's a big wig at Solomon Brothers, and he bets his buddies that the markets for whatever, double A bonds and X, Y, and Z are going up. And he's, he bets them and it's this dick measuring contest. And he puts 50 million into the market and it, and it goes down. And, and so his, his friends are busting his balls and he's, and they're like, ah, market's going up, huh? And so instead of putting 50 million in, he's like, fuck it. And he puts 500 million in and like all the other market participants panic, thinking that he has information they don't. And so the market goes up and he says, see, I told you the market was going up.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 36:19Tim Ferriss?

  And I was like, oh my God. This is not nearly as clean as the textbooks would want you to believe.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Well, I would, I would, um, you know, I, as somebody who's interviewed 10,000 people, I, I would say that, you know, talking with somebody about their money and how they choose to use their money will give you a insight into a very limited, uh, a, and I, I mean, maybe, maybe I'm, I'm wrong, but like a, a very limited aspect of their personality, which is their comfort with risk. And, uh, you know, I think there's, I think our, our approach to money and our approach to trading and our approach to, to markets are very much kind of driven by like our, our animal spirits, uh, you know, greed and fear and things like that. Um, but you know, I, I feel that the, you know, kind of the

• 37:06Speaker 00

  There's a huge, a huge portion of people's lives and kind of thought lives that are, you know, kind of separate and, you know, isolated from, from that, those drives, you know what I mean? Those, those very kind of primal drives of, of wanting, wanting more and being afraid to lose. I mean, that's, that's really what, what drives the markets is, is the greed and the fear. And, you know, I think, I think talking, you know, with somebody about their, you know, their, those, those two drives and where their greed comes from and where their fear comes from, you know, it'll, it'll give you, you know, it'll give you, it'll give you some insight.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  But, you know, I, you know, to me, the, the markets, you know, they, there's, they, they can only tell you so much. And they can only, you know, it's such a, it's such a, it's, it's a part of human existence, the, the, the drives that, that control a market. But, you know, there's so much that people care about outside of that. And I think that was what was so dangerous about just being a trader, is that, you know, you're, you're, you're burying so much of your thought energy into just the desire for more and the fear of losing. You know what I mean?

• 38:28Speaker 00

  That kind of, the kind of narrow animalistic drives that, that, you know, that, that push a market ups, up and down and you're kind of tethering yourself to that. And you just kind of miss out on so much of the life that's going on around you. And this is me. You know, this is me. I think it's part of my personality that, once I dive into something, it's, I do it to the exclusion of almost everything else. One of the reasons Humans of New York ended up becoming so successful. I did know, you know, some, you know, this, more the exception than the rule, there are people who are so in control of their emotions, or maybe they don't have the same emotional

• 39:10Speaker 00

  range as other people, that are able to turn off their computer every single day, go home and not think about the markets and kind of completely leave them there. But, you know, for me, it was something that, you know, was kind of all-consuming for me. And, you know, when I made the, the decision to pursue something more artistic,

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Was when, you know, I had kind of, I had kind of lost my job. And I was looking back at the two years of my life. And I was thinking, God, you know, and, and after I lost my job, you know, I, I was so scared of that day. You know, during the two years when I was obsessing over markets and then things started going bad. You know, there was nothing I was more afraid of than losing that job. And then on the day that it happened, it was surprisingly a good day. Because I remember taking a walk that day and I started asking myself things like, what do I want to do? You know, like what, what do I want to do? Things, something like, if I could do anything with my time, what would I do?

• 40:17Speaker 00

  And I had, I had been for two years like so focused on keeping that job. You know, that I had didn't, I, I had never, I didn't have room in my brain to kind of ask myself any other questions. And so, you know, at that moment, I decided, you know, I've lost these two years of not only my time, but more importantly, I've lost two years of my thoughts focusing on this, this, this game. This game for making money, which was fascinating and philosophically interesting. But, you know, when you, when you boil it down, it's a game. And I said, you know, I'm going to spend the next foreseeable future.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Instead of my spending my time, you know, trying to, to make money. You know, I'm going to try to make just enough money to where I can control my time. And just do something that I enjoy doing for no other reason than it is nourishing in the moment. Not that at the end of the day, I'm going to have a profit. But because it's nourishing in the moment. And at that time, it was photography. And the whole reason, I think, you know, one of the, the best, you know, the kind of neatest things about humans of New York is that. Over the past eight years, you know, Humans of New York has become largely,

• 41:40Speaker 00

  you know, the most, you know, followed photography project in the world with, you know, I think 25 million on social media now. And it's eight years old. And I think one of the coolest things is I just started photographing about eight years ago. You know, I started taking photos during this time that I'm talking with you about. And the whole reason I started taking photos was because I was trying to create some space in my mind away from work. I was desperate for something to do on the weekends that, you know, that would would give me this this foothold in my brain where I had a sense of purpose and a sense of identity outside how the markets were doing every single day. And so I bought this camera.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  I started going to downtown Chicago and photographing, you know, just everything. Uh, and I loved it. And not long after, I lost my job. And I made the decision that I was going to be a photographer, not because I was very skilled at it at the time. You know, not because I thought it was an angle towards success and not because I thought it was an angle towards an audience. It's that I just loved doing it in the moment. It was nourishing in the moment. And so I found this thing that was nourishing in the moment that I enjoyed doing. And I said, you know, I'm going to try to structure my life around creating as much time for this as possible.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  I want to make the minimum amount of, I just, I want to make just enough money to where I can pay my rent, eat and photograph all day long. And the journey that ended up creating Humans of New York was my attempt to create that space in my life and that space in my head to focus on something that was very nourishing in the moment.

• 43:29Tim Ferriss?

  How did you cover your expenses in the very early days of that experience?

• 43:35Speaker 00

  This was 2008. Um, we had a, I believe, a record amount of time that you could get unemployment. And I had just lost my job. And so I got $620, I think, every two weeks

• 43:57Speaker 00

  from the government because I was unemployed and I had worked for two years. Um, so that was enough to basically just pay my rent in a sublease that I found on Craigslist in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. That was enough to pay that and maybe have peanut butter jelly sandwiches and eggs.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Assuming that you needed no other expenses, that you wore the same clothes and the same shoes. That was enough for me to just eat, sleep, and photograph all day long. And once I got to have a, you know, a decent level of skill, and I mean, just a passable level of skill. If anybody would pay me to take portraits for them, I would do that. Somebody hired me to do their wedding.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  And I basically, I just, I didn't spend money on anything. All I did was photograph all day long because I knew that I was like, I was making this pivot in my life to where I was going after kind of a lucrative career towards, I was going towards just wanting to spend my time doing something all day long. And so, you know, and I became obsessed with photography in the same way that I was obsessed with markets. I mean, I just, I, I loved it. I just loved it. It was like a treasure hunt. I mean, just going out and it was so different than trading too. I mean, it was, I'm outside, I'm interacting with the world, I'm having conversations.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  You know, I'm, I'm having these, I'm little adventures and discovering these new things. And I was just hooked on it and I was just obsessed with it. And, you know, I knew I was making a lot of sacrifices to be doing this in my life. So I didn't do anything else. You know, I didn't go to concerts. I didn't go out to restaurants. I really... I didn't spend much time with friends because I didn't really know anybody in New York. Uh, I mean, that's another crazy detail about Humans of New York. It's that Humans of New York is an eight-year-old photography project, uh, you know, based on people in New York City. Uh, you know, I took my first photograph eight years ago and I went to New York for the very first time in my life eight years ago.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Uh, so it was, you know, all, it was all just, uh, very new and all very driven by the desire to photograph all day long.

• 46:28Tim Ferriss?

  Was the move to New York related to the desire to take photographs? Or was it, uh, something else?

• 46:35Speaker 00

  So, I mean, what I did is, so I got fired, uh, and I started, my goal was like, I gotta, I wanna find out how to be a photographer. You know, I love photography. How am I gonna create a life where I can support myself and photograph all day long? And so I was just out doing it every single day. And then I started kind of along with the graffiti and along with the, you know, architectural shots and along with the nature shots, I started photographing people. And I noticed that these, out of everything I was photographing, the photographs of people were the most unique.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  They're the ones that, that least resembled everything else I was seeing being put on Facebook and stuff like that. Um, and so I decided to kind of focus on that. And then while focusing on that, I started stopping people on the street and asking for their photo and kind of taking a portrait of them. And because of that extra layer of difficulty of having to approach a stranger, the portraits that I was taking of people were more different than the candid photos I was taking of people. And so I started focusing solely on that, you know?

• 47:57Speaker 00

  And that's when I kind of started having an idea that even though I hadn't been photographing so long, I was heading in a direction that was pretty unique because I was stopping random people on the streets, um... In a very, you know, I know some people will do series, but I was doing this every single day and I was getting quite a collection. And this seemed like kind of a new, a kind of fresh type of photography, so it's all I did. And then I started traveling to different cities. I went to Philadelphia, just stopping people. Then I went to New Orleans, um, I went back to Atlanta and did this. And then I traveled to New York.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  And when I got to New York and I was stopping people and asking for their photographs, um, I realized that New York, if you were going to try to do this type of photography, was the best place to be. I mean, mainly just, just practical reasons. Uh, that you, you don't need a car in New York. I didn't have a car. Um, and I couldn't afford a car. You, uh, you can just ride the subway everywhere, you can walk everywhere, and there's so many people. I mean, there's so many people. I remember coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel the very first time and looking down and I couldn't even see the sidewalk because it was rush, it was rush hour and it was just, there were so many people.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  And I thought, you know, if I'm going to do this type of photography, uh, this is the place to do it. And I wasn't doing any interviews at this time. And I mean, that's, that's the thing. It's like the humans of New York that I moved to New York to do, looks nothing like the, the humans of New York that later became successful. I mean, it was really just the impetus to get me on the ground, working every day, to kind of figure it out along the way. Uh, you know, my very first idea for humans of New York was I was going to photograph 10,000 people in New York City, across all five boroughs, and I was going to plot their photo on a map. That was my idea of how I was going to make a life out of being a photographer, is I

• 50:04Speaker 00

  was going to be the guy who did that. And, uh, it was, that was kind of what got me on the ground, got me out on the streets every single day, approaching hundreds and thousands of people, uh, and put me in the situation where I could kind of innovate and I could start having conversations with these people, which turned into questions I was asking them.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  Which turned into eventually, seven years later, the kind of ninety minute to an hour and a half long, very kind of probing and therapeutic and psychological interviews that I have with random strangers every single day. The result of which and the output of which became the stories that I think people are so connected with and the stories that really make humans of New York, humans of New York.

• 51:04Tim Ferriss?

  How are you getting better at photography during this, say first, let's just call it six month period? Since you certainly seem, from all indications, to be someone who goes for total immersion and whether it's reading ten to twenty books on the markets before an interview. You go a hundred percent into whatever subject matter you choose. How are you getting better? What books were you reading? Who are you studying? What were you trying?

• 51:32Speaker 00

  I mean, I was too addicted to taking photos to ever stop for a second and learn about photography. I have, I have one memory. I have one memory of going to Barnes and Noble, because I couldn't afford to buy any books. I have one memory of going to Barnes and Noble one night and flipping through some photography books and enjoying the photos. But I just, I, I just wanted to be out taking pictures. You know, I, I didn't really want to be studying how to take a correct photo. You know, I just wanted to be out photographing. It was the, the act of it, the act of discovery. You know, and I had a very amateur view of photography at the time,

• 52:16Speaker 00

  where is if you, if you get something or somebody interesting in the frame, it's a great photo. I don't care how many points of perspective it has. I don't care about the rules of thirds. I honestly don't really even care about white balance or focus or any of these things. I was just looking for wonderful people and wonderful moments that were happening. I was still doing a lot of candid photography of people. And if I captured that, that was a good photo. And that's all I cared about. And that was what was driving me for these, you know, these first several months and this first year, year and a half, when I took thousands and thousands of pictures. And I was getting better slowly.

• 52:58Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm not necessarily bragging about that kind of aversion to formal training as if it was some sort of badge of honor. It was just the way my psychology was hardwired. And because of that, I might have improved more slowly than somebody else. And in fact, I might have improved so slowly that I'm sure a lot of professional photographers look down on my photography still. But by being that engaged and emerged in the process, as opposed to any sort of a formal structure of what makes a photograph, I innovated my own style.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  I innovated my own type of work that later on, you know, people have introduced me to Studs Terkel and people introduced me to, you know, to these wonderful photographers of the past who took these, you know, Jacob Rees and who took these wonderful photos of regular people that my work, you know, kind of grew to resemble. But I mean, any resemblance just came out of being on the street and doing it all day long and just and figuring out, you know, what it was that I liked the most. And without any education of what a correct photograph was.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  And, you know, I think if Humans of New York has original elements, if Humans of New York is original in any way, it was because I was just so addicted to taking photos that I never stopped to learn about photography. And because of that, you know, I just, I was figuring it out as I went along.

• 54:47Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it seems to me also that there are many different facets of photography, one component of which is the technical knowledge, but certainly another component of which is choosing the subject matter, right? And thinking about the story that an image tells. So you were learning about photography, but you were doing it vis a vis the sheer volume of experience that you were gathering behind the camera and walking through New York City.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Right. Well, I was just, you know, I was looking for anyone who, anything that captured my attention or curiosity at all got photographed. I mean, and that's one of the beautiful things about digital cameras is, I mean, you can just take a thousand photos every single day. And so you don't have to worry about conserving film. Like you can just photograph everything. And so anything that caught my eye got photographed. And then when you go home and you load your thousand pictures on the computer and you start going through and because you don't know how to photograph, you photograph that person 50 different times. And you're looking at your 50 photos of each person and you're finding the one that you think looks the best. And then you're going and you're doing it again and you're doing it again.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  And suddenly you're not taking 50 photos of each person. You're taking 40, then 30, then 20, and then 10 as you start to get an idea of what it is that you think is a great photo and what it is that you like. And that was kind of really how I was honing in on my style again, which might still be considered primitive. It still might be considered unschooled by a lot of people. But I was just honing in on what I liked about a photo. And that's, that was the process.

• 56:28Tim Ferriss?

  What were you, what were you doing with these photos in the, in the beginning? Or maybe a better question is, when you first started putting photos online, what did that look like?

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Um, at first I was putting that I had, I'm one of my main kind of weaknesses and blind spots in the beginning was not understanding the importance of daily content because, you know, I never had a blog before. Um, and so I kind of had this great, and I mean, it kind of mirrors my, my journey as a college student where I was like trying to do something huge instead of focusing on doing something every single day. Um, and so I was, I had this huge kind of sweeping project of I was going to photograph 10,000 people and plot their photos on a map. I was dumping about 30 or 40 of these portraits every single day onto this website that I had that nobody was going to and the numbers, I, I even had

• 57:24Speaker 00

  a counter on the top of the website counting, counting up to 10,000 because that's all I cared about was the end. I was going to get 10,000. I was going to create this sweeping photography project. Um,

• 57:35Tim Ferriss?

  Was it called Humans of New York at the time or what was the name?

• 57:38Speaker 00

  It was called, it was called Humans of New York from the very beginning, yes. Um, and it, things really, and, and nobody was really paying attention and I was taking hundreds and thousands of portraits and things really started to get traction when I started posting the photos as I got them onto social media, mainly Facebook. That is when things really started to grow and the focus of Humans of New York moved away from this giant sweeping project of, that was going to cover the entire city of New York and be some sort of representation

• 58:18Speaker 00

  of New York City. And it switched much more to about the individual. Who is this person that I'm meeting each day? And it became something more personal and immediate. Uh, and that's when things, uh, really started growing.

• 58:34Tim Ferriss?

  Brendan, I'd love to ask you about the green lady, if that rings a bell. Could you please describe for folks the experience of the green lady?

• 58:47Speaker 00

  So, I mean, I'm in New York and I've been trying to make this work for about six months now. And six months in, you know, that time of my life was probably the equivalent of about two years of work. Because I worked every single day, I worked on Christmas, I worked on Thanksgiving, I didn't go home, all I did was photograph all day long. You know, I would go out, I would, I would just photograph people, I'd come home, I would take a nap, and then I would go out at night and, and try to get some more photos. And so I, I had gotten thousands of these portraits and not many people were paying

• 59:32Speaker 00

  attention, I think I had just kind of started posting my photos on Facebook. And I photographed this woman, and she was dressed all in green, and she had green hair and green makeup, and I remember it was a, it was a photo that I, I didn't like, I thought it was a very bad photo, and I wasn't even going to really post it on the blog. But then I remembered that she had said something to me, she had said, "I used to be a different color every single day, but then one day I was green, and that was a great day, and so I've been green for fifteen years." (laughing)

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  And I, I remember thinking to myself, "Well, I don't really like the photograph, but I'm gonna try putting this quote above it that she said." And I posted it onto Facebook, and suddenly it was the most engaged with photo that I'd ever posted. I think we're talking like sixty-seven likes at this time, there was not a lot of people following my page. And it really, it was kind of a, a eureka moment, because it really made sense that, you know, in this, during these months and almost a year of, of doing nothing but approaching

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  random people on the street and asking for their photograph. The thing that strangely I had gotten to be an expert at...

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  Wasn't the photography, but it was the approaching strangers. And the, the walking up to random people, uh, getting rejected a lot of times and not letting that affect my, my mood. Uh, and then once meeting somebody, you know, in a very short amount of time, making that person comfortable. And kind of the eureka moment was if that is what I've become good at, if that is what I have to offer the world, shouldn't I, now that I've gotten over this fear of approaching

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  a stranger, use that opportunity to learn a little bit about this person? So that I can share a little bit about this person with other people who might be curious of the people around them, but haven't been able to overcome that fear of talking to strangers? And, you know, it turned out that the audience for that, the, the amount of people who were curious of the lives of the people around them, but were too afraid to ask, uh, you know, ended up being hundreds, then thousands, and then tens of thousands, and millions, and then now tens of millions.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  And, you know, from that moment on, Humans of New York stopped being a photography project. Uh, I don't even view myself as a photographer. You know, you can, you can write a, a three-page essay about why I'm a horrible photographer, and it's been done many times. (laughing) Uh, and it, it doesn't really bother me because I stopped viewing myself as a photographer a long time ago. Uh, the photography is really secondary to Humans of New York. You know, Humans of New York is my effort in as short of time as possible to make a random person on the street comfortable enough.

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  And seem that and seem like somebody's interested enough in their lives that they'll share their story with me and they'll share something deep and vulnerable and real and honest about their lives so that I can share that with millions of people every single night. And Humans of New York over the past six years has been my effort to get as good at that as possible.

• 1:03:46Tim Ferriss?

  This, this is a perfect segue to asking about the approaches and questions, which is...

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Which is a really important thing. I've spent the entire, I feel guilty because I've spent the entire, if you look, I have not posted a picture of myself on Humans of New York in years. I don't, I don't do it. I find, I find that Humans of New York is best when I'm the most invisible. I feel that the, the less Humans of New York is about Brandon Stanton, the more influential Humans of New York has become. So yeah, it's, it feels very unnatural to have spent an hour talking already and talk nothing about

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  myself. So please, fire away, ask about the work.

• 1:04:41Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm gonna ask about the work and you can, you can talk about yourself in third person if it makes it feel better, but I will have to, I will have to involve you in this.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:04:52Tim Ferriss?

  When, what do you say when you cold approach someone on the street? Assuming that now, of course, you could use Humans of New York and a lot of people would recognize it and you could break the ice that way, but with, early on when nobody would recognize that, how, how did you, how did you open? And then what, what did you use to break the ice in the first 60 seconds?

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  First thing always is, do you mind if I take your photograph? That was the first thing. And I mean, these are all... Little things I learned is you don't walk up to somebody and ask, "Do you have a minute?" You know, because that immediately puts somebody on defensive. Because especially in New York City, people are walking up to you all day long, trying to sell you something, asking for money. So people are naturally very defensive. Um, so I don't want, my, my goal is to get into it as soon as possible to, so people realize that this is something a little bit different. And I'm not looking to, for their money. That's the main thing. You know, I'm not looking for their money. Um, so I normally walk up and I say, uh, "Do you mind if I take your photograph?"

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  Um, I run a website called Humans of New York. And basically what I do is over the past several years, I photographed about 10,000 people on the streets of New York City and around the world. And I just learn a little bit about everyone I photograph. Um, and so I was just wondering if I could take your photo and ask you a few questions.

• 1:06:19Tim Ferriss?

  Now, before you had the 10,000 and went around the world, when it was maybe the 100th person or 200th person, was it the same pitch minus that stuff?

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, if I was trying to give you actually the pitch that I, I used to give in the early days. Now, I pull out my cellphone, two number one New York Times bestselling books, um, you know, 20 million followers on Facebook. And the whole reason of that, even though it kind of sounds like boastful and braggy, is that especially if somebody hasn't heard of Humans of New York, you know, I, I want to convince them in as short amount of time as possible, um, that it's something real, one, that's important. Um, and that it's something that, you know, is a lot of people know about and a lot of people follow. It's not a joke. It's not a prank. You're not gonna be embarrassed. You're not gonna... You know, my goal is in as short amount of time as possible to kind of, you know, make the person feel comfortable.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  And these days, a big part of that is kind of explaining how big the block is. Because then it's, then it's like, "Oh, this person is not trying to hustle me. This person isn't trying to scam me." Um, but, you know, to be honest, you know, in the early days, my success, you know, the amount of people who let me take their photo wasn't that much less. Um, except back then, I wasn't a bestselling author. I was just a, a kid. Um...

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  You know, who was, you know, trying to make an art project and, and, you know, people wanted to help. And so, you know, the, I think a lot of people think that, you know, one of the reasons so many people are willing to talk to me is because Humans of New York is so well-known, uh, especially in New York now. Uh, but, you know, I, the, my, uh, my rate of people who would talk to me was not all that different when I was just getting started.

• 1:08:06Tim Ferriss?

  Are there any other non-verbal keys to that?

• 1:08:10Speaker 00

  Oh, God. I mean, there's tons of them. And, but I mean, again, these aren't things that I like. I, I, these aren't things that, you know, I planned or read about, you know, it's not that I-

• 1:08:22Tim Ferriss?

  You had a lot of trial and error.

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  Well, they were, they, they were burned into me by being rejected so much. And, you know, some rejections on the streets of New York aren't always polite. You know what I mean? Uh, it was hard, you know, in the early days. I mean, I remember there were days, I mean, the hardest part about it was, I mean, especially when I got started and Humans of New York didn't have any fans and it wasn't book, it's, you know, it wasn't made into any books and, you know, my family didn't believe in it and my friends thought I was crazy. I had no photography experience. I'm in New York City, you know, stopping random people and asking them questions and

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  I'm feeling insecure and, you know, I, when you walk up to somebody and you ask them if they can take your photo and they respond like you're some sort of freak or that you're weird, you know, it's, it's hard to not internalize that because you're so insecure at the moment about, you know, whether or not what you're doing is weird. And if it's something that, that, you know, it, it, am I, am I weird? You know, for, for asking these people for their, for their photographs. And, you know, I'd go out some days and 10 people in a row would make me feel like I'm some sort of freak. Like, do you know what city you're in? You can't be stopping random people. Like, get out of my way.

• 1:09:46Speaker 00

  Like, get, what are you, what are you doing? Like, no, you can't take my photo. Like, get out of here. You know what I mean? And like- During my formative and like impressionable, you know, early days when I'm trying to figure this out, you know, five reactions like that in a row when nobody's paying attention to your work and you've been trying for months and you can't figure it out. I mean, psychologically it was very tough and you know, there'd be days where that would happen. I just couldn't do it anymore and I would just go home and, and you know, lay in bed.

• 1:10:21Tim Ferriss?

  You there?

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:28Tim Ferriss?

  You alright?

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, it's just like the, that was, that's the hardest part about doing it.

• 1:10:36Tim Ferriss?

  What, what did you, what did you, I mean, what would you say to yourself during a period like that? I mean, it sounds so, to me at least, I mean, the picture that it's painting, having experienced some dark periods in my life that had been maybe catalyzed by various things. It sounds really soul crushing. I mean, that sounds really-

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  I was just, that was all, you know, like, that was all, um, it was all like, you know, all of the doubt and, you know, all those, and not having any money and, you know, just nobody's paying attention and, you know, I'm just doing this all day long for months and, you know, like, all the tough shit was, uh, and like loneliness too. Like, I didn't know anybody in New York. Like, there was, like, I knew like two people and,

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  cause, and you know, like, there was a Christmas break where those two people went home and like, for two weeks, I didn't see anybody that I knew.

• 1:11:48Tim Ferriss?

  Jesus, yeah.

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  And, you know, I, I remember I, you know, it's, I spent Christmas Eve alone at a diner, um, and then I just went out and photographed, you know, it's like, cause it was just like the only thing, it was the only thing that could like-

• 1:12:10Speaker 00

  That would keep me from like thinking about how unlikely it was and you know whether how stupid of an idea it might be. Like the only thing that I think, you know, kept me from thinking about the possibility of failing was doing it was just photographing. And so like whenever I started to think is this gonna work, is it not gonna work? Uh, I'd just go out and photograph, you know? Like that was my only way of like keeping those wolves away of, you know, is this ultimately going to be a success?

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  Uh, am I wasting my time? Am I stupid? Like, uh, the only way to keep those away was to go out and work. And, you know, and so that's what I would do just all day long and do it and do it and do it. And so like these negative things, like the rejection of people and, you know, people saying no, and then I was talking about like all of the negative stuff. Like the thing that was like counteracting that all the time was just loving it so much, you know? I just, I just, I just loved it so much. Uh, and so, yeah, you know, it's like, it was just kind of this, the same way I was

• 1:13:39Speaker 00

  obsessed with markets, you know? I was obsessed with taking photos. And so that's kind of what carried me through it all.

• 1:13:47Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, listening to this story, it makes me want to ask you, when I look at Humans of New York and think about how many thousands of people you've humanized and how much empathy you've created traveling to other countries, helping to paint a more complete picture of humanity instead of allowing sort of mass media distortion to create us versus them mentality, or counteracting that at least to a very real degree and helping millions of people who have been exposed to your work and the interviews to feel less alone.

• 1:14:28Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, are you, that's a huge fucking deal and I, it just, it pains me. To hear a story like this, but it's so helpful for you to share it because I wonder how many people have ended up like in that diner alone and just quit, right? They just stopped.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, and well, I mean, it's not even, it's not even about stopping, you know, it's just like, I think Humans of New York work, it's not about like goals or like mission or, you know, I had a goal and I had a mission, but people just feel alone, period. You know what I mean? It's like that's, that's why Humans of New York has succeeded. And I'm not even talking about the people reading it. I mean, the, the number one question that people ask me is how do you get people to share with you? And, you know, I think, you know, for, for most people, and they're not just if you follow Humans of New York, you know, like I was, yesterday I was talking with a woman

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  who, I mean, I, she had not heard of Humans of New York. This is a perfect example, you know, I, I, she was catching a train, she had 30 minutes, she had never heard of Humans of New York. We started out with me kind of showing her the blog. And 30 minutes later, the place that we ended up at was, she was in this purgatory where her husband was depressed and an alcoholic. And he wasn't doing anything that was ultimately so bad.

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  He didn't beat her, he didn't cheat on her, but she wasn't getting fulfilled. And she was wondering if she was living her best life by staying with him for the kids. And she came to this place where she admitted that she was kind of secretly hoping that he would do something bad to make the decision easier on her.

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  And like, that sort of like honesty and that sort of truth and that sort of rawness. I mean, I don't know if she even admitted that to herself before. And, you know, people ask me, and that happens all the time, Tim. Like, that's good humans of New York. I mean, some of it's just, you know, pictures of kids saying cute stuff. And some of it's cute couples, you know, talking about their relationship. But, you know, good, good humans of New York is, is when we get to that moment. You know, when me and somebody are thinking through something or talking through something that they might not have, have thought through before. And, you know, the way people say, how do you get there with a complete stranger?

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  You know, I think that whenever I'm talking to somebody on the street, there are two threads running through their head at any given time. And one of them is this kind of fear of being exposed. This feeling of, of being vulnerable and discomfort. Who is this guy? Like, why is he asking me through these questions? And on the other hand, there is this appreciation of being heard. That even though I don't know this guy, this is the first person who has taken such a, a focused and detailed interest in my problems.

• 1:18:03Speaker 00

  And, and, and the, the, the feeling of having somebody focus so intensely, not on the sports teams you like, or the music you like, or any of the other kind of trivial things that we, we, we got, we get asked on, on a daily basis. But, you know, these, these real things that you're struggling with, and maybe not even on the top of your mind, but like in the back of your mind, that you're not even really bringing to the surface, you know, being heard like that is, is such a validating thing.

• 1:18:38Speaker 00

  That, that's why people always share. And, and I tell people at the beginning of every interview that these questions are going to be hard. And anything you don't want to answer, you don't have to answer. And we talk about when they got molested as a child. We talk about them cheating on their husbands. We talk about their alcoholism. We, we talk about how they don't love their child as much as they expected they would. You know? We talk about all these things and almost never do people say, I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about that. And I think the reason Humans of New York works isn't because the people who are reading it feel alone.

• 1:19:23Speaker 00

  That's a big part of it. Is that people, when they see somebody being vulnerable in a way that they're afraid to be vulnerable themselves, they connect with that person. But it really works because the people on the street that I meet are so thankful to have somebody really listen to them. That in that bubble at an hour and a half where I'm sitting with a stranger on the street, this magic happens. Where they're willing to kind of let me into a space in their mind or their soul or whatever it is, that they don't really let other people into. And it's, it's that place that I think connects with so many people.

• 1:20:06Tim Ferriss?

  That's a, an incredible gift slash talent that you've developed that allows you to make people comfortable enough to open up to that extent in 30 minutes. I mean, that is incredibly impressive to me. Uh, even given the fact that perhaps one of the elements underpinning it is how, how heard they feel, which is absolutely, I'm sure the case. Uh, I think about questions a lot and you have much more experience than I do. And that just blows me away that you're able to get there in such a short period of time. What are some of the other ingredients or

• 1:20:49Tim Ferriss?

  aspects of it that help you to, questions perhaps that help you to get there?

• 1:20:53Speaker 00

  It's, it's not the questions. I have about three or four entry questions that I use. What's your biggest struggle? How has your life turned out differently than you expected it to? What do you feel most guilty about? But really, the planned questions are just kind of springboards into a conversation. And, you know, where, how you get to that deep place with a person is absolute presence. It's being 100% there. You're not thinking in the framework of an interview. You're not looking at a list of questions. You're not thinking about your next question. You're not thinking about how this person fits into your idea of them and what you know about them.

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  You're 100% there and you're 100% listening to them. And your questions are 100% coming based on curiosity about what they are telling you. And nothing else.

• 1:21:54Speaker 00

  And, you know, why it is that I think Humans of New York is special and I think Humans of New York is, is something that, you know, is, is precious and, and may be difficult to replicate. Is that, you know, I've spent seven years in these conversations with 10,000 people. And it's not necessarily that I have gotten so good at asking questions. It's just that I've gotten so comfortable in the presence of a stranger. And so comfortable in the presence of somebody that I've just met. That I can sit there with them without an ounce of self-consciousness.

• 1:22:39Speaker 00

  And just be, and just be there with them and listen to them and be curious about them. And there's this energy that happens there. That this doesn't feel like somebody that's interviewing you. It feels like somebody who knows you and cares about you. Is really interested in what's going on in your life.

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  And it's very subtle and hard to describe, but I think it's that energy and that presence and that being there. And it's something I had to earn. It's the same thing like public speaking, you know? I mean, when do you really get good at public speaking? It's when you've done it so much that you can be yourself on the stage. And there's only one way to get there. And that's to be on stage scared as shit over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And I think the only way to get to that place where you can have that rapport with a stranger is not by studying interview techniques.

• 1:23:43Speaker 00

  It's by sitting with thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of strangers until nothing feels strange about it anymore. And you're able to be in that calm, present place. And what happens is your energy transfers to the other person. And they get to that place, too.

• 1:24:03Tim Ferriss?

  If we were to pick up the example that you gave just a few minutes ago about this woman talking about her relationship with her husband and his depression and alcoholism and so on. How did you, if you remember, how did you end up there? In other words, do you recall how the conversation headed to that?

• 1:24:25Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I mean, it can, uh, well, let me give you another example, since I already, uh, let me give you an example of somebody I talked to in the Philippines a few weeks ago. Same thing. I've traveled to 30 different countries now. I've done the exact same work. I've been to Pakistan, I've been to Iran, I've been to Iraq, uh, and I work with interpreters, and the process is exactly the same. I just walk up to people, random people, and get into these conversations with them. There was a woman in a park in the Philippines, and I started asking her, I think one of the first questions I asked her was, what is your biggest goal in life? And she said she wanted to have a good family life.

• 1:25:12Speaker 00

  And so I thought that that was the story and I started asking about that. And I learned that she wanted to have a good family life because when she was young, her family split. And she was forced to go to the courthouse with her mom and her dad at the age of nine. And the judge made her choose which parent she wanted to go with.

• 1:25:38Speaker 00

  And so I thought that was the story. And so I started asking questions about that.

• 1:25:44Speaker 00

  And then I learned that she ended up going with her mom. And afterwards, she, her mom remarried. And she didn't like her new stepfather, so she ran away. And I thought that that was the story. So I started asking questions about that.

• 1:26:03Speaker 00

  And then I found out that the reason she ran away was because her stepfather was abusing her. And that she had never told a person in her life, including her mom, until that moment, that that had happened.

• 1:26:19Speaker 00

  And that's how we end up in those places is I just, I am just curious about what's going on in there. You know, I'm just curious about what happened. I, I want to know the story and I just ask and I ask and I ask. And if something's not quite making sense, I, I, I wanna know why. And so I ask more and I ask more and, and it's, it's like you can't, I mean, somebody can choose to eventually to not tell the truth by saying I'm uncomfortable with it. But it can't really be concealed if somebody is really, really, really, really curious. You know what I mean?

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  You, you, you can never, you know, get to the point, like it's, Humans of New York interviews don't work. I always say it's not because somebody doesn't have an interesting story. Humans of New York interviews don't work when I reach a place when somebody's uncomfortable with the process, which is absolutely fine. There's, that's completely understandable. I'm a random person. I'm sharing these stories with 20 million people. It's 100% fine if you don't wanna share, like that's not, that is, that is nothing against you at all.

• 1:27:36Speaker 00

  But those are the interviews that don't make it on the blog. It's not that people aren't interesting. It's that Humans of New York really kind of thrives on this kind of honesty. And if somebody's willing to be honest, I mean, everybody's got an interesting story. And so it's like the, I hit dead ends not because somebody's boring. It's because somebody isn't comfortable with disclosing. Um, and so that's, that's kind of what defines, you know, the, the Humans of New York interview, or what is usable of the Humans of New York interview.

• 1:28:14Tim Ferriss?

  How often when people disclose, when they do go there and disclose these very vulnerable stories or things they've never told anyone else, how often do they ask that you not use it or that they're, or express concern that it's going to cause some type of problem for them?

• 1:28:33Speaker 00

  Well, that's, that's one thing that I am very principled about. Um, I give the person agency every step of the way. I tell them, anything you don't want to ans-- first of all, they don't have to talk to me, okay? They have that decision. Once we start talking, I say, any question you don't want to answer, you don't have to answer. If you tell me something during the course of this interview and you change your mind afterwards and don't want me to share it, that's fine. At the end of the interview, if you would like me to photograph your hands or your feet instead of your face, we can do that. In fact, if it's a very vulnerable story, I will normally insist on that to protect

• 1:29:16Speaker 00

  the person or protect somebody that they're talking about. If after I've done the interview and before it's posted, at any time you change your mind and you don't want me to share it, I give them my email address. And after the photo is up, for any reason, at any time, if you become uncomfortable from all the attention and would like me to take the story down, I immediately will. And so people have control of it every step of the way. Uh, it's very important to me that hu-- nobody ever sees Humans of New York as something that was done to them. I always wanted to be seen as something that was done with them.

• 1:30:00Speaker 00

  And, you know, have I failed at that sometimes? Out of the 10,000 people have I interviewed? You know, have there been people who were, didn't expect me to share a certain part of their story? Or was surprised by it, or it was a negative experience for? There have been a handful. You know, but I can only say that those are the, those are the worst moments for me. Uh, when Humans of New York was a negative experience for somebody, because that's who I really care about is, is the people that, that are on the block. You know, because I mean, they're, they're the people who kinda I, I had that moment with, you know? I spent an hour and a half with them and, and we, and we got to that place.

• 1:30:45Speaker 00

  And, you know, I, I, I just, if they are hurt by it, you know what I mean? Um, or if it's like, especially if they were really kind of vulnerable, then that's, that's when I feel the worst about myself. Uh, because I know how much pressure that spotlight can be. And I know, you know, how, how difficult it can be, you know, under, you know, having 20 million people look at you. And so, you know, if, if, if I ever feel that like I may be accidentally misrepresented or, or, you know, or, or that, that's, that's when I feel the worst.

• 1:31:23Tim Ferriss?

  How do you think about money as it relates to Humans of New York? Uh, ostensibly you want to probably eat more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and eggs now.

• 1:31:35Speaker 00

  Right, right. And I mean, it's, yeah, go ahead.

• 1:31:38Tim Ferriss?

  No, I was just gonna say in terms of what you do with advertising or partnerships or projects. Uh, because you have such, also such sensitive, not, not always, but eh, you have such potentially sensitive subject matter. And it's so personalized for these folks in many cases. How do you, how do you think about that?

• 1:32:00Speaker 00

  Right. Um, well, the, you know, right, obviously, so Humans of New York, I think we sold a million and a half books. Um, the, you know, the, the television show, you know, Facebook.

• 1:32:17Speaker 00

  You know, in Facebook, there's more than one person interested in it and Facebook, you know, they compensated me well for the four years of work that I worked on the television series. So, you know, I'm very comfortable right now. You know, I mean, Humans of New York has made me a, let's just say, I'm not working about, worrying about peanut butter and sandwiches. You know, I'm very comfortable. Um, with that being said, uh, I will say that Humans of New York has raised, I've, I've made, I've made a fraction of the money

• 1:33:02Speaker 00

  with Humans of New York that we have raised for charity, a small fraction of the money that we've raised for charity. Um, I have turned down maybe more money than I've made uh, from people who want to use my brand to partner with their brand, you know, um, big brands have offered me a lot of money to do Humans of, and I'm just gonna make up some names, you know what I mean, like Humans of Mercedes Benz, Humans of, you know, Humans of China, sponsored by Virgin Airlines. These are all fake things that I'm making up right now, but had resembled offers that have been made to me. Um, where, where

• 1:33:46Speaker 00

  I make the dividing line is that I'm willing to make money as Brandon Stanton. A big part of my income comes from speeches, you know, I give about 10 of these a year. Um, and, uh, that is a big part of my income. Uh, I have sell books as Brandon Stanton. Um, I don't sell the name Humans of New York to anyone. I don't rent my brand to anyone. Um, and, cause I never want any piece of content that I share to have a single motive. I've never broken that seal. And, you know, it's been, it's been so tempting.

• 1:34:32Speaker 00

  But I just know if I break it once, I'm never going to get it back. Um, so I, for seven years, I've never been compensated for a piece of content that I've posted on my blog. Uh, and you know, that is, that is the main delineation. Um, that I make between, you know, what can be monetized and what can't. And because of that, like I said, I'm not worrying about peanut butter and sandwiches anymore. Um, but you know, there is, there is a little bit of an insecurity. Am I going to look back in 40 years if everything suddenly, everything suddenly goes away and Facebook and Instagram, nobody are using anymore? Am I going to be like, oh, man?

• 1:35:17Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm working the night shift now.

• 1:35:21Speaker 00

  I had 20 million followers 20 years ago. Maybe I should have, uh, tried a little harder to make some money, but, uh, that's how I view it now.

• 1:35:28Tim Ferriss?

  Should have done those humans in New York lunch boxes while I had the chance.

• 1:35:31Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:35:34Tim Ferriss?

  So you mentioned the book. I'd, I'd like to chat about that for, for a second because it's, it's been the, well, books at this point certainly, but the, at least as I understand it, first book, so millions of copies, certainly more than a million. Was it easy to find a publisher for that first book?

• 1:35:52Speaker 00

  No. Um, I, I, I barely did. Um, the Macmillan, uh, God bless them. So like at the time, you know, I, I think when I sold the book, I had a few hundred thousand Facebook fans and it was growing so fast. You know, there was so much energy, you know, things were really taking off and I just thought, oh my gosh, you know, everybody's going to want to publish this book. Uh, and, and there's six big publishers, I'm sure you know all this, um, or seven or something like that. And you, you, the goal is to get all of them interested.

• 1:36:31Speaker 00

  Um, and so, and then, you know, in the perfect world, all of them are interested and then they bid against each other, right? Um, and so I, only three of them would meet with me, or four of them maybe. Um, and during those meetings, I thought that I killed it, you know? I thought, oh, man, like, uh, then I, I described it so well, I, I, you know, presented so well, they're all going to be very interested. And so we had an auction and the bids were due by 12 o'clock noon on one day. And it's like at 11 o'clock, I hadn't heard anything from my agent.

• 1:37:17Speaker 00

  And I was just like, what's going on? So I texted him and he goes, oh, uh, the first three dropped out. There's, they didn't make it offer. There's still one that we haven't heard from yet. Uh, and I'm just like, oh my God, you know, because that book was, well, that book was my life raft. Cause I didn't have any money at that time. I was hoping to get a little bit of a book deal so I could, you know, pay my bills. And I just remember I went to the YMCA and I just ran like five miles. Cause I thought it was going to be the worst day of my life. Um, and then when I got on the treadmill, I found out that, uh, Macmillan had made a, a, a small, but respectable offer. Um, and that's how I, I got a book deal by the skin of my teeth,

• 1:37:59Speaker 00

  which I think was, uh, which was lucrative for all parties involved.

• 1:38:06Tim Ferriss?

  And what were some of the reasons for not meeting with you or not putting in an offer that they gave?

• 1:38:12Speaker 00

  Because there's two types of books that have a history of not selling well. Uh, well, there's a lot of types, but mine, mine fit two categories. It was a photography book. Photography's books don't sell based on conventional wisdom. And it was a, what they viewed as a regional book where it is a photography book centered, centered on a single city. Therefore nobody's going to want it. That was the, that was, that was the argument against publishing humans of New York.

• 1:38:45Tim Ferriss?

  Oops.

• 1:38:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, this is, I, I love these stories because they are the rule and not the exception for so many things that turn into something.

• 1:39:00Speaker 00

  Well, things that are not derivative. You know what I mean? Like in my mind, in my mind, like the most valuable idea is the one that nobody's ever seen before. Like that's when you've got the gold. But you've got a better chance of just choosing something else that's good and making something derivative on it. Uh, because then when you go, when you go into these places and you pitch, you can say, oh, this is the, uh, this is Fifty Shades of Grey, but, you know, with furries. I don't know. Uh, it's just like, it's like, it's, it's, it's funny that like for me as an artist and as, as a creator, the, the last thing I ever want to do is be describing my work as it's

• 1:39:44Speaker 00

  this, but with a twist. You know what I mean? Like I, I wanna be creating something new. Uh, however, in the marketplace, the things that are, have most likely chance of getting bought are things that people can, can peg to other past successes. And so when you walk in with something like what I thought was Humans of New York's greatest value, which was there really wasn't anything else like it at the time, um, they, they viewed it as a big detriment.

• 1:40:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. But what are the comparables? You're like, uh, that's the whole point. There, there aren't that comparables.

• 1:40:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. Comparables, that fucking word. I mean, are you kidding me? Like, I just like in, in the same, the same thing, you know, when I was making the television series, like the same thing. It's like, as an artist, I want this to be like nothing else that's been, that's like the only thing I care about is making something that's really unlike anything else. Like that, that is, if, if it's like something else, it's, it's, I don't really want to obsess over it for three years trying to make it. You know, my goal is to, is to make something new and something fresh. And when you're trying to get compensated for your work, you know, the thing that you

• 1:41:02Speaker 00

  care about the most as an artist is often the thing that's held against you the most. Uh, because people are risk averse and they want to see something comparable that is also done well.

• 1:41:15Tim Ferriss?

  What's next for you? I mean, if you, do you have five-year plans, three-year plans, and so on at this point, or is it still 24 hours by 24 hours?

• 1:41:24Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:41:25Tim Ferriss?

  What's next for you?

• 1:41:27Speaker 00

  I do. I'm having a baby, so that's gonna be new.

• 1:41:32Tim Ferriss?

  Congratulations, that's a big deal.

• 1:41:33Speaker 00

  Thank you. Having a baby in July. So, beyond that, which is going to be new, um, the, like, for me right now, the biggest kind of artistic tension, um, is knowing, because of my experience on social media, um, the past seven years, knowing, knowing how social media works, knowing the importance of output and content and, and daily content and, and, um, engagement and things like that, um, knowing how to build an audience

• 1:42:16Speaker 00

  on one hand, and wanting to push myself as an artist on the other hand. Um, and, you know, what I really wanna do as an artist is I kinda wanna withdraw from the daily, you know, output model. Uh, I wanna work on things that have longer timeframes, that are more polished, and are maybe longer, but take longer to produce and, and more resources. Uh, but that, in order to do that, that requires me to kind of pull back from the blog, um, which, you know, the, the golden rule of, you know, social media is keep engaging with your audience, keep connecting with your audience, you know, don't lose touch, don't

• 1:42:59Speaker 00

  lose touch, don't lose touch. Uh, but the artist in me wants to go disappear for a while, and, you know, go into a dark cave and, and come out with something. Uh, so I think, you know, that is, that is the main push and pull in my mind right now. Um, so I'm gonna be going to the Philippines next month. Uh, to work on, I'm gonna spend a month filming a documentary on somebody, cuz I love documentaries and I wanna make a documentary. Uh, that is very interesting, so that might not be what's best for business, or best for growing audience, or best, you know, by social media metrics, but that is, that is what is exciting

• 1:43:42Speaker 00

  to me, and it, and it all comes back to that moment, and it's like, I, it's so funny, and I think you're probably the same way, is that we have these mantras and these things that we've learned, uh, that we stand on stage and we, and we say, and we, and we think about, you know, don't wait for the perfect idea, you know, it's never gonna seem perfect, you just gotta go after it, choose, you know, what is nourishing in the moment, things like that, uh, and if you're like me, like, I, I have to, I have to preach to myself, you know, a lot, you know, and, and tell myself the same thing that I'm telling other people, because it's so easy to kinda, you know, fall back into what everybody else, uh, is struggling with as well, because you never truly escape it, and so, you know, one of

• 1:44:27Speaker 00

  the things that I do is, you know, I go back to that moment when I lost my job and I was walking in Chicago, and I asked myself, you know, if nothing mattered, but, but how I was spending my time, you know, what, what would I, what would I be doing, what would be most nourishing for me in any given moment, uh, if it was, if nothing else mattered, except for how I spent my time, uh, and, you know, I'm trying to remind myself of that, you know, the same thing I tell other people, and, right now, I, I wanna go to the Philippines, I wanna make a documentary, and it might not be best for business, and it might not

• 1:45:08Speaker 00

  be best for humans of New York, but it's what Brandon wants to do, and so, that is, uh, that is the North Star that I'm trying to follow.

• 1:45:16Tim Ferriss?

  Good for you, man. I'm excited for you to disappear for a little while.

• 1:45:21Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:45:21Tim Ferriss?

  Not, that may come off the wrong way, but you, I think you get the, you get the, you get the sentiment behind it.

• 1:45:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:45:27Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, I have a...

• 1:45:31Tim Ferriss?

  Random suggestion.

• 1:45:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:45:33Tim Ferriss?

  Which is, if you have not read Cryptonomicon, which is a book by Neal Stephenson, who also wrote Snow Crash.

• 1:45:42Speaker 00

  I love Snow Crash.

• 1:45:43Tim Ferriss?

  So Cryptonomicon, part of the through line, one of the narratives takes place in the Philippines. So that could be.

• 1:45:50Speaker 00

  Okay, cool.

• 1:45:51Tim Ferriss?

  That could be fun to pick up. But Brandon, thank you so much for taking the time today. This was really a wonderful experience for me. And thank you for being vulnerable also and telling,

• 1:46:05Tim Ferriss?

  filling in some of the color in the story of your life thus far. And it's been, it's been really nice to get to know you a little better in this conversation.

• 1:46:17Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much. Hope, hope some of that's usable.

• 1:46:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think it is. Is there anything else you would like to ask of people? Suggest to people any, any closing comments before we wrap up?

• 1:46:31Speaker 00

  No, I think that's okay. And I think that's it.

• 1:46:37Tim Ferriss?

  All right, awesome. Well, once again, really appreciate you making the time. Particularly how much you think about how you spend your time to chat with me and with everybody today. And for everyone listening, you can, as always, find links to everything that we have spoken about, to all of Brandon's projects, as well in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, do what is nourishing for you in the moment, or at least ponder the question, and thanks for listening.

• 1:47:10Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. In the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends,

• 1:47:51Tim Ferriss?

  for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. If you're a longtime listener of the show or brand new to the podcast, my favorite Finnish entrepreneurs who founded this company, of course, I don't know that many Finnish entrepreneurs, but they may be my favorites, have something new that I've been loving. And some of you are familiar with Four Sigmatic. I've used their products for years now. They were introduced to me by an acrobat of all folks,

• 1:48:36Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:49:21Tim Ferriss?

  use, doesn't taste like mushrooms. It tastes like coffee. But you get the nutritional benefits of some of these special ingredients. So the products don't taste like mushrooms and are enjoyable. I offer them to my house guests and use them myself. And I don't particularly want to drink anything that tastes like mushrooms. So, moving on. The folks at Four Sigmatic have designed a few special deals for you guys, my listeners, which include many of my favorite products of theirs. So check it out. Visit foursigmatic, F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/timtim, that's T-I-M-T-I-M, no space, to see these special deals, which are not offered anywhere else. Remember to use the code TIMTIM. I don't know why they chose TIMTIM, but there we go.

• 1:50:07Tim Ferriss?

  Remember to use the code TIMTIM at checkout to receive your special discount. Again, that's foursigmatic.com forward slash TIMTIM and enter the promo code TIMTIM. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by WordPress.com. I love WordPress. I have used it for so many years. It's my go-to platform for blogging and creating websites. I use WordPress.com for everything, every day. My site, tim.blog is built on it. The websites for my books, including Tools of Titans, Tribe of Mentors, it's all on WordPress.com. And the founder, Matt Mullenweg, one of my close friends, has appeared on this show many times. Just search Matt Mullenweg, Tequila Ferris for quite an exciting time.

• 1:50:51Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:51:36Tim Ferriss?

  And it's easy to get started. There's no need to worry about security, upgrades, hosting, any of that. They have a 24/7 support and they're very, very responsive. You have questions, they get right back to you. And this allows you to create the highest quality with the least amount of headache and friction. So if you're building a website, period, and my friends come to me and ask what I use, what I recommend they use, the answer is WordPress.com. So check it out. If you want to get started today, learn more with a 15% discount off any new plan. Go to WordPress.com forward slash TIM to create your website and find a plan that's right for you. So learn more, take a look. WordPress.com forward slash TIM for 15% off a brand new website.

• 1:52:21Tim Ferriss?

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