667: Nick Gray - How to Host World-Class Events, Why Leaders Need a Personal Website, Writing Like You Talk, Mastering Introductions, the Viral Tokyo Trip, & Adding Value Before Taking It

0:02Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. Nick Gray is an entrepreneur, author, and founder of Museum Hack. He wrote the two-hour cocktail party about building real relationships. During our conversation, Nick shares why name tags and icebreakers are not cheesy but really useful, How to host events where leaders actually connect. The viral Tokyo story that started with a tweet. And why every leader should master storytelling.

0:48You also should have your own personal website. Plus, Nick shares some practical career advice on why being a great MC makes you a stronger leader everywhere else. This one went all over the place. I think you're going to like it. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Nick Gray. This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to learn more about the CEO, Burt Bean, and Chief Revenue Officer, Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424. we had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at insight global.

1:37If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people or transform your business through talent or technical services, insight global's team of 30 ,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insight global.com slash learning leader. today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com slash learning leader. Let's start with some icebreakers. Are you cool with that? I love icebreakers. What's a compliment that someone gave you that you still think about? I was in New York City and I was walking to like a bodega and this homeless guy said, he goes, you look like a doctor.

2:25And I said, oh, nobody has ever said that to me. before. I assume that means something good, but I was like, oh, wow, that feels great. I like that one. When did that happen? Is that recent? No, this is like years ago, but I still think about just because it was like, what does a doctor look like? I don't even know. I don't even know. I think that this guy was probably a genius. You know, he, he knows laser targeted things to say to people to get them to stop. And it worked for me. Okay. Okay. Let's do another one. If you could teach any class about one topic that you're passionate about or an expert on, what would it be?

3:02I think I'm an expert on two things. Number one is hosting events. And then number two, I was telling you in the pre-show about personal websites where any leader should have their own personal website and just the importance of that in marketing or hiring employees and stuff like that. So yeah, I'd say those two. Have you ever thought about going to like, let's say, University of Texas, Austin and volunteering to teach on both of those things? You know, I get invitations, or I used to get more, to speak to college classes, especially around arts programs for the work I did with museums. I think I struggle with academia.

3:37I am like, cut my teeth in entrepreneurship, move fast, break things. And while I have fun talking to students, and I've gotten to do it a handful of times over the years, I find there's very little action or results that are taken. I went to teach to a class of middle schoolers. I think it was middle schoolers, or maybe it was like freshmen in high school. And I started to talk about all these things. And I was like, hey, raise your hand if y 'all were here for the speaker last month for business. And everybody raised their hand. I said, what are two things that you guys remember from that business speaker?

4:12And nobody could remember anything from that person's talk. And I was like, you know what? We're just gonna play some improv games. Like I like trashed all my slides. I was like, let's just work on conversational skills instead because y 'all don't care about this business stuff. Let's talk about of those two things. Let's start about hosting events. So Priya Parker, I recorded with recently, who you quote in your book, and she's amazing at this too. I think combining both of you guys now here close together on this show is really good for leaders because there are so many reasons why leaders specifically both work-wise and personal life-wise should be hosting events.

4:52You, the guy who is one of the best in the world at hosting events, why should leaders be more focused and host more events? So as a leader, you are probably hiring people regularly or looking for investors or just really, you know, the power of a network, right? If you're listening to this podcast, you know, the power of having a network. I have found that by hosting little events, simple, lightweight meetups or dinner parties or happy hours, it allows you to strengthen your network, to build your network, and to keep those things that they call loose connections or weak ties to keep those warm.

5:33So very similar to how Ryan has this podcast. You guys build a relationship listening to him. I found that by just hosting like once a quarter, a little happy hour or a meetup, it helped me keep my real life relationships warm and in touch so that I was thought of as top of mind for people way more often. Now, how about some are going to put these in boxes like professional life and personal life? It feels to me like you don't do that. You mix them together. Is that right? I do mix things together. I think when you're hosting meetups, a really boring event for me would be all work people. That just feels like work.

6:12And so I recommend that folks have diversity at their parties. And that's not ethnic or racial diversity. That's like occupational diversity. So I'm looking to have, if I'm hosting a work event, I also like to invite just some other random folks who I know are going to be good conversationalists and add to the energy. I generally like to host meetups for a wide mix of people that includes both professional and personal contacts. Because I think if I'm doing a professional work event, it just feels boring. It feels like I have an ulterior motive. Instead, my motive for hosting these, I'm like, hey, there's a whole group of interesting people here in town.

6:53I'd love to get you all together just to have a drink. No agenda. Meet some interesting people. That's the focus. Y 'all don't know each other. So let's have a drink and say hello. What's one of the cooler events you've hosted in the past, let's say six months? I hosted an event for creators. I mean, I hate to say this because it's going to make the average listener think, oh, I can't do that or I don't want to do that. So I'm going to couch what I'm saying is like, this comes from someone who has hosted hundreds of events. And this for me was one of my favorite events. This is not the day-to-day event that I want you to host.

7:26But I hosted an event for a bunch of creators that had over a million followers each. That was like the threshold, which by the way, people think is so cringe, like, oh, to have a threshold of what it is. But then I had people tell me like secretly, they'd be like, dude, I am so glad that you did that threshold. A lot of people are too embarrassed to say it. They look down upon it, but it really made sure that this was the right type of audience that I wanted to attend. Anyhow, I hosted an event and at the event, I had planted in the happy hour, these freestyle rappers that were mixed in the crowd.

8:07And I did a Q &A and like I hired these people like they were professionals, but they just randomly one guy starts beatboxing. One guy starts freestyle rapping, roasting the audience. And it was this little moment that was like, oh my, it shocked everybody. And everybody was like roundabout. It was very fun. That was good. Got you. Okay, let's make it more personal and relatable then. Let's say somebody has never hosted an event or never hosted something like we're talking about. That's probably not the case for most people. But maybe they've had kids, life's got really busy, and they focus on their family, and they focus on their work and nothing in between.

8:44So for that person, they're like, Oh, God, dude, I don't even know where to start. I mean, they hired Nick to help them. Okay, we got the best guy in the world. How are you helping them just get started to do this? So I'm going to give a very specific example because you mentioned kids. Yeah. The one thing that you can do, you probably, if you have kids, you host kids' birthday parties. And those parties are for the kids and for their friends. But they inevitably have a lot of parents who attend. I find that simply by adding a note to the invitation like this, we will have name tags for the parents so that we can all mix, mingle, and meet someone new.

9:24simply at your kid's birthday party doing name tags for the parents helps other parents just say hello to somebody i find i talked to my friend samir who has three young kids he's like you know i see these parents at all my kids soccer games in the school pickup line but like i actually forgot the wife's name or like i forget the husband's name and so that is one small thing that you could do immediately say that you're ready though to host something and you're like okay i i hear the benefits of this. I want to host something. Most important advice for leaders on this podcast, do not reach to the top shelf.

10:00If you're Ryan and you're like, all right, I'm host something. James Clear lives an hour away. I'm going to invite him. Do not invite James Clear to your very first happy hour or meetup that you're doing. I want your first party to be for your neighbors, the parents of kids at your school, those LinkedIn connections, high school buddies you haven't seen in a while, your first party should be a comfortable meetup for 15 to 22 people that you host at your home with just cocktails, not a dinner party. Cocktails, light snacks, whatever you get for under 100 bucks. But you want to do an easy party like that just to practice some of the fundamental things that I've learned that help make any meetup better.

10:40Do that and then slowly, once a quarter, you'll be adding more people to it and filtering your list. Okay, we got 20 people RSVP'd. They're coming. We're like, oh my God, I can't believe it. They said yes, even though it's neighbors and it's random people, but we got it. It's 10 days from now. What are we doing? How are we planning? How are we sending the reminder email? Like, what are we doing? Okay, so I'm glad that you mentioned that they RSVP'd because that's so important. It's one of the biggest mistakes. New hosts are absolutely terrified that nobody will arrive. And so the best way to ensure that people arrive, because I found from helping hundreds of people host their own party, as long as you get a minimum of 15 people to show up, your party will generally be a success.

11:23As long as you can get a minimum threshold. And so one thing you have to do is collect RSVPs. The platform I like the best these days is called Partyful, P-A-R-T-I-F-U-L. It's what all the youth are using. But you wanna use it to get people to RSVP, to let them know what to expect, and then to answer your question, to send them reminder messages. And so 10 days before, you're gonna wanna hit them with a reminder message that's just hyping up the party. About a week before, I wanna send them another reminder message that's a little dossier of who the attendees are. And so I will pick about half of the attendees and write something little.

12:04Ryan Hawk hosts a podcast. He wrote a book. He lives in Ohio. Ask him about the ski trip he went on with his family. Nick Gray lives in Austin, Texas. He loves to do yoga. but he just got married, ask him about his book, The Two-Hour Cocktail Party. I write that up for half of the guests or more, right? You do all of them if you want, but I send that in the reminder messages because it also serves to make anxious people or socially awkward feel like they are welcome and they have a conversational access point. Okay, we're at the party. We get there. It's at our house. People are, they're showing up.

12:38How do we make it like awesome from the very beginning? Okay, practical tips. This is the least important, but it's the most specific. You got to label your trash cans and your bathrooms. A lot of these like fancy houses, you know, you like walk around, you're like, where the hell is the trash can? And you're like opening 10 different drawers. I went to this New Year's Eve party at a billionaire's house and I snuck up from dinner to go to the bathroom. I'm like opening up guest room doors. I'm walking into the mat. I'm like, I, because all the doors look alike and they're closed. I had no idea where the dang bathroom was.

13:12Put up a little simple handwritten sign on a note card, trash can, bathroom, stuff like that. As people arrive, here's your job. Your job as the host is to greet and welcome every single person and to make them a name tag. Write it out right in front of them, first name only. Do not pre-write your name tags. I find that writing them handwritten first yourself is a really nice way for you to say, man, Ryan, welcome to the party. Let me make you a name tag here real quick. Like, you give them the name tag and you point them to somebody else. What if you don't actually know their name? Because maybe it's the spouse or, you know, you lose it for a brief moment.

13:46Oh, no, I don't remember his name. You know, like, what do you do? The ideal thing to do is to address that head on and say, oh, my God, I just had a mind blank. Remind me your name. I hate that though. I hate that so much. Then the cheat hack is to be like, hey, what's up, dude? Let me make you a name tag. Remind me, how do I spell it? and that backfires sometimes because they're like Ryan, R-Y-A-N, right? Or they're like Sue, S-U-E. But hopefully there's something like Sarah, S-A-R-A-H. Do you ever have them write it? I don't like to have people write it themselves because their handwriting is bad.

14:23They write their full name. They write it real small. I like to do it in big block letters so that they just show up and put it on, but they could write it as well. I actually haven't tested that too much. I prefer to do it so it's tied into the welcome process. Okay, sorry. Keep going. All right, so you do them in AIMTAG. You point them in the right direction of the bar or someone to say hi to. At the party itself, the party, by the way, is not like a crazy rager. Like you have some playlist on in the background, like Beach Boys playlist or something. There's something in show notes I can put about like some playlists on Spotify that I like.

14:59You're just playing some background music. You have some simple finger foods and snacks out. You have a self-serve bar. The purpose of this gathering is for people just to meet some other new and interesting people that you have collected in your town. Your job as a leader, as far as it goes with events, is to go through life collecting the interesting people that you meet and helping them meet each other. Okay? You're listening to this pod, so you're already a leader. Now can you become a connector? and one of the ways to be a connector is just to host these meetups and to force the collisions.

15:36So one way that we force those collisions is by leading two or three rounds of introductions at your meetup. And so a way that I like to do that is to make a little announcement 30 minutes after it starts and say, hey, everybody, welcome. There's so many interesting people here. I want you all to meet each other. We're going to do this little activity where you're split into small groups. It might seem silly, but I promise the purpose tonight is for you to talk to as many new people as possible. So bear with me through these activities, but I promise it's so helpful. You're going to meet some really cool folks.

16:08We're going to split into small groups of three or four people, and you're going to go around and tell your life story in two minutes. Now I know like your life story, that can be intimidating. So you can think about it through a personal lens, through a professional lens, through entrepreneurship lens, talk about your business, but really talk for that full two minutes. Form groups of three or four now, and then I'll tell them something like, all right, the person with the longest hair goes first, and the person with the shortest hair is in charge of the stopwatch, right, or the timekeeper. But I'll do that little small group thing first, and then I have everybody circle up later and say their name and what they do or something that they're real excited about.

16:54We do that to help increase these collisions for people to mix and talk to new people. Let's say you're hosting your wife's birthday party. How does that change things? You know, your wife and all her friends probably know each other, so they probably don't want to do name tags. Women and certain gay men are very particular about what they wear, and they don't want to have name tags. I can say that because one of my best friends is gay. I think that you would be a little more mindful about the introductions. And honestly, if my wife was hosting a party, I would say, what would you like to do, honey?

17:28Because I will do whatever you would like to do. And I have no ideas that I would like to add to change your birthday party. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. By the way, hosting your wife's birthday party, hosting a kid's birthday party, these are very natural type of gatherings. And so I would say that they need less facilitation or structure than something like a forced weekday meetup with random people. And so the types of meetups that I really talk to people about and try to convince them, the types that changed my life were these random people gatherings that are, if we're being honest, it's kind of like a networking event, but I would never use that term.

18:13Nobody wants to go to those. Yeah. Nobody wants to go to a networking event. I don't want it to be business networky. I host it at my home, so it's not like some scammy thing. But that's kind of what it is. You know, it's like a networking event of your neighbors. It's this idea that like, look, I need more community. I know interesting people. I want them to hang out. Okay. This one was big in your book. The ending. Nobody thinks about the ending. Everyone just kind of files out whenever, stragglers. Why is it important to end on time and to end sometimes abruptly? So when I'm hosting a meetup, I like to host a start time and an end time to end it on time.

18:54Because I found the most success in hosting these random meetups on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Tuesday and Wednesday nights work best because they're not competitive socially. Most birthday parties happen on Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. Most kids' parties probably happen Saturday, Sundays. I found that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are more open, and you get less cancellations and more yeses, more attendees on Tuesday, Wednesdays. As such, though, like, that's a work night for everybody. And I don't want them to think this is an opportunity to come over and get wasted and drink. By the way, it's called a cocktail party or a happy hour.

19:36People in my circles, at least, don't drink a lot of alcohol. I'll have it out and available, but this is not a big drinking event. You want to end the party on time though, because you want to end it on a high note when things are going well. You want to let people have the opportunity to go home if they need to because of babysitters or something like that. I tell you, I get more compliments on ending it than on some of the other elements. People are so surprised and refreshed and they leave your party like, oh my God, that was awesome. I met all these new people. It was over in an hour and a half, two hours.

20:09And they really want to come back. They're left with a positive opinion. So they want to come back the next time you host it. Have you hosted? Hold on a sec. I want to ask you, do you host? What is your hosting experience? Do you do stuff? Can you tell me about that? Not really. I host an event that some would see it as like a work thing. I have mastermind groups, learning leader circles, we call them. and I usually go to a property, Scottsdale, Nashville, Columbus. We've been all over. Those become actual friendships though. A lot of the people at those events, so they almost feel like a reunion because it's the same people year after year within I'm mixing probably 15 to 20 new people every year.

20:48So it's a combination of old and new. And it does feel a little bit like a reunion. And I do hire a planner, someone who does all of it for me. We do name tags for sure. All of that. I've learned a lot from you to make those events better. Even have like a, put a little word under your name of, ask me about the New York Giants or whatever, and do things like that. So I do that. When it comes to socially, not that much. Like at my house, not very much. Sometimes just a small group of friends, but not like the business-y network-y thing. But I would like to. I think it would be cool. I think more of us should do that.

21:23That's partially why I wanted to talk to you. Okay, great. So a few questions. Number one, how many people come to those mastermind events? And little plug, how can people sign up or apply to be involved? About last year, we had 44 people. Learningleader.com. Anyone could apply. Learningleader.com. It's 44 people. And does it happen once a year? Yeah, we do it in May. Super cool. You probably do a lot of group work with people. Like this is advanced. This is like more of a mastermind format. Most of them are high-level leaders within companies of wide variety of industry sizes, levels of experience.

21:59It's cool. I've become genuine friends with a number of them because they're just high-character, high-competent people, the type of people you want to hang out with. It's really cool. So for people listening to this pod, you probably hear that Ryan hosts this annual Mastermind. And I can genuinely tell that he genuinely loves it. It's probably one of his favorite weekends of the year. I think about it year-round. I think literally a second event was over in Scottsdale. We hiked a mountain together. We did all this stuff. I started thinking about the next year's one, like on the flight home. Yeah, I love it.

22:30I love it. My guess is that many of your listeners want to or aspire to host their own mastermind. And my advice for you, if you are thinking about this, is you need to walk before you can run. Ryan did not just jump into hosting a 44-person thing like he knows to hire an event planner. My advice is host a happy hour first. Begin to learn the skills of facilitation. And there's an easy way to do that. And Ryan, for you, I have a hunch that in your town, are you in Dayton, did you say? I am now, yeah. My hunch is that in your town, you know a lot of people that maybe you and your wife see out and you're like, oh, we should get dinner sometime.

23:15Or you have your readers and your listeners who tell you that like, oh, dude, we should hang out. We should meet for coffee. Or there's all these other people. That is this group that I call our loose connections or our weak ties. They are people that we would love if we had unlimited amount of time, we would love to hang out with them. But it just doesn't work for our schedule and for our calendar. I found that by hosting once a quarter, a simple happy hour, it was a way for me to touch base with those people, get some FaceTime, and just keep them in my network. Maybe I see my friend John. Oh, John's working on this new business.

23:54Dude, I meant to hook you up with such and such. Let me follow up and send you an intro. It gave me that FaceTime in my local community for those people that I couldn't invite to my mastermind that I didn't have a chance to go out and have dinner with. I have found that it is the single best thing that if you're willing to make the time in the time it takes to watch a Netflix movie at home, you could host a little meetup and it doesn't have to be fancy. You don't need a guest speaker or specific programming. People just want to hang out and meet some new people. That's why we do these. I love it, man.

24:29This is a good nudge and a good push. Okay. The second thing you would teach is personal websites. And I think some people are like, nah, not for me, dude. Not for me. And I think those people I hope would have a more open mind. Why is that? Especially if you're in a leadership role, why should everyone have a personal website? So if you are someone who has a blue check verified on Instagram, if you're someone who posts at least once a month on LinkedIn, you probably need your own personal website. And the reason for that is, is it's like proactive reputation management. People are out there searching for you on Google and on ChatGPT.

25:10It may not happen every single day, but I promise it probably happens every week. Somebody's out there, whether it's parents of your kids at school, hey, who's this person that's in my kid's school, whether it's new employees. I talked to somebody two weeks ago, he's looking to buy a business and they did the letter of intent that came out and all the employees saw it and they started looking him up online. Like, who is my new boss about to be? And they're Googling him and they're finding like his Instagram page, which is fine, he was sharp. It was like not a page that had anything bad. But I say that you wanna have a personal website to put your best foot forward and just make a good impression.