Passion is Nothing Without Discipline: Advice from the Founder of Humans of New York

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from Central Michigan University’s Events Office asking me to design a flyer for the CMU Speaker Series. They told me that their first speaker was going to be Brandon Stanton, the acclaimed photographer, author and the genius behind the Humans of New York blog. Once I heard his name I immediately got excited. I have been following his blog for years. Brandon discovers the stories of random strangers by taking photographs of them and having a deep discussion. He shares these conversations with the rest of the world on his blog. Some of these stores are heartbreaking, others are inspirational, and some are hysterical.

Listening to him speak was inspirational and motivating. He spoke about his rough time at his first job as a bonds broker in Chicago, and how he found his way to Humans of New York after being fired from that job. He offered advice for college students based off of his life experience. However, he stressed that giving career advice is dangerous because it’s all about luck and being in the right place at the right time.

Later that night, the College of Business Administration hosted a meet and greet for Entrepreneurship students and other important members of the CMU community. I was lucky enough to be invited. At the meet and greet, Brandon had conversations with faculty and staff, listened to student’s business ideas, and signed copies of the flyers I had designed. Here are some photos from that night:

Brandon’s Advice:

1. You have to risk everything in order make your dreams a reality.


2. Ideas come from the project and the doing. In order to find that one big idea you have to go out into the world and experiment, play around and actually do something.


3.   Find something that give you meaning. The best thing is getting up and choosing how you spend your time every day.


4. In order to break through social media, you must find how you are different and then focus on that. Find a way to differentiate yourself from the rest of the world. 


5.  Don’t create something just for the likes, shares, followers, and money. In order to be successful, you have to desire to do the work just because you love what you are doing.


6. Following your dreams is hard work. You have to be willing to get into the mud and face your fears.


7. When you feel anxious about where you are, start focusing on the small things and not being about the big idea.  


8. To overcome any fear and anxiety over your dreams, you have to stop focusing on things that you can’t control and channel that energy on things that you can.


9. You can’t control your life but you can control your day and tomorrow; fill you day with many different activities that are productive.


10. Discipline is more important than passion. You have to force yourself to do it every day no matter how hard it gets.