The Secrets to Hosting Memorable and Impactful Social Events | Nick Gray

[00:00:01] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Nick, I need to make more friends. I need to be better at having, at being social in a party.

[00:00:26] I've literally gotten depressed at points in my life because I am just not good at parties and I run out of steam very fast and it's not the way I typically make friends. But you're the expert. You wrote the two hour cocktail party, it's a great book.

[00:00:42] How to build big relationships with small gatherings. What got you started making parties? I hate parties. I mean I would go to stuff in New York City, these big so-called networking events and

[00:00:53] I moved to New York wanting to meet people and make friends and I'd go to these big events at these loud night clubs where it's dark and it's a bunch of slimy people and I would leave feeling like a loser. It was all my fault. Yes, me too.

[00:01:08] I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a common experience for a lot of people. I realized that it wasn't that I was a loser, it's just that I was going to loser events

[00:01:19] and instead of going to bad events, I'd learn how to host my own good events. What did you start doing? In New York City it's hard because you have like everybody's got a small apartment and stuff. What did you start doing? I had a small apartment too.

[00:01:32] I started to host parties at my home, which that's part of my formula, but I'd invite people over a mix of my neighbors and people I already knew and then new people that I met.

[00:01:44] I think that's interesting that you probably go through life meeting a bunch of interesting people maybe who want to have dinner with you or they want to pick your brain and the reality is we're all too busy to make those happen.

[00:01:56] I realized that everybody wants to be invited to a party and everybody wants to know someone who connects people. That led me down a series I've probably hosted 900 happy hours now and I experimented with

[00:02:11] different models and formulas to make it work, to make it not awkward, friendly for introverts and just a space where people can meet new people. So okay let's say I'm listening to this, maybe I've moved to a new town, maybe I want to make friends.

[00:02:29] What are the first, there's good parties and there's bad parties and after you've done 900 I'm sure you're an expert and you wrote the book, the two hour cocktail party. So what's an example? Like where do I start? Where do I start? What do I do?

[00:02:43] So you got to start with something that I call your core group. And your core group, this is where most people make a mistake in hosting and by the way the average new first time host they're number one fear.

[00:02:54] James what do you think their number one fear is and why they would never host a party? That no one would come or only the uninteresting people would come. Exactly, exactly I'm pumping my fist in the air that no one would come or worse that

[00:03:10] only like three people would come and it's terribly awkward right? And so so much of my work is guaranteeing that that will never happen to people and then the first way to do that is to start your planning with what I call a core group.

[00:03:26] So if you just moved to a new town, if you're brand new in order to host you really do need to have about five friends or five people you know doesn't have to be best friends.

[00:03:37] They don't have to be friends even but five people need to say yes to your date and time. And that's the first step is that you have to get five yeses from people to soft launch your party.

[00:03:49] And then you have to venture the core group be diversified like you know some men some women. Sure for a first time host or is that not important? Yes for advanced attendees like you and I yes diversity in age profession background

[00:04:03] those are all great things for a new host I just want them to fill the room. And when I say fill the room I found that a good party a good happy hour is between 16 and 22 people.

[00:04:17] That's enough people for someone like you who like maybe has a little ADD that likes to talk to a lot of different people. Maybe when you walk into a room of 10 you might be bored there's not enough

[00:04:30] energy within that space above 22 it's too hectic it's too frenetic the host can't make introductions there's no curation. Why 22? That's like a very specific number like is there it almost sounds like there's

[00:04:45] a scientific study on this or did you just is that just like a really like an experience number. So part of my party formula is that yes it is an experience number and part of

[00:04:55] my party formula which is the Nick formula and I see K the I stands for icebreakers or introductions and we do two or three rounds of those introductions of the room and with 25 people those intros take way too long

[00:05:10] 22 is about the upper maximum because a good icebreaker a good icebreaker a good intro is a fast one nobody likes these boring ones that go on forever and so I wanted to be able to run fast.

[00:05:22] So okay I'm going to write this down because my house every year and this is the third year I guess we host the neighborhoods Christmas party and it's the only time per year I see all these people and it'll be it'll be fun

[00:05:40] but I dread it a little bit because I'm an extreme introvert and so you're suggesting everybody should do at some point like after enough people arrive I should say okay everybody introduce yourself but what's an interesting

[00:05:56] way like you have a whole great great chapter on icebreakers what's like a fun way I should get them to introduce themselves. So let me say this first yes you should do this but you need to tell them in

[00:06:07] advance because as an introvert and tell me if this resonates with you but I find that what the introverts don't like is surprises at social events they don't like to be put on the spot and they don't like that idea.

[00:06:21] So I found that two of the key things at my party are name tags and the round of introductions and I have to tell people in advance that I will be doing those and then I tell people the why because if they understand the

[00:06:35] why for example at your thing in the neighborhood what I would say is I'd be like look I see all of you guys all the time when we're walking in the neighborhood but I'm also bad with names and I may know the name of your dog

[00:06:46] what you do your kids everything but I'm just bad with names I forget and we also have some new people here who've joined the neighborhood and we want them to feel welcome because of that we're going to ask everybody to do a name tag with your first name.

[00:07:00] Since though I've you know this is happening in two days and the invitations were like weeks ago so it's like I didn't pre-announce this so given that I didn't pre-announce this what can I do? You could send an email today to let them know that you've been thinking

[00:07:13] about it you talked to some new neighbors and heads up everybody there's going to be name tags and one quick round of intros so that all the neighbors can meet each other. Great. So I would send them that now today because once you tell them that

[00:07:30] and you tell them the why then people understand right and that's another thing oh it's going to be weird if I have name tags or feel too corporate I don't want to do intros but they really do help after I think

[00:07:43] I've hosted I've helped 415 people now verified host their own first party they've never hosted a party before and with my book they hosted their first party and I hear that all the time what do people

[00:07:56] say oh my god why would I stop the party when everything's going well how awkward is that to stop the party and do these intros that that sounds terrifying but the room just explodes with energy and new conversation afterwards when you make those intros.

[00:08:15] Okay good I got it so what's next? How many people are coming to your thing in the neighborhood do you know? Probably about 40. 40 people? Yeah. So for your people what would be interesting for you to ask them

[00:08:32] would you prefer to know how they what they do for work or what they like to do for fun I'm going to ask you and then I'll help craft the icebreaker. I think what they would like to do for fun.

[00:08:44] Great so I would set it up for everybody and say hey everybody we're going to do a quick round of intros there's 40 people here it's going to take way too long if we do this long so I'm

[00:08:56] just going to ask you to say your name and what you like to do for fun in 10 words or less then you tell them the why say the purpose the reason we're going to do it is we all live here in

[00:09:09] the neighborhood and you never know who wants to learn to play tennis who wants to join a pickleball team who wants to go running and so let's try this out say your name and what you like to do for fun in 10 minutes or less by the way if

[00:09:22] you don't like to do anything for fun say something you maybe would like to do for fun for example you want to learn how to play tennis mention that and maybe you'll meet somebody so I would do that but here's the important thing for you James

[00:09:35] you have to lead it. You need to be looking around the room pointing at people and saying okay next we're going to go to John right and hopefully they'll have the name tags don't let them start to ask follow-up questions if somebody talks too long you

[00:09:50] need to cut them off and one little trick that you might do is have your wife go after you get her to talk too long and then you cut her off so that other people see that is a brilliant idea and I was love cutting her off.

[00:10:07] Yes good good good so okay what's what what's next well next we mentioned how do you end your party on time because for a lot of people that's the reason they don't host is they don't like to end it on time they feel awkward about that do

[00:10:22] you want to talk about your thoughts I'll give some ideas but like you want to talk where you are there. Yeah so and this is a discussion I have with my wife I like to keep it I run out of steam after two hours

[00:10:34] that's like my limit and but it's the annual party and so my wife's point which is a good point is that she doesn't really get to update with many of these people except once a year this thing so things go longer she thinks it should allow

[00:10:49] for its natural course which also makes sense so I don't know where I stand on this. Here's my thoughts on that and your party it's Friday today as we record this will your party be on Sunday yeah what time is it scheduled for 7 30 to 9 30 7 39 30 so all

[00:11:07] right I told her I told her 9 30 I'm going to tell people get out and she said no no no don't do that that'll be bad well here's what we can do at 9 30 or at 9 15 you could make a little last call announcement to let people know that at

[00:11:26] 9 30 you're going to start to wind down and thank them you don't have to do a hard out shut out the lights lock the doors at 9 30 which was my plan right right but what you want to do is to give those who are ready to go home give

[00:11:43] them an easy excuse to leave because have you ever been at a party and you want to leave you're done after an hour and a half yeah but you feel bad being the first one to leave you're like you know that I don't want the host to

[00:11:56] see me leaving they'll think I hate this I feel a little bit bad it's a really good what you what you want to do is give them an easy excuse to leave and so what I would do because you know it's a Sunday night your wife really

[00:12:09] does want to see but I would make a last call at 9 15 and say hey everybody thank you so much for coming in 15 minutes you know the party scheduled to end say hello to somebody new exchange contact info or grab a last

[00:12:22] drink and then we'll start to wrap up soon and then realistically you never need to have that wrap up time to leave speech there's a good chance that that notice from you will give people the permission and the release

[00:12:37] for introverts that it's okay to leave now and that's what we want is we just want people to feel comfortable and sometimes we do end the party right at 9 30 because you want to end on a high note but this is a special

[00:12:51] situation it's your once a year holiday party so yeah we talked about the intros and the end what happens in the middle how do I make this a good party yes so how do you make it a good party by good I mean good for me oh

[00:13:21] well let me ask what is good for you what is success look like that I talk to interesting people but I kind of go from person to person and and you know right at the time when it's supposed to end I feel

[00:13:38] fully satisfied yeah so let me ask you a question do you have a problem ending conversations yeah many people do and in fact it's easy for them to start a conversation sometimes but it's very hard to end them and are you and your wife James specifically

[00:13:57] the hosts or is this hosted by the neighborhood it's your yes or the host yes the way that you can end conversations is simply to note your host duties and say to people say say something like I'll be right back I'm going to go do host duties

[00:14:18] that love it that phrase of look you're welcoming people you're cleaning you're tidying you're doing that by the way during my own parties James I will sneak away and go to my bedroom and scroll social media that's what I do yeah no problem at all for

[00:14:34] me it helps me recharge my batteries and take a little breather I mean we had I had a great party right before covid it was like 2019 and I was introducing my friends for a very diverse group of people like podcast guests stand-up comedians the

[00:14:53] former world chess champion other people and but I was introducing them all the purpose of the party was to introduce them to Eric Adams who was then running for mayor of New York City and he eventually won as mayor of New York City

[00:15:04] so it was a great party there was like 50 60 people there and but I still even at that party that was such a high-energy party where I had to make introductions and give a speech and all these things every 15 20 minutes I had to go to my room

[00:15:18] and just like shut the door for a while sometimes what you need and we're getting off tangent because most of my work is for very beginner hosts but sometimes what you need at your own big events like that is like a consiglier or

[00:15:34] a shadow who will be with you and every two minutes will tap to help you keep moving so I do this for some of my famous friends after they speak a keynote speech and I'll set timers when they have a line of people lined up to

[00:15:49] talk to them and I'll set a timer so once every 60 seconds I tap them I say hey I'm so sorry we got to move the line and they'll have a code word to me that if they want to continue the conversation then they'll

[00:16:02] say something like oh this is my good friend yeah well I've done I've done this at a public event so like where I've been the keynote speaker and everyone lines up I have somebody who is like that who has done that for me in the past yeah maybe

[00:16:18] not as helpful at a party event so what happens at the party think about my name which is Nick NICK that's the general overview and each of them stand for certain things and stands for name tags you're gonna use name tags at your event

[00:16:32] first name only and I think that you and your wife should write the name tags at the party because it gives you a chance to have a touch point with everyone who arrives love that so we so you don't just have a table with all the name tags

[00:16:49] out no okay good I will say to people when I give them the name tag I'll say something kind and sincere like thank you so much James for coming tonight like I'm gonna be so crazy busy running around but I just want to say

[00:17:05] thank you for coming and you're welcome here in my home the bars over there please help yourself to some snacks and I'll see you in a few minutes okay I use that as my chance to have a touch point which eat with each and every

[00:17:19] single person the name tags by the way also serve as a unifying almost uniform that this isn't a party of clicks right so when you host a party maybe all your chess friends stay together and talk together and then the podcasters talk to the podcasters that

[00:17:37] can be intimidating for new people and introverts to join a room like that and the name tags help to make it even okay good that's and the I stands for icebreakers or introductions I lead about you know two or three of these at an event

[00:17:55] with a larger party like you're doing Sunday you're gonna have to lead them fast do not let people sit down for these but you know what was good about your icebreakers because I read that chapter and and and was very interesting is that they're good for

[00:18:11] just conversation to like if I just walk up to someone say hey what do you do on a Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. yes they're good for just like conversation starters anyway yes yeah I think that they are as well and so

[00:18:24] there's a concept that I have of easy icebreakers or value additive ice breakers and easy icebreaker is what I use at the beginning of an event when it's awkward and there's no rapport that's built up so an example of an easy icebreaker would be hey everybody

[00:18:41] say your name say what you do for work and just say one of your favorite things that you like to eat for breakfast now that's a stupid icebreaker but it works I'll tell you why it works it doesn't cause introverts to lock up because breakfast it's easy

[00:18:56] it's pleasurable it expresses a little bit about our personality we're not going to be judged for the answer a bad example of a beginning start of an icebreaker would be say your name say what you do for work and tell me your favorite book or tell me

[00:19:11] your favorite movie that's very hard for people to think of on the spot many people will cause them to lock up so at the beginning you're right like you would think that is a good like if you ask me what my favorite

[00:19:23] movie was I wouldn't be able to tell you if you've seen a thousand movies what's your favorite you have to suddenly start going through all thousand and you know probably 300 of them were good enough to say it was good but then I have to really

[00:19:37] think these things that I'm talking they're not rocket science but when I say them it makes sense right how would I think about my now the reason that it's so hard is that it's definitive and it's subjective what is your absolute favorite

[00:19:51] and now there's going to be judgment well what do I say what if I really like that what will people think of me versus yeah like I got I was in an event two days ago and someone asked me and it was

[00:20:03] like part of a panel and someone asked me who has been the best podcast guest I've had and I've had 1500 podcast guests there's other than Nick Gray of course I was not able to answer the question yes it's too hard and it's definitive and by the way

[00:20:23] a way to modify a question like that to make it a little bit easier would be what are some of your favorite movies what is one of your favorite books who was one of your favorite podcast guests that takes it from definitive and exact

[00:20:43] to zoom out to just be one of and it makes it a little easier yeah what are some other good ice breakers in the book what are some of the ones that you think are probably won't be able to do the group

[00:20:55] ice breaker because there might be too many people like what are some good just like conversation ice breakers so I'd like to challenge you I would like you to do one round with the whole group okay at some point what I would suggest is you do that

[00:21:09] at about 8 15 or 8 20 and very briefly I want you to run the room and just say hey we're trying to build an amazing neighborhood community to that extent we want you to be able to know who's in the room and just put a name to a face so

[00:21:27] very quickly go around and say your name and something that you like to do for fun or that you want to do okay and your names need to lead it you have to lead it with an iron fist have your wife go next cut her off

[00:21:41] say nope we don't have time keep going keep going and this is the thing that I have to send an email today to tell people I'm going to do I feel like they I feel like an email is threatening like you better come here

[00:21:53] prepared like I'm giving them homework I think the purpose of the email is just to get them excited to come to the party and so you might send it and say two days away right or like see you Sunday night as the subject line

[00:22:07] message body could say like see you Sunday night list the time the date the address and then I would say heads up we'll have name tags so that we can help welcome some new members to the community and at around 8 15

[00:22:25] we're going to do a quick round of intros where you can say your name and something you like to do for fun the purpose of this is to help us build a better neighborhood community and James is bad with name

[00:22:37] so we have name tags or something like that right and you don't think people are going to be like they're going to think that that's like oh god I got it like now think of something fun to do is to say to these people

[00:22:49] I think that when you tell them the why that you say look we all chose to live here in this neighborhood we know that having friends and meeting our neighbors helps us live longer healthier happier lives you can even acknowledge say look this may seem cheesy or silly

[00:23:05] but I promise you this will help you meet at least one or two more people and you never know when you run out of sugar, salt or butter and need to go knock on someone's door yeah yeah yeah

[00:23:17] so something like that I mean when you just lean into the why people get it and they understand I'll give you an example about three months ago someone invited me up to Dallas Texas and they helped run these icebreakers at this men's group

[00:23:29] and it was a bunch of you know Bubba, Texas Cowboys and when I made the sound and announced we're going to do an icebreaker everybody crossed their arms and they looked at me like I was this you know New York Yankee out of place you know

[00:23:49] and so I had to step back and say hey guys here's the reason why we're going to do this is because we show that 19% of American men don't have a single close friend my guess is that you come to this meetup and you know your core group

[00:24:05] of three or four guys but you probably don't know the stories of the other people here in the room you're all here for a reason for a purpose let's take a quick 10 minutes and just go around the circle and maybe it'll give you an excuse

[00:24:21] to go say hi to somebody new we did that and once I explained the why to them their arms came down they bought into the idea and people can get into it once they understand the why so that's my advice

[00:24:33] what do you think about that do you think it'll work? I like that idea okay I now feel like I could manage this yes yes yes and by the way these feelings that you have of not wanting to do it are totally normal

[00:24:43] and it's what I'm fighting against which is to say good parties have a little bit of structure because once we know the rules then we can play the game and the game here is defined as just meeting mixing mingling hopefully getting a chance to talk to someone

[00:25:01] new and interesting so that's the gist Nick NICK the N stands for name tags the I stands for icebreakers and introductions you'll lead two and a half of those that my book says but at your party you're only going to do one the C for me

[00:25:19] and for cocktails or mocktails only no dinner so yes you can have snacks you're going to have appetizers but don't feel like you have to serve people dinner to invite them over to your home and you and your wife know this because you're not

[00:25:33] doing dinner you're doing a larger event which is great but we do tend to make the equivalent of dinners and not just snacks I have to get it toned down on that again sit down dinner but there's going to be enough food that people will feel full

[00:25:51] if they want to feel full at the end sure sure sure and it's a holiday party this is a special situation for you and I understand that feeling of wanting to feed people which is valid I also want to encourage people to know

[00:26:05] that you don't have to feed people your friends are adults I would rather someone leave my party hungry rather than bored so I spend all my time curating the guest list making introductions and very little time thinking about the food and the drinks

[00:26:23] my book is called the two hour cocktail party I don't drink alcohol there's not a single drink recipe in the book but that phrase cocktail party is a lightweight social event right got it so I like that okay and that's pretty much covered so and then what's

[00:26:39] the K the K stands for kick them out at the end the party is only two hours long basically what I found is that if you host a party with no end time people do this weird calculus of deciding when to arrive

[00:26:55] well I don't want to arrive right on time you know the host is from Central America so they're going to be running late well it's at this time and traffic so I'll show up 45 minutes late when you don't set an end time for your party it extends

[00:27:11] to what I call the awkward zone and the awkward zone by the way happens at any event it's the first 10 to 30 minutes do you know what I'm talking about awkward yeah usually like three or four people there yes the music is not quite on yet yes and

[00:27:27] everybody spends too much time talking to those first three or four people yeah and there's not enough momentum in the room to break into small groups to bop around you feel locked in and trapped happens at every event by the way

[00:27:41] my book has some suggestions on how to avoid the awkward zone things that you could do on Sunday for your party James number one would be to think about whether you and your wife want to delegate duties to anyone who arrives early I love that suggestion

[00:27:57] in your book so like you assign people like hey can you be the bartender for the next few people that arrive and so on yes yes yes you can say hey would you help with the coat check first 10 people would you help with the drinks for the

[00:28:11] first 15 people would you give out high fives hey we're so busy during parties we forget to take pictures can you take some candid photos for us while we're here give out little duties to people to get the people like that they're like oh my god I just

[00:28:25] came to for like a few minutes and now I gotta be the official photographer well if I take that photographs well usually what I find yes that's a good point and usually what I find is what people always ask when they're one of the first person to arrive

[00:28:39] they say how can I help and so I have this list of things but if I ask somebody to do that and they don't feel comfortable then I'm very tuned in I say oh my god no problem at all have a seat on the sofa

[00:28:51] or stand over there say hey to Jeremy and just make yourself at home I'm so happy that you came so we're tuned into it we're not gonna force anybody to do that and you're gonna use your skills to look and see who might be comfortable

[00:29:03] to do those things and so now my situation aside this does seem like a good strategy having these cocktail parties to make friends and build connections like like even for me right now like I should probably do this more like how often you think

[00:29:21] someone should do a cocktail party so you're on the extreme end of the spectrum you've had 1500 guests on the podcast you know hundreds if not thousands of people who you find interesting your top of funnel network of acquaintances is insane and someone like you could literally hire someone

[00:29:43] part-time to host a two hour event every two or three weeks and you could cycle new people through that all the time and you could use it to juice your network and connections if you wanted to the average person at the other side

[00:29:57] who may just be a listener that moved to a new town I think they should probably host once a quarter and once every three months is about a good cadence looking to have half repeat guests half new guests with the ideal size for about 18 to 20 people once they've

[00:30:15] hosted a couple of events that's what I think would be nice I myself did when I first moved so I just moved to Austin, Texas about three years ago and I moved here and I knew the formula on how to build a network

[00:30:29] I hardly knew anybody but I knew what to do and I hosted every two or three weeks every two or three weeks I hosted and it meant that I always had my next event on the calendar so when I met anyone even remotely interesting

[00:30:43] it was as simple as saying hey I'm hosting a little happy hour in three weeks can I send you the info note that I use that phrase by the way can I send you the info not do you want to come we want to give

[00:30:53] them an easy yes especially like you James who get a lot of invitations and a lot of asks you just want to make it an easy yes for you to send them the information and then there's other things we do with social proof

[00:31:05] to make it look like an interesting fun event which it will be like what do you do for social proof you say like so and so Joe Rogan is coming to this one or so yes so I make the guest list visible we collect RSVPs

[00:31:19] you get that core group remember your core group idea that's what I said at the beginning five to eight of these close people we get them to RSVP first before I even invite anyone else so that when you go to the page

[00:31:33] you already see that like eight people are coming I lived in New York for 13 years I was in the village on West 10th between fifth and six oh my god how the hell did you live on West 10th between fifth and six like that is since

[00:31:49] for past four that is my favorite block in New York City I'm not kidding first off the Marshall chess club on that street second beautiful street it's like just a beautiful street it's a very quiet block right there in between NYU and Washington Square Park and Union Square

[00:32:07] which are all very busy areas but that's a nice quiet like tree line street it's very expensive street by the way it's an expensive street I had a fourth or fifth floor walk up so Marshall chess club I believe is 23 West 10th

[00:32:23] and I lived at 27 so I was two doors down so if you went to Marshall chess club we may have passed in fact I'd sometimes send my Amazon boxes to Marshall chess club but yes I lived in New York for a long time and one

[00:32:37] party when I was just getting started I remember I met a woman at this yoga type event she was really cute she was a model I knew I wanted to learn more about her and I told her I said oh I'm hosting a party in three weeks

[00:32:49] like you should come she said oh yeah so I took out my phone and I loaded up the event and I show it to her and there's nobody that's coming it looks like I'm just inviting her by herself over to my apartment and so she was

[00:33:03] like okay whatever so I rushed home I had to get all my friends to sign up on RSVP so I didn't look like a weirdo it worked out we ended up becoming friends but doing that little social proof of showing other people have RSVP'd first helps

[00:33:19] those that you may have just met to know that it'll be good the other thing for social proof that I tell everybody to do and I'd like for you to do this at your party Sunday is at the end of the icebreaker or the round of intros

[00:33:31] snap a group photo take a very quick group photo and you can use that group photo now you don't need to use it for social proof but I tell everybody else I say look next time you're hosting show people your group photo

[00:33:47] show them that you host a good event get people smiling showing them having a good time and that's how we use that group photo for future events tell me more about the icebreakers because I really loved some of the suggestions you know like what's

[00:34:16] a great piece of media that you've consumed recently and what did you like about it yes best purchase under $100 if you were to do a citywide poll what would you want to learn I really like this one what's a compliment someone gave you that you still think about

[00:34:30] that's a really great one because it makes you really think about yourself and like what you like and a time when you're happy so that's a good one-on-one icebreaker to ask somebody when you're one-on-one the concept of value-added device breakers is that everybody's answer makes the room seem

[00:34:50] a little bit smarter so right now where are you and your wife what city near Atlanta Georgia so you're near Atlanta for a long time I lived up north of Atlanta near Lake Lanier and say that I was in Alpharetta and I would tell people

[00:35:08] say I was hosting a party and this was an hour in so we've already built up rapport people are loosened up I would do this icebreaker for the group I would say hey let's say our name say what you do for work again

[00:35:20] real quick and then tell me what's one of your favorite Atlanta or Alpharetta life hacks what's a secret place that you like a walking trail a small business you like to support who has the best cup of coffee what's something here in Atlanta that you like and recommend

[00:35:40] and let's share that now to the room I like that and I am near Alpharetta so I might do exactly that the reason that that works well is people are going to hear all these ideas of cool things that they want to support

[00:35:52] and like and they're going to leave your party feeling like they met a whole bunch of new people and they got a ton of new ideas on stuff to do the bar is so low right now for hosting a good meet up

[00:36:06] that when you do these little things name tags, intros, group photo you'll be seen as this amazing host and it's what I found from teaching hundreds of people how to host their first party is that all you have to do

[00:36:18] is you are a few little elements of structure and it just turbo charges your hosting skills and that's just what I want people to know you can learn to be a good host just like you can learn to play better chess

[00:36:30] you can learn to be a better host it's not hard alright that's very good and then so let me ask you do you do this for a living do you throw parties for a living I don't make very much money off of it

[00:36:44] but I do it full time I started in the past and sold two companies the first one was called flight display systems it made in-flight entertainment equipment and surveillance stuff for small planes so we started making in-flight entertainment equipment and then the screens

[00:37:06] that would play movies and DVDs once those screens got certified for use in small planes I was pretty good with like google search engine stuff and got it to be certified and to come up for like FAA certified flat panel monitors and they needed those in surveillance

[00:37:22] so like the Coast Guard is doing a rescue mission at night but they're wearing night vision goggles and they need a screen that's certified to be used in an aircraft that can work with night vision goggles so yeah it's a

[00:37:34] well that's a weird thing how did you get into that so that was total family business my dad was this mad scientist guy I was born on an Air Force base and when I left college he was in the basement

[00:37:46] of our house trying to start and build this company I thought I'd help him out for a few weeks hire his first employees work on his marketing and then that turned into a couple months and a couple years and we grew it to about

[00:37:58] 80 employees we sold it to a PE firm in 2014 Wow okay cool and then what was the second company second company was I think maybe where we originally met through in New York City I did renegade museum tours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

[00:38:14] and other major museums across the country and what renegade tours means is that I would hire stand up comedians and Broadway actors to be the tour guides for my company at the Met Museum and then we would lead these non-traditional two hour museum experiences That's pretty cool

[00:38:34] one of my daughters is a tour guide for in New York City for like great donut locations Really? That's good dude I have so much respect for tour guides dealing with tourists and people that are new to New York you really have to be incredibly socially savvy

[00:38:58] No it's true and a lot of stand up comedians kind of get their start as tour guides And stand up comedians make the best tour guides too because they can read a room they can read an audience they can take people right to the level of roast

[00:39:10] it's amazing Now you do this other stuff full time throwing parties and you do it for other people as well Yeah folks I've been doing a little bit of conference work many times businesses and companies will hire me to help them with their conferences

[00:39:26] to reimagine how does networking look at a 3,000 person conference or 300 person conference How does networking do you reimagine that? Well I'll give you an example I just helped out at a conference in Orlando they had 2700 attendees they had 8 different networking sessions that were happening and when I audited

[00:39:46] those sessions I realized that basically they were just sitting them down and running powerpoint slides and the volunteers who were running those sessions were kind of using it as like a sales funnel for them and so we said look we're getting rid of slides there's no more

[00:40:00] slides there's no more chairs in the room and in the first 30 minutes I trained all the teams to say look first 30 minutes they need to talk to as many new people as they can here's how we're going to do that and split them into small groups

[00:40:12] for that conference over half of the attendees were first time attendees and so at a conference like that we wanted them to give a touch point to recognize people and make friends because it's so much easier to resell to repeat people

[00:40:26] blah blah blah but that was one way at a conference that had a thousand people and I said look at the opening night we want you to lead the first 30 minutes of the gathering to help folks mix and mingle there at the happy hour

[00:40:38] and so I got on the microphone like a schmuck and I just let it and had people form small groups and have conversations and it was amazing so that's what I'm exploring right now that's great I have two conference let's call them hacks that helped me

[00:40:54] let's say if I'm speaking at the conference and they address kind of the problems you were mentioned one of them addresses the problems you were mentioning in the beginning which is that everybody just sort of arrives the presenters show up at the last minute

[00:41:08] and have slides and then leave and so what I do is I never use slides because when you use slides everyone's looking they're not looking at you they're not paying attention to you or their multitasking which is very hard actually for the brain to do

[00:41:22] harder than people realize people think slides help the presentation it makes you actually have to work harder in your brain so I never and plus it never works the technology never works or 50% of the time so I never use slides but that's not the hack

[00:41:36] the hack is I will always go to the opening early morning session like oh 7am coffee and donuts served before the conference I always go to that and shake hands with as many people as possible because then I'm the one they're rooting for later when I'm

[00:41:54] speaking I'm pumping my fist because that's genius it works really well because nobody else is there no other presenters are there and then the other thing I try to do which is a little more subtle is if I can I try to be the last person to speak

[00:42:08] at the conference which seems a little like maybe everyone's tired then and that's true everyone's a little tired or they're looking forward to the conference to be over but it allows me to say I'd like to thank all the prior presenters they did a great job

[00:42:24] because what that does is it makes two categories of presenters all the prior ones and me so you can't even remember the names anymore of the prior ones there's just me thanking them and then there's me and I find that to be

[00:42:40] when I do that when I'm able to do that I find when I read the you know I ask the conference holders to send me the testimonials later I find that there's a lot more testimonials that mention me because I do

[00:42:50] that one I think it's because I do that one technique because you're the last one to go and we remember the last thing right it's the recency the last thing and also there's this what's called choice ambiguity bias which is that you put everybody in this other category

[00:43:04] where you can't even it's like choose your favorite movie you can't even choose if there's too many and then there's me so it removes me from the category like if if if someone if you ask what's your favorite movie there's and you've seen a thousand movies there's the

[00:43:18] one hundred ninety nine you saw first and then there's the last one you saw and so I really make that distinction James is this too personal how could I use this in my dating life that's very interesting question because I do have hacks for that obviously

[00:43:38] looking the way I look I mean I don't date anymore I'm married but you know there's one there's one technique that is useful which is that you do a lot of things on a date so you don't just like beat for dinner and that's the date

[00:43:56] maybe you meet at a ping-pong place and you play two games of ping-pong and then you go you know to an art gallery or you sneak into like an art opening where you get some drinks and and then you go to like

[00:44:14] maybe you go to one place for drinks first and then another place for dinner and what happens then is you feel like you've had a lot of experience with the person and so they the other person I mean this feels a little manipulative but it really isn't

[00:44:30] but you feel like you've had more of an opportunity to get to know like the other person the person you're on the date with feels like they know you more than they really do because they've done a lot of more things with you on a date

[00:44:42] then they do on a normal date if that makes sense Yeah, yeah it feels right it feels like similar to my parties we want a lot of activities we want a lot of people there we want it to seem deeper and richer so I love that

[00:44:58] Another one is this works really well is you kind of make a challenge for instance I'll tell someone this is a challenge I do for myself that I'll go into a Starbucks sometimes and just exercise my ability to be rejected and not be afraid

[00:45:14] I'll get my coffee and I'll ask for a 10% discount and they'll say well why do you want a 10% discount and I won't give any reason I'll say no reason can I just have a 10% discount and they really

[00:45:26] they don't know what to do they have to ask the manager and you know it's a Starbucks it's a chain they're going to say no they have rules you know I'll do this in every place not just a Starbucks a deli a restaurant

[00:45:38] like I'll do this all the time but I'll explain this to the person on the date and never let me say oh that sounds fascinating and I say why don't you try it like I'll try it first and we'll see what happens

[00:45:50] and then you try it and they'll be like oh no I'm really afraid to do no just I'll do it first until they'll see me do it and I'll probably get rejected now women don't get rejected so when a woman asks for 10% discount at a deli

[00:46:02] they're much more likely to get sure yeah 10% off your coffee and so they feel very excited that they did this challenge and they did it and they're going to be able to it's a story they're going to be able to tell their friends later

[00:46:14] about your date and so it gives them fond memories right away plus they you experienced this almost life threatening experience you know asking you know that it feels very scary the first couple of times I did this so it's going to feel very

[00:46:28] scary for them it's like a public speaking almost and and so they've been through this like life threatening experience with you and that kind of adds to the excitement of the date so those are two kind of like date hacks in terms of this choice ambiguity

[00:46:44] bias it's hard to say well you know good thing I'm the last of all the thousands of people you dated like then that makes them seem like a slut so I'm not sure you want to want to do that but I'll have to think about that a

[00:46:58] little more how you can use that specifically you know or maybe you can do that referring to yourself like you can say you know I'm tired of just the concept of dates and so then you know so then you put like everybody else you've previously

[00:47:14] dated in this category of a date and now they feel like they have to sort of demonstrate that they're not this generic ambiguous date so that might be a way to do it I liked what you said about the challenge and this idea of the low stakes

[00:47:32] challenge that you're both invested in and it's kind of like me and my date against everybody else yeah and that that idea is really resonating with me and I've never done that before and I think it just sounds fun to me and probably

[00:47:50] things that feel fun are good and I need to do more of that that one really really works that's like my favorite one because it's not manipulative at all in any way I mean I'm thinking like back to 2007 2008 I used to do stuff like oh this person's interested

[00:48:08] in Kabbalah and then I would like quickly go to the book I would know nothing about that and I would quickly go to the bookstore read everything and then oh yeah I'm an expert and you know that stuff's really bad don't do that but

[00:48:20] because then they like you and you don't even really like them because then you're not interested in this and but you know it's a good question like why are kind of like dating hacks related to this I like these icebreakers though that you do because they don't feel

[00:48:35] false these icebreakers they don't feel like oh I'm just trying to have a conversation I wish I had had these like I lived in a Key Biscayne Florida for a while about a year or so ago and that's a very social town it's about 70% Latino

[00:48:52] and it's just a non-stop party particularly literally from Wednesday night Monday morning is a non-stop party there and I'm not made for that and I would just I would really research icebreakers because I was like I just didn't know what to talk about with everybody

[00:49:08] they all knew each other all their lives and then we moved in and like I liked them and I want and I think they wanted to like me but I just didn't know what to talk about and I wish I had had more of these icebreakers at hand

[00:49:22] I had a pod that just released where it was about how to make somebody fall in love with you where you went through a series of escalating questions you remember that you know I honestly never remember my podcast fair fair fair

[00:49:38] I have to listen Jay do you remember that one yeah the one with Robin oh so it's my wife that's right some study kind of came out with these questions

[00:49:48] and you can find them online somewhere but yeah it's basically how to make somebody fall in love with you and the idea is that you get vulnerable and intimate not immediately not right off the bat but you warm up to it and at a party

[00:50:04] I wonder if there's an equivalent for example something that I will ask people and I don't know if this is good or not be curious to hear your thoughts but I'll ask people how was your day now that is a very silly question but it's very personable

[00:50:20] and it's kind of grounding for me many times at parties I have frenetic energy it's stressful and if I can just ground myself and like hey how was your day it takes people out of this superficial what do you do for work how do you know James whatever

[00:50:38] and it's kind of I don't know if you like it or hate it yeah no I like that but sometimes I feel like with how was your day there's like generic answers like everyone says great how was yours you know they don't really answer it like yesterday

[00:50:52] someone asked me how was your day and I decided I'm just going to say you know it wasn't really that good so you know but it's hard to do that like you have to remember to do that and to be honest like because it's such a generic question

[00:51:06] something I want to note as we talk about these icebreakers is to be aware of the burden that it places on the person that you ask and when we're interacting with new people I would suggest almost that you go first so as you James

[00:51:24] lead this icebreaker for your party I want to make sure on Sunday that you and your wife go first yeah if I were to come up I don't want to be the guy that's just drilling people with questions I need to be vulnerable and go first

[00:51:40] and so if I were going to ask what's your favorite purchase then I would lead it and say like hey can I ask you like I'm going to ask you this but I'll tell you mine first but like what was your favorite purchase

[00:51:52] for like a hundred dollars or less it could be an object or an experience for me I love this Zoji Rushi Japanese water heater and I love tea and I drink a lot of tea and it gives me boiling water that's ready immediately

[00:52:06] I bought it and I think I use it like every single day how fast does it boil water it takes time to boil water and then it keeps the boiled water like in a vacuum seal that only requires a little bit of electricity so I could get

[00:52:20] the hot water right now immediately because it's in this vacuum thing I just kind of push a button and boiling water they have them all over Japan and China but nobody uses them here I like that I'm going to have to purchase that

[00:52:32] but that's an example of how I would go first to lead that so I don't put the social burden you does that make sense yeah no I agree with that completely and you know in terms of the escalating questions and the vulnerability you're right vulnerability is a really

[00:52:50] important bonding mechanism because that's how you learn that's how the people in the tribe learn to trust other people that they're going to fight the bad guys with but if you're too vulnerable too fast that's like a little kind of crazy

[00:53:06] like if the first thing you say to someone is ugh I'm still fighting for custody with my kids with my husband who used to abuse me or wife who used to abuse that's a problem but if you say

[00:53:20] or if the first thing you do is complain about your job because that's like no one needs to know that right away but if you like when Jay complains about his job at my party it's really a drag so he's my podcast producer so if you're vulnerable like

[00:53:36] you know one thing about living, I love living here but one thing is my kids are a little older now and they live in New York and I miss them I wish I could see them a little bit more that's like a sweet vulnerability

[00:53:50] it's kind of figuring out how to divide your vulnerabilities up is a good way to do it yeah what you don't want to do is trauma dump oh my gosh I caught up with a friend recently and he was like wow I need a minute

[00:54:04] for that holy smokes yeah and that's a big red flag in dating if some vulnerability is good but trauma dumping I like that phrase trauma dumping is really bad that's a bad red flag because if they're doing that on the first date

[00:54:18] what are they going to do when you're married that's all you're going to hear so at your party on Sunday I want to give you one more piece of advice that you can coach your wife on because you may be ready to go to bed

[00:54:30] and I want to invite nine or ten people that want to talk to her who are saying oh my god I haven't seen you all night you've been hosting let's sit down and catch up what I say in those moments to people

[00:54:42] is I make sure that they feel seen and so I would say something like Jenny I'm so glad that you came I would love to catch up but James wants to wrap up can I call you tomorrow I will tell her this

[00:54:56] and she won't pay attention to me she's I'm an extreme introvert she's an extreme extrovert so she's going to talk to all ten of those people all night long and I don't feel comfortable going to bed while the party is still going on

[00:55:10] so this is a source of attention so I will tell her this and we'll see how she reacts I wish you the best of luck that's not easy well Nick this has been so great like I knew I wanted to have you on and the book is

[00:55:26] a two hour cocktail party how to build a big relationship with small gatherings you know one of the reasons I wanted to have you on too was out of the past ten years of doing this podcast I've had on quite a few guests who have built their careers

[00:55:40] by starting off throwing parties so like Louis House you know who Louis House is? Of course, legend. Yeah so he has the great podcast of school of greatness he's written a bunch of best selling books he literally started his career by inviting his LinkedIn connections to networking events

[00:56:02] that he would host and by doing that he built him a big list of people and then eventually he would write a book you know how to network using LinkedIn and that sold out and then he would start charging people for the parties and that's how he built

[00:56:16] up his career from starting to throw parties and I've had more than one guest like that you know they weren't necessarily the most extroverted people but they built a career out of throwing parties so this is like an important, a more important than people think life skill

[00:56:32] and it's harder than people think which is why I mean you wrote a book about it because there's enough gaps between people's knowledge and reality that a book was needed so look this is a skill that folks can learn and if you want to meet interesting

[00:56:48] people you have to do interesting things I found that the easiest fastest way to become interesting is to host a well run meetup and the bar is so low today to host a good gathering there are a few tactical practical things that I learned like

[00:57:06] name tags, ice breakers, cocktails only kick them out sending reminder messages collecting RSVP is a simple group photo these are not rocket science I haven't invented a nuclear reactor they're just common sense practical advice to host a good gathering and everyone wants to know someone who brings

[00:57:24] people together just like Louis Haas found just like other guests people want to know you when you bring people together yeah that's right there's another guy John Levy I'm sure you've heard of him he's like a famous party legendary who else Jay I feel like

[00:57:40] there's been a bunch of others but I can't remember the names John Levy is the one that I can think of he's the king he's done such a really good job for this there's new people that are doing it

[00:57:50] I mean there's a lot of stories of people that have done this what I would like to do I would like to volunteer next year to come to Atlanta and to be a host for you and your wife yeah that would be great done

[00:58:06] for a week day two hour thing but your wife has to promise that I can kick everybody out at the end all right I'll see if she can do that but done deal because I even had this conversation with her

[00:58:22] I would like to do this more often as a networking thing because like one time we organized even a podcast around it where some people were coming into town so we combined that with some people here in town and we got all together and kind of

[00:58:38] had a good like it was who was it was Jason Pfeiffer who's the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur we had Merrick first who's a professor of entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech Cal Fussman who was an editor at large at Esquire and a really great interviewer and a couple other people

[00:58:54] and it was just a really good I wanted to do more of those types of events we can do them easily when you host a cocktail party when you host a happy hour this is really something that as you think about the funnel of relationships

[00:59:08] the top of the funnel is those acquaintances they're people that maybe you only see once every couple years and I found that in the same time it takes to watch a movie on Netflix two hours you can host an event to reconnect with 20 to 30 of those people

[00:59:24] or here's another idea that I'd really like to do and I would love to do it with you I know a ton of people in Austin that I would really like to reconnect with so I should just like plant myself in Austin for a week

[00:59:36] and throw a party wait, wait, wait say less I am in a thousand percent I am in, in, in the first step we need to do is to pick your date and get the dates that you're going to come and then let's host like two or three nights

[00:59:52] and I think we should do it yeah I think it's a good idea because so like everybody who's been on this podcast either lives in Austin or just moved to Austin and I keep saying oh I'm going to visit, I'll visit you in Austin

[01:00:06] and I have never done it but maybe if I kind of focus it around like hey I'm having a little get together would you come and you know some people will, some people won't you know there's like a hierarchy of my podcast guests

[01:00:20] they'll all come, they'll all come and if you make it easy for them to say yes to pop in, we'll host it on two nights, we'll do it both on a Tuesday and a Wednesday

[01:00:30] how do you do it on two nights? Like why, what's the purpose of that the idea is that for your ultra busy super successful friends you give them the option and that's, people do that like they say look I'm having events on Tuesday and Wednesday

[01:00:44] let me know which day is good for you the average listener could not do that, you have a wide enough network and you are famous enough that you can easily fill up a whole week so I don't worry about you having two nights, now something that I've

[01:00:58] done is I will tier my nights, so as an example sometimes I host meetups for million plus creators, folks that have podcast Instagram whatever for a million or more followers and I'll host them on one night and then the other night is

[01:01:12] more of just like an open kind of happy hour for other friends so we could do something like that for you as well but I think that you should host on a Tuesday and Wednesday, you can come into Austin for two nights three days

[01:01:24] easy flight in and out of Atlanta no problem. Yeah, yeah and get a nice Airbnb, you know and have fun. Alright done deal. Well Nick Nick Gray, author of the two hour cocktail party how to build big relationships with small gatherings such valuable

[01:01:40] information that I'm actually going to put to use within the next 48 hours, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me more parties in 2024 Excellent, I agree