How to Throw a Great Party with Superhost Nick Gray
Nick is the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, a step-by-step handbook that teaches you how to build big relationships by hosting small gatherings. Nick started and sold two successful companies and over 75,000 people have watched his TEDx talk about why he hates most museums. He's been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine called him a host of “culturally significant parties."
Nick has hosted literally hundreds of cocktail parties all around the world while developing his simple system for being a great host. If you want to expand your network, make deeper connections, and create fun and memorable experiences with interesting people, you’re going to love this conversation.
See above for video, and below for audio, resources mentioned, and conversation transcript.
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Check out previous Forcing Function Hour episodes.
Topics:
(02:16) Cocktail parties as a way to build friendships
(10:14) Pro- or anti-name tag?
(21:09) Getting a party off the ground
(34:35) Helping everyone feel comfortable
(43:17) The ingredients of a great icebreaker
(56:55) Gracefully kicking everybody out
(01:09:09) How to make sure your next party is a success
Conversation Transcript:
Note: transcript slightly edited for clarity.
Chris (00:05): Welcome to Forcing Function Hour, a conversation series exploring the boundaries of peak performance. Join me, Chris Sparks, as I interview elite performers to reveal principles, systems, and strategies for achieving a competitive edge in business. If you are an executive or investor ready to take yourself to the next level, download my workbook at experimentwithoutlimits.com. For all episodes and show notes, go to forcingfunctionhour.com.
I'm very excited to have my friend Nick Gray on the show today. Nick has hosted literally hundreds of parties all around the world to uncover the elements of a great party. When Nick told me about his system for cocktail parties, it seemed too simple, but I've seen it in action, and this stuff really works.
Nick is now the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, a step-by-step handbook that teaches you how to build big relationships by hosting small gatherings. If you want to expand your network, make deeper connections, and create fun and memorable experiences with interesting people, you're going to love this conversation with Nick Gray.
Welcome to the party, Nick. Thanks for joining me.
Nick (01:15): Hey, thanks for having me. If you're listening to this and you're a business owner, you're an entrepreneur, you're an investor, I think this will apply to you. So I'm excited to talk about all that.
Chris (01:26): Good. So, you're the party guy these days. Tell me, what is the pitch? Why should I be throwing parties?
Nick (01:33): So I started and I sold two successful businesses, and now I've just been obsessed with trying to teach people how to host cocktail parties or happy hours or house parties for your neighbors, for your friends. Because I think we need to dust off the COVID cobwebs and start to gather and hang out again. I also know it can be lonely as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as an investor. It can be hard to make friends and build a peer group. And I was tired of seeing a lot of bad advice about hosting Mastermind Dinners and things like that. So, I've written about it. I've spent the last five years building this playbook, and now I'm finally releasing it to a wider audience.
Chris (02:16): So, talk to me about some of the benefits that you've seen in these five years. Why did you focus on throwing cocktail parties as a way to build friendships?
Nick (02:27): So, I hosted a lot of dinner parties. I think people tell new business owners, entrepreneurs, "You gotta start a Mastermind group, and you gotta host a dinner party to get high net-worth individuals together." And I did a lot of that. But I ultimately found that a cocktail party could get me about eighty percent of the benefits with roughly twenty percent of the work. The benefits specifically that I got is that I launched my last business, Museum Hack, thanks to the network that I built up hosting all of these cocktail party gatherings when I lived in New York City. So I directly used that to make friends and build relationships that helped me launch my business.
Chris (03:07): Why was it so essential that you had this method of meeting people? Was there something about you specifically that you really needed to put yourself out there to make things happen?
Nick (03:20): When I first moved to New York City, you know, I didn't know a lot of people, I wasn't especially outgoing, I definitely wouldn't have considered myself an extrovert. I remember the first time I went up to a bar and I talked to somebody that I didn't know, and I got them to engage with me. It sounds stupid now, but I still remember that. It was crazy. When I came home, I was like, "Oh my god, I can talk to a stranger?" And just learning those things is something that I very viscerally went through myself.
Chris (03:51): So this has obviously been a growth area for you, something that you've been working on for a long time, but as you see the results, continue to iterate on the formula, continue to invest in these relationships. What do you think you do so well about it? What do you think makes you so successful in this aspect of being a great host?
Nick (04:10): I think that a successful event is a well-run event that somebody wants to come back to, and when you invite people genuinely that you're trying to build your network to a well-run event, then (one) they're gonna wanna come back, and so you're gonna build that relationship, and (two) they're gonna wanna tell their friends about it. That's one of the biggest benefits that I see, that I hear from people who start to host. They say, "Oh my god, I get introduced to the coolest people now." Because it's like a snowball, it just rolls, and people are like, "You have to go to this event that Chris hosts. He hosts these awesome cocktail parties." And it just starts to snowball. I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I tried. I'm just so excited to talk about this.
Chris (04:52): So what I'm hearing is that there's a compounding event, where you host things and thus you get invited to other things, and so you get introduced to more people, and thus the more people that you connect with, the more people you have the opportunity to connect with. So having this small addition in your life really puts you in the flow. I think it's like maximizing your surface areas of serendipity. All of a sudden, you become the person who knows people, who knows what to do, and thus that becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because people see you that way, you become that type of person who knows who to connect with, who knows what's going on around town. Is that your experience?
Nick (05:36): Absolutely. You said the word. I'm not good with words. But you said it's a compounding effect, and that's exactly what it is. It is. It compounds. The focus of my book, this handbook, the step-by-step guide I wrote is just to help people host their first one to see how easy it can be. And really though, the most—The secret is, the most benefits come when you can do this every four to six weeks. But when I first started writing this, the plan was to walk people through hosting three, so they could absolutely see. But I was advised by people much smarter than me that for mass appeal, just focus on each one simple thing at a time.
Chris (06:13): So I'm sure anyone listening can think of getting an invitation and being like, "Oh man. Like, I don't wanna go to that." Or the classic networking event where you're like, "Wow, that was a waste of time. That was really uncomfortable." Before we get into, like, what is the method to get this right, maybe what are some of the things that—you've been to a lot of events—that events get wrong? What makes a not-so-great party?
Nick (06:39): Oh my god. Most networking events are terrible. They feel transactional. There's not interesting people there. You don't know who's there. Here's my biggest problem. Has this ever happened? At a networking event, you only meet the people that you randomly happen to bump into. Like, okay. I'm here at this event. Like, now what? I went to this conference. It was eight thousand dollars to attend this conference. And they didn't have any facilitated way to, like, know who was there. The host was trying to be the cool host to just let people do it naturally. And I was looking for a very specific thing when I attended, and I was very frustrated. Even at that ultra-high level event.
And so that's my problem with, from the highest to the lowest forms of networking, that they just host these events, you throw everybody into a crowded bar or a loud environment, and then you're left to it, to bounce around the room and hope that you get situated next to somebody and you strike up a conversation. I think that's one of my largest problems.
Chris (07:44): It's something that I believe, that I've seen, is that you can create the conditions for success. In architectural terms, they talk about having a space that feels alive. That when you're in the space, it's conducive to doing what you're there to do. And you can think about, hey, if you wanted to create conditions where people weren't going to have interesting conversations, not going to connect with interesting people, it would be very easy to think about what those conditions could be. The music is so loud you can't hear everyone. Like you said, you sort of just throw everyone into a room together and whoever they happen to bump into at the bar is who they end up talking to. You don't know who you're talking to, so the conversations remain very shallow because you don't have a sense for who the other person is. And so this is how a lot of people get scared off of doing these events, for good reason, because they find that on average these events are not a good investment of time and energy.
But it doesn't mean they need to be written off. That there are ways to solve these real problems, to create these conditions for authentic connection. So thinking about some of these things that you experienced that made you frustrated about attending these events and wanting to think about if there was a better way to do it, when you attend or host an event that you think goes really well, what do you think are those critical elements that are present?
Nick (09:10): Okay, what are the critical elements when it goes really well? First, I just wanna acknowledge, I love what you said about creating the architectural space that feels alive. I love that. That's so powerful, and it makes me think, I hosted so many of my events starting out in New York City where I had this tiny studio apartment, and I think it actually made the events better, because everybody was crowded into one area, and it gave that sense of energy. Versus I've been to parties, maybe you have, with a big house and there's fifteen people and it just feels empty. There's, like, too much space. So I actually advise some people that—I think I read about this in the book, The Art of Gathering, fantastic book, but they actually said, in a big house you need to set up a room divider to actually limit the space.
And then I really liked what you said, that just because networking events suck, let's not delete them. Let's not completely throw them out and say, "Whelp, I'm not gonna do that." Let's try to reimagine them." So that's what I'm trying to do.
Your question was about, what are some of the well-run things? What makes a good event? Is that it?
Chris (10:13): Mm-hmm.
Nick (10:14): Well, one very silly thing that your listeners may hate, but I feel so strongly I will die on this hill, is the importance of name tags. And I think that name tags—I can go into it if you want or not, but I just think that you've gotta have name tags. Even at an event that just has your friends and neighbors, you have to have name tags. How do you feel about pro or con on name tags, Chris?
Chris (10:39): It makes me uncomfortable. I think I'm appreciative when I'm at an event where I don't know people, and it's an easy way to kind of get over the fear of, "I'm not gonna remember someone's name," or obviously it makes it a lot easier to follow up afterwards, but I'm just imagining having some friends over at my house and they think I'm weird because I'm making them put a name tag on or some of them don't take it seriously and it becomes a way to sort of show off, like, "Oh, I'm gonna put, you know, a fake name on mine, and haha, I'm too cool for this." So that's, I think that's some of the fears that come up for me when I'm thinking about hosting something casual at my place, is like, am I putting too much on this thing?
Nick (11:24): I'm so glad you said that, that you're worried that your friends will think it's weird, and that some people will use fake names or something and have like half participation, which is a little—It's sort of even worse, right, to have half-half participation. So there's a way, I'll just tell you real quick ways around that, but first I wanna validate that your thoughts, those are normal feelings, and that is the same feeling that everybody else has. And I've worked with and I've coached over fifty-five people on how to host their first party using my method, and without a doubt the name tags end up going well. I'll tell you what to do with that.
When you set the expectations, when you invite your friends over from the very beginning and you tell them that there will be name tags, they RSVPed to an event knowing what to expect. That removes ninety percent of the hesitations. And so within my book, I talk about letting people know, when you build the RSVP for the event, tell people that there will be name tags. I say a simple line like, "There will be name tags and icebreakers, because I'm bad with names, haha, and I wanna meet some new people." And so setting up those expectations in the invitation and the reminder messages, even, which is critical. You've gotta send these three exact series of reminder messages. I talk about that in chapter eight.
So that's the first thing, is how do you get the name tags, to set it up. And then second is, yes, you as the host have to do all the name tags. You have to be in control of it, because people are coming into your home, and when you are in control of it, you need it.
I went to a dinner maybe two Fridays ago, at probably a mutual friend's, somebody's house who we both know, and I got 'em to use name tags, and there were twelve people there, and you know what? He knew everybody's name, but we didn't know everybody's name. I mean, we didn't—we were from various places in his life. And I find that even for a casual friend event where somebody brings a significant other, if you have a girlfriend and she has a new boyfriend or somebody's seeing somebody else and they're bringing them into the social circle for the first time, there is an insane amount of anxiety. Like, why not just help them reduce the stress of trying to remember everybody's name so they can be fully present?
I could talk about name tags literally for an hour, so I'll shut up now.
Chris (13:41): Something that you said that I think is really profound is the power of people knowing what to expect. When you think about synchronizing intentions ahead of time—I think about this in a startup context. If you have documents of principles or processes that everyone reads and most importantly everyone knows that everyone else has read, it creates this common knowledge and a common set of norms, that everyone has a shared responsibility for enforcing. And it's almost like walking in that door after reading, "Hey, there's gonna be name tags, hey, there's gonna be icebreakers," is like you have participated in a social contract. That by showing up, I agree to participate in these activities, and I agree to be open to meeting new people and having a good time. And I think that having that expectation set ahead of time probably goes a long way toward not only people showing up with the right intention, but having people participate in helping to make sure that these elements occur, rather than fighting you along the way.
Nick (14:56): I love that. It's just like you're doing an onboarding process for your party or something, right?
Chris (15:01): Yep.
Nick (15:02): But that's so true. And let's zoom out for a second. Okay? So what are we doing here? We're talking about name tags, we're getting into the nitty-gritty of this. Why do you even want to host a party? You want to host a party because of all these weak ties and loose connections that you have in your life, people that you consider to be acquaintances, they are the ones that you find out about new deals, new employees, new job opportunities. You want a centralized place to build and develop those relationships. And that is what I'm obsessed with. I have a lot of variety, I have a large variety of things that I do to build those relationships and nurture them, and hosting a monthly cocktail party or happy hour for me has been the one with the biggest results. And I think everybody should do it.
The dirty little secret is that, well, one, everybody wants to know somebody who organizes and gets their friends together. Like, for you, Chris, do you have somebody that you know who's, like, always the host, like, they're always hosting something?
Chris (16:07): Oh, of course. I mean, I think a lot of my network, when I lived in New York, was built by being fortunate to live with people who loved to host, and getting to see first-hand the power of using events to bring people into orbit, and how no one is ever mad that you invite them to something, even if they have no interest in attending, so it's just a total free roll in a way to add value and potentially turn a chance meeting into a potential friendship.
Nick (16:43): You could literally write my book introduction, because you just said, exactly. No one is ever mad when you invite them to something. And imagine you meet somebody cool, and you want their contact info, you want to be friends with them, you want to do business with them. Well, what do you do? You, what, "Oh, I'd like to take you out to coffee to pick your brain." No, that's lame. Instead, what if you're like, "I'm hosting a cocktail party. Can I invite you?" It's almost a no-brainer for them to say yes. They're not making a commitment, but they're giving you their contact info, it's an easy way to follow up. When you lived with those people who hosted events, Chris, what did they do well, or what was successful about those?
Chris (17:21): Well, I think what made them really successful was creating a vibe where everyone was really relaxed. There was very little talk about work. People who, you know, were successful in various areas could come and relax knowing that they weren't going to be pestered and asked for favors and that type of thing. And you just didn't know who you would meet. It was a way for a lot of different circles—You have creative circles, you have entrepreneurial circles, you have music circles, art circles. Like, all these people who, they normally don't intersect, have the opportunity to connect with each other. So it was almost this element of surprise, in that you knew there were gonna be interesting people, but you didn't quite know what interesting people you would find.
Nick (18:18): I love that, that you said that there was a vibe that was casual and relaxed, and that you didn't know what type of people. It was such an eclectic group of people, and I think that's so important, is bringing and hosting from different areas of your life. Even more reason that you need name tags. But in bringing people, from your gym, from your office, maybe that you went to college from. That's what type of party, that's what type of happy hour I'm suggesting for people to host, is bringing those various people from random parts of your life together. And why do they wanna come? 'Cause they're gonna meet interesting people. Because they're gonna meet cool new people, and you're gonna create the space in order to do that.
All right, sorry. I feel like I hijacked the podcast.
Chris (19:00): No. I think this context is really important to set, is what are the tangible and the intangible benefits of doing it, because you have to be committed and you have to believe that what you're doing is important and that it will pay off over time. So not only as a way to add value on a first meeting, establish yourself as someone who's making things happen, but as also a good reason to keep in touch with people. I know something that has been a challenge for me at times over the years is just staying in touch with people I've built friendships with, but haven't seen in a while. And so I never want my first message in a while to be asking for some help with something. I'd love to be just like, "Hey, here's something that's happening," "Hey, have you seen this," "Oh, I saw this person the other day, they mentioned you." It's just like another touch point for, "Hey, these things are happening, I'm someone who's going to be adding value into your life, and let's keep that going."
So I've sometimes had experiences where I'll invite someone three, four, five times, and they can't make it for whatever reason. You know, a lot of the time these are busy people and these excuses are genuine, but eventually, they get curious and they show up, or they're just like, "Hey, I appreciate you continuing to invite me. I wish I could make it. But hey, here's this other thing that's going on. Maybe you would like this." And like I said, there's just no downside for doing it. There's only upside. So I think there's a lot of fear, and I've experienced this personally, of, "Hey, what if no one shows up, or what if it doesn't go well, or hey, what if they think I'm lame?" All this type of stuff. And it's really useful to disprove it. And every time I've done something like this, afterwards, even if I'm super stressed ahead of time and I'm like, "Oh no, what's going to happen," the second the first few people walk into the door and start talking to each other, it's like, "Oh, this is great. I'm so glad I did this."
And that's like the good feeling to tap into, is like being a little comfortable being uncomfortable, but that the rewards are so worth it.
Nick (21:05): The rewards are worth it. They're huge. They're huge rewards. I love that.
Chris (21:09): So, let's start with one of those fears that, you know, first-time hosts or people who are maybe new to a city, still establishing their friend group have, of you know, "What if I announce this thing and no one shows up?" What are the best practices to like getting this party off the ground?
Nick (21:28): So that is exactly the number one fear of new hosts. I've talked to a lot of people hosting their first party, or thinking about it, and their number one fear is, "What if nobody shows up," or, "What if only two or three people show up, and then it's terribly awkward?" And so the way to make sure that that never happens, and so much of my book is built on making sure that never happens to you, is first by using something that I call the "party runway." And the runway means that you're gonna give yourself at least three weeks of planning and inviting before you host your party. A lot of people are like, "Okay, it's Tuesday today, I wanna post a party this Friday." And they start to hustle and try to put it together, and nobody shows up. That's why. Because you haven't given time.
Now, there's other things that will do, like getting people to have multiple buy-ins, so they actually sign up and confirm their attendance on a very simple RSVP page. You're only going to say one-to-one invitations to your party. What that means is you're not gonna mass email all your friends on a BCC. You're not gonna blast it as a status update on social media, or send it to a text thread with your friends that you happen to be in. "Hey, guys, come over this Friday." No. Each person you're going to hand-pick, hand-invite, which—I can tell you exactly the message templates that you can use to send to all of them, but it will seem like, and it will be, that you've hand-selected each person to attend.
So by doing a couple of those things, giving yourself the long runway, three full weeks to attend, by inviting each person individually, and then sending three series of reminder messages leading up to the event, it will guarantee that people show up, and that I have for my events over a ninety-five percent attendance rate, and people that have read my book report over an eighty-five percent attendance rate. Which, that's pretty good. That's good. I'm pretty proud of that.
Chris (23:20): Why do you think it works so much better to invite people individually rather than doing a mass email or doing a Facebook event or something like that?
Nick (23:31): What is that psychological phenomenon where if you see somebody being robbed and like everybody's watching in the crowd—
Chris (23:38): Oh. The Bystander Effect.
Nick (23:40): It's The Bystander Effect maybe, right? That when you mass blast it out you're like, "Okay, are we going to this? Did they invite—Okay, I guess maybe I'll go to it. Like, I'll think—maybe. I'll be aware of it, but I'm not going to commit." And these days people are—there's just a lot of things competing with our attention. People are flaky. And the reality of it is that when you just send it out and you don't really show that you're taking a lot of effort, that you're not serious about the event, then your friends aren't gonna treat it seriously either.
Chris (24:11): Talk to me about these reminders. Why are these so critical for making sure that people remain committed and, you know, come with the right expectations?
Nick (24:22): Just like setting up the expectations of what they're getting into, reminders help to keep your event top of mind. We're busy. We're bombarded. Each day, how many emails do we get? Tens, dozens, hundreds. Your party shows up on their calendar, but then life happens, work gets in the way. It is normal. That doesn't mean that people don't like you, it means that life happens. And so by sending these three reminder messages, which I suggest has a cadence of about one week before your party, three or four days before your party, and then the morning of your party, they help let people know that you are serious about this. This is going to be a great event. And I can tell you, in all my years of hosting hundreds of events, I've never once heard from somebody that said, "Oh, you sent too many reminder messages. That was really annoying." But I tell you what, I can think of a lot where I've never gotten a single reminder message about a party, and then, "Oh god, oh my god, that's tonight?" Like, that happens. A lot of people never send a reminder, or they just send automated reminder messages, which I guess is better than nothing.
Chris (25:29): So, I'm remembering when we've thrown events, and it's interesting what you say about the value in recurring. When we first started doing it, maybe we'd have five to ten people show up, and as the word got around, as we got people who had a good time start to bring other people who we were interested in meeting, soon we had to start capping it, because we were getting to fifty, sixty, seventy, at times we hit two hundred if we tried to do something on like the Fourth of July or New Year's Eve, and it got a little bit out of hand, a little bit more into those weak ties, but no matter how many times that we did it, I always found those last hour or two before people were going to show up, always felt like a mad scramble, and it always felt like it somehow left too many things for the last minute. We're trying to cook, we're trying to frantically clean the house for the first time in a long time. Okay, where are the drinks gonna go? Do we need signs? Is there someone at the door? All this sort of stuff to sort out. So, I would love to hear any techniques as someone who's done this a bunch of times. How do you make that time right before people show up not only as productive as possible, but as stress-free as possible, so you can relax and focus on being present with those first few guests?
Nick (26:51): I have a good story about this. At one of my first parties, I spent all day decorating. And not even decorating, but just cleaning my apartment, trying to make things look nice. I'd forgotten to buy any snacks, I didn't have drinks, I didn't have anything set up. So I spent the whole day rushing around my apartment, tidying, doing all this organizing. And it's like twenty minutes before the party's supposed to start. I finish, and I'm in my crappy, grubby gym clothes, and I'm sweaty and smelly. And so I jumped in the shower to take a shower and get ready. And I can get ready fast, so I'm like, "Okay, it's 6:45, the party starts at 7:00, I can shower, I'll be ready at 6:55, whatever. That's fine." I neglected to think that somebody would show up early.
Which, okay, maybe you don't think, but it can happen. And sure enough, I'm in the shower, and I hear a knock at the door. It's when I was living in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn. I hear the knock at the door, and I'm like, "Oh my god, somebody showed—I'm naked." I put my towel on, I went to the door, and it was my friend Nora. And there she is. She's heard all these messages about my party, and I'm dripping wet, I'm naked, I'm greeting her, and I learned the lesson that time, which was to do the right things and to focus on the right stuff. The right stuff for me involved sending the reminder messages, having your drinks, buying your non-perishable snacks ahead of time.
There's not a whole lot of party prep that needs to be done for my parties. They're really—think about them as like an MVP. A minimum viable party. And that's a lot like—anybody can write a book about how to host an amazing party. And you know what, maybe you'll do it once, but you probably will never do it again. I could write a Martha Stewart-level book about the food you can cook and the decorations, but that's not really gonna change your life. You'll do it once, and you'll never do it again. My parties are very lightweight, and they involve minimal preparation, primarily with non-perishable foods like snacks, like chips and salty snacks and nuts and the most basic drinks you can buy for less than a hundred dollars. And I find that by giving yourself the limits and the restrictions on what you're allowed to do, it really helps to make that last one-hour scramble less intense.
There's a thing that I have in the book in Chapter Thirteen that's like a list of preparation. Do exactly this the day before your party. One of my hosts, her name is Liz, she actually sets out the snack bowls and the bags of chips the day before, and she'll actually write on a Post-it Note, like if she has baby carrots, she'll write on a Post-it Note, 'baby carrots,’ and stick it in a bowl and set the bowl out. And she says that helps her to not end up afterwards forgetting the baby carrots, and now she's got four pounds of baby carrots to eat the day after her party.
Little things like that are, you know, this isn't rocket science to host an event, but I do find that just reminding somebody of those things really helps.
Chris (29:52): Yeah, checklists are really powerful. I know personally I'm pretty process-driven, so I like to gamify, "How can I streamline this thing that hopefully I'm gonna be doing over and over again so that I don't worry that I'm forgetting something and it just feels a little more smooth and less stressed?" And something that I continually have to remind myself is no one is coming for the snacks. Like, we've had elaborate parties where we're cooking crazy amounts of food and it gets complicated, and you know, hey, I love food. I think a lot of people really love food. But like, they're not coming to the party to eat. Eating is nice, but they're coming to the party to see you, and to see the people who you think they should meet. And a lot of the snack stuff is really just a bonus.
And I think of it almost as something to do, something to move towards to keep people moving, keeping them interacting with their environment. So I like this approach you have of, keep it simple, focus on the few things that really matter, which is getting the right people in the room and creating conditions where they can interact with each other.
Nick (31:09): New hosts—you're so right—new hosts like your listeners who are overachievers, probably erring towards the Type A, they're maybe hearing this and they're like, "All right, this is perfect, I'm gonna turn it up to Level Ten, I'm gonna buy barbecue and my Treger!" Well, you know, maybe do that later. Let's start for this first party as the MVP, the minimum viable party. Maybe you have a signature snack that you could later incorporate in. I really tell people, especially for overachievers, to resist the urge to go all-out. Do the first one as a practice and as a restriction. Just like Chris said, people are not coming for your food, they're coming for the people. It's never been about the drinks. You know, my book is called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. There's not a single cocktail recipe that's in the book, and the reality is for the first years of hosting I didn't even drink alcohol. I couldn't make a whiskey sour if I had to save my life. But it didn't matter, because people came over for the people, for the company, the conversation. And that's the reason that they're coming.
So that's the important thing, is to know that you're gonna host a great event with great people, and we can talk about that. About who to invite, how to think about who to invite to your first parties, your later parties. But that's the benefit for people to come, they get to meet new people. It is so hard to make new friends as an adult, and nobody teaches us how. You're going to provide that for your friends, and that is just an incredible gift.
Chris (32:38): I think that's a great place to go next, yeah. How do I know who to invite?
Nick (32:43): Generally, and here's another thing for your overachiever, for you and your listeners, for this first party do not invite your VIPs. If you're thinking about a client that you want, a boss, a company you want to work at, a business partner, a romantic interest, do not invite those people to your first party. Why? You'll be nervous. You won't have the confidence to host icebreakers. You won't do name tags. You'll think, "What if they think I'm weird?" Your first party should be a low-stakes affair. It should be your neighbors, people you went to with college, your roommates, friends, coworkers. The people that you know and you can trust to hang out and make small talk.
After your first party, when you've practiced the methods, when you see the fundamentals of how this easy party system can work, then you can start inviting other people. And I recommend that you think about anyone interesting that you happen to meet who you might wanna have a longer conversation with. That can include the barista at your local coffee shop. It could include somebody at the gym who would be kinda weird to go out with, but you say, "Hey, I'm hosting a cocktail party." It could be anyone that you wanna meet and see again. And so that's the metric or the rubric that I think of. And then I have a whole list of ways for, "Hey, how can you grow your guest list?” How can you log onto your LinkedIn, for example, and search for all the people who live in the same city? How can you log onto some other social networks and think about, "Who else—Oh, wow, I totally forgot about that person. I haven't thought about them in two years." What a great way to reconnect. Just send them an invite.
Just like Chris said, you're giving them a gift. When you invite somebody to come to your party, know that you're giving a gift, and everybody appreciates an invite. Even ultra-famous people, I've found, are thankful and are happy to be invited to something.
Chris (34:35): It's validation of their worth, that you think they're someone who's worth having, worth being in the room. A good rule of thumb that I like personally is my doorbell rings and I press the button on the intercom, and it's this person's voice. Like, how excited am I to go down and let them up and like have a short conversation with them, as like, is it my excited, "Hey, they're here," is it like, "Uh, I invited this person—" Like, that's always like kind of a good filter for me is like, I want to be excited by everyone who comes to the door, 'cause people can pick up on that excitement. It's like it's a lot easier to be genuine rather than to fake it.
I want to talk about introductions. So, something that strikes me when I go to events, and see a host who's really killing it, is that they do a great job of introducing people. So by definition, we're the host. Everyone there we at least know, or if someone has brought a plus one, we at least know the person who's brought them. But another guest, they're not a part of all the same circles, there's going to be some or a majority of the people there who they don't know. And what we're trying to avoid, remember this failure mode of, hey, we bump into them at the bar or at the snack table and it's like, "So, like, what do you do?" And that's always like my fear when I get invited to an event, if I'm gonna show up, I'm not gonna know anyone, I'm gonna have to make this like forced small talk. So thinking about the host, maybe this could be both at the party as well as the guest bios, which I think is really interesting. I hadn't seen that before. How do you facilitate so people have a comfort with talking to someone who they might not know that well?
Nick (36:23): I'm so glad you mentioned the guest bios, because that is really one of my secret weapons for hosting a good event. The guest bios, is it okay if I just give an overview of what those are?
Chris (36:33): Please.
Nick (36:33): So, the guest bios you will use as a host in your last two reminder messages. You'll send them three or four days before the party, and the morning of. And the guest bio is a brief introduction potentially with some conversation topics about each individual. So for me, it could be, you know, Nick Gray just moved to Austin a year ago from New York City, he ran a company called Museum Hack, he's writing a book about how to host a party, ask him about swimming in Barton Springs.
Now, I included a lot of different pieces of my bio, but you could even include two or three. This isn't a professional Forbes thirty under thirty list. You can include things like, you know, "Nick likes to ride his bike and he drinks green tea. Ask him about the benefits of green tea." What you are giving are a couple of touch points, one for people to strike up new conversations, two, you're creating excitement about your guests to bump up the attendance rate, and three, you're giving a little bit of expectation on who's gonna be there for introverts and shy people. And a lot of my party planning is trying to make it a little bit of an inclusive space for those introverted people, or just frankly coming out of COVID, people are, I've found, a lot more hesitant to go to live events. They don't know, they don't have the momentum that we used to have with going to lots of stuff. So letting them know who's going to be there, all these things help. So using those guest bios and the reminder messages helps to ease the conversations. And when people show up they say, "Oh, yeah, I really want to talk to Chris, he has that podcast. I'm thinking of starting a podcast." And then maybe they'll strike up a conversation.
Chris (38:17): What comes to mind to me as well is I'm also thinking about how to be a great guest, and someone who puts people at ease and you know, facilitates having interesting conversations. And something that—this used to be a growth area for me, let's say something that I had a hard time doing, was talking about myself. It always felt like, I don't wanna brag, I don't wanna take up too much of the conversation, and it would always be like, "So, like, where do you live?" It's like, "I live in Austin." They're like, "Oh, I heard Texas, there's a lot of people going there these days, and yeah, Austin's interesting, isn't it?" And so like both people are sort of like walled into a very narrow set of things that feels like there's permission to explore based off of that because I haven't given the other person very much to go off of, and they have to kind of just keep pulling and prodding. And that's how we can regress to the, "So, what do you do?" The question is because we run out of things that we can ask about otherwise, so we have to get to the heart of it. And you're like, "Why would anyone want to talk about work?" Well, you're not giving them other things to talk about.
So what really helped me was this concept of a conversational seed, is when someone asks me a question or I'm telling a story, I'm intentionally trying to drop seeds, other things that are potentially interesting branches of conversation from what we're already talking about. So someone's like, "Where do you live," and I would say, "Well, I live in Austin now, I moved from Brooklyn, it gets a little bit cold there in the winter, and I wanted to be spending some time outside. I heard Austin has really good poker games, and I was fortunate to have some friends who also moved down there. So we have a really nice community, it's really easy to meet people." And so you can see there's lots of different things that people could talk about. Talk about travel, could talk about escaping the winter, could talk about poker, could talk about doing any number of outdoor activities. There's lots of little jump-in points where someone can have the conversation that they want to have. It becomes a little bit more of a choose-your-own-adventure. So as a shy introvert, that was one technique that both gave myself permission to talk a little bit more about myself to share, but knowing that this is not a selfish thing to do, it's a gift, 'cause it's making the other person's job easier to find that intersection of topic and interest that we both get really excited about.
Nick (40:53): I love that idea of the conversational seeds, and I think you just nailed it at the end. You said you're giving them grasping points or launching points to not make it a dead-end conversation, to not just question-answer, question-answer. I remember with my ex-girlfriend, people would ask us how we met, and we met on a dating app, and they would ask often, all the time, "How did you meet?" And we'd say, "A dating app." What do you think every single time was their next question?
Chris (41:24): What app?
Nick (41:26): Exactly. What app? And then we would tell them the app, and then what? The conversation is dead. It's stalled out.
Chris (41:31): "Cool. A lot of that is happening these days."
Nick (41:34): Right. "Cool, I've heard of that." And we had enough of those conversations to realize that we wanted something different. And so we made the intentional choice that when somebody would ask us, we'd say, "Oh, we met on a dating app, and then we had this incredible first date." And we would tell them about our first date and how we connected. And immediately it helped the conversation launch into many new things that were much more exciting than what we knew was the obvious next step. So I like these—that idea of the conversational seeds. I'm gonna use that.
Chris (42:05): Can I add on to that?
Nick (42:06): Yeah, please.
Chris (42:07): This is gonna sound really weird, but when somebody asks you, "So, like where did you and your partner meet?," they don't really care. That sounds—I know that sounds weird to say. Like, of course they care, they're interested in you guys personally, and understanding how you met will help them understand you guys a little bit better, but they don't actually want the answer to that. It's a question to jump into as far as learning more about your relationship. And so just like a politician, you can answer the question that you wanted to be asked, and treat it as, like, a, "Hey," like, you know, "How did you meet?" becomes like, "How did you start to fall in love?" Or, "What were you guys doing that allowed you to get to know each other?" There's a lot of similar adjacent questions that you can ask that accomplish the job much better. So it's like, for me it's just not thinking so literally in that someone's asking a question and I want to answer that question in as few words as possible, it's more like what are they curious about, and how can I give them more to spark that curiosity?
Nick (43:11): I love that, about answering the question you want to be asked. That's smart. I like that.
Chris (43:17): So, I think this is a good lead-in to I think the other thing that you might be a little bit controversial about, in a good way, we talked about name tags a little bit—I wanna talk about icebreakers. So, icebreakers are one of those things again, you're like, "Oh, icebreakers, don't really wanna do that." But afterwards you're always very happy you did, because it's a really fast and low-stakes way to learn a little bit about a lot of people very quickly. So I would love to hear about, you know, why icebreakers and you know, what makes a great icebreaker.
Nick (43:56): I love icebreakers, and it's the second pillar in my cocktail-party formula, which you know, I've been working on. Can I sample it? It's the NICK Party Method. The NICK Party Method, you can probably guess what it is. N stands for name tags, I stands for icebreakers, C stands for cocktails only (don't try to do big food), and then K stands for kick 'em out at the end. It's a two-hour event only.
So I like icebreakers. Why do I like icebreakers? Well, icebreakers simply serve to create new conversations in the room and give you an opportunity to know who is attending the event that you're at. Have you ever been to a party and you look around the room and you're like, "Wow, I bet there's some interesting people here. I have no idea who is here. I'm here to meet new people, but I, what, am I just gonna randomly bump into somebody?" So the icebreaker, which still works. You can still do that at parties. But the icebreaker serves to give a little short survey to learn who everybody in the room is and what they're excited about.
The icebreaker also serves—So one, it serves to create new conversations, but it also serves to end existing conversations. 'Cause how many times have you been to a party and you get trapped in talking with somebody, and you're like, "Oh, god, I was done with this conversation like five minutes ago. I don't know the polite way to wrap it up." By adding some structure and moderated events like these icebreakers, you give people the courtesy to nicely end their conversations, and then what I find is that good conversations will reform. So if you're worried about stopping to interrupt people because they're talking, "Oh, I don't wanna stop the party," don't worry. They will reform after the event. They're at a party. They're there to meet new people and have these chats.
So I do feel very strongly about icebreakers. I also feel strongly that you should have everybody say what they do for work. If you don't want to there's other alternatives, but I do feel that because we spend so much of our time working that it is worthwhile to be able to mention that, but I do add a caveat, that that is to say if you don't wanna talk about work then you can say something that you're excited about, or a nonprofit that you wanna support. Because some people are embarrassed by their jobs or they're between jobs or something like that.
Chris (46:16): Yeah. It strikes me, the concept of time dilation, where if you went to a party and just talked to someone for the entire two hours, it might not feel like all that much has taken place, but if you can create these mini-experiences that get people moving, create some unexpected serendipity and learnings and invitations, then it feels like the amount that has occurred in the same temporal space is much more. And I really like what you said, around it's an opportunity to end conversations, is like naturally there will be an energetic ebb and flow where the conversation has sort of reached a natural ending point, and without this sort of transition, the end can feel a little bit weird, of, "Okay, I'm gonna go over there. No, I'm gonna just meet some other people." And this is like, "Well, we would love to keep talking literally forever, but there's another thing happening that we have to go do, so we're gonna go do that instead." And if the conversation is meant to continue it will happily continue.
An exercise I was assigned when—I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, I wanted some practice in going up and talking to people at events and parties—was just to be fed some random nonsense line that you would have to go in and strike up conversation based around that. And this reminds me of some of the icebreaker prompts, which I think sharing some of those would be interesting. One that I saw was, "What's your favorite breakfast food?" And let's say that someone is—Well, for me, my favorite breakfast food, you know, when I, would probably be pancakes. Pancakes, lots of syrup. And so someone could come up to me and it's like, "Pancakes, huh? I always thought pancakes were overrated," or, "Man, I love pancakes too," or, "Do you like short stacks?" Realizing that what you say doesn't really matter all that much, but it lowers the perceived barrier for going up and talking to someone new, because by saying this out loud it creates an invitation. "Hey, here's something that I am interested in talking about." And I find that so much of the discomfort of going up and talking to people was, like, "Oh, what do I do with my hands? What should I say to someone?" And just having anything that's, like, I know that you like pancakes. Now I have something. And it takes so much pressure off.
Nick (48:45): As you're talking about this, I wonder how much is communicated through body language and vocal tonality, that when you do an icebreaker, maybe the words don't matter as much, but it is what people are communicating—
Chris (48:59): Absolutely.
Nick (49:00): —How shy they are, how loud they are, how confident they are, how they're standing. And I haven't thought, but I think you're exactly right, that that's a little bit of what we're doing. We're talking about what's one of your favorite things to eat for breakfast. That's just an excuse to get people to share and to open up a little bit. And the actual answer doesn't matter a hundred percent. It doesn't—What they say exactly is not it, but it's what they're saying through their body language, through how they like to communicate, that can be attractive and interesting and spark a conversation, I think.
Chris (49:39): What types of icebreaker questions do you gravitate towards?
Nick (49:42): So, I think about icebreakers as a green/yellow/red system. A green level is where you wanna start the night, when the room is a little cold and people haven't exactly warmed up. A green-level icebreaker, the one that I suggest everybody start with, is, "What's one of your favorite things that you eat for breakfast?" The reason is because everybody chooses to eat or not eat breakfast every day, breakfast is usually thought about as a positive experience, where it connotes good memories for people, and it doesn't take them a long time to think about or remember what the answer is.
An example of a bad icebreaker would be something that there's a lot of judgment on where it takes them a long time to think about it, and the answer might not be clear. So for example, a question I struggle with is, "What's your favorite movie?" I don't exactly know what my favorite is—like, I could think of some movies I like, but then I would be worried, "Oh my god, what's this crowd? Are they gonna judge me? What movie do I wanna say is my favorite? What is my exact favorite?" And so I say, "What's one of your favorite things to eat for breakfast?" And that's a good green-level icebreaker.
As you move in through the night and you get more comfortable and you want people to talk and share a bit more about themselves, one of my favorite icebreakers for that could be, "What's one of your favorite pieces of media that you've consumed in the last month or two?" It could be a great podcast, like this, it could be a book that you read, a movie you saw at the theaters, a show on Netflix, an article, could be a tweet, could be a meme that you saw or a TikTok. It is just sharing something cool, because these days we get so many recommendations and—that one really brings the room alive, by the way. People are sharing this awesome movie, this show, this article they have to read. And everybody's, like, writing stuff down. I love that one towards the end of the night, and people—You feel a little bit smarter, too, because you come out of this room, you're like, "Wow, that's a bunch of great suggestions."
Chris (51:37): Yeah, what I'm hearing is not having something that's too close to someone's identity. I was taking improv comedy classes, that was something the teacher talked about as sort of a creativity killer, is you insert this filter in, it's like, not only like I have to say something that puts me in a good light, and I can't share this, because people are gonna think that I'm weird or not cool or any of these other things, so it's sharing something that feels fun and not saying too much about who the person is or feels they are deep down. You learn a little bit about them but it's in a safe, playful way.
Nick (52:17): I like that. Yeah, I'm thinking about a bad icebreaker would be, you know, "What's your most controversial political opinion?" And that can be a good question to ask in a sense of intimacy where people feel safe, and where they have warmed up and they can express themselves and feel vulnerable, but at the beginning of a night at a two-hour cocktail party where people are coming from work, they don't know anybody yet, they're there to mix and mingle. I don't think that those are good icebreakers. And so I really think about slowly ramping up the icebreakers.
Another one that I like is, and this is probably obvious to people that are on the internet, 'cause you see it done for engagement-bait, but, "What's one of your favorite purchases from the last year?" It could be an object or an experience, something that you've done or something you were gifted, but what's one of your greatest purchases that you're most proud of, that changed your life the most? It could be as simple as a fifteen-dollar accessory that you use in the kitchen to a vacation that you went on with your family, perhaps. And I liked that idea of hearing those things.
All these, I think, have a theme that people benefit from hearing other people's answers. It becomes the wisdom of the crowd, of sorts, where you get ideas for things. And I like that.
Chris (53:36): And people love to teach, right? Sharing something that you've purchased that works well for you puts you in a, "Hey, this is why you should do the type of thing." It gets people jazzed up and excited, 'cause we love to share, we love to give advice, it's a nice posture to be in. So we have these icebreakers interspersed throughout the event. You know, talk to me about energy levels. So, like, how do you like the energy level to build when there's kind of natural ebbs and flows. You know, how do you work with that?
Nick (54:10): Okay. So, the short answer is that I want this party to feel high-energy and the host needs to have a sense of urgency. When you're doing these icebreakers, a good icebreaker is a short icebreaker. Pro-tip for listeners, you always have to be standing. Sitting down is the kryptonite to a successful round of icebreakers. People drag on, they ask follow-up questions. No. You are not gonna do that. Your icebreaker is meant to be thirty seconds at the most from each person. It's a quick round-robin style of announcing who's in the room and sharing something interesting.
For the level of energy, I wanna note that the beginning of a party is the hardest part for a host. It's what I lovingly refer to as "the awkward zone." And it's that first ten or twenty minutes when not enough people have arrived to give you the momentum for conversations to naturally form. You still feel bound and trapped as a host to entertain every person. You know, a secret of hosting, and maybe you've seen this, is, but to an extent, the more people you have at a party, the easier it is to host. And there's a critical threshold, but I'm thinking of less than seven, less than eight, you have to engage everybody and babysit and monitor and manage. Above that number conversations naturally break off, and there's new people to form, there's all these spontaneous things happening, there's a sense of urgency. And it's why for all of my events I suggest that there are fifteen to twenty people. That's the sweet spot for a cocktail party. That's enough where everybody doesn't feel like they talked to and met every single individual at the party, they can meet somebody new, and it's enough that it adds that buzz and that vibe inside of a room to feel a sense of energy.
So talking about the levels of energy, I want it—I know and acknowledge the awkward zone at the beginning. I have ways that people can move through that with ease. But I also want it to feel high-energy, and one important part of that is you have to end your party before, like, you think—I mean, have you ever like popped a balloon—It's the difference between letting the air out of a balloon slowly, or like popping a balloon. You want to end your party to leave people partying more. You don't wanna be like the last one, "Well, I guess we should start to wind down eventually." When you end your party with a sense of authority and on-time, people will respect you more, you'll finish at the top, and people will wanna come back. They're like, "Wow, that was awesome." So a lot of thoughts about the energy level. That's neat that you asked about that, actually. Nobody's asked me about the energy at a party.
Chris (56:55): Yeah, because you can feel it, almost like music. There's natural ebbs and flows, and you know, it brings up, like, hey, leave the crowd wanting more. In psychology, they call it the peak-end rule, when you're thinking about an event in hindsight. You remember the highest energy moment of the event and then you remember how it ended. And so I think that's a good way to transition to, we've got the NICK method. We're wearing our name tags, we've done our icebreakers, we're drinking our cocktails, and now it's time to kick everyone out. How do we gracefully do this?
Nick (57:30): So, similar to setting the expectations, I think a very easy thing is in many event platforms today when you collect the RSVPs, you can both set a start time and an end time. And so the very nature of hosting a two-hour cocktail party encourages people to show up on time, and knows that this isn't the opportunity for a crazy blowout. One thing I didn't mention is you have to host your event following my formula on what I call a non-red-level day. So that's not a Friday, Saturday, it's not a holiday weekend, because those days are competitive. People have a lot going on socially, and you want folks to show up to your party. So you'll do that by hosting on a green day, a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night. And when you get and host your party on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night, that's a school night, that's a work night for most people, and you tell them that it's only two hours, they know this isn't debaucherous, this isn't a big opportunity for a blowout. So you set the expectations from the beginning, "Hey, this party goes from 7:00 to 9:00 PM."
You then list that as your reminder messages, the time that it's gonna finish. At the party itself, I like to make an announcement for last call. Fifteen minutes before it's scheduled to end, I turn down the music, I say, "Hey, everybody, thanks so much for coming tonight, we've met so many great people. The party's scheduled to end in fifteen minutes, so this is just a little reminder to grab a refill, a drink, or say 'hi' to somebody new as we get ready to wrap up." And then, you know, I turn the music back up and I let people find a drink, and then I'll make an announcement at nine o'clock at the party, "Hey, everybody, thank you so much for coming, we had a great turnout, I met a lot of really cool people. It's a school night, I know you need your beauty sleep, so I just wanna say thank you very much for coming, and a round of applause. I'd love to have you guys back next time." And they do, you know, a nice little round of applause or something. At my events, I actually do a little cheer, but that's not for everybody to like, to pretend that they're in a middle school summer camp.
And then I took this tip from this guy Reagan who read my book, and he said, "Well, I turn all the lights on, and then I just start to clean up. I start to rearrange things from the kitchen, the snacks table, maybe I give some snacks away that didn't get eaten. And people start to notice, right, that like, okay, the party's winding down, they start to say their goodbyes." So that can be one of the most intimidating things for a new host, how do I kick people out at the end of the night? How do I deal with people that wanna talk to me, that say, "Oh, Nick, I haven't had a chance to talk to you all night, this is your party, let's talk now, let's catch up." Those things can be really hard for a new host.
Chris (01:00:05): I like the, again, the coming back to expectations. It doesn't come as a surprise to everyone. They come in, "Hey, it's from 7:00 to 9:00" in this example, so when it comes to 9:00, it's like, "Oh, no, let's keep it going." And it's like, well, no. That's the start and the end time, and at 8:45 it's like, "Hey, you might have missed it because you're having so much fun, but it's almost 9:00 and we're gonna follow the schedule." A challenge that we had throwing parties is we did not have an end time, so it was put down, you know, starting at 2:00. And people would show up at 4:00 PM, because you know, who knows how long it's going? Sometimes it goes on for a long time. And if it went really late, people felt like, "Yes, we went so long. That was an amazing party." And sometimes it didn't go so late, and you're like, "Oh, we only went 'till 6:00 today, wasn't the blowout that we expected." And this creates a like, hey, there are no better parties than others. Like this is just, like, this is going as planned.
And especially when you're thinking about getting people to show up, having those expectations, knowing it's not going to be a late night, something that they regret later I think is really important, especially during the week. Hey, like, I know personally I don't have a lot of interesting things going on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. A lot more likely to show up on those days. And yeah, I personally deploy the starting to clean up and see who gets the hint as I turn off the music. And something I'm always looking for as a host is like, who's taking the hint and who's not taking the hint? Who might start to help me clean up a little bit, or help to start usher people to the door, and who are the people who are making themselves very much comfortable and kind of like—are there just things that we can do as a guest? I know you've hosted so many parties, you've had a lot of guests, are there things that you look for in like, "Yes, this is someone who I definitely want at the top of my invite list?"
Nick (01:01:56): Oh my god, absolutely. And I encourage hosts to keep that short list at the end. But I hear you making a Chris's Naughty and Nice List at the end of the night. "Who is taking the hint to get outta here?" Yeah, there's things that of course you can do as a host to help out at any party that you go to. I haven't firmed up my official opinion on this, but at arriving on time or slightly after the start time, if you—A pro-tip for listeners who are wanting to build big relationships and you get invited to somebody's party, I think that it's controversial, but showing up almost exactly on time gives you two things. One, it gives you more quality time with the host. The reality is that when you show up to a VIP event, if you show up anywhere after thirty minutes, the host is gonna be mobbed. The entire night the host has a thousand people to meet. When you show up on time, you actually get to visit and talk with the host, and you get to give yourself the opportunity to help out.
And in my book I talk about the concept of delegating duties, because what does a first guest, what does a first arrival say? They always say, "How can I help? Let me know how I can help." And by having a ready set of tasks that you can ask people to help with, it reduces your burden as the host, it involves people to make them feel like they're on your team, and it just makes your party run. People get to meet more people. So I have a list of tasks that you can delegate when you host a party. And as people come up and show up to my parties, yeah, I look at who's helping out, who's additive to the room, who doesn't require a lot of babysitting, who's introducing themselves to new friends. I love people like that.
Chris (01:03:35): A couple of things there that I really want to highlight, and I almost forgot to mention, we had an episode with Bryan Talebi, so if you're enjoying this conversation, that is a great follow-up one to check out, where Bryan goes through his system for showing up to networking events where he doesn't know anyone and meeting everyone in the room and making great connections. So it's an interesting parallel to this one, of being a good guest by acting as the host. And first that from the host's perspective, getting help from your guest is kind of a sneaky way to not only get help with things that you'd be doing, classic delegation, but giving other people a sense of ownership over the event. So it's like, "Oh, okay, I helped to set out drinks," or, "Yeah, you see those decorations over there? That was me." And it becomes "our party" rather than "Nick's party," rather than "Chris's party." So that's a really cool one, is by having people help out a little bit they become more invested in everyone having a good time, because it's their event.
And there's something that you mentioned too. I know for me I always don't want to be the first one to show up, so I'm like, "Hey, what's the correct time? Is it fifteen minutes afterward? Is it thirty minutes afterwards?" And like you said, like, by that time usually the host is gonna be swarmed, and you're gonna be in a, like, "Hey, so glad you could come, oh, the drinks are over there, help yourself." And especially if you don't know a lot of people at the party, the host is your absolute best opportunity to quickly meet other people at the party and sorta like start things at a high note. So that's a real advantage of showing up early, is that you maximize the opportunity for that to happen. Obviously, it's a lot easier to connect with people when there's five people there than when there's twenty or fifty.
So I think that those are really good tips, to show up on time, to help out, to be a participant, and to take an active interest in introducing yourself and introducing others.
Nick (01:05:45): I can't wait to listen to that. What's the guest's name? I'm gonna listen to it.
Chris (01:05:49): Bryan Talebi.
Nick (01:05:50): Bryan Talebi. It sounds like a great episode, I like that a lot. I also like, yeah, if I don't know anybody, what a great—Show up at the beginning to see the party grow, to see the event grow around you. Oh, my god, it's so intimidating to show up when I don't know anybody and I feel like I'm walking into something and there's just all these people that are already there. Yeah, it's neat. That's neat to think about.
Chris (01:06:13): So, we've just successfully hosted our party. The guests are sadly but very orderly walking out the door, already saying, "Hey, when are you gonna have the next one?" The door closes. What do you do next?
Nick (01:06:29): The door closes. What should I do next? I find that even after my party, if I get everybody out by 9:30, I am so wired that it's really hard for me to go to sleep. I'm so amped up and so excited from all the people I've met and all the fun I've created. So for me, I need to schedule—When I was in New York I'd go down to West Eighth Street and I'd get a massage at one of those places that's open late. Here, I go on a walk. I go on a long walk. I think you could stretch, you could roll out, you could do a little light workout, or maybe just take a long bath or a shower, watch some television, just veg out.
But what I recommend people do is the next day, when you're ready, you start to think—and I know it sounds hard—but you at least put on your calendar the event and the day that you're gonna have your next party. Because by securing that date in your calendar, you may have met somebody the night before who you know you wanna see again, and you wanna invite them to the next party. Or what's gonna happen is all those people who had a great time last night, they're gonna tell your friends about your parties. "When's the next one?" That's what everybody always asks. They always are gonna ask you, "When's your next party?" when you start to host events like this. And so by at least getting it on your calendar, you will start to collect people. It becomes, just like you said, a compounding effect, where you just get introduced to people during the week. Even three or four people a week, or weekend, it really adds up. And so that's the best piece of advice, is if you're okay and you're mentally ready, just set the date four to five to six weeks in advance. Put it on your calendar, and know that when you're ready you'll start to plan the next one.
Chris (01:08:07): It's something that we talk about often here at Forcing Function is the power of pre-commitment. That putting a date on your calendar doesn't feel like much in terms of action, but psychologically is huge. You've created the default that this thing is happening. And once that Rubicon has been crossed, all of a sudden you become attuned to opportunities for that thing to happen even better. As you meet people, you're like, "Hey, is this someone who might be a good addition to the party?" Or, "Oh, that music, that'd be really good to add to the playlist." Or whatever it is. Once that thing is in place and is a reality, the whole experience that you have in between now and the date completely changes.
So yeah, we're really big here on pre-commitment, to like put a date on the calendar, commit to it, and then a lot of things happen naturally once that decision has been made.
Nick (01:09:05): I like that. The power of pre-commitment. That's huge.
Chris (01:09:09): So, Nick, someone listening is like, "Yes, I love the NICK Method, I think this is awesome, I'm ready to take the leap." Where would you send them, what resources do you have for them to make sure that this first party or their next party is a success?
Nick (01:9:24): You can download right now the first four chapters of my book for free off of my website. My website is nickgray.net, or I built this really cool micro-site for the book that lists some of the sample chapters and the key lessons and learnings from it, and you can find that at www.party.pro. The name of my book is called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. You can find it on Amazon, you can get it in paperback or on Kindle. I'm really proud of my book. I've worked on it really hard for the last couple years, and it is the thing I'm most proud of. I genuinely believe, and I've seen it help people and change their lives to build big relationships by hosting small gatherings.
Chris (01:10:17): It's an amazing mission, and it's really cool to have seen it in action. Having read the book, there's wonderful resources there. The templates on how to send invitations and reminders, I think, are really fantastic. You really take a lot of the guesswork out of it. So yeah, thank you so much for making that resource available and for sharing your wisdom today. It was a lot of fun.
Nick (01:10:41): Thanks. Thanks for having me. Let's get out there. I think everybody could use another house party to make some new friends.
Chris (01:10:48): Thank you so much for joining us today, Nick, and see you all again soon.
Nick (01:10:51): Thanks, everybody.
Tasha (01:10:53): Thank you for listening to Forcing Function Hour. At Forcing Function, we teach performance architecture. We work with a select group of twelve executives and investors to teach them how to multiply their output, perform at their peak, and design a life of freedom and purpose. Make sure to subscribe to Forcing Function Hour for more great episodes, or go to forcingfunctionhour.com to sign up for our newsletter so you can join us live.