Nick Gray is an entrepreneur, author, and the former Founder and Owner of Museum Hack, a company known for its unconventional, engaging museum tours that make art and history fun and accessible. He grew Museum Hack into a multi-city enterprise with dozens of employees before selling it to his leadership team in a seven-figure deal. Nick is the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party and has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:59] Nick Gray shares the story behind his viral tweet offering a blind date trip to Tokyo
• [6:51] How entrepreneurship changed Nick’s tolerance for risk and spontaneity
• [9:18] Nick talks about rebuilding his social circle in Austin using a repeatable hosting playbook
• [12:18] Nurturing weak ties through simple quarterly gatherings
• [18:01] The biggest fear guests have when attending a cocktail party — and Nick’s core invite strategy to prevent empty rooms
• [34:46] How to run effective introductions at a party to spark engaging conversations
• [40:23] Why hosting gatherings at home strengthens relationships and reduces networking formality
• [46:47] Nick’s 24-hour reply-all email tactic to help guests connect after the event
• [52:28] A story of a party that flopped and what Nick learned from it
• [1:04:18] Nick talks about his newest ventures

In this episode…

As your business grows, your calendar fills up — but your circle often shrinks. Revenue increases, responsibilities multiply, and before long, most of your conversations revolve around work. How can you intentionally design gatherings that strengthen friendships while fueling smarter business growth?

Gathering expert Nick Gray says the answer is to stop leaving relationships to chance and start designing them intentionally. Most networking events fail because they’re unstructured and intimidating, but a simple two-hour cocktail-style gathering with 15-22 guests creates the ideal environment for connection. Start with a small core group to guarantee attendance, use name tags and guided introductions to reduce friction, and host in your home to deepen trust. When done consistently, these gatherings strengthen weak ties, open business opportunities, and create genuine friendships.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris chats with Nick Gray, former Founder and Owner of Museum Hack, about building meaningful relationships through intentional hosting. Nick explains his viral Tokyo stunt, the 15-22 person two-hour party formula, and his 24-hour reply-all tactic to spark post-event connections.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• William Harris: LinkedIn | Instagram
• Elumynt
• Nick Gray: Website | LinkedIn | X
• Patron View
• Personal Websites
• The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings with Nick Gray
• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters with Priya Parker
• Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
  
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Quotable Moments

• “Number one fear for a new guest is that nobody's going to show up.”
• “I realized, after some thinking, that it wasn't me that was the problem; it was the event.”
• “The ideal number I've found is about 15-22, which might sound like a lot if you don't really know.”
• “When you host at your house, you turbocharge the relationships with people.”
• “You have to think about my framework as the beginning. This is…step one of your friendship funnel.”

Action Steps

1. Host a two-hour cocktail-style gathering with 15-22 guests: This size creates enough energy for dynamic conversations without overwhelming you as the host. A time-bound format keeps momentum high and makes the event repeatable every quarter.
2. Secure a core group before widening invitations: Confirming your first 4-5 attendees eliminates the biggest fear — an empty room. This builds early momentum and increases overall attendance.
3. Use structured rounds of introductions: Guided prompts lower social anxiety and spark more meaningful conversations among guests. They also help people transition between conversations more naturally.
4. Host events in your home when possible: Inviting people into your personal space deepens trust and accelerates relationship-building. It shifts the tone from transactional networking to genuine connection.
5. Follow up with a 24-hour reply-all email thread: Encouraging guests to share links and next steps keeps the energy alive after the event ends. This simple tactic turns a one-night gathering into ongoing relationships.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00  

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris  0:14

Hey everyone, I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 to 100 million and beyond, as you up arrow your business and your personal life. Growing a business has a funny way of lying to you. At first, it tells you everything is working. Revenue is up, the team is growing, the calendar is full. Then one day, you look around and realize the room got quieter, fewer friendships, fewer real conversations fewer people who know you outside of your title. So many of the guests that I've interviewed have experienced this. Heck, I've experienced this too. Today's guest, Nick Gray is no exception. He's built and sold multiple million dollar businesses and also felt the struggle with adult friendships. Nick went on to write The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, a book that isn't really about parties at all, but really about how relationships are built when this and when you stop leaving them to chance. If your business is growing but your world feels smaller. This episode is for you. Nick, welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast.

Nick Gray  1:14  

What a nice intro. I'm excited to talk about this. All right, that's cool, yeah.

William Harris  1:17

And here's the book too, by the way, so you guys can see it, I have read it. I've enjoyed it very much. Couple people on my team have heard me talking about preparing for this podcast, and they've also bought it and read this book as well. So you're having an impact even at Elumynt as a whole.

Nick Gray  1:32  

It's a really quirky book, you know? It has a title, The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. The funny thing is, I don't even drink alcohol, sure, but I use that phrase cocktail party because it represents this idea of a lightweight social gathering that's so easy to gather for. And I was tired of hearing people say, oh, you should host a dinner party. And I just found as an entrepreneur, as a very busy business owner, dinner parties for me, we're not the right fit. I'll talk more about that later, if you're curious. But cocktail parties just symbolizes what could be a meet up or just a happy hour just to get together.

William Harris  2:10

Yeah, the nuance of that word, I have one interruption. Then we're gonna get right into the good stuff. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that IPO Ed. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt Comm, which is spelled Elumynt.com, okay, I wanted to go back to where I found you. I first found you on x. You're mentioned in a few of my friends posts, Sujin Patel, I had Neville Mehra on the show, and I got caught in some kind of stunt that you pulled about flying a stranger to Japan or something like this. And I started following you, and I read your book, and I was like, I got to talk to this guy. What was going on with this stunt, this random stranger flight thing that was going on here,

Nick Gray  2:59

dude, it was such an amazing time in my life. They say on the internet that you hope that you never become the main character on Twitter. And I was the main you were like for a few days, I was the main character that that whole stunt had over 26 million impressions, and I had 1000s of people who applied to want to go on a blind date, or we met up in Tokyo. And it happened because I was just bored at home one night. I was single at the time, and I was like, Hey, I just want to go on a date. I want to go back to Tokyo. I want to see if I can do it as a blind date. I literally didn't think more than that. I just like, let the tweet rip before I went to bed. You know, this was one of those moments, I have to say, I'm thinking about it now for the first time, where I didn't think too much, and I kind of just did it, and that changed my life. And there are moments where those things can happen. But yeah, I had an experience where I had gone a little bit of backstory. I had spent some time in Japan a year or two ago, and it was honestly a very beautiful experience, but lonely. I found the culture very isolating. I don't speak the language, and I just kind of found myself being like alone a lot of the time. And I left saying I would love to go back to Japan, but not by myself. Fast forward about a year and a half, and I knew I had to go. I was doing a speaking gig out at Yelp in San Francisco, so I was like, kind of halfway there. It's easy to get to Japan from there. And I was like, Screw it, dude, let me just share this out. Hey, does anyone want to meet me over there? And I posted it, and I went to bed. It sounds like the common story. I woke up the next day and it had gone viral, and I was like, oh, there's something big happening here, and it all all kind of ripped from there.

William Harris  4:56  

I I've actually been trying to do a little bit more of that myself. Of just not thinking as much I I have a habit. Sometimes people will tease me when I decided to get new jeans. I don't even remember how long ago, five years ago, it was like the styles were changing. And I was like, I can't just go get, like, the same gene that I gotta decide what I mean. So as I got spreadsheet for deciding which jeans I was going to get and this is, this is the epitome of overthinking what should be a simple thing, but I started doing now more over this past year, just like, I'm not gonna overthink this. Just, just do it. What you got say? Just go for it. Reminds me that movie, you know, yes, man, with Jim Carrey. Is this something, though, that you do more often now as a result of it, you're like, hey, that worked out pretty well. I should do more things without thinking. Are you like? Thinking. Are you like, no, no, I still really like to overthink. Or you like, I don't,

Nick Gray  5:47

I guess you're talking to a guy who reads every single product review for a new tech gadget. I moved into a new house about a year ago, and, like, for three days my life, I was obsessed with washer dryer reviews, and I knew every Samsung, whatever model, did that really matter in the washer dryer that I chose ultimately, no no strong thoughts about it, except to say that I think now that I am I've gotten married, I've moved into A house with my wife. I think I'm in a different season or phase of my life, which is a little sad on one hand, because I wish I could be here and tell all the business owners and entrepreneurs listening like you should do, like Don't think, just do it. But the reality is, like when you have a company, you have employees who count on you, people whose paychecks depend on your business. And so I think you have to hold that in different sandboxes of when you can and when it is appropriate to do that.

William Harris  6:51  

Yeah, that's fair. I want to jump into the book a little bit. So the book is called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. What problem were you solving in your own life. When you wrote this,

Nick Gray  7:03  

I just wanted to make more friends. I poured my heart and soul every minute into my business for so long, and I realized that I wanted to have friends that I had moved to a city I lived at the time in New York City, and I wanted to have friends outside of my buddies I knew from college, I wanted to build my own friend groups, and I started to try to go to meetups or networking events, and just wasn't successful. I mean, they were oftentimes held in loud bars where, you know, the most extroverted, confident people do well at those events, but that wasn't me, and I would leave those meetups feeling like it was my fault that I didn't meet people. And honestly, I, like, honestly, felt like a loser, like I was like, God, like I I just that's not like, I don't have it in me. And I realized, after some thinking, that it wasn't me that was the problem. It was the event, and that I could create a better event format or style that catered to people, maybe who were less extroverted, or maybe who didn't know everybody already. This format, by the way, that my book talks about, wouldn't be appropriate to run for like a group that's been hanging out for 20 years together, right? You're not going to use this at a family reunion and run name tags where, like, you know everybody's name, right? But the groups that I like the best are groups and events where I get to meet new people. And so that's really what these events are designed for is to help you meet new people. And then the specific tactical thing of when I used it was, I've been doing this for so long in New York, but I left New York in 2020 and I moved here to Austin, Texas, and within three months, I had a really good group of friends and a really good circle just because I knew what the playbook was, and I knew how to do it. By the way, this isn't just for friends. We can talk about that. You can use this in your business for finding new employees, new business partners, new customers and clients. The idea of keeping those weak connections and loose ties warm is really helpful.

William Harris  9:18

I hadn't even actually considered that aspect of it going beyond the personal side, because I really do resonate so much with the personal side. Again, building businesses and so many people have been on here talking about that same thing. Actually went to where do you live, by the way, what city are you in? Minnesota? Stillwater, Minnesota. So we're about half an hour outside the Twin Cities. Nice, nice. Yeah. So we, I was at a book launch last night, similar thing. It's loud and I'm just trying to inject myself into a conversation. And I did right like, I walked over to a couple of guys, looked like they were laughing, and I was like, just jumping in say, Hi, you're laughing. Sounds like you're having a good time. And the guy literally, you got 10 seconds to tell me why you've interrupted our conversation. It right, like, so you cuz, and then it's like, I don't know, I don't even remember what I said, but it's, it is to your point, it is difficult to make more meaningful conversation. It was loud, it was good, it was fine, and I had a good time, but I don't know if I'm gonna walk away saying that any of these people now I feel really that connected to

Nick Gray  10:20  

dude, and that's the thing, it was a missed opportunity by the host. This happened to me about three, three months ago. I went to a friend's wedding, and it's a guy who I know a little bit well, but not super well, but he's a very interesting character, and I went to his wedding. And I'm not saying you need to do this at your wedding, because that's like, such a private thing. But I didn't talk to anybody new, like, I talked to the people at our dinner table, but there were so many other people there, and, you know, I was there with my wife. It's not, it's like, not the situation where you want to walk up and schmooze at other tables, be like, so who are you and what's your story? And I just left with the experience like, what a missed opportunity for us to have met some other people. And I think at the event that you went to last night book launch, all these interesting people who have a lot to share, what a missed opportunity. Hey, one pro tip I'll tell you for joining conversations something that I've found the two most powerful words that you can do when you join a conversation are to simply join and just say, please continue. And the idea for that is that you will wait for a natural point in a break in a conversation, for them to work you in. I went to an event last week, and I noticed that so many people were arriving at staggered times. Every time a new person would come, it break the conversation. Everybody would have to introduce them, versus if you just said, if people who are joining at that event, so just said, oh, please continue. Then maybe it's easier to work those people into the convo.

William Harris  11:59  

That's brilliant. I will 100% use that again, for a lot of our audience, e commerce founders, they're scaling fast. Many of them are gonna say, I'm just too busy for friendships. I'm too busy for relationships. I'm focused on growth. What are you seeing as the hidden cost of neglecting relationships when you're scaling a business?

Nick Gray  12:18  

Here's the thing, as a business owner, you have a very large network of what I call loose connections or weak ties. These are potential customers who maybe worked through the sales funnel but ultimately didn't sign up with you. They are potential employees that you did interview rounds with, but for one reason or another, it wasn't a good fit at the time. They are channel partners. There's other things these people that you have out there who could be an asset, or you could be an asset to them, but life is busy and you don't really stay in touch with them enough. Maybe they see your socials. Maybe they don't. I have found that when you host something like this, a little happy hour once a quarter, it is an insane way to grow that network of loose connections or weak ties simply to help keep you and your business top of mind. It doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be complicated. It simply expands your surface area so that people keep you in mind when it comes time for you to hire or look for new customers, or whatever you have had a touch point with them.

William Harris  13:25  

It reminds me of a quote that I really appreciate by Josh McDowell, rules, without relationship leads to rebellion. And so this idea for a lot of the people on our team is making sure that we get them together, because that creates those relationships, and then it's a lot easier to somebody assigns a task you in Asana. And it's not like, just one more task in Asana. It's like, oh, okay, great. No, this is, this is Kelly. Like, I love Kelly. Kelly's so fun. Like, of course, I'm happy to do this. But to your point, it's like, if you're doing this now, with these loose connections, sometimes it's all it ends up being, but there's more of a relationship there. And so if there is some type of a thing that you're trying to do or trying to accomplish, they're excited to be a part of whatever it is you're doing.

Nick Gray  14:06  

What a neat quote, Rules without relationships lead to rebellion. I think that you must use that within your team. But because if you're like, hey, you have to clock in at this time, or hey, whenever you do a meeting request, you have to do this. It just feels like so top down and and people don't understand it. How do you do that within your team? Do you guys do icebreakers or, like, every Monday you go around and like, hey, share one thing that you did this weekend.

William Harris  14:36  

We are an entirely remote team. We were that way from the very beginning of the business. This wasn't like a pandemic thing. We started it that way. It was because of the book Remote by Jason Fried 37 signals, right? So we do have a daily stand up 15 minutes, which is not really business focused at all. Is just getting to know each other. Every single person on the team has a turn at the wheel where they run. A Question of the week, and they get to be the one who's interviewing, talking to people, and getting to know people. I think that just helps them to develop, like that leadership ability and things like that. But it is. It's just silly questions that we ask people. We try to do at least every other week. We're doing team lunches, where we're getting everybody together, and we're just, you know, goofing off, having a good time, things like that, and then flying everybody in-person. There's something that I still feel like about the in-person aspect, is we try to fly everybody in at least once a time. I just think that you just, what I say is, like, you need to sweat together. You need to do something. It's like we're doing some like climbing or something, where it's like we just got to get out there and move around together a little bit.

Nick Gray  15:37  

Yeah, that's cool that you bring everybody in. It's not cheap to do that, but, oh, my God, is it helpful? It is just, it's so nice. I have some folks that I work with, and they live very far away from me, and I've tried to go visit them. And whenever I do it, I'm like, God, we should do this more often, you know, like, I don't know about you, but I always say that when we do

William Harris  15:56  

it, always, I want to jump into some of the philosophy backstory, stuff like that. In the book, you say that hosting is a skill you can learn. Many business founders assume they're not people persons, or that networking is an awkward chore. How do you get someone like that to shift their identity from I don't host to I am the connector?

Nick Gray  16:18  

Let me think about that. I think that, you know, it is hard to think many people think, Oh, I'm not the host, right? Like, oh, I didn't grow up with the hosting skill set. Like, you know, like, I'm not a host. And for one reason or another, maybe their parents didn't host, maybe they weren't social, or they weren't sort of extroverted. I think what's different about my book is that it was written for and designed for people who are not hosts. And by the way, I'm not trying to gate keep the stuff in my book. I will tell you and your listeners everything that they need to know if they're too busy to read it, I'll tell you all the stuff inside of it. But that really was my goal, was to take someone from zero to one, from someone who never hosts to someone who says, Hey, this is a skill. This is something that I can actually do and work on, and just like anything else I can get to be good at it, that's what I found, and that's what changed my life.

William Harris  17:13  

Yeah, and maybe that's a good place to go here next, not gatekeeping, right? Like, I want people to go read the book, because I think that, you know, there's this many pages for a reason, and it actually really helps to kind of walk you through the process. But like, short synopsis of, like, what The 2-Hour Cocktail Party is, short

Nick Gray  17:31

synopsis is, it's a step by step guide. It's a hidden Handbook of how to host a two hour meetup, or happy hour that is from soup to nuts, everything from who to invite, what messages to text them, how to get them to commit an RSVP. A lot of the book, honestly, is things to prohibit. The number one fear of a new guest. And if you had to guess what, what do you think is the number one fear for a new guest,

William Harris  18:01  

I had to guess the number one maybe that people wouldn't show up.

Nick Gray  18:06  

That's exactly right. Number one fear for a new guest is that nobody's going to show up. And so so much of my book is really designed around, how do we make sure that that doesn't happen? And some of that is in your first five invites. You say, Hey, William, I'm thinking about hosting a happy hour on this date and time. If I do it, would you come? And that helps you get that early core group who says yes, and you lock them in, and then you widen your invite circle, and you widen it some more. It's not doing what most people do. Most people do what I call the spray and pray method. They spray out some invites and they pray that people will show up. And I've never been successful with that. And for a first time host, I don't think it's the right way.

William Harris  18:54  

I have actually never seen that before reading this book, and I will say that I liked it so much. I have a 15 year old daughter, 12 year old daughter, 10 year old daughter, and as you can imagine, a 50 year old girl you know, trying to plan a party having people over for whatever that is. Like her biggest fear, it's like, but what if nobody comes? And I'm just, I've actually taken her through this. I haven't gotten her to read it, but I've taken her through parts of it. I'm just like, Okay, well, who's the core? Who are the four or five people that you're like, if I ask them they're they're very likely going to say yes to anything that you ask them to do. And so it's like, okay, let's just see what they they're available first. Okay, okay, great. Now we go from there. They're available this time. Now you can ask the other people. And when I read that, I was like, I've never seen that, because I am. I'm the typical extrovert who I'm like, I'm gonna invite every single person I know. He's like, who wants to come over and play poker tonight or whatever, right? And it's, it's a different I liked this approach.

Nick Gray  19:48  

Yeah, yeah. I think that method of the spray and pray can work if you have a very established social network with a lot of close friends and you're comfortable. Host and and if it's the type of event that only a handful showing up, still work. So poker, watching a football game, those are good examples of that. What I have found, and this is something else that's unique, is that to host a happy hour more people is actually less work. And what I mean by that, the ideal number I've found is about 15 to 22 which might sound like a lot if you don't really know, but I'll tell you why 15 people is enough that when you come into the room, or when you look around, there's not enough people for you to talk to. Every single person, there is that feeling of like, oh, there's a lot of people here. And so I say that 15 really is the minimum. If you have less than 15, let's say you have 10. You know you as the host, kind of have to do a lot more managing and babysitting. Sometimes it forms into one circle. Sometimes people are tired of talking to other people. You just have to host a lot more. Now why is 22 the maximum for a new host. 22 is about the most that you can manage to run, for example, a round of introductions. Or just to keep it slightly manageable, I've I've tested this, I've hosted hundreds of happy hours and events, and I've taught almost 1000 people now how to host their verified first party ever, and 2022, is really a sort of an upper limit for your first time, just to, just like riding a bicycle, just to keep you kind of comfortable.

William Harris  21:30  

I like that. I like that. You've narrowed it down to 22 I mean, this is, you know, it's such a random number. It's not like 15 to 20. Let's round it off, or whatever. 22 Yeah, yeah. Very little dialed in. You also argue that two hour time bound event is the sweet spot. Why exactly two hours and why a cocktail party format rather than dinner network aking event? You kind of angled at this a little bit in the intro.

Nick Gray  21:54  

I have found that a dinner party tends to be logistically complicated for new hosts. There's dietary restrictions, there's food. Here's the thing. A lot of people will hear a dinner party and they'll think, Oh, I got to focus on the food. What I think is the food should be your last concern. I want you to focus on the relationships and the conversations and the connections. The food can figure itself out. When people do a dinner party, they tend to focus too much on the food. You really can't have less than, let's see, for a dinner party, you really want to have minimum four, really maximum six. There's a woman whose name is Priya Parker, and she wrote a book called The Art of Gathering. And Priya says that when you have eight or more people at a dinner table, the conversation splits into multiple sub conversations, which at a cocktail party is what you want, but at a dinner party, you kind of want to keep it as a single conversation thread at one table. So anyhow, dinners, I found that in a busy city like New York, maybe up near you by the Twin Cities with bad weather, if you have one or two cancelations, it just ruined my dinner, and it really threw off the whole vibe of what I was trying to do versus a cocktail party. You know, I could invite a few more people. One or two cancellations wasn't going to break me and it was just a lot easier for me to set up and clean up afterwards.

William Harris  23:23  

That's a good point. I did do a dinner in LA one time that did not go the way I wanted it to, where, because of traffic, we have traffic here, but not like LA traffic. And I just remember being there where it's like, I think there was three or four cancelations where people were just like, I'm stuck in traffic. It keeps updating saying, you know, it's now, like, four hours so I can get there. And so I think there was three of us that ended up being there then at the dinner by the time it was all said and done. So to your point, I see where you're going with that. It's like, you know, one two cancelations. It's like, it's now a very different event.

Nick Gray  23:54  

It really does change look. You can host a dinner party. You can graduate to a dinner party. But here's what I found, if you're a busy entrepreneur, you're listening to this podcast, you're like, God, like, how could I possibly have time to do this? I have found that the people that are most successful with hosting, the people that get more clients, better employees, more partnerships, have more friendships, those people who truly create relationships learn how to make hosting a habit, and if I want to give you a formula that's repeatable, that you don't hate yourself the day afterwards, let's think about that. What if I give you this elaborate party formula and it takes everything out of you, and you're up till 2am and the next day, you wake up and it's like your house is messy. You're never going to want to do that again. I found that this two hour window allowed me to get 80 or 90% of the benefit, but in a way that I could do it quarterly and regularly, and it didn't take away from all my other duties.

William Harris  24:56  

I like that you talked about weak ties, and that's like a. Phrase you use a couple times already, and I appreciate that you mentioned in the book as well, the power of bringing people together who don't already know each other. For a business owner, what's the ROI of weak ties versus strong ties? And how do you convince someone who only wants their a list to open up the circle?

Nick Gray  25:17  

I think that in order to get to the a list, you have to build your weak ties. Let me think about how to tell this story. I just returned. I worked an event last week that I can't say any names, but to put it in context of the 25 attendees, 13 of them flew their private jets. So this was a group where, like by far, I was the least wealthy, least successful of that whole group. And I put in the work in order to get there, of hosting tons of other meetups, of working different connections. The way, in fact, that I got there was by befriending, sort of an assistant to one of the guys who was attending. I didn't think about this strategically. I wasn't like, oh, to get there. It's like, No, I was just building my network of people. The other big thing I think I want to say is, if you listen to this pod and you're like, Oh, I'm ready to host, I'm going to pull from the top shelf immediately and invite my a list. What I would say is start with easy like, get this format down so you become a good host, because the last thing I want is for you to invite this top three ideal customer profile person or person you really want to be best friends with, and then it comes time to host and you're nervous and you're frazzled and doesn't go the way that you want. I am speaking to you as a very practical host who has hosted and taught hundreds of people how to host. This is like hard earned advice that is hard to hear, but is helpful to think about this like a marathon and not like a sprint. Of only hosting one party,

William Harris  26:59

it's so good because everything you do, you get better at by doing repetitions. I look back. This is episode, I think 141, I look back to Episode One, and I did re watch some of these a little bit ago. It's like, wow, I was really bad at this. I now maybe I'm still not that good, but I would at least say that it's I've come a long way from that first one, and I can only imagine that you do get better at hosting, and now you have an opportunity to really walk away with that guest feeling truly as if you know what you're doing. They felt cherished. They felt loved and appreciated, and it felt like this was a really good event.

Nick Gray  27:33  

What things for you have you in your craft of interviewing and doing all these episodes. What stuff do you notice when you watch the earlier ones? Or I guess I'm just trying to look like, what are those golden nuggets for you that have been hard earned?

William Harris  27:52

I would say, I would say some of my interactions, maybe just in general, I feel like I'm a little bit better at pausing and listening to what you have to say, versus like, this is my agenda. I don't have to follow up with the exact next thing where it's like, Hey, you went there. And I'm just like, I'm gonna skip ahead here. Then this is great. Let's just move to that. Then I feel like I can flow a little bit better with what the conversation is. Probably the easiest thing that I'd say is the biggest change

Nick Gray  28:19

is flowing. Because you maybe, and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but maybe you have the confidence to know that it's still going to land, and it's still going to work out, and that there's beauty in the naturalness of it.

William Harris  28:32  

I think that's fair to say. I think it's fair to say that sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised by what happens, even if it completely goes off script. You're like, we didn't actually talk about any of the things that I had on the list, but the conversation was just real conversation, genuine curiosity. And that made it maybe even better. And I think people appreciate that even more.

Nick Gray  28:55  

One of the new questions I like to ask, kind of as an icebreaker or something at the events I host is, what are you nerding out about right now? Or a variant of that is, like, you know, like, what do you really want to talk about now? And I think that's so helpful, because even in this room that I was in of billionaires, you know, one guy was very passionate about why you should only drink water from glass bottles, right? Like, that's a niche thing. He didn't want to talk about his publicly traded firm or all the stuff you knew from his past life. He wanted to talk about this water stuff. And, like, sometimes you got to meet people where they are in order to build a relationship.

William Harris  29:36

That's so good. And that is actually why I end every episode with that section of like, who is blank because of that exact reason? Like, I want to know. The things that you want to talk about that have nothing to do with the rest of this episode, nothing to do with business. It's just like, What are you specific as the human being interested in which I have a couple of things that you and I might talk about here later. I like that you got this idea. Idea of, okay, so weak ties, and you're trying this idea of people that we want to employ, or something like that, we are all remote. How do you is there a way to do this in a remote environment? Or is it like, No, it just breaks down in a remote way.

Nick Gray  30:21

You know, I have a lot of respect, but also sympathy for those who are running remote teams. A lot of people have asked me, Hey, how does your format apply to zoom meetings or to stuff? And it's so hard. I think there's people out there that are more skilled than I am. I've tried it. I've tried to tell people, okay, you got to have breakout rooms. You need to have everybody with the mic on. You can't let people mute. You are probably much more experienced. I tend to focus in the domain that I'm good at, and that's real life, in-person meetups that are 15 to 22 people. I'm kind of dialed in on that,

William Harris  31:00  

yeah, yeah, that's fair. You mentioned, let's say, let's go back to the in-person ones. Then you mentioned simple scripts and checklists for invitees the flow of the event. Can you share a sample invite script or part of one that you've seen work especially well?

Nick Gray  31:18  

Would this be used set me up and just give me a little context. When, when do you want it to be used? What's the what's the gathering? And then I'll give you

William Harris  31:27  

Okay, so let's say that I am just, uh, wanting to get to know people. This is not business related. This is exactly like what you just said. I'm I've been busy. I've been, you know, for me personally, I there was a period of time where I went to bed at like, 4am and I was up at 7am and so it was like, you know, there was no time. And so you're just like, Okay, we got to start meeting people. I am married, right? So it'd be like me and my wife trying to do something, get together with some other couples, and maybe we're saying we've got kids. So we're saying this is probably going to be maybe on a Friday night or something like that. We're going to make sure that the kids are that the kids are taking care of somewhere else. And most of the key people that we're probably going to be working with probably

Nick Gray  32:09  

have kids too. And what's the name of the town you live in? Stillwater. Stillwater. So at an event like this, if it was you and your wife that was hosting it, first, I want to note that I think about these rounds of introductions. Some people call them icebreakers, but I find that that word is such a knee jerk negative reaction these days, especially in a personal setting. So I say rounds of intros. Let's just think about why we do those rounds of intros first. So I just want to set the table with the why, so your listeners know the importance of it. Hopefully, at your happy hour, you are bringing together people who do not all know each other. Okay? And so at a baseline, I want you to use name tags. I want you to do first names only because that symbolizes and shows people that this is a safe space that's not like a party of clicks where everybody knows each other. It's an okay place to go up and say hi to somebody new. Okay, but why do we do those intros? You do those intros because, number one, it helps create new conversations. Number two, when you run the intros, it actually helps people end the existing conversations they were having. Many people are very good at starting new conversations, but socially, they're not good at sort of ending those conversations. They stay in them much too long. And number three is we do those because it kind of gives everybody in the room a chance to do a roll call, to say where they are, who they are, to give you an idea of like, Oh, I really want to talk to that person before I leave. And so I think about scaffolding these rounds of intros when I'm at an event. One example of scaffolding would be, hey, let's start with a green level that's easy as possible, that doesn't cause people to get trapped up in their head. And so an example of a green level would be, hey, hey, what's up? Everybody? Since there's a lot of new people here, let's do a quick round of intros. And what I want you to do is say your name, say what you do for work, or kind of what you're working on. If you don't want to talk about work, you don't have to. But then also, please share with me one thing that you like to have for breakfast. What's one of your favorite things that you like to have for breakfast. And now, as you're listening to this, you might think like, what are we in fifth grade? Like that is such a simple, childish intro. But that question, what's one of your favorite things you like to have for breakfast doesn't cause people to lock up, yeah, a bad example is something that's a brain teaser. What's your worst first date that you ever went on? What's your favorite movie?

William Harris  34:46

I hate anything that's absolute like that. Like your best, your worst. Because I'm like, I'm pedantic enough where I'm just like, Well, that was a bad one. I don't know if that's my worst now, I really got to think through every single bad situation in my entire life to see is that my worst one?

Nick Gray  35:00  

One Yeah, and you, we never want to lead with with a What's your worst or something like that. One fun fact, a way to change that. If you really want to ask people would be to say, what is one of your favorite books? Yes, I like that. Or what is one good book that you've read this year? It doesn't make it definitive and subjective, which elicits judgment from others. So anyhow, we say that. We say, What's one of your favorite things to eat for breakfast? Because it just expresses a little bit about people's personality, and it just gives them to chat and to talk and to voice a little bit. So we'd use that at the very beginning, but then at the end of the event, I want you to do something I call a value additive icebreaker, and that's where everybody's answer adds value to the rest of the room. And so for you in Stillwater, what I would say is, hey, for this last round of intros, I'd tell them this five minutes before I do it, so they can think for a second. But I would say, hey, share with me your best life pro tip or life hack here in Stillwater. And that could be, what's the best coffee shop you found, the best dog park, the best gym, the best small business. What's a cool small business here in Stillwater that you like to support? What's something cool here in town, really, that you want to shine a light on? And so what happens is, when you do a value additive icebreaker towards the end of your party, it leaves people with this memory of like, oh my god, I met so many cool people. I got all these new ideas, and they're like, Wow, that was a really cool happy hour. And you've immediately raised the bar for what a casual social Meetup is, and you are seen as a good host. And so these are like little tricks. It's not rocket science, but it's little tricks that anyone can do to be seen as a good host.

William Harris  36:50  

I love that idea. I love the how you bring it back into, you know, the actual location that you are in. I think that's very interesting. You brought up leaving the conversation, then, when you were leaving the conversation as one aspect of it. But let's just even say, Okay, you hosted these people. You're trying to create all of these weak ties or these more connections. How do you handle this idea of maybe somebody's like, Well, why didn't you invite me to the next one? You had another party, and I didn't come to that one, right? Or like, how do you get around this idea of it's like, Hey, we're not BFFs. We're just trying to connect and create opportunities and things like that.

Nick Gray  37:29  

Something that I tell people is, if, if you're really worried about that, is to use this phrase when you host your party, say, Hey, I'm starting to host these parties once a quarter, there's new people every time. So that's one way. So use that phrase, there's new people every time. And people understand, okay, it's not the same group. And to tell them your why, your why, is like, Look, I've just met so many interesting people here in Stillwater. Like, I want you guys all to meet each other, and so I'm going to host these once a quarter. There'll be new people every time. I'm going to mix the group up, but I really want you all to meet each other. The second thing that you can do if somebody really feels offended that they didn't get invited, would be to schedule not just your next party in advance, but your next two parties. And so then you could invite someone to maybe the second party afterwards. They don't get invited the next one, but they do get invited to the one after this, by the way, is a very big pro tip when you start to reach from the top shelf to go after those people you really want to connect with. You now have two opportunities, two dates to give them, because the reality is, a lot of people are busy. They might want to come, and they're open to it, but they're just busy that night. And so now you get to say to them, Hey, I'm hosting these things once a quarter. Here's the next two dates we'd love to have you sometime. Can I send you the info?

William Harris  38:42

Is there benefit, or is it counterproductive to have wildly different people at these events where you mentioned, you know, this one, it's like 13 of them have their own private jets, right? Is there, you know, benefit to having it's like a party where it's like one person has a private jet, the other person just graduated college, you know, another person is retired. Like, benefits, pros, cons,

Nick Gray  39:07  

huge benefits to that. You know, I think that diversity in attendees, and when I say diversity, I don't mean like racial diversity. I mean in occupation, in age, in profession, I want you to be inviting people from different buckets in your life. So you may have a bucket that's your clients, you may have a bucket that's your like your kids parents. You may have a bucket that's your neighbors, and maybe you like rock climbing, so you have a bunch of rock climbing friends. I want you to invite people from each of those groups. And I tell you, I hear from so many people I cannot believe that such and such got along together. I promise you, you are the common thread. You have a good choice and screening of people. Your friends will connect in ways that you can't imagine. That's a

William Harris  39:57  

really good point. Um. What about the environment? Like, are you doing this at your home? Is it better to do this somewhere else? And if it is at your home, you know, I'm just gonna throw my wife under the bus here. She's it could never be clean enough. Like, it doesn't matter how clean we have made it, it is still not clean enough to have people over. And so how do you get over those pieces of it?

Nick Gray  40:23  

Controversial hot take of Mine is that this kind of has to be hosted at your house. Now I do have a solution. If your house is absolutely not possible, but of the hundreds of people I've talked to, 98% of them, the best place to host is their house, and I'll tell you why. When you host at your house, you turbocharge the relationships with people. What that means is, when you invite someone into your home, it is so vulnerable, and yet it snaps you out of a networking, transactional relationship. Like, wow. Like, I'm invited to your house. I mean, this is not like a business networking event. I'm coming to your house. You also get to be generous. It's not expensive to serve everybody drinks and light snacks. You get to serve them. You get to welcome them. You get to bring them into this space that you control and that you design to an extent. Now that's your question. What do you do? Because the house is never clean enough. There's a woman when I was first launching my book, who lived in New Jersey, and she, you know, she kind of marketed herself online as this turbo successful, you know, mommy millionaire type. But the reality is, for one reason or another, her house was being renovated, or they were between houses. The story is that they lived in an apartment complex, and she had a two or three bedroom house, and her kids were in there, and her husband and she just didn't want to host at home. You know, she thought somebody's going to walk in and judge her. And so her first event she hosted at a restaurant. It was a, not a perfect event. It was too loud, it got messed up with all the bills they were seated. I talked to her afterwards, and she built up the confidence to actually try hosting at her home. And what I told her, I said, Nancy, nobody's gonna walk into your house, look around and leave to immediately start a rival happy hour, like they're not, like they're not gonna do that like, I promise you. And sure enough, she said, once she was able to overcome that fear, people loved it. They were so happy to come to her house. Fast forward, six months later, she hosts these Wine Wednesday nights with all these women. When she goes to the grocery store to PTA meetings, she gets recognized in town now, like just because she was able to get over that fear. And the reality is, nobody cares how clean your house is. Nobody cares that you've put all the junk into the guest bedroom. They just want to come over and connect and they're going to be thankful that you were willing to invite them into your home.

William Harris  42:51

Yeah, I think there's something special about actually being in that personal space. Like you said, it almost, it almost creates more of that connection.

Nick Gray  43:00  

It, it really does. I mean, the the stats show, I mean, I know this. I don't have, like, official stuff, you know my backup option if people are like, absolutely. So let's take for you, for an example, you're in Stillwater and you're like, you know what? All my business clients are actually in the Twin Cities. I want to build relationships in the Twin Cities. Having them come all the way out here doesn't make sense for where I'm trying to go towards my backup option that I tell people is fine if you absolutely cannot host this at your home, then the place I would do it is in a hotel lobby. Hotel lobbies, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, are designed for these types of things. They're transient. There's new people every time. They're usually large, somewhat beautiful spaces, if you pick a nice hotel bar and hotel lobby bars are a nice place that you also could gather

William Harris  43:52  

it's a great idea. How about connecting after the the party? You know, are people tapping their skin in their LinkedIn bar code. Are you? You know, passing on, like, cards, like that feels disingenuous, especially if it's really not like a networking but you're just trying to get to know somebody, but you, like, had a great conversation with this person. I remember their first name, don't remember their last name, have no way of looking them up. Like, how do you make sure that you can continue on after that?

Nick Gray  44:19  

I have a secret weapon that I'm going to tell you about, how to love act afterwards with people, but I'm going to tell you that after the break, because I'm gonna use the bathroom, maybe you can do sort of like a commercial break for your company, and by the time you're done, I'll be back In like, we'll put on elevator music. You're good. You I forget actually what the question was that I asked you. The question was, how do you connect afterwards? Oh, yes, yes, so you're gonna share this. Okay, so is your question? How do the guests connect with each other? Yes, because how

William Harris  44:55  

does the host, I've got your information as the host, right, like, how do the guests who enjoyed each other? How do they also connect?

Nick Gray  45:01  

Okay, so a lot of people say, Oh, should I create a WhatsApp group? Should I do something? Generally, I don't like that for a simple two hour cocktail party. There's no need to do this. But here is my secret weapon. And I got to be honest, of all the podcasts I've been on, I think I've maybe, maybe shared this once, but it's called the it's called it the 24 hour Reply All thread. Now this is a very advanced move. You should not do this the first time you host, but I will tell you what the future looks like when you're ready for this move. And what I will do is I will set it up at the event, and I will say, hey everybody. So many amazing connections here. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to send an email out with everybody on the CC. If you don't want to be included, then just let me know before you leave or follow up afterwards. But I'm put everybody on an email thread, and for 24 hours only, I want you to reply to that thread with your social media link, with a charity that you like, anything that you want to plug. Are you doing something fun this weekend? Throw it out there. And for 24 hours only, you can reply back. Now, after 24 hours, please don't write back. We won't want to blow up people's inboxes, but for 24 hours only, and this thing just comes alive, people start to write back. They make plans for the weekend, they send their social media links. It's a really cool way, but I'll tell you what. Here's why not to do this if you haven't practiced it, because if you do not set it up and tell people about it, and you just spontaneously surprise them with an email thread, it doesn't get the traction and the momentum necessary. And so even me, as an experienced host, I get a little stressed when I do it and I have to tell people, hey, tomorrow morning, I'm gonna send this. Can you help me out and, like, reply back, just because I need four or five replies to build up the momentum. So everybody feels that they need to write

William Harris  46:47

back, yeah, your core again, you're just always going back to that, like, you need that seeding stuff. Maybe we do this in we do this in advertising. We do this in gifting, within influencers, there's always, like, you need that little bit of that seed to kind of get things started.

Nick Gray  47:00  

That's cool that you guys do this with gifting. So your business helps people learn how to do gifting to influencers.

William Harris  47:07  

No, I should, I should clarify, we, as in the industry, I don't do that, but I do know companies that do a lot of like influencer gifting, right where it's like, they're sending things out to influencers, not even necessarily asking them to Europe rep the product or anything. But it's like, hey, we sent it out to 100 people. We're likely gonna get a few of them to go

Nick Gray 47:25  

ahead and do it anyways. Nice, nice. I like that.

William Harris  47:27  

You call out a buddy of mine, Saul Orwell, in for his odd start times. So I've been to one of Saul's digital ones, one of his Digital Cookie events, because we it was during the pandemic I have sent him cookies from Minnesota. I should say, my wife sent him cookies from Minnesota. I don't know how good they tasted by the time they arrived to him, but homemade cookies. But he's known for this. Did you inspire him to do the parties, or was it something that just happened alongside what you were doing?

Nick Gray  47:56  

No, no. Saul has been a very well known host when I was getting started. I don't know if he still hosts too much. Still hosts too much, but at the time I was writing my book, probably mid to late 2010s Saul was hosting, you know, he was hosting these cookie things. He would fly into New York and host these dinners. He had a really cool idea, which was to host your events at a different, non standard time. So that could be a start time of 7:04pm and it goes until 9:07pm it just gets people to show up on time. What I found, though, was that when you host a two hour happy hour, it really compresses what I call the awkward time. The awkward time is that first 15 to 30 minutes where people don't want to show up right on time. They don't want to show up too late, but they don't want to show up too early. When you host a two hour event, it really compresses that time that people show up. One of the things that I hate, like here in the south is somebody says, Oh, we're hosting a barbecue. And it's like, okay, what time is that they're like two o'clock. I'm like two o'clock, you know when? When are you supposed to show up? Do you come at right? At two? Do you come at 230 do you come at 330 there's a story that I mentioned the book where my friend Lindsay was having a birthday party, and she said it started on Friday night at 7pm and so I call her at 645 I say, Hey, I'm around the corner. Do you need a bag of ice or anything? And she says, You're around the corner. Like, what do you do? Like, she's like, I haven't even showered or gotten ready or anything. And I'm like, well, Lindsay, it's 645 your party starts at seven. She's like, Yeah, it starts at seven. Like, you're not gonna show up until eight at the early I'm like, Oh my gosh, like this, like people hedge their start times, knowing that everybody would be late. And so with the two hour party, it just gets rid of all of that and really gets people to stay focused, which sounds silly when it's a social event. Why is that silly? But look, I know my audience, and it's. For busy people,

William Harris  50:01

I was going to ask if you're the on time or the, you know, show a little late. I think it sounds like you're the on time person. I am as well. I'm I'm probably going to air even maybe getting on there early, and then maybe just sit in the parking lot for a little bit until I'm like, Okay, this is appropriate amount of time for me to come on

Nick Gray  50:15

in now, because I have thoughts about this. I went to a meet up two nights ago, and I got there within five minutes of the start time. I want to get there early so I can say hi to the host, and so I can see the event grow around me as someone who still has a little maybe social anxiety or something, even when it's not my own event, I don't like walking into a very busy room where I don't know a lot of people. I would prefer to be there, where I can see others arrive and welcome them, kind of see it grow around me. It's a strategy that I have. I'm not sure if others do this, but I just feel more comfortable and confident when I get to be a part of it as instead of coming in from the outside, and I feel like I'm coming in from the outside when I show up an hour late?

William Harris  51:01

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I I'm right there with you. I prefer to be on time or a little bit early. Um, you've obviously, by

Nick Gray  51:08  

the way, to the meetup that I went to. Yeah, I hosted a Claude code meetup, or I'm hosting one next Friday, but I went to a different one two nights ago. And because I'm such a nerd, I bring my own name tags and a clipboard that I always have in my backpack. And sure enough, this host didn't have name tags. He had read my book, but he didn't have those. Unbelievable. And I was like, Hey, can I do name tags? And he was like, Oh, my God, would you please? I basically took over his meetup. And like, I'm walking around. Hey, what's up? How you doing? I'm writing name tags.

William Harris  51:40  

So I was gonna ask is, like, Do you struggle getting out of host mode? Because I will say, my my trick, if you would, is that I've used when I go to meetups or things is, and I've heard this from somebody, I don't remember who, but it's like, pretend that you are the host anywhere you go where it's like, it is now your responsibility to make sure everybody's having a good time. That makes it a little bit easier to just like, I gotta go and interject into this conversation and be a part of it. Do you struggle to get out of host mode then and just

Nick Gray  52:03  

be, oh my God. It is so hard. And it was really hard for me when I was first with my now wife, because when I would go to her events, you know, I would, let's just default for me, right? I'm like, All right, let's lead a couple icebreakers, honey. You are here as an attendee. Like, try to just be an attendee. It was very hard for me, but it's a skill I'm still working on.

William Harris  52:28  

Yeah, that's good. You've hosted a lot of good parties. There has to be at least one example of a party you're like, this one flopped. Like, what is what is that example of a story where the party did not go the way you planned.

Nick Gray  52:41  

Classic example, it was winter in New York City. I knew a lot of people were just going to be home and around I sent out, it was a Tuesday night, I think. I said, Hey, why don't I just invite people over tomorrow night to just come for folks that are in town who want to hang out. I didn't do any of my core group. I just sent out a mass email. I said, Hey, I'll be hanging out. If you want to come hang out, I'll be at home. Swing by anytime from like six to 10pm and, you know, like two people showed up, and it was, it's almost by default, the two people that, you know, the least, that will come to stuff like that. And it was very awkward and strained. And I wish I could say that I made the best of it, but it was just one of those situations where, when it was over, I was like, Oh my God. Like, I feel like I have been working to carry that conversation for the last how many hours? Not my best move. That's funny.

William Harris  53:41  

Speaking of potential party ideas that don't go over well, you told me, or at least in the book, yeah, I don't think you told me this. I read it in your book. You're against sitting as a general. You want standing parties. And then I want to come back to the poker night idea. And then the reason why, because that's a sitting one. You know, there's a bunch of guys I'm coaching the fourth great girls basketball team, and so it's like, there's a bunch of guys with dads, and it's like, Hey, I don't know them that well, but like, I could invite them over, but that would be definitely this idea of, it's like, they're not people I know well. It's like, Hey, you guys want to come over and play some poker? Could be, maybe good. Could be, be awkward. But like, what is the problem with sitting? Why standing better and why no poker?

Nick Gray  54:24

You can do poker, by the way, I would just do like a 30 minute happy hour or something before poker, where people get the chance to stand and mix and mingle and you do some intros. I'm not opposed to a poker night. If you feel good about hosting poker and you want to have the appropriate number of people for that, I think you can still do it. The reason I don't like sitting is you get locked in, and it's much harder to meet new people. And so you have to remember, I wrote this book when I was in New York City, when I have a lot of acquaintances and very few friends, and I wanted to get. Get 15 to 22 people, what I found was that when you sit down, well, now as a guest, I'm locked into the person my left and right and maybe the person that's across from me. When you sit down at a party, it's very hard to join existing conversations, and there's not a lot of movement and new conversations happening, which is really what I look for, I look for movement in the room, and how many new people are

William Harris  55:24

chatting it up? Yeah, no, that's good. I want to go back to another story that you shared in the book that I thought was fun, and I'm just going to say the quote, and then I'll let you tell the rest of the story for the last time. We are a sushi supply store. Not your friend. What happened?

Nick Gray  55:42  

I'm trying to remember about what this one was. I think this was about who to invite to your party. I think so that, generally speaking, you can't go wrong inviting people to a party. So party invitations are like a gift that you get to give to people. And so whether it's the barista at your local coffee shop, the business owner of the sushi restaurant that's down the block, you want to invite people. And of all the invites that I've given, I don't think I've really had negative responses from somebody saying, please stop inviting me to this free party where I get to meet these interesting people almost always. And by the way, the language I use for something like that is like, Hey, I host these meetups about once a quarter for all these interesting people that I meet in town. The next time I do one, can I send you the info? That's the phrase I use. I say, Can I send you the info? Not do you want to come Sure? And when you say, can you send you the info, that's very easy for people to say yes to.

William Harris  56:47  

That's a really good point. It's almost like that yes ladder right where it's like, you can get them to say yes to at least something very non committal, and then it's a little bit easier for them to say yes, but if they said no, now they don't even have the opportunity of saying yes later, because they've already said no to even getting

Nick Gray  57:01  

the info. It's neat to think about the yes letter as it applies to friendships. You know, I think I'm bad because I have the idea of a friendship funnel that, you know, you meet somebody in your town, in your neighborhood, maybe at like, an event for your kid's school. You want to hang out with them again? You know, you think they're cool, but you're busy. They're busy. Also, for guys, it's a little weird for us to be like, Hey, do you want to be friends? So I think about that friendship funnel as these happy hours that you host is the first step of that funnel. And if you invite someone over to one of these happy hours and they play poker, perfect. You know the next phase of your funnel is to invite them to a poker night because you've had a chance to hang with them. You now know that they play poker. You feel okay having them over in a small group environment like that. I'm excited about your idea to host this poker night. And I wonder, what do you think about that idea of kind of the funnel where this quarterly Happy Hour casts a wide net, and then you are scoping out who you'd invite to the poker night as those attendees sort of, I love

William Harris  58:10  

it because, I mean, now the marketer me is almost going to like bucketing them based on personas, right? And so it's like, okay, this group, these three people over here, they're also wild and crazy. And so if I want to go snowmobiling with them, which, by the way, I got a little frostbite from going snowmobiling in negative 29 right? So like, but like, I've got a group of friends, and I could maybe see, it's like, okay, this group, they'd be down for that. This group down for poker. But they're not at all this other group, though. It's like, I'm also, like, very, very nerdy. And it's like, hey, if there was, like, some math speaker coming. It's like, this group would love to go that. So now I'm almost like, to your point, you the funnel. You're like, okay, great. Where can I, like, segment these different personas and say these people would like to go to this next thing, but these ones wouldn't, and they would be now you're conditioning them maybe say no, because it's like, this invited somebody who has no interest whatsoever in poker to a poker night. They're like, No. And now it's like, are they maybe more conditioned to saying no to other things I want to do in the future?

Nick Gray  59:05

Interesting versus if it's a happy hour, almost everybody would say yes, yeah, not because they like to drink, but just because you set it up as like, hey, I want to I want you to meet some interesting people. You're doing something really smart. I don't know if you know what you're doing, but that in hosting those activities, snowmobiling, poker, stuff like that. That is how you truly make good friendships. Is by doing events and activities. You've said this before. You want us to sweat together. That is really how you make these relationships. You have to think about my framework as the beginning. This is the like step one of your friendship funnel, it does need to feed down into something else, and yours is the natural next step.

William Harris  59:46

A buddy of mine, Chris Carey, is working on writing a book about creating adult male friendships. He was on the podcast, sold his business, e commerce founder, right? And similar. He's also got kids about my age, teenage kids, whatever, like my kids age. Um, but one of the things that he talks about is it's like, you know, and we've talked about, we've grabbed lunches, there's usually one person who is the reacher outer, and I don't have a better word for it, but it's like, there's the person who's always really good about asking, then the other person is like, yes, no, no, no, yes, maybe I don't know, yes, okay, it's like, but there's always that one person who's definitely the more the pursuer is. That always going to be the case if you're the pursuer, because I tell this to other people, it's like, I think you're just the pursuer, and I think you just have to recognize that you are and other people aren't going to be and that's okay. That doesn't mean that those people are not your friends. It's just they're just not pursuers, and so like they're just waiting for you to say, Do you want to go snowmobiling.

Nick Gray  1:00:42

That's so true that you could maybe it's one of the risks that you're worried about that, like when you start to host, and then you don't get invited to some other people's things because you're waiting for them to invite you to something Sure. My goal in in writing this book is to say, look, you can be a host. Maybe you don't host a poker night like you host maybe you don't host snowmobiling, you can at least host a happy hour. And especially hosts really appreciate getting invited to stuff.

William Harris  1:01:12  

That's a good point. I do want to get into the last little section, which is, who is Nick gray on page 22 of your book, you say, I'm still waiting to introduce two people who fall in love and get married. Maybe you'll pull it off before I do, which is funny, because I understand you ended up having a pretty interesting approach to finding your wife. Tell me about that.

Nick Gray  1:01:33  

I do have to note, though I did, I think I did introduce two people who did get married. My friend Peter Knox, he I think he met his wife at one of my happy hours a long time ago in New York City. Very cool. That questionable if I was the one or if somebody else helped follow it up. But they definitely met for the first time at one of my events. Regular. Hitch, yeah, yeah. Super. Hitch, I met my now wife at Barton Springs Pool, which is like a community pool that we have here in Austin, Texas, truly special, magical place. And I think I just went up and I started to chat with her. I invited her to an event that I was hosting, and then I invited her out on a date. That's cool. What was the first date? First date, we went for sushi. We was a very hot day here in Texas, and we rode bikes to go get sushi. And I think I knew at that moment that, like she was down to ride bikes to go get sushi. I was like, oh, dream woman.

William Harris  1:02:31  

Oh, that's so cool. When you find somebody that actually wants to do similar things with you, that's cool. You also are pretty particular about your pillows, if I remember correctly, tell me about your pillow. What is the best pillow? And your experience in finding the best pillow?

Nick Gray  1:02:49  

This guy just sent me this thing. This guy, Peter Campbell, sent me a message that you can now go to Japan to get a custom made pillow, which I loved. I've I've kind of custom made my own pillows. I love Japanese buckwheat pillows. I find that they're cooler, they're not hot, and I really like how they fit and they adjust. They're very popular. I learned about them when I was traveling around Japan. But, yeah, they're filled with buckwheat.

William Harris  1:03:14  

They're very nice, and you bring it with you when you travel.

Nick Gray  1:03:17  

Though, yes, I have my own special one that I travel with, where I've made it a lot smaller. My pro tip is, if you listen this, you're like, ooh, Japanese built pillow. You can find them on Amazon for 30 or $40 I actually remove about half of the buckwheat from the pillow, so it's not, like, stuffed full. So that's the pro tip for the pillows.

William Harris  1:03:37  

I've never done it, but I'm tempted to, because I do feel like I like a flatter pillow. I feel like my pillow is worn out, and I'm just used to sleeping on my worn out pillow. And so when I go to a hotel and It's so fluffy and I'm like, I can't breathe like this, oh,

Nick Gray  1:03:50  

that's, that's the move somebody said to me once. They said, strange pillows make for strange dreams. And in hotels, I used to travel a lot more than I do now. That was the one variable that I could control. Couldn't control the mattress or the blanket or anything, but I could control the pillow. So it was the easiest, smallest thing for me to pack. That's good. All right,

William Harris  1:04:08

you asked this question before, or at least you said it's one of your favorite questions to ask. It's one I want to ask you anyways, which is, what are you nerding about right now? Like, this is okay.

Nick Gray  1:04:18  

So there's a few projects that I'm working on, and I'll link these in the show notes. One is this museum donor database called www.patronview.com, and I've created this crazy database, research tool for people that work in the nonprofit sector to find philanthropic donors and members. I'm really nerding out about that now. I love it. Second is this platform for collecting RSVPs for events like these happy hours. It's called Mixology It is 20 times better than Eventbrite or you. All the other ones, and I really like that one. I recently acquired that site. And the last thing is, I've been helping people with personal websites. And if you're listening this pod, you are a business owner, you are successful, I would say, think about what shows up when people ask about you in ChatGPT and on Google, and if all that you have is your LinkedIn or a page that goes to like your company website, I think you need to have a personal website on a domain name that you own. Doesn't have to be complicated, and you can still help control some of those results. Think about it like proactive reputation management. And so I have a new project around that. That is, again, we'll link in the show notes, but it is www.personalwebsites.org

William Harris  1:05:49  

that's all very interesting stuff. Let's start on the personal websites. Let's just give what are your your basics that you're like, you need to have this. The one that I modeled mine after that, I really appreciate it was JJ, Bashara has one, and it's really simple. I think it's just, like, white background, some black text is like, here's some links of the things that I've invested in, and whatever, very, very simple. And I like that. And so that's kind of what I've done for mine, for two your site, by the way. So, so it's not like, it's not like what you're saying, like a custom domain. It's just sub stack. Is sub stack. William Harris, 101, but it's Wmharris01, cool. 1011, just 101, is in like, you know, the the entry, the entry level. Learning about William Harris,

Nick Gray  1:06:35  

nice, nice, nice. I like that. I think yours looks good. It looks like I'm gonna do a live review of it. Now, it is on substack. It's got a white background. It has your name that's ranked right up. It has a beautiful about page. Your copy is really tight. I think you could have a bit more of a bio about yourself on there. So and I would just look at like, how you show up on search? Sure, so if I search for like William Harris Elumynt home page, it doesn't really show up. Things that I'm looking for is to have a good home page, to have, like, a good about page, and then to have good search engine optimization. So I want to know that if I go to ChatGPT or Gemini. And I asked about you as the CEO or founder, is it going to pull from this site that you have made? I think having your own domain name is not too hard. So if you did like William Harris, one on one Comm, you could probably get that name and park it on your sub stack for free. Probably, I think that adds a little bit of making it look more professional and probably helps with your rankings. But you have a lot of great content that's on your site. I think a lot of people might be intimidated by that, because they look at this and there's like, oh my god, there's all these articles. How do I have time to write that? And so it doesn't have to be that complicated. You could just have a simple page that has an about page, that has a home page, that has a contact page, just a little bit of info. I think about a personal website as like a digital honey pot where I want somebody to get into your world and spend time reading your stuff and seeing some of your things.

William Harris  1:08:18  

That's really good. And you hinted at the reason for this. But, you know, part of this is because chat GPT and, you know, the other llms are going to start crawling this, and you want to start controlling that narrative a little bit more, because it's like, you know, hey, if you're a busy CEO already, you're like, why do I need a personal site for myself? And I'd be like, that's that's the main reason, right?

Nick Gray  1:08:37  

Yeah, one of the big reasons is, as a business owner, you have employees, you have partners that are searching for you. Before they do business with you, they're going to see what what you lead with online. And for many of us, we have a LinkedIn, we have an Instagram. And people find that, but I also find that a personal home page. It's just a little way that, even if it makes me look 10% better online, the ROI is just crazy on it. It's not expensive to set these up. Substack you can do for free. One of my favorite ones is just buy your domain name. I tell people buy them on Cloudflare should be $10 a year. Reason I don't like GoDaddy or Namecheap is they try to sell you all this additional junk that you don't need. And then it's as easy as setting up a WordPress you can use WordPress comm. It's $4 a month. There's simple stuff with this new service I'm doing where I help people set up their sites. We do everything for you for $30 a month. But it doesn't have to be hard, and you can set it all up in one or two hours.

William Harris  1:09:36

Yeah, 30 bucks a month is not a lot. Nick, did you share what your website is? Your personal

Nick Gray  1:09:44  

Oh, I'm very proud of mine. Mine is nickgraynews.com, nickgraynews n e w s .com

William Harris  1:09:51  

that's very good. It has been really good talking to you, learning from you, learning about you. If people wanted to work with you, follow you. You left a few. Of those websites, but what's the best way for them to maybe follow you.

Nick Gray  1:10:04  

You should check me out. I'm on all the social media platforms, at at Nick Gray, news and AWS, and for some reason, if you are hesitant to buy my book, or maybe your budget doesn't allow send me a note. And if you tell me William Harris poker night, then I will know that you actually listen to this, and I'll send you a free copy of my book if you're in the USA or Canada.

William Harris  1:10:26

That's really cool. Well, I appreciate you again, just sharing your wisdom with us here today. Thanks for having me. Thank you everyone for listening. Hope you have a great rest of your day.

Outro 1:10:36

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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