Nick Gray, The Underdog Wunderkind and Superconnector

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welcome to another episode of Living Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. Is Loneliness the New Smoking? A number of studies and polls have recently come out that indicate Americans of all ages, socioeconomic and geographic locations are more isolated and alone than any other time in recent history. Some postulate that this has been spurred by people isolating themselves via increased screen time or alienating and divisive social media posts or remote working. And maybe, perhaps it's been augmented by living in a post Covid era. Regardless of the causes, Nick Gray is wielding name tags and a harmonica and rolling up his sleeves to remedy this new plague, which we'll be discussing in this episode. But first, who is Nick Gray? Well, he's a bit of an underdog. Wunderkin. Let me explain. At age 14, Nick, while in middle school, built websites and was making 70 bucks per hour which later on helped pay his tuition at Wake Forest University. After graduating, he helped build and grow the family business which his father started literally in their basement. Named Flight Display Systems, the company made avionics equipment for private jets and military Aircraft. They sold the company and now Nick manages the family office, which hopefully we'll be able to also talk about and cover today. Nick moved from New York and based on his disdain for museums, but a bit smitten on a date at the Met, built and launched a multi million dollar inc 5000 company called Museum Hack. He also did a TEDx talk about it which has been watched by more than 75,000 people. And then he sold the as many of us would do. Along the way, he's also lived in India and produced a Bollywood music video. He's been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and New York Magazine. In addition to having been a Featured speaker at TEDx, he's also presented at the DO lectures and the Skiff conference, among many others. Needless to say, Nick is not your everyday entrepreneur or person. His latest foray is that of author. And we'll do a deep dive into his new book, the 12 Hour Cocktail. Pardon me? The two cocktail party.

12 would be a second. I want to do that the next. I want that. I need it. Oh my God.

I had Colin O' Brady on. He did the 12 hour walk. I much would much prefer the two hour walk and the 12 hour cocktail party.

That would be great. Please, please. I love it.

So Nick, man, it's great to have you on. Maybe I want to do a deep dive into the book, but maybe to kind of set the table here, so to speak. I'll do a lot of puns and whatnots to this as best I can. We maybe start with your entrepreneurial experiences and talk about what it was like selling the family business and then Museum Hack. Tell us how those all came about.

Yes, Yes. I grew up in a very entrepreneurial household. My father had fried chicken restaurants when I was younger. He really was the mad scientist type guy, always coming up with ideas. And yeah, he started one business and I helped him out after college and my mother was the CFO and he was new products and I was hiring and marketing and we grew that. I actually left the business about a year before we sold it. I didn't want to continue down that path. It was a choice that I made and. Or maybe we both, we all kind of made it kind of together and then sold the business about a year later. But I had left to start my next company, which was Museum Hack, that did these renegade museum tours and that was a whole adventure because I think museums are boring and I wanted them to be fun. But really what was special about that for those that are listening who haven't heard of it, which I assume is most people. We hired stand up comedians and Broadway actors to lead the museum tours. And they worked for me and I trained them, not the museum. Now that is a little problematic because I've never had an art history class in my life. But I would train them about just the fun, juicy facts, the gossip and the backstories about the art. And I think that's what made it a successful business because there's a lot of people who just want to have fun. They just, they need to be entertained before they can be educated. So that's kind of how we approached museums, to try to really bring a whole new audience to them. That was our goal.

And you had a pretty good acceptance of that too. I mean, I would sort of have this maybe negative bias or stereotype that some museums, especially like the Met, would be a little stodgy and maybe not so welcoming and open to something like this. How did you first knock on the doors and get a foot in the door?

Oh, my gosh. You know, what we did was it was really a cat and mouse game. At the beginning it was ask for forgiveness, not ask for permission. Because, you know, when I first started, I just did it as a hobby for fun for my friends. And I was just fooling around. And then it really, after about a year or two of doing that for fun, it just spiraled up and up and up and celebrities started to come and it was really a cool thing. And then everything changed. This one blog wrote about my tours. They said it was the best thing to do in New York City.

Oh, man.

And it really just went crazy overnight. 1300 people sent me emails, you know, social media, all that stuff. So that's when I was like, okay, I need to hire some people and make this into a business.

That's so cool. So was it just sort of, you know, organic word of the word of mouth before you started getting publicity around it? Is that how people, the celebs and other folks heard about you and wanted to get be a part of was

all word of mouth? And you know, as I reflect on this, I think that one of the things I would always look for during my tours was what were the pieces that people would take their phones out for? What were the moments when people want to take pictures? And I still think about that to this day, that at the moment, maybe I wasn't telling the guides, hey, you need to be showing them stuff that they take pictures of. But that word of mouth really helped and still to this day, I look for live experiences where people instinctively reach for their phones. Not because they're bored, but it's the opposite. When do they reach for their phones? In that moment where it's so incredible that they have to record it.

That's great. Oh, my gosh. So I know from doing my research that you have sold Museum Hack. And you, in a very tempting kind of way, said that it started with a juicy takeover. Can you talk about that maybe in a general kind of way of how you structure the sale and what might be helpful for other business owners that look to sell or cash out?

Yeah, yeah, sure. I ran my business for many years and I had hired a management team, very, very capable smart folks. But I was removed from the business. That just means I wasn't really involved. They were running it on the day to day, and I think they had. They were much more talented than I was. And they saw the business was sort of plateaued and they came to me with an idea. They said, look, we want to buy the business from you. And I never thought that I would sell. I couldn't imagine who would want to buy it. But they basically kind of surprised me about that, which I was very shocked about. And we talked about it. I had to sit on it for a while. But ultimately we came up with an idea and a plan and, you know, they bought it from me. And sure enough, to their credit, they've taken it to places that I never could have taken it. You know, I was really the person who grows a business from 0 to 10 employees or 0 to 50 employees, that's not always the person who can keep growing it, if you know what I mean.

Sure. And.

And so they've been real successful and it was a good way. It kind of worked out very well for everybody.

That is so great. What a nice way to have that happen. Because I know a lot of times with buyouts and things, there's earnouts and people are. Somebody's unhappy and whatnot. So good job. Bravo to you to be able to make it so mutually beneficial. So my timeline's probably off a smidge, but the next chapter was in your 40s. So you went from New York to Austin, where you're at now, and you had a bit of an unusual venue for a adult birthday party, celebrated. Can you tell us about what took you to Austin and a little bit about that birthday?

Yes. I lived in New York for 13 years. I love big cities myself, and I think New York is the best big city in America. I loved It. But I never thought I would ever leave until lockdowns and Covid and all that happened. And I started to travel, to just get out of the big city. And that sort of broke my spell on Manhattan. I realized what an amazing thing it is to have a dishwasher and to have a washer dryer. Oh, my Lord, my life.

In the same apartment.

Yes, in the same apartment. It was. Look, isn't this crazy? I was paying $5,000 a month in New York. I don't say that to brag, but to put it in perspective, I did not have a dishwasher or a washer dryer. That is normal. That was very normal in New York City. And now I live in Austin. And I realize that the rest of America and the world lives with these modern conveniences. And I love it. But no, I love New York. But I was ready for a change. As I was getting older, I spend more time outdoors in nature. I have a different friend group. I'm really happy here, living in Austin. I love hosting parties, and I really teach people my work. And my practice today teaches largely introverts and new hosts how to host events, helping them to host their very first event. And so I will tell you if you want to know about my 40th birthday, but I also want to warn it with a preface that this is not what my work is about. This is not what my book is about. This is an extraordinary circumstance that I don't recommend for others.

Okay, well, with that kind of teeing up, of course I want to hear about it.

Okay, So I want to do something special for my 40th birthday, partially for myself, but also just because everybody was expecting something out of me, and I was thinking about the craziest ideas. Now, my 40th birthday was, what, one and a half or so years ago. This was when the stock market was absolutely ripping. Equities were up. Everything was up, at least when I was planning it, which was around October of 2021. And so I was thinking of the craziest things that I was gonna do. I was gonna hire a private jet and fly all my friends to Houston just to eat Chinese hot pot, which is a type of, like, all you can eat buffet that they do, and then fly everybody back. I was gonna, you know, go camping in Mexico. I was gonna do all these crazy things. And ultimately what I decided upon was to rent out a water park, an indoor water park. One of America's largest indoor water parks is up about 30 minutes north of Austin. And so I rented out the whole place in the morning. It was like a Wednesday morning in December. So imagine it's cold outside, but it's an indoor water park and we all just rode water slides for, you know, like two hours. It was amazing. We were having so much fun. And then the funniest thing was I heard from friends. They were like, oh, I was so sore I got bruises. That's how you know we're 40 because they're like, oh, I couldn't walk the next day. I had to get a massage. One of my friends was like, yeah, I threw up on the drive home. It's just like those water slides. So we had fun, but we're definitely not little kids anymore.

Oh, that is great. Well, I think you certainly know how to throw the extravaganza party. But you also, and maybe this tees it up nicely. Now for the book, are the author of the Two Hour Cocktail Party how to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings. And before we dive into it, I want to share a couple of things that other people have said about Dorie Clark, who's professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and author of the Long Game, said about your book. If you've been a hermit during COVID or if you haven't been able to meet many new people over the last few years, this book is your chance to reignite your relationships and change your life. Kathryn Lavery, CEO and co founder of Best Self, said, nick's book is the most practical, no fluff introduction on how to throw an incredible and memorable event. It's part self help, part personal growth, and full of actionable tips that you can take today to build big relationships and become a connector. I very much enjoyed it. And and I said off mic too. You know, I kind of want to talk about the design of it and all your effort with it. But before we get into the nuts and bolts, what cute was it Covid? What spurred you to write it?

I started on the book, actually started as a Google Doc, as wild as that sounds. And I hosted all these parties, hundreds of parties in New York City, and I found that there was a formula that made them successful, that made it so I could do them every quarter, sometimes more often. And then when my friends would move and they'd be in a new town and they wanted to meet people, they asked me, hey, how do I do this? What's the playbook? And I made that into a Google Doc for them. It just got shared around and passed amongst friends. And then I decided around the time I was Selling museum hack. Okay, I'm going to turn this actually into a book. And I worked on that I had been working on even before selling. And then, yeah, during COVID I gotta be honest, I mean, I was like this close to launching the book around January, February 2020.

Wow.

And then suddenly the idea of inviting a dozen strangers into your home was not exactly a popular idea. And I closed the final draft and didn't open it for like over a year, which was wild. But, yeah, I worked on the book for about five or six years and I ran it through about 55 different people that I had tested to make sure that that formula could work for anybody in any town. Because a lot of people might be listening saying, oh, that can work for Nick, but it would never work for me in Michigan, or, oh, you know, my parents are older, this would never work for them. Or, oh, we're in Buenos Aires or Barcelona. This would never work in my town. But I tested it, I refined it. And so that's why I think it just took me longer than others.

I think that's great. And to be able to do that kind of, you know, literal test, rinse and repeat kind of a thing and across different time zones and ages and people and whatnot, I think is great. And I guess too maybe also to make a clarifying point, like, I have a friend, Keith Ferrazi, who is like kind of Mr. Networking and you know, don't eat, never eat lunch alone, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, I know you're not a fan of networking and I know this book really isn't about networking. Can you maybe make the distinction between the two hour cocktail party and what other people might think of as networking?

Yeah, I think networking today gets a bad rep among people because to Keith's credit, I mean, networking has become a famous thing. Everybody knows what it is. And yet it kind of has gotten abused by some being seen as a what can you do for me? Type of event. And so sometimes, at least among folks that I've talked to, they don't like the idea of networking. They've been forced into a lot of bad networking events. I think about my book, the Two Hour Cocktail Party as more I say it's more about friendships and relationships and connections. What it isn't is like, you know, what can you do for me? Or something like that. That being said, I love networking events. And people call. Some people have been to my thing, they're like, wow, that was like networking but for friends. And so I'm really thinking about it. How can you use these events, these parties, to help you meet people? Certainly you can absolutely use this to run a very special, amazingly successful networking event. But I have just as many people who read it because they want to meet the parents at their kids school, because they want to meet their neighbors. I talked to a guy this morning. He said, I'm using your book to host a housewarming party tomorrow night. And I said, oh my God, congratulations. When did you move in? He said, four years ago. I said, oh my God. But he said, I just needed a kick in the pants to finally host an event. Well, and so it really is that.

I mean, you, you do deconstruct it wonderfully. I love, by the way, your appendices and things. And you really, you know, I tend to be, believe it or not, kind of a fairly introverted kind of person. And a lot of times, you know, these kinds of things just, you know, give me the heebie jeebies, thinking, oh my gosh, what's this going to be like? But you really, you know, you, you make it actionable and nice bite sizes and you talk about a minimum viable party. Can you unpack what that's all about?

I think that for. So there's kind of two types of people. There's someone who never hosts, who's listening to this or maybe tuned it out almost and said, that's not for me. I don't host at all. And then there's other people who are like, I host all the time. I'm an amazing host and I'm trying to create something that can help anyone at any of those levels, wherever you are on that spectrum. For the people who host all the time, I say that's great. How often do you host and also how do you feel afterwards? Because I'm trying to give you a party formula where you can be energized and excited and not tired and drained. And so that minimum viable party means, look, for example, you're not allowed to serve dinner. The minimum viable party means, look, you got to kick everybody out after two hours. It's a constraint or a restraint for people to say, look, let's go back to basics and realize that the people and the conversations are the most important part of this gathering. Many times people spend way too much time on the food and the decorations, things that really don't matter and not enough times on the guest list and the introductions. I would rather have someone come to my party and leave hungry rather than bored. I don't want someone to be bored at My party. So that idea of the minimum viable party was me pairing it back, paring it back. What do I need to have here? For example, food. You can absolutely serve nice food at a party, but know that it's not required. And so my party formula says, look, here's the basic shopping list that you're allowed to get. You can get some chips and dip and vegetables and hummus and nuts, maybe even cheese, but you are not serving dinner. Absolutely no dinner is allowed. And why is that? Because it's too stressful for a first time host. Now you may be wondering, oh my gosh, in my culture, this would never work, not to feed people. Well, I can promise you I've hosted this party and my readers have hosted this party all around the world in places that they say the exact same thing. And I know that it works. People love it.

That's great. So I think that helps diminish some of the barriers to it too, because then some people kind of push back and they say, well, what about dietary restraints? Or oh, you know, I'm not really a cook or oh, this isn't going to be as good as something else. And it becomes these comparison kinds of, of things. So I really like the idea of thinking about it as just, you know, snacks and, you know, basically, you know, purchasing some things and being able to do that. And again, back to your, your checklist and stuff, which is so helpful. And I know too that cocktail has sort of like an understanding. Sometimes people think it's, it's alcohol, but that wasn't really your intent. So it doesn't really have to involve actual alcohol to be the social lubricant, is that right?

That's absolutely correct. In fact, I don't even drink alcohol myself. There's not a single drink recipe that's in my book. But we use that phrase cocktail party because it represents a lightweight social gathering that is easy to say yes to, it's easy to pop in for people know that they'll be having a lot of little conversations. By the way, the ideal number of people at one of these parties, following my formula, I think it's a minimum of 15 and a maximum of about 22. That's the ideal size that you want to have.

Gotcha. And is that by virtue of just empirical testing or how did you come up with that formula?

What I found was that less than 15 people, there's not enough energy in the room. Someone walks into a room of only 10 people and you kind of look around, you're like, okay, I'm going to get to talk to everybody tonight at a dinner. Absolutely. Six, seven people. That's a great number for dinner. By the way, a pro tip. If you do want to host a dinner party, anything more than six people that are around a dinner table, the conversation will naturally split into two or more groups. If you're trying to host a dinner with a single track, I recommend maximum 6 people. And if you're going to do larger groups like 10, then split the table into two groups of five. Do not try to sit everybody around one. They're just going to talk to the person next to them. And it's a little confusing. But yeah, generally for a cocktail party, minimum 15 less than that, there's not enough energy. The host has to babysit people a lot more. There's just a lot more work that's involved more than 22 and it's really too much work for the host. You don't get to connect with people and the icebreakers take too long. For a new host, I recommend maximum 22. Now you can host more people as you get to be more experienced. I'm hosting a party next week with 35 people. I've talked to people that host 30 with no problem. But for a first time host 15 to 22, that is your sweet spot. And then I can say that having helped hundreds of people host their first party, I think that's the best size.

That's great. So tell us the. Obviously it's right there in the title two hours. How do you establish that? Do you have like a specific start and end time that you make clear to invitees or tell us how to manage that?

Well, that's one of my best pieces of advice to people is whenever you host an event, make sure that you set both a start time and an end time. So what that means is for me, if I'm hosting at 7 o' clock at night, I let people know, hey, my party's going from 7 to 9pm why does that help to set a start time and an end time? Well, number one, it makes it easier for people to say yes to when they know that your party is not a crazy three, four hour blowout. You know you're laughing, but it's true, right? Like we all have like, gosh, what time do I show up? And setting those expectations for people, even for shy people, introverts, I think, letting them know what to expect. So there's other things I do in my parties. I use name tags for everybody. I do rounds of icebreakers for people. Sometimes I List a little agenda.

Let's dive into those. So, you know, right on the COVID of your book. I'm looking at it here, you know, with the name tags. And you've. You've talked about other places, you know, like, you know, spend seven bucks, get a pack of name tags, and put those on. So has there ever been a time where people felt weird that. That, you know, hey, I'm at a party, but I'm wearing a name tag? Is this really a, you know, a conference or. Tell us about the name tags.

Yes, yes. The name tags I feel so strongly about because they help to break up the clicks. Have you ever been at a party and you kind of walk into the room and, you know, you can tell that everybody knows each other and you feel like an outsider.

Exactly.

Yeah.

When you use name tags, it serves as a visual unifier that everybody's on the same page, that it's a safe space to go meet people and mix and mingle with new people, that it's not a party of clicks. They also just practically make it easier to remember people's names. I myself am very bad with names, and I find that it's just a softer landing for these new conversations.

That's great. And then it just kind of normalizes it, too. I mean, if everybody's that way, then quite democratic that way. In the book, you talk about yellow, green, and red icebreakers. Can you talk about those and give some examples?

Yeah, I think that icebreakers get a bad rep because they've been done incorrectly for so long, and people have had some awkward icebreakers. A bad icebreaker would be, you know, a red level icebreaker at the beginning of a party. So that could be, you know, hey, everybody, let's go around the circle and say two truths and a lie about yourself. Or, gosh, I went to a dinner party once and said, all right, let's go around the circle, and everybody say, your first kiss. And I was like, what this is. Why do you guys care? This is so awkward. And the host was trying to be. You know, to the host's credit, he was trying to be cute and vulnerable, but it was just done incorrectly. Now think about. Zoom out a little bit. And what's the purpose of an icebreaker? The purpose of an icebreaker is to give people a conversational crutch to go up and talk to somebody new. It's to create new conversations. Okay. What we don't want to do is make people lock up or feel anxious when you ask those questions. And so I recommend starting your Party with a Green level icebreaker. And a Green level icebreaker is one that's fast, it's easy to answer, there's no judgment and that everybody can do and it's not too vulnerable. And so one of my favorite go to Green level icebreaker that I recommend for all my first time hosts is let's just go around the circle and say your name, say what you do for work or how you spend your days and tell me one of the things that you like to eat for breakfast. What's your go to breakfast that you cook more days than not. If you don't have breakfast, then just share about that and what you do in the morning. That that icebreaker is green level because at the beginning of an event when there's no rapport built up, people aren't really ready to share and be vulnerable. So I just want something quick and fast that expresses a little bit about their personality and that's what that icebreaker does.

That's great. So one of the things too, I think about this music, like, what's a good playlist? How do you manage music? The volume of the music, just, you know, the, the mechanics around that. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, I, I, I have thought a lot about these things. Number one, we don't want it to be too loud. Number two, I have a whole list on my website about party playlists. But one thing that I do generally is I'll just play the Beach Boys playlist. I'm looking for something that's upbeat, that doesn't have commercials, that can just kind of filter in the background as positive music to fill the space, but not so loud that it impedes conversation. What I don't suggest people do is trying to plan the perfect playlist. This is another area that a lot of people waste time on, on things that aren't important. They try to curate the most excellent songs. Well, you don't know what's going to be going on. You just need music. You just need something to fill the space in a positive way that just makes it feel happy and sort of upbeat. Not too loud. And that's what I suggest. So for myself, I end up playing the Beach Boys or similar music.

Got it. So in the context of the invitations, then you also sometimes will include bios of some of the folks. Tell us about that.

Oh, guest bios are my secret weapon. They are little brief blurbs about somebody that just gives a conversational access point. One example would be, let's say that I know my neighbor Rob, who does yoga he drinks tea, he got a new dog. I would just say those things. I'd say, rob is my neighbor, he loves drinking tea. Ask him about his yoga practice or his new dog. And that's an example of just. I write up these little blurbs or I call them guest bios for half or more of my guests and I include them in some of my email reminder messages that people get beforehand. That really helps to raise the anticipation and the excitement before the party. It also drives the attendance rate, which is huge.

Yeah, let's go into that. So how do you set that up? What's your timing? Is it text? Is it, you know, WhatsApp? How do you do that with. When you're constructing one and getting people together for that first, that first time?

What I do is I collect RSVPs and I believe that people need to set up an RSVP page. There's different platforms you can use. Some of the popular ones back in the day were Eventbrite and Evite. Those two now I actually don't recommend due to the amount of advertisements and registrations required. The platform I end up using is called Mixaly M I X I L Y. It's free. There's no ads. Generation Z loves this one called Partyful. P A R T I F U L. I'll include links to those in the show, notes to the ones that I use and how to use them best. But you could also use Paperless Post or something else. The big thing though that we're looking to do here is to collect RSVPs so that you have people's phone numbers or emails to send the reminder messages to, to send them the notes. And you probably heard me mention this reminder message concept a lot. And it's so important, I think, to drive the attendance rate. And it's something I'm really proud of that people who read my book and follow the format. I've done a study and I found that over 93% of all the guests who say that they're going to come actually show up.

Wow.

And why is that important? That's important because for free first time hosts, their number one fear is that nobody will show up.

Oh, sure. Wow.

Wow.

So, so much of my work is around getting people to show up the reminder messages, things like that.

And what's, what's your cadence? What's your timing for those reminder messages?

I do them one week before, that's the first reminder message. Then I do them four days before and then the day of Gotcha.

Okay. And what if, I mean Just worst case scenario, I don't know if you'd have data or experience with this, but let's say you've, you've got your. Maybe you've just, you know, made that 15, the magic 15. And then all of a sudden, you know, some. Something happens. Not a Covid kind of thing, but something more individualized and like four people drop out and you've now, now you're down to 11 by four days before D day. Do you, do you just go ahead and go with the 11? Do you try and quickly backfill four more? Do you say, hey, let's push it forward a week? Or what's, what's the best. If all of a sudden, you know, you've lost some folks?

I would say, let me say this, number one, if you are inviting a lot of couples, I often encourage people to raise the number of invites if you're inviting couples, because you need to know that if one of the couple, if one of the people in the couple cancels, then both of them are going to cancel.

Right? Sure, sure. Yeah.

And so this happened to one of my readers recently. They said, oh, we got 14 people, that's enough. Plus me and my wife, that's 16. Well, wouldn't you know it? Well, two of the people canceled, but they were part of a twosome. So now they're 14, dropped to 12. Now they had a great party. Their party was still fine, but they didn't have that energy in the room that they would have had if they had 16 people like they had originally planned. So gotcha. I would say that folks canceling is not really as much of a problem. More so what I hear from people is they say, oh my God, I'm planning a party for this weekend. And, and I only have four people that are coming. And I say, look, we need to cancel this party and go back to the plan that's in my book, which says use the party Runway. And the party Runway says you're going to give yourself at least three weeks to build and boost your guest list. Those three weeks give you enough time so that a week beforehand you should have your guest list filled. You got those first week, two week to really invite people, ask friends to bring people, et cetera. And that last week, you just get to coast with confidence.

That's good. So speaking of that, then you just said weekend. Can you talk about best nights to throw a party?

In my opinion, the best days to host a party are actually Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights. And I'll tell you why I found that Those were not socially competitive nights. It means that people are easier to say yes to because they don't have conflicts and they're less likely to cancel on because other things don't get booked for that time. I think Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights. Yeah, it tends to be easier for people to say yes with a higher attendance rate.

And it probably also then makes it

easier for folks to really take seriously that it is a, you know, a two hour event. You know, it takes it. It starts at a certain time and ends at a certain time. And it's on a Tuesday evening. So you know that they all kind of play into and support each other. So I know one of your other secret sauce aspects includes grapes. And Harmon, can you share with us what that's all about?

You know, the grapes could be a seasonal thing, but I found that of the different snacks, grapes and cookies tend to get eaten the most. I have a list in my book. You can also download it off my website. I have a PDF of a party supplies checklist you can get. But I found that some simple snacks are best and you just want finger foods that don't cause a mess. You know, by the way, I went to a party. Somebody invited me to a party recently. And the only food that they have, the only thing they had were chicken wings. And they didn't have plates, they just had like a big tray of chicken wings. And I'm looking down, my hands are covered. I mean, don't get me wrong, they were delicious. They were delicious. But I was like, what? Who planned this party? I'm like covered in chicken barbecue sauce and I'm like, wiping my hands. It was, it was an awkward moment. And that's a good example of like, you know, even though they were so delicious and I love them for a social gathering, I'm looking for finger foods that don't cause a mess. And grapes fit that bill. They're sweet, they're healthy, they're easy to pop off and snack on. One thing I would say though, is at a good party, people drink and eat a lot less than you would imagine. We drink and we eat, typically when we're bored and when we can't have conversations, we use that to fill the space. Loud nightclubs and bars, concerts where you're seated, movies where you're not going anywhere, we're snacking. That doesn't happen when you're at a good party. And so one thing I hear again and again from my readers is that they buy too much food and drinks and they're shocked at how Little people actually drink because they're too busy talking.

Well, that's probably a good indicator, though, that it was a good party. So that's nice. Now, what a coincidence, you have an acronym for some of these kinds of things, and it, coincidentally is Nick. Can you tell us what Nick stands for? Nick. Sure.

Nick is my Nick party formula. The N stands for name tags. I already told you all about that. I love name tags. The I stands for icebreakers. You're gonna run two or three rounds of icebreakers at your party. The C stands for cocktails only. There's no dinner. And the K stands for kick' em out at the end. The party is only two hours long.

And does that bring us back to the harmonica, then?

Yes. Yes. Then it brings us back to the party harmonica. Look, I hesitate to share about the party harmonica because if you've never attended one of my parties, you're gonna think it's the dumbest, stupidest thing. I'm not even gonna talk about it, just like my water park. But what I'll say is, read the book. Read the testimonials I have heard again and again. Oh, I'm not gonna. That harmonica sounds stupid. And then they tell me the next day, oh, my God, I wish I got the harmonica.

That's good. Well, people have to get the book and get that secret, so that's good. Well, and speaking again, back of the book. I really like to nerd out with authors about book design and creation. And I know from researching you and in the process of this, that. And even just, you know, even getting more today of the background of, you know, your testing and exploring and researching things that you. You did, every pixel. And I really have to say, I love the layout. You've got pro tips, you've got checklists, you've got illustrations. The appendices, I think we said, you know, before off mic, I just really love the appendices with the countdown. And your illustrations are terrific. So can you maybe share what your process was as a writer of how you came to this design? Was it an iterative process? Was it feedback from others? Did it just like, boom, this is what I envisioned, and this is how it turned out.

It was a very iterative process. And I would say that the way that I did my book, I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Okay, and why is that?

You know, because it's probably the most amount of work I've ever done for the least amount of money. I think I probably spent, you know, maybe $50,000 to produce my book. Because it truly was a labor of love. You know, I was very successful with my last businesses and I didn't have to do this to make money. I wanted to create something that would really be the best possible product I could make that would hopefully withstand the test of time. Now it's only been a year since my book has come out. That will be left to see, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I started it as a Google Doc for my friends and I think that really helped at first was producing a book that I was truly, truly proud of. That's really what I wanted to do. And then from there I just worked on making it a great book with the design, the layout. One thing I did that listeners could do now if they're thinking of making a book, is start to photograph other books that you like, start to keep a log of other layout areas, cover designs you like, boxes, checklists, anything you may want to have in your own book, include that and start to save examples. Because I had been saving that for years leading up to my book. And when I was ready to design the interior, I already had a cheat sheet of things that I really liked.

I like that. That's a great idea. And again, to me, it makes it honestly a bit more actionable and practical. I've heard a lot, I'm sure you have too, that people say, well, you know, a lot of books, especially nonfiction, business books and things that are like, full of, you know, tips and ideas, you know, could be maybe a, you know, two thirds less of what they wound up being. But no publishing house is going to say, oh yeah, we're going to publish a book that's, you know, 46 pages, so a lot of fluff gets added into it. But I felt yours is pretty fluff free in the sense of it's a quick read, it's. And again, it's just, it's one of those things where you kind of just keep on the shelf handy because you go, oh, what was the thing he said? What's that? Executive summary.

Yeah, it's the checklist.

Yeah. So. And for kind of our situation too, where my wife and I have now kind of moved what used to be our second home to be our sole home, and we're trying to make new friends. And she and I both have been like, hey, you know, Nick said in his book we could do this. And for me, it's a real anziolytic because it's like I feel much less freaked out and panicked. She feels like, oh, gosh, I don't have to do dinner, you know, for 50 people. Oh, you know, so it's just really that practicality of doing that, you know, making new friends and being able to break the ice and not, you know, stress about all these other kinds of things that at the end of the day don't matter. And to have you as an authority with, you know, as many parties and experiences that you've had under your belt to say, yeah, this is, this, this will still work, you know, as opposed to, oh, we're going to ruin it or people aren't going to want to be around or whatever because the, you know, we can't throw a good little party cocktail party. Quick question. I'm also a big fan of your newsletter and in your latest edition, I think. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll put this into the show notes too. I really encourage people to check it out. You also talked about using Amazon ads and targeted advertising that you spent a certain amount of money and you weren't real happy with the result of that. And you talked about it in your blog. So it's fairly public that way. But can you maybe just spend a couple of minutes about what that experience was like for authors and thinking about, you know, promoting their books?

Yeah. I've experimented with a lot of different things on my book and I love experimenting with different marketing tips and tricks. I'm actually working on a new big article about everything I've learned from another marketing channel with what I've been doing on Google Maps. But with Amazon ads, I experimented with buying ads and testing and I wasted a lot of money on figuring out what didn't work. And I think the reality is for a book like mine, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, you know, what I need is a book that will teach me how to host a party. Nobody really does that. And so I've tried to buy ads against. Let's take for example, Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Amazing book, incredible book. Somebody buying that book would probably enjoy my book, which also teaches you how to make friends. But it's not a good fit because you're looking for how to win friends and influence people. And now you see the two hour cocktail party and that's not a logical next step unless you understand what my book is really about. Despite that, I thought that people would be interested and I spent a lot of money on those ads. Probably the most successful thing that has worked out for me is just word of mouth. People like you who've read the book, they see that, hey, this Isn't. It's more than meets the eye. It's not. The cocktail party is just. That's the wrapper for this. This is really an operating system for gathering. And that word of mouth has helped me more than anything.

I'll be darn well and kind of therefore echoing the whole museum hack situation as well too. So. Yeah, yeah, you've got good expertise and success with those kinds of things. I know you're kind of a little tight for time, but I have two other question areas I wouldn't mind bouncing off you if you're good for time right now.

Yeah, yeah, please.

So I know, I believe, I know you were part of a panel at Southwest this last year. And in that, I think you guys talked about like the difference between building community versus audience. Could you maybe share a highlight reel of what you guys covered in that for the. For our audience today?

Hmm. I think the one thing that I think about is what propensity does your audience have to actually do something and get off the page? And what I mean by that is, especially for newsletter authors these days, this is one thing that I look at. It's not how many subscribers do you have, it's not your open rate, but I look at people's click rates. If you have a newsletter, how many people are opening your newsletter and taking action to click and to do something? And I think about that with an audience you may have. For example, I have thousands of people who watch my stories on Instagram. But that's, you know, it's a lot of my friends and I share for my friends there. But that's not an audience that is really gonna build a community. They don't comment, they don't connect with each other. It's a one way street. They're just watching Nick Gray's TV show essentially, versus when we think about things like LinkedIn and like Twitter, where people can leave comments, they engage, they can connect with other people, those are really powerful. And I think that's more along the lines of community.

Nice. I think that might also, you know, kind of hopefully, in an optimistic perspective, be a little pushback against a lot of the negativity that can happen on social media platforms in particular. So that's, you know, I get that. I think that's very true. I think, I believe you use Noah's platform for your email server.

Right?

I've used sendfox before. I think it's a good platform. I don't use it now, but I do recommend it for people who are starting their first newsletter I think Sendfox can be great for that.

I use, actually LinkedIn now has newsletter format and I've been experimenting with it. I've been happy with it. And then also, gosh, the, you know, I mean, I guess there's kind of like the standard ones of mailchimp and those kinds of things, but I've seen a lot of people lately become very happy and write really good content on substack too, and as well as Medium. So I think part of it is just kind of, you know, seeing what's out there. And, you know, people get disenfranchised with certain kinds of platforms or certain platforms maybe start to morph into different areas. But yeah, I think regardless of what technology you use, the whole idea of engagement and the community aspect is, you know, makes a lot of sense. So maybe last question. Also, speaking of your blog, one of the things that you did, you reposted an article that was entitled if I had $10 million, how would I live Differently? And being on a show called Living a Life in Full, it seems like this is really resonant and I really need to kind of pick your brain about that. And one of the things that looked like you've been fairly successful in accomplishing a lot of the things that you were thinking about that you had written about. Could you maybe share what spurred that conversation and maybe how it is in terms of how it informs your life and the kinds of things you choose to do and spend your time on?

There's an activity that I did once at a workshop which basically was around these same lines and it said, hey, imagine what your life would be like if you were a billionaire. What would you do differently? And the individual led us through and had us write down all the stuff we would do if we were so called billionaires. And then he said, now let's figure out how much that stuff actually costs. And what we all realized was that we could live the life of what we thought we'd need as a billionaire sometimes even today. I'll give you one specific example. As many people, myself included, say I would hire a private chef. Oh my gosh, immediately I would hire a private chef. And you walk through how much it actually costs to have your meals cooked for you. And it's not that much money. And so that activity and the blog post that I wrote helps to encourage to say, hey, you can probably have now what you think you can only have in the future with massive amounts of money.

That's great. Maybe that's a good way to start to Wrap up here then, Nick. So I just have to ask you also, what's next? I saw that you were in Mexico and did some really pretty amazing travel videos on YouTube. So is that the next chapter or what's coming up for you next?

I'm focused right now on trying to get 500 people to read my book and host their first party. So I'm trying to get 500 verified party hosts, and I count every single one of them. I get to talk to them on the phone. I talked to two of them today. That's the highlight of my day. Beyond doing interviews like this, where I get to connect with new readers, it's hearing from people who actually read a nonfiction book that could change their life by hosting a gathering. And it's so exciting. People are often shocked when I hop on the phone call with them. They're like, I can't believe I'm talking to you. I say, what do you mean, I can't believe? This is great. I love it. And so that helps me learn as well and just learn more about my readers and things that folks are doing. So that's my number one goal right now. It's taken me about a year to get. I'm at 275 or so now, and I think it might be another year to get to 500. But that's what I love doing, and I'm lucky to be able to spend time on the things that bring me great joy.

That is so great. Well, I have to tip my hat and tell you I appreciate your authenticity and your transparency with the work that you do. And if listeners would like to get a copy of your book or sign up for your newsletter or follow you, what are some of the best ways to do that? Nick.

Oh, I am Nick Gray News. N E W S Nick Gray News. On social media, I'm on most all the platforms. I share a lot on Twitter and Instagram and like you said, on YouTube, I have a website called nickgray.net, and I have a bunch of articles that I wrote, which is like, how to host a networking event, how to plan a happy hour, even how to host a book swap or a baby shower. And those articles are just using my party formula. So I'll include those in the show notes.

Okay.

And then the name of my book, it's the Two Hour Cocktail Party. And I recorded the audible myself, so you can listen to it or you can read it. That's great. All that stuff. Wow.

Wow. That's great. Well, I enjoyed reading it and I have to get the audio so I can listen to you read it to me.

So that's right. Thank you.

Fantastic. Well Nick, again, I know you are a very busy person. You got a lot of things going on. I appreciate you making the time for us today and look forward to what's coming next and you getting that that balance up to 500 and beyond.

Thank you so much for having me. I think everybody can use a new friend so I want more parties in 2023.

Hear, hear.

Thank you. Living a Life in Full is a

production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, LLC. Assistant Producer Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien Executive Producer and Host, Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website elifeinfull for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information uses only and does not constitute the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical or psychological advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks and until next time.