I left Paris 🇫🇷 to go to New York 🗽
Here's how I made some crazy things happen in New York →
I was feeling quite exhausted and fatigued from being in Paris and my routine here, so I decided to switch things up a bit. And so, two weeks ago, I took a plane and traveled to New York City for a week.
It was a last-minute decision, literally booking my flights 2 weeks before I left. And it was the best thing I did for myself recently.
How I met Brett Conti, Elliot Choy, Luke Eich, and a bunch of other YouTubers at 368 New York
I sat down at a WeWork one street away from 368, the NYC creator community, where I knew a bunch of these folks worked. And I wrote cold Instagram DMs to them.
Brett was so kind to reply to my DM asking for a coffee, and gave me an hour of his time to discuss YouTube, being a creator, building communities, and gave me some great advice on my YouTube journey, which was awesome.
Luke happened to be there too, and he dropped in to say hi!
We then went over to 368 and saw Kelly Wakasa + the entire ur moms house gang shooting a video, and I was a wallflower on their shoot for a hot second. This was awesome.
Honestly, I had no idea that this would happen and no expectation of it at all. It felt oddly weird to be there even, I was like “am I in a YouTube video or this real life?” because I was so used to seeing them in their YouTube vlogs the last few months. Wild!
But this entire experience taught me one thing — no one’s gonna give you anything if you don’t ask. Sometimes asking is all it takes. This happened literally as a result of a cold Instagram DM to Brett Conti, to which he was so kind to respond.
The rest of my trip was pretty awesome. I met a bunch of friends, ate a lot of good food, saw a Broadway musical (Dear Evan Hansen!), saw some great views of the city, and generally took in an entirely new culture and experience — breaking my routine of being in Paris.
Video of the week
I made this video about why I chose to move to France over the USA, while I was in the USA.
Thing I’ve been resonating with this week
I watched this Colin and Samir video interviewing Van Neistat, and getting into his mind — about what he thinks of being a creator and how he got to where he is today. Very very inspiring. Highly recommend watching if you’re a creator or just generally interested!
That brings us to the end! Thanks for reading this far, and feel free to hit reply to let me know what you think ✨
— Mayank