5 reasons why I love NYC

My relation with NYC and why I love it here.

6 min readJun 20, 2017

First I want to sketch my relations with this city. This starts in July 2014. The first time I set foot on US soil and in New York City. Together with 26 other youngsters from Belgium, we came over here for a 10 day trip along the East Coast from NYC to Philly to DC. Although this trip was just for fun and I didn’t expect anything from it, except for a once in a lifetime experience, NYC stuck with me, real hard, and it still is.

I love the energy of this city. Everywhere you look there are people trying to make things happen and others that already have made things happen. It gives me this feeling that everything is possible.

This brings me to reason one:

Opportunities

For those of you that have, or have tried to move to a new city, country or continent, you know that the number one priority is to meet people. Think about not having your family, friends, colleagues, class mates, your sport club friends,… There will be no-one there. Although you will never be able to replace all these people, you need to make sure you have people around you in your new city. Especially in NYC. A city that can be very overwhelming from time to time by the sheer amount of things going on all the time.

So how do you do this? How do I surround myself with people, in particular, the right people? I’m not going to say it’s easy, but there are a lot of opportunities:

1: meetup.com and eventbrite.com

These apps allow anyone to host an event private or public about any subject you can think of. In NYC there are meetups for fans of 50 different dog breeds alone, and about 5000+ meet-ups a month ranging from 4 people to 400 like the NY Tech meetup. This is an opportunity you simply don’t have everywhere. Some of my best friends here are people I have met in a meet-up.

2: The New York state of mind.

One thing I did when I arrived here and even before that is making a list of companies I want to work for or people I want to meet with. Once I had established this list I started following them on social media, started commenting on their posts, found out on what they are working on, read their books, watch their videos… to then eventually, reach out to them not even asking for a meeting but just try to get on their radar. My messages looks something like this:

Hi…, we talked before in your comments, on twitter, on blabla event… I just read your book, watched your video….. and couldn’t help but notice the similarity with how I feel about…. Say something about yourself, very briefly and what you do or did in the past… I am inspired by what you do and would love the opportunity to talk to you directly to see if there is something I can do for you? Thank you and have a great day! And ask them to check out your LinkedIn or Twitter, Facebook, YouTube…(just one though)

And by doing this I’m meeting some of the greatest human beings I have ever met. The difference with NYC and Belgium, completely in my experience, is that the chances that someone will agree to meet you, or even just answers are so much bigger here. A lot of people know that by helping others they can help themselves and they also really appreciate people that are trying to do something with their lives. One thing you need to keep in mind is that if you do this you CAN NOT HOPE for anything to happen. You need to be in a state where the answer doesn’t matter. You can reach out to as many people as you want and now with social media, it’s very easy to do so. If they get back to you, great, if not you can always try again on a different platform where the person you’re trying to reach is more active, or via twitter so that others can see your request and he/she feels more compelled to answer, or just move on… I suggest doing it true LinkedIn though, especially when you reach out to people to talk about your professional life.

Also, try to bring value. If you really want to progress or want others to do something for you, find a way to bring the value. You give them 51% and you’ll get 49% back. If you don’t know what you can do for a person, just ask them! There is always something.

3: Random connection

This one is rare but very cool. Think about it. New York City has 8+ million citizens all pact snuggly together in one big city. On an average day, you have all these random encounters, in the subway, the coffee shop, the bookstore, the park, the ferry, the streets, the grocery store… And every once in a while there is just no other way than to ask someone a question or show you’re annoyed by the tourists randomly turning around on a busy sidewalk and running into them. (it happens quite a lot :)) Although these encounters really become a friendship, it starts a conversation and it makes you a little happier inside.

And by doing this I’am meeting some of the greatest human beings I have ever met. The difference with NYC and Belgium, completely in my experience, is that the chances that someone will agree to meet you, or even just answers is so much bigger here. A lot of people know that by helping others they can help themselves and they also really appreciate people that are trying to do something with there lives. One thing you need to keep in mind is that if you do this you CAN NOT HOPE for anything to happen. You need to be in a state where the answer doesn’t matter. You can reach out to as many people as you want and now with social media its very easy to do so. If they get back to you, great, if not you can always try again on a different platform where the person your trying to reach is more active, or via twitter so that others can see your request and he/she feels more compelled to answer, or just move on… I suggest doing it true LinkedIn though, especially when you reach out to people to talk about your professional life.

3: Random connection

This one is rare but very cool. Think about it. New York City has 8+ million citizens all pact snuggly together in one big city. On an average day you have all these random encounters, in the subway, the coffee shop, the bookstore, the park, the ferry, the streets, the grocery store… And every once in a while there is just no other way then to ask someone a question or show your annoyed by the tourists randomly turning around on a busy sidewalk and running into them. (it happens quiet a lot :)) Although these encounters really become a friendship, it starts a conversation and it makes you a little happier inside.

And in case you where wondering about the other four reasons:

Reason 2: Opportunity

Reason 3: Opportunity

Reason 4: Opportunity

Reason 5: Because I feel 50% more alive when I’m here.

If you liked it please give this article a big Applause! 🙌 Have you been to NYC yet? Have a great day everyone and for more articles and more information on what I do go check out my Website www.louisdekeyser.com