Transcript

The Easiest Way to Strengthen Your Network This Year | Nick Gray’s PLAYBOOK

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 52 min · 9,876 words · 111 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Easiest Way to Strengthen Your Network This Year | Nick Gray’s PLAYBOOK", an episode of Ryan Hawk published December 20, 2025 (52 min, about 9,876 words). It mentions 43 people, works and ideas, including master of ceremonies (MC), Nick Gray, personal website, Google LLC, Artificial Intelligence.

What this episode is about

Nick Gray emphasizes the importance of hosting events as a way for leaders to strengthen their networks by connecting interesting people. By creating opportunities for social interactions and adding value before seeking it, leaders can foster relationships that are enjoyable and meaningful, ultimately enhancing their influence and community connections.

Key takeaways

  • Host parties: mingle personal and professional for organic networking—business cards don't spark friendships.
  • Nick Gray's secret? Host quarterly meetups, keep weak ties warm, and stay top-of-mind.
  • If bored with networking, shake it up—diverse guests and surprise conversations invigorate any room.
  • Warning: 'too cool' hosts ruin the vibe; enthusiasm is your most engaging accessory.
  • Cut the fluff: if lectures fail, embrace improv; kids remember fun, not slides.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Nick Gray, personal website, Pria Parker, University of Texas at Austin
  2. – 10:00: Occupational diversity
  3. – 15:00: Nick Gray, Paperless Post, Partyful, Ryan Hawk
  4. – 25:00: learningleer.com, Weak ties
  5. – 30:00: personal website, Google LLC, Instagram, Nick Gray
  6. – 35:00: Nick Gray
  7. – 40:00: John Arrow, Matthew Dicks, Storyworthy
  8. – 45:00: Google LLC, Kenton, Priya Parker, Strategic Coach
  9. – 50:00: writing practice, Amazon, Goodreads, Homework for Life
  10. – 51:44: Amazon, Nick Gray, Nick Gray's Friends newsletter, PatronView

Notable quotes from "The Easiest Way to Strengthen Your Network This Year | Nick Gray’s PLAYBOOK"

  • Other. One of the ways to be a connector is just to host these meetups and to force the collisions. Nick Gray throws better parties than you do. He's on a mission to help…
    about Nick Gray · at
  • Pre-show about personal websites where any leader should have their own personal website and just the importance of that in marketing or hiring employees and stuff like that.…
    about personal website · at
  • Your network, to build your network, and to keep those things that they call loose connections or weak ties to keep those warm. So, very similar to how Ryan has this podcast…
    about Weak ties · at
  • Of who the attendees are. And so I will pick about half of the attendees and write something little. Ryan Hawk hosts a podcast. He wrote a book. He lives in Ohio. Ask him about…
    about Ryan Hawk · at
  • That is it's like proactive reputation management. People are out there searching for you on Google and on Chat GBT.
    about Google LLC · at
  • Parties than you do, and he'll teach you how. He's the founder of Museum Hack, author of the two-hour cocktail party, and an unapologetic enthusiast for name tags, structured fun, and good vibes.
    about The Two-Hour Cocktail Party · at
  • That. like say it right like you talk. And so, Matthew Dixon Storyworthy is a really helpful book to think about how you post and how you share. I struggle with what the action like the actual advice is. I now.
    about Storyworthy · at
  • Nick, I loved your pod. Did you know that Matthew Dixs just came out with a new book? Here's a link on Amazon. Send me your shipping address. I'd be happy to send you one. When…
    about Amazon · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Nick Gray — Person · 6 mentions · first at
  • Ryan Hawk — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Pria Parker — Person · 1 mention · first at
    So Pria Parker I recorded with recently who you quote in your book and she's amazing at this too. I think combining both of you guys now here close together on this show is really.
  • Matthew Dicks — Person · 1 mention · first at
    About storytelling is this book called story worthy by a guy named Matthew Dicks. Right.
  • John Arrow — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Oh, I really need someone to help me with search engine optimization. Then I would say, Oh, I know this guy, John Arrow. He's so good at this. Let me set you up. A bad way for…
  • Kenton — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And you're Oh, my friend Kenton works at Google. And you open up your phone, you say, Kentton, meet Janine.
  • Priya Parker — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Powerful people call on you to MC their events? listen to Ryan's interview with Priya Parker because Priya does such a good job in talking about the theory of how we are…
  • Samir — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • Google LLC — Company · 4 mentions · first at
  • Instagram — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    So, if you are someone who has a blue check verified on Instagram, if you're someone who posts at least once a month on LinkedIn, you probably need your own personal website. And the reason for that is it's like proactive.
  • Amazon — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • University of Texas at Austin — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And stuff like that. So yeah, I'd say those two. Have you ever thought about going to like let's say University of Texas Austin and volunteering to teach on both of those things?
  • Paperless Post — Company · 1 mention · first at
    It's what all the youth are using. A lot of nerds like a platform called Luma. I don't like Paperless Post. I don't like Evite. I do also like this other one platform called Mixely. M I X I L Y.
  • learningleer.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Sign up or apply to be involved about last year we had 44 people learningleer.com every anyone could apply yeah learningleer.com It's 44 people and does it happen once a year?
  • Museum Hack — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Nick Gray. Nick Gray throws better parties than you do, and he'll teach you how. He's the founder of Museum Hack, author of the two-hour cocktail party, and an unapologetic enthusiast for name tags, structured fun, and good vibes.
  • Cloudflare — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Easy way to create a simple homepage for buying your own domain name. I like a thing called Cloudflare domains. I don't like GoDaddy because they try to upsell you on other…
  • GoDaddy — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Buying your own domain name. I like a thing called Cloudflare domains. I don't like GoDaddy because they try to upsell you on other things. Maybe I would like NameCheep, but I…
  • personalites.net — Company · 1 mention · first at
    I think is a really good thing that most people should have. You can check it out at personalites.net.
  • Strategic Coach — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Came to mind was, have you ever heard of the executive coaching program called Strategic Coach run by a guy named Dan Sullivan?
  • Goodreads — Company · 1 mention · first at
    You heard that I mentioned to Ryan Hawk the storytelling book called Storyworthy. I would get on Goodreads or I would get on some other places to find other similar books. For…
  • PatronView — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Nick Gray's Friends newsletter — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Philanthropy. So that's a new thing I'm into and I'm online. You got to look for Nick Gray's friends newsletter. It's something that's a labor of love where I send out my best suggestions and stuff on Amazon, things like that.
  • Evite — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • Partyful — Product · 1 mention · first at
    The platform I like the best these days is called Partyful. P A R T I F U L.
  • Card — Product · 1 mention
  • Luma — Product · 1 mention
  • Mixily — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • master of ceremonies (MC) — Concept · 7 mentions
  • personal website — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
  • Artificial Intelligence — Concept · 4 mentions
  • RSVP — Concept · 4 mentions
  • Weak ties — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Proactive reputation management — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    On LinkedIn, you probably need your own personal website. And the reason for that is it's like proactive reputation management. People are out there searching for you on Google and on Chat GBT.
  • writing practice — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    One more thing on writing. I push leaders to have a writing practice whether they choose to publish or not. I think choosing to publish is a good idea usually because it can work as a have a magnetic effect to and maybe a.
  • Double opt-in introduction — Concept · 2 mentions
  • Occupational diversity — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Diversity at their parties. And that's not ethnic or racial diversity. That's like occupational diversity. So I'm looking to have if I'm hosting a work event, I also like to…
  • law of reciprocity — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To send you one. When you add value first to people, they are much more likely, it's like some sort of law of reciprocity. They are much more likely to want to help you out or…
  • serendipity machine — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Usually because it can work as a have a magnetic effect to and maybe a serendipity machine as you've written about. What are your thought processes on I mean this goes hand…
  • Homework for Life — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Stories for life. It's the activity homework for life. Homework for life.
  • generous leadership — Concept · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

Your job as a leader is to go through life collecting the interesting people that you meet and helping them meet each other. One of the ways to be a connector is just to host these meetups and to force the collisions. Nick Gray throws better parties than you do. He's on a mission to help people make friends and actually enjoy it. And he'll teach you how. This comes from someone who has hosted hundreds of events. New hosts are absolutely terrified that nobody will arrive. Why should leaders be more focused and host more events?

You know the power of a network. Nobody wants to go to a networking event. Think about how you can add value before you take value. It will pull people in. It'll have a magnetic effect. People just want to hang out and meet some new people. That's why we do these. The worst kind of host is the host who is too cool to care. When you are hosting an event, you need to be a leader. All right, Nick, let's start with some ice breakers. Are you cool with that?

I love ice breakers. What's a compliment that someone gave you that you still think about?

I was in New York City and I was walking to like a bodega and this homeless guy said, he goes, "You look like a doctor." And I said, "Oh, nobody has ever said that to me before. I assume that means something good." But I was like, "Oh, wow. That feels great." I like that one.

When did that happen? Was that recent? No, this was like years ago. But I still think about just cuz it was like such

What does a doctor look like? I don't even know. I don't even know. I think that this guy was probably a genius, you know? He he knows lasertargeted things to say to people to get them to stop and it worked for me.

Okay. Okay. Let's do another one. If you could teach any class about one topic that you're passionate about or an expert on, what would it be?

I think I'm an expert on two things. Number one is hosting events and then number two, I was telling you in the pre-show about personal websites where any leader should have their own personal website and just the importance of that in marketing or hiring employees and stuff like that. So yeah, I'd say those two. Have you ever thought about going to like let's say University of Texas Austin and and and volunteering to teach on both of those things?

You know, I get invitations or I used to get more to speak to college classes and especially around arts programs for the work I did with museums. I think I struggle with academia. I am like like cut my teeth in entrepreneurship very move fast break things and while I have fun talking to students and I've gotten to do it a handful of times over the years I find there's very little action or results that are taken um I went to teach to a class of middle schoolers I think it was middle schoolers or maybe it was like freshman in high school and I started to talk about all these things and I was like hey um raise your hand if y'all were here for the speaker last month for business and everybody raised their hand. I said, "What are two things that you guys remember from that business speaker and nobody could remember anything from that person's talk?" And I was like, "You know what? We're just

going to play some improv games." Like I like trashed all my slides. I was like, "Let's just work on conversational skills instead because y'all don't care about this business stuff."

Let's talk about of those two things. Let's start about host hosting events. So Pria Parker I recorded with recently who you quote in your in your book and she's amazing at this too. I think combining both of you guys uh now here close together on this show is really good for leaders because there is there are so many reasons why leaders specifically both work-wise and personal life-wise should be hosting events. You the guy who is one of the best in the world at hosting events. Why should leaders be more focused and host more events?

So, as a leader, you are probably hiring people regularly or looking for investors or just really, you know, the power of a network, right? If you're listening to this podcast, you know the power of having a network. I have found that by hosting little events, simple lightweight meetups or dinner parties or happy hours, it allows you to strengthen your network, to build your network, and to keep those things that they call loose connections or weak ties to keep those warm. So, very similar to how Ryan has this podcast, you guys build a relationship listening to him. I found that by just hosting like once a quarter a little happy hour or a meetup, it helped me keep my real life relationships warm and in touch so that I was thought of as top of mind for people way more often.

Now, how about some are are going to put these in boxes like professional life and personal life? It feels to me like you don't do that. You mix them together. Is that right?

I do mix things together. I think when you're hosting meetups, you know, a a really boring event for me would be to be all work people. That just feels like work. And so I recommend that folks have diversity at their parties. And that's not ethnic or racial diversity. That's like occupational diversity. So I'm looking to have if I'm hosting a work event, I also like to invite just some other random folks who I know are going to be good conversationalists and add to the energy. I generally like to host meetups for a wide mix of people that includes both professional and personal contacts because I think if I'm doing a professional work event, it just feels boring. It feels like I have an ulterior motive. Instead, my motive for hosting these, I'm like, "Hey, there's a bunch of there's a whole group of interesting people here in town. I'd love to get you all together just to have a drink. No

agenda. Meet some interesting people. That's the focus. y'all don't know each other, so let's have a drink and say hello.

What What's one of the cooler events you've hosted in the past, let's say, six months?

I hosted an event for creators. I mean, I hate to say this because it's going to make the average listener think like, "Oh, I can't do that or I don't want to do that." So, I'm going to couch what I'm saying is like, this comes from someone who has hosted hundreds of events and this for me was one of my favorite events. This is not the day-to-day event that I want you to host. But I hosted an event for a bunch of creators that had over a million followers each. That was like the threshold,

which by the way people think is so cringe. Like, oh, to have a threshold of of like what it is. But then I had people tell me like secretly, they'd be like, "Dude, I am so glad that you did that threshold." like a lot of people are too embarrassed to say it or they they look down upon it, but it really made sure that this was the right type of audience that I wanted to attend. Um, anyhow, I hosted an event and at the event I had planted in the happy hour these freestyle rappers that were mixed in the crowd and I did a Q&A and spontaneously some people like I hired these people like they were professionals but they just randomly one guy starts beatboxing, one guy starts freestyle rapping, roasting the audience and it was this little moment that was like oh my it shocked everybody and everybody was like round of it was very fun. That was good.

Got you. Okay, let's make it more personal and relatable. Then let's say somebody has never hosted an event or never hosted something like we're talking about. That's probably not the case for most people, but maybe they've had kids, life's got really busy, and they, you know, they focus on their family and they focus on their work and nothing in between. So for that person, they're like, "Oh god, dude, I don't even know where to start. I mean, what what you know what they're they hired Nick to help them. Okay, we got the best guy in the world. What do you what do you how are you helping them just get started to do this?

So, I'm going to give a very specific example because you mentioned kids. Yeah.

The one thing that you can do, you probably if you have kids, you host kids birthday parties and those parties are for the kids and for their friends, but they inevitably have a lot of parents who attend. I find that simply by adding a note to the invitation like this, we will have name tags for the parents so that we can all mix, mingle, and meet someone new. Simply at your kids's birthday party, doing name tags for the parents helps other parents just say hello to somebody. I find I talked to my friend Samir who has three young kids.

He's like, "You know, I see these parents at all my kids soccer games in the school pickup line, but like I actually forgot the wife's name or like I forget the husband's name." And so that is one small thing that you could do immediately. Say that you're ready though to host something and you're like, "Okay, I I hear the benefits of this. I want to host something." Most important advice for leaders on this podcast, do not reach to the top shelf. Do not if if you're Ryan and you're like, "All right, I'm hosting. James Clear lives an hour away. Okay, I'm going to invite him. Do not invite James Clear to your very first happy hour or meetup that you're doing. I want your first party to be for your neighbors, the parents of kids at your school, those LinkedIn connections, high school buddies you haven't seen in a while.

Your first party should be a comfortable meetup for 15 to 22 people that you host at your home with just cocktails, not a dinner party. Cocktails, light snacks, whatever you get for under a hundred bucks. But you want to do an easy party like that just to practice some of the fundamental things that I've learned that help make any meetup better. Do that and then slowly once a quarter you'll be adding more people to it and filtering your list. Okay, we got 20 people RSVPd. They're coming. We're like, "Oh my god, they I can't believe it. They said yes." Even though it's neighbors and it's random people, but we got it. Okay, and it's a it's 10 days from now. What are we doing? How are we planning? What h how are we sending the reminder email? Like what are we doing?

Okay, so I'm glad that you mentioned that they RSVPd because that's so important. It's one of the biggest mistakes. New hosts are absolutely terrified that nobody will arrive. And so the best way to ensure that people arrive because I found from helping hundreds of people host their own party. As long as you get a minimum of 15 people to show up, your party will generally be a success. As long as you can get a minimum threshold. And so one thing you have to do is collect RSVPs. The platform I like the best these days is called Partyful. P A R T I F U L.

It's what all the youth are using. A lot of nerds like a platform called Luma. I don't like Paperless Post. I don't like Evite. I do also like this other one platform called Mixely. M I X I L Y. These are all free platforms, but you want to use it to get people to RSVP to let them know what to expect and then to answer your question to send them reminder messages. And so 10 days before, you're going to want to hit them with a reminder message that's just hyping up the party. About a week before, I want to send them another reminder message that's a little dossier of who the attendees are. And so I will pick about half of the attendees and write something little. Ryan Hawk hosts a podcast. He wrote a book. He lives in Ohio. Ask him about the ski trip he went on with his family. Nick Gray lives in Austin, Texas. He loves to do yoga. He just got married. Ask him about his book, The 2-hour Cocktail Party. I write

that up for half of the guests or more, right? You do all of them if you want, but I send that in the reminder messages because it also serves to make anxious people or socially awkward feel like they are welcome and they have a conversational access point. Okay, we're at the party. We get there. It's at our house. People are they're showing up. What are we doing? How do how do we make it like awesome from the very beginning? Okay. Practical tips. This is the least important, but it's the most specific. You got to label your trash cans and your bathrooms. A lot of these like fancy houses, you know, you like walk around, you're like, "Where the hell is the trash can?" And you're like opening 10 different drawers. Um, I went to this New Year's Eve party at a billionaire's house and I snuck up from dinner to go to the bathroom. I'm like opening up guest room doors. I'm walking into the m I'm like I because all the doors look

alike and they're closed. I had no idea where the dang bathroom was. Put up a little simple handwritten sign on a note card. Trash can bathroom. Stuff like that. As people arrive, here's your job. Your job as the host is to greet and welcome every single person and to make them a name tag. Write it out right in front of them. First name only. Do not pre-write your name tags. I find that writing them handwritten first yourself is a really nice way for you to say, "Man, Ryan, welcome to the party. Let me make you a name tag here real quick."

You give them the name tag and you point them to somebody else. Hey, wait. What if you don't actually know their name because maybe it's the spouse or like or you just, you know, you lose it for for a brief moment. Oh, no. I don't remember his name. you know, like what what do you do?

The ideal thing to do is to address that headon and say, "Oh my god, I just had a mind blank. Remind me your name." The cheat

I hate that though. I hate that so much. Then the cheat hack is to be like, "Hey, what's up, dude? Let me make you a name tag. Remind me how do I spell it?" And that backfires sometimes because they're like, "Ry r y a n, right?" Or they're like like sue s u. But hopefully there's something like sarah s a r. you ever have them write it?

I don't like to have people write it themselves because their handwriting is bad. They write their full name. They write it real small. I like to do it in big block letters so that they just show up and put it on, but they could write it as well. I actually haven't tested that too much. I prefer to do it so it's tied into the welcome process.

Okay. Sorry. Could keep going. All right. So, you do them a name tag. you point them in the right direction of the bar or someone to say hi to at the party itself. The party, by the way, is not like a crazy rager. Like, you have some playlist on in the background, like Beach Boys playlist or something. There's some in show notes I can put about like some playlists on Spotify that I like. You're just playing some background music. You have some simple finger foods and snacks out. You have a self-s served bar. The purpose of this gathering is for people just to meet some other new and interesting people that you have collected in your town.

Your job as a leader, as far as it goes with events, is to go through life collecting the interesting people that you meet and helping them meet each other. Okay, you're listening to this podcast, so you're already a leader. Now, can you become a connector? And one of the ways to be a connector is just to host these meetups and to force the collisions. So one way that we force those collisions is by leading two or three rounds of introductions at your meetup. And so a way that I like to do that is to make a little announcement 30 minutes after it starts and say, "Hey everybody, welcome. Um, there's so many interesting people here. I want you all to meet each other. We're going to do this little activity where we split into small groups. It might seem silly, but I promise the purpose tonight is for you to talk to as many new people as possible. So, bear with me through these activities, but I promise it's so

helpful. You're going to meet some really cool folks. We're going to split into small groups of three or four people, and you're going to go around and tell your life story in 2 minutes. Now, I know like your life story that can be intimidating. So you can think about it through a personal lens, through a professional lens, through entrepreneurship lens. Talk about your business, but really talk for that full two minutes. Form groups of three or four now. And then I'll tell them something. I'll be like, "All right, the person with the longest hair goes first, and the person with the shortest hair is in charge of the stopwatch, right? Or the timekeeper." But I'll do that little small group thing first. Um, I'm riffing too much on this, Ryan. I'll nerd out too much about this, but there's specific activities that I like to do, which is that one with small groups and then I have everybody circle up later

and say their name and what they do or something that they're really excited about. We do that to help increase these collisions for people to mix and talk to new people.

Let's say you're hosting your wife's birthday party. How does that change things? You know, your wife and all her friends probably know each other, so they probably don't want to do name tags. Women and certain gay men are very particular about what they wear and they don't want to have name tags. I can say that cuz one of my best friends is gay. Um, I think that you would be a little more mindful about the introductions. And honestly, if my wife was hosting a party, I would say, um, what would you like to do, honey? Because I will do whatever you would like to do. And I have no ideas that I would like to add to change your birthday party. Gotcha.

Um. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This one was big in your book. The ending. Nobody thinks about the ending. Everyone just kind of files out whenever. Stragglers. Like why is it important to end on time and to end sometimes abruptly?

So when I'm hosting a meetup, I like to host. by the way, hosting your wife's birthday party, hosting a kids birthday party, these are very natural type of gatherings. And so I would say that they need less facilitation or structure than something like a forced weekday meetup with random people. And so the types of meetups that I really talked to people about and try to convince them, the types that changed my life were these random people gatherings that are honestly, if we're being honest, it's kind of like a networking event, but I would never use that term.

Nobody wants to go to those. Yeah, nobody wants to go to a networking event. I don't want it to be business networky. I host it at my home, so it's not like some scammy thing. But that's kind of what it is, you know? It's like a networking event of your neighbors. It's this idea that like, look, I need more community. I know interesting people. I want them to hang out. And so, I like to host a start time and an end time to end it on time because I found the most success in hosting these random meetups on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights work best because they're not competitive socially. Most birthday parties happen on Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. Most kids parties probably happen Saturday, Sundays. I found that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are more open and you get less cancellations and more yeses, more attendees on Tuesday, Wednesdays. As such though, like that's a work night for everybody. And I don't want them to think this is an opportunity to come over and get wasted and drink. By the way, it's called a cocktail party or a happy hour. People in my circles at least don't drink a lot of alcohol. I'll have it out and available, but this is not a big drinking event. You want to end the party on time though because you want to end it on a high note when things are going well. You want to let people have the opportunity to go home if they need to because of babysitters or something like that. I tell you, I

get more compliments on ending it than on some of the other elements. People are so surprised and refreshed and they leave your party like, "Oh my god, that was awesome. I met all these new people. It was over in an hour and a half, two hours, and they really want to come back. They're left with a positive opinion. So, they want to come back the next time you host it.

Boom. Okay. Have you hosted Hold on a sec. I want to ask you, do you host in like what is your hosting experience? Do you do stuff? Can you tell me about that?

Not really. Um, I host an event for that. Some would see it as like a work thing. These are like I have like a mastermind groups, learning leader circles we call them. And uh I usually go to a a property Scottdale, Nashville, Columbus. Uh we've been all over. Um those become actual friendships though, a lot of the people at those events. So they almost feel like a reunion because it's the same people year after year within I mix in probably 15 to 20 new people every year. So it's a combination of like old and new. And it does feel a little bit like a reunion. And I do hire a planner uh and someone who who who does all of it for me. We do name tags for sure. All of that. I've I've learned a lot from you to make those events better. Um even have like a put a put put a little word under your name of ask me about, you know, the New York Giants or whatever. Um people people put um and do things like that. So I do that. When

it comes to socially, not that much. Like at my house, not very much. sometimes just a small group of friends but not like the businessy networky thing but I would like to I think it would be cool I think more of us should do that that's that's partially why I wanted to talk to you

okay great so few questions number one how many people come to those mastermind events and little plug how can people sign up or apply to be involved

about last year we had 44 people uh learningleer.com every anyone could could could apply yeah

learningleer.com It's 44 people and does it happen once a year? Yeah, we do it in May.

Super cool. You probably do a lot of group work with people like this is advanced. This is like more of a mastermind for

most of them are are my high level highle leaders within companies of wide variety of industries, sizes, levels of experience. It's cool. It's a it's a really really cool I've become genuine friends with a a number of them because they're just high character, high competent people. the type of people you want to hang out with. It's really cool.

So, for people listening to this pod, you probably hear that Ryan hosts this annual mastermind and it's pro like like I can genuinely tell that he genuinely loves it. It's probably one of his favorite weekend

year round. I think literally the second event was over in Scottsdale, we hiked a mountain together, we did all this stuff, I started thinking about the next year's one like on the flight home.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. My guess is that many of your listeners want to or aspire to host their own mastermind. And my advice for you if you are thinking about this is you need to walk before you can run. Ryan did not just jump into hosting a 44 person thing like he knows to hire an event planner. My advice is host a happy hour first.

Begin to learn the skills of facilitation. And there's an easy way to do that. And Ryan, for you, I have a hunch that in your town, are you in Dayton? Did you say

I am now? Yeah. My hunch is that in your town, you know, a lot of people that maybe you and your wife see out and you're like, "Oh, we should get dinner sometime." Or you have your readers and your listeners who tell you that like, "Oh, dude, we should hang out. We should meet for coffee." Or there's all these other people. That is this group that I call our loose connections or our weak ties. They are people that we would love if we had unlimited amount of time. We would love to hang out with them, but it just doesn't work for our schedule and for our calendar.

Mhm. I found that by hosting once a quarter a simple happy hour. It was a way for me to touch base with those people, get some facetime, and just keep them in my network. Maybe I see my friend John. Oh, John's working on this new business. Dude, I meant to hook you up with such and such. Let me follow up and send you an intro. It gave me that facetime in my local community for those people that I couldn't invite to my mastermind that I didn't have a chance to go out and have dinner with. I have found that it is the single best thing that if you're willing to make the time that in the time it takes to watch a Netflix movie at home, you could host a little meetup. And it doesn't have to be fancy. You don't need a guest speaker or specific programming.

People just want to hang out and meet some new people. That's why we do these. I love it, man. Um, this is a good nudge and a good push. Okay. The second thing you would teach is personal websites. And I think some people are like, "Nah, not for me, dude. Not for me." And I think those people, I hope, would have a more open mind. Why is that? especially if you're in a leadership role. Why why should everyone have a personal website?

So, if you are someone who has a blue check verified on Instagram, if you're someone who posts at least once a month on LinkedIn, you probably need your own personal website. And the reason for that is is it's like proactive reputation management. People are out there searching for you on Google and on Chat GBT. It may not happen every single day, but I promise it probably happens every week. Somebody's out there. Whether it's parents of your kids at school, hey, who's this person that's in my kids school? Whether it's new employees, I talked to somebody two weeks ago. He's looking to buy a business and they did the letter of intent that came out and all the employees saw it and they started looking him up online like who who is my new boss about to be? and they're googling him and they're finding like his Instagram page, which is fine.

He was sharp. It was like not a page that had anything bad. But I say that you want to have a personal website to put your best foot forward and just make a good impression. You do not need to have a Gary Vee type page. You don't have to have a page like someone like me or Ryan where we're keynote speakers and and have all this stuff. You just need a page that's just it can look like a Google doc even. And one of the reasons you want to have that is to feed these large language models, to feed Google your story, your bio, so that when somebody goes into ChatGBT and they ask who's Ryan Hawk, it gives them some good information. Even if it's on your LinkedIn, it might not be able to crawl that. And I would prefer to put my stories and my best business history forward first. Try it out for me. Search for my name, Nick Gray. It's kind of a generic name. It tells a good story about me. And my website is a plainext

simple homepage. I used to have a fancy design site and now I'm like dude it doesn't matter. 80% of my visitors are going on their cell phone. They just want to read some text about me and have some links. So

that's my soap box. Yeah. My prompt for you, dude. Okay. I got to chat GPT two hours ago. Give me a fun new original bio for Nick Gray. Okay. Here's one of them. I got

Nick Gray. Nick Gray throws better parties than you do, and he'll teach you how. He's the founder of Museum Hack, author of the two-hour cocktail party, and an unapologetic enthusiast for name tags, structured fun, and good vibes. Based in Austin, he's on a mission to help people make friends, and actually enjoy it. It's pretty cool,

dude. That was really good. That was good. I would challenge you that if you go to chat GPT and you ask for it about yourself and you're not getting the results that you want, set up a simple personal web page because I love tools. There's one site called Card C A R R D.co. I think it's $20 a year. That's an easy way to create a simple homepage for buying your own domain name. I like a thing called uh Cloudflare domains. I don't like GoDaddy because they try to upsell you on other things. Maybe I would like NameCheep, but I like Cloudflare domains. It's very nerdy. And then if you want a more detailed page, I would just get a simple account on WordPress. You can get their $4 a month plan and just set that up. So for less than five bucks a month, 10 bucks a year for your name.com. By the way, if yourname.com is not available, then you could do the ryanhawk.com or ryanhawknews.com or something like that. Mine is a

nickgra.net. Like, don't be afraid of these other types of names. But I think it's helpful to have as proactive reputation management. Small plug, I started a small business that for 30 bucks a month will do all of this stuff for you. Um, getting a personal website I think is a really good thing that most people should have. You can check it out at um, personalites.net. Have you tried to buy nickra.com? Because I've tried to buy Nick Ryanhawk.com and we have gone back and forth for now like five years and the asking price is still insane to me. I have ryanhawk.net. Have you tried to get nickgra.com?

It is a sore subject. it. Uh, so for many years this guy in like Minnesota owned the domain name and it was for his son. He hadn't updated the page forever. It was like birthday photos at like Chuck-E-Cheese. And so I'd email him every single year trying to get the domain name. And then one day I go there and it's this freaking real estate agent.

He sold to somebody else. And and I'm like, "What the heck?" So I reach out to the guy. I say, "Dude, major major congrats. I just got to ask, how did you get the domain name? I emailed the guy every year and told him any price he wanted. And the other Nick Gray wrote back. He said, 'Well, that's your problem. You emailed him every year. I emailed him every month and one month he just replied. And I was like, dude, respect respect.

Yeah, I'm still uh I'm still working on that, too. No, that that that's really really good. Okay. One of the other things about you, Nick, that I told you I've told you before as we've talked and certainly today before we started recording is I um I feel like you've you've gained a comfort in your own skin, which is really cool. And you're willing to just put your life out on the internet for all of us to read about. And one of them in particular that went viral that I want you to talk about, if you're comfortable now, this one's April 17th, 2024. It inspired me to actually book a trip with my family, which is a little bit different from this one. But here's the original tweet. I want to do a blind date and go to Tokyo next weekend. If you're a woman with a passport who likes sushi and Japanese food and can ride a bike in a big city, let's go. I'll pay for everything, but in return, you have to film stupid

videos of me for my socials. DM me. Dude, what was going on in that moment? Could did you ever envision it would go mega mega viral with millions and millions of people who were paying very close attention to this whole story?

I had no clue. And by the way, I think that finished that whole thing finished with like 27 million impressions across all the posts. Um I was just bored one night. I I knew I had to go speak in San Francisco, which by the way, talking about public speaking, if you want to riff on this later, the best public talk I ever gave was around the time of this. And it was just cuz I did not care. I like so many things were going crazy in my life. I was underslept. I just did not care. And I just ripped the best speech I've ever given. Um anyhow, um I knew I had to speak in San Francisco. I was going to go visit my sister in Hawaii. Japan was only seven or eight hours away from Hawaii, but I just didn't want to go back alone. You know, I was single. The last time I went to Japan, it was very lonely and isolating.

And I think I was just feeling lonely. So, I ripped this tweet out right before I went to bed on like a Monday or Tuesday night that's like, "Dude, I want to go to Tokyo. Does anybody else want to? Like, let's go." And I tweeted it and I went to bed. And like when I first posted, didn't get too much traction, but I think then that stuff snowballs. And by the time I woke up, it was going viral. And it really did. Just within a couple days, I had hundreds of applications from women like writing really nice notes wanting to go on the trip. And it became a whole situation. I post on Monday or Tuesday, had to choose someone, I think by Friday, and I met her the next weekend in Japan. And it was crazy. I feel like I along with lots of people were waiting for every update.

Maybe it's embarrassing to admit, but I was. Dude, I was I was very curious about you. Um, what happened? How did the trip go?

The trip was amazing. It was literally better than I could have ever hoped. And the biggest thing that I took out of it was that it I came back to Texas after the trip ready to truly settle down and find a relationship and meet my now wife. I ended up meeting my wife a couple months after this experience because I realized I was ready to share my life with someone. So that's like the outcome. I can tell you during the trip itself was crazy. Like we did a meetup in Tokyo by the way like and I think like 35 people showed up like in Tokyo 35 random people in Tokyo who were watching which doesn't even speak to the rest of the world that was reading all this from a business perspective. I'll tell you one of the most interesting things while that was happening and for about a week afterwards anyone would accept my phone call like I could reach out to people and and like my call backs were instantaneous my dial

to like answer fast people were reaching out from everywhere and so I didn't do it obviously for a business reason but I did notice that I was like whoa is Is this what it's like to be a celebrity? Holy cow.

What's the What's the key takeaway for other people that we could learn from that? Maybe we don't have or those listening have zero Twitter followers or they don't post or whatever it may be. What's the key takeaway someone could say, "Wait, Nick does this. It goes viral. You meet up with a woman in Tokyo was absolutely bonkers. Anyone's taking your call." like so many people I don't think had any idea who you were were following very closely as I was paying attention to that at the time. Um what's the takeaway?

You know what the best book that I read about storytelling is this book called story worthy by a guy named Matthew Dicks. Right.

Yeah. He's been on the show. Incredible. Pause this right now and go listen to Ryan's interview with Matthew Dixs. Matthew is such a talented storyteller and I think if I had any advice to someone it would be look you don't have to like plan a blind date trip immediately but just think about writing from a like write like you talk and that's what Matthew says he don't try to write a LinkedIn post that's like I'm happy to announce like would you actually say that to someone like if you saw a friend and they said, "Dude, what's new?" Would you honestly say, "Well, I'm happy to announce like, no, you wouldn't say that." You know, like say it right like you talk. And so, Matthew Dixon Storyworthy is a really helpful book to think about how you post and how you share. Um, you know, I struggle with what the action like the actual advice is. I now that I'm married and I'm thinking about starting a family soon, I feel like I

don't take as big of risks socially and so I can't give advice for someone who's like, you know what, like I'm married, like I got kids, like what am I going to post online? Like

I get it. I would Yeah. I am curious. Um you had hundreds and hundreds to choose from. Mhm.

What? And I know you're married to someone else now, but at the time, what made you choose the person that you chose?

Yeah. Hundreds and hundreds of people. It became overwhelming for me to really give everybody like the time and attention. And so now I have a couple people who work for me and for my family office and investing things. And so I had a team meeting when this happened. I said, "Look, you guys, something's happening in my personal life. like nobody here signed up to help me for dating, but if you'd be willing to help review some of these applications, please meet me back here in the Zoom room in 30 minutes. I figured like one or two would show up. Everybody showed up in the Zoom meeting. They could not wait to review these applications. And so they helped screen some of them. And then once we had it down to 20 or 30, I had one of my best friends help read through and kind of select some of them.

What were you looking for though? I mean, probably looks was a part of it. Uh, it seemed so from seeing who you chose, but also um like what else were you looking for?

You know, I wanted to have a fun time. I wanted to be with someone who is playful, who is spontaneous. Um, I wanted to I think that there's a difference between, you know, maybe someone who writes well and someone who's like fun to hang out with, I guess. Um, and so those are some things that I'm thinking of. It's hard to go back and exactly speak on like some of it like I'm embarrassed about because I maybe did want a relationship. You know, maybe I didn't actually say that I was looking for a girlfriend, but if someone applied from France in my mind, I was like, you know, I'm like not going to see that person after this.

Like the reality of me moving to France or them trying to build a relationship is not really going to work out. And so I did filter some people out who were like geographically just not possible to see afterwards.

Gotcha. Um I want to talk about uh some random things that you have posted uh because I think that's interesting to me. Um let's talk about introductions uh and not doing blind ones. By blind ones I meaning one person says, "Nick, can you introduce me to

Morgan Hel?" and and you just boom you you you you you have a group text with you the random friend of yours and now Morgan Hel and Morgan now uh blocks you and never wants to see you again. Right. So like what can you talk to me about the importance of the double opt-in for introductions?

Yeah. So, lots of listeners to your pod are going to know this, but if you haven't thought about it recently, a double opt-in intro means that if I'm talking to Ryan on this pod and he says, "Oh, I really need someone to help me with search engine optimization." Then I would say, "Oh, I know this guy, John Arrow. He's so good at this. Let me set you up." A bad way for me to set that up would be to immediately hop in my email and send a to Ryan to John Arrow and say, "John, meet Ryan and say, John, you got to meet Ryan. He's looking for a search engine optimization dude to like help him out and send it and boom." A better way would be for me to first reach out to John and say, "Hey, John, are you taking new clients?

I just talked to this guy Ryan. He's looking for this. I mentioned, but I wanted to check if you're down for the intro first. Here's a little bit about him and his website. And then if he says yes, then I do a new thread or I just reply and I say, "Hey, great. I'm CCing Ryan here." What you don't want to do is go out to a party and someone's like, "Oh, I'd really like to work at Google." And you're like, "Oh, my friend Kenton works at Google." And you open up your phone, you say, "Kentton, meet Janine. Janine wants to work at Google." Like now this is on Kenton and it's like his problem.

You want to do the double opt-in to get both parties permission and once they agree then you send the email to link them two together.

Yes, exactly. Okay. Um I want uh you you you copied somebody else's tweet uh that I love. People with interesting lives have no vanity. They start new projects with no guarantees. They're interested in people who are their polar opposites. They resign without having another job in sight. They accept invitation to do things they've never done before. They're prepared to change their favorite color or their favorite dish. It goes on and on and on. I I like these types of things of being thoughtful and intentional about living an interesting life. Again, this is one of the reasons I wanted to record with you because there are 750 different questions and different avenues we could take based on your interesting life. And so if you could just kind of go deeper on your overall philosophy to live an interesting life, I would love to hear you riff on that.

One of the most random things that just came to mind was, have you ever heard of the executive coaching program called Strategic Coach run by a guy named Dan Sullivan?

They do like Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've never talked to them, but Yeah. Um they do executive workshops and stuff and they really suggested that you have one day a quarter that is called a free day where you it is a weekday where you are totally free from your business and they even suggest that you get a burner phone so that you can't check your work texts or your emails so that you have a phone to get like your Google maps or to call to your wife or kids but that isn't connected ed to anything. And I think about that because I think like what if you gave yourself like one free day per quarter? What would you do? How would you spend it? Um I'm thinking about this cuz my birthday is coming up on December the 8th. And I love making my birthday just about me, just what I want to do.

Really. And I remember last year I did it. I cleared my whole calendar. I just did what I wanted to do. I went swimming. I took a tennis lesson. I went to the mall for no reason at all. Like I just did what I wanted to do. And I left that experience number one so happy. It felt so great. And number two, I was like, I can do this more often. Like I don't have to wait for my birthday just to do this. If we are entrepreneurs, if we are truly leaders and we are in charge of our own schedules, like what common things do we assume that really aren't requirements?

So, I think about that a little bit. Um, I went to a business conference a couple months ago and there was a meeting time that was assigned with somebody else and I was a little bored. I was like, hey, do you just want to go to the gym and like walk on the treadmill for the meeting and that's not a crazy idea. It's not like, oh my god, Nick did a walking meeting. But for the person I met with, he was like, dude, this was so cool. Like, I never would have thought that. Like, this was way better than just sitting down at the conference. And so, I'm looking for opportunities like that. perhaps out of like my own short attention span to just keep things interesting and have fun.

You're asked to MC some monster events. Uh some of the people have been on this podcast whose events you've MCED or they've asked you to host them. What's the key to being a group? I I asked this question because I think there's a lot of it it'd be beneficial to get good at the skills as an MC that will help you in a lot of other areas of life. So I know a lot not many people want to be an MC. That's not the point of the question. The point of it is because I think it's a lot of this could help you in all other areas of your life, especially from a leadership perspective. So, what are the keys to being a great MC? And why do you think so many of these super highlevel powerful people call on you to MC their events? You know, listen to Ryan's interview with Priya Parker because Priya does such a good job in talking about the theory of how we are generous leaders. And when you are hosting an

event, you need to be a leader. The worst kind of host is the host who is too cool to care.

That's the host who says, "Oh man, I'm not going to do name tags at this meetup." pretty much everybody knows each other. That's the host who says, "Oh, dude, I'm not going to do introductions. That sounds so cheesy." You know, people can just go up and meet people. Like, that's not leadership. That's not what it means to like actually be a host. And so, I think about the same things for events and for being a master of ceremonies that giving explicit instructions to people um telling them about the agendas. When you are a master of ceremonies, you are a ring leader for a large event and you are responsible for managing people's energy levels and keeping the show on the road. And so one event that I did, I was producing the event. So I hired the master of ceremonies for the people. And man, this guy was amazing. His name is James. He came out there with level 10 energy in the morning. He's cracking

jokes. He was so good. And so I worked an event a couple months later for um Cody Sanchez. And I said, "Cody, look, I can be the normal MC that I did last year or like I just saw this one guy and he was like level 10. Like you want me to do that version?" And she's like, "Yeah, let's do it." And so I had people, yo, what's up everybody? Good morning, Cody Sanchez. You know, I'm just level 10 character. And it felt awkward, but it was so helpful. It kept the energy going. Getting people to jump up and do squats for 10 seconds before the next speaker. Noticing when they've been sitting for too long. Hey, let's take a quick break. Be back here in 3 minutes. Exactly. Stuff like that. I think your job as a master of ceremonies, your job as a leader, as a host is to keep the energy up, keep things moving. So, I think about that a lot. It

It's a great way to connect with people, too. Like, isn't it It's weird the power that you gain from being the person with the microphone on stage. I know there's some science to back that up, but it is a great way to connect with people, too.

Oh, for sure. Of course. Of course. Uh, let's say you're meeting with someone, Nick, who is a little bit earlier in their career, maybe they just graduated from college and they want to leave a positive dent in the world. What are some general pieces of lifecareer advice you'd give to that person?

Number one, think about how you can add value before you take value. Never send someone a message, I'd love to pick your brain. I'm looking for a mentor. That is take, take, take. Think about how you can add value first. That shows up in yourself in um you know, listening to their podcast, listening to books that they recommend. Let's give one example. All right. So, let's say that you are a new college grad and you want to connect with me. You heard that I mentioned to Ryan Hawk the storytelling book called Storyworthy. I would get on Goodreads or I would get on some other places to find other similar books. For example, we know that Matthew Dixs came out with a brand new book a couple months ago. I would reach out to me and say, "Hey, Nick, I loved your pod. Did you know that Matthew Dixs just came out with a new book? Here's a link on Amazon. Send me your shipping address. I'd be happy

to send you one." When you add value first to people, they are much more likely, it's like some sort of law of reciprocity. They are much more likely to want to help you out or do something in return. I think that's the biggest one I could recommend. New college grads, new college grads are cooked, by the way. Y'all are so I feel bad for y'all with the job market because AI and these new tools are really eating the ability for people to just hire low-level employees that they're willing to do the grunt work. that grunt work is really getting eaten up by a lot of these AI agents.

What should they do then? I think you got to learn how to use the tools themselves. You got to learn how to work with small businesses and entrepreneurs where you can make make a difference and start to really use these tools to be an expert.

One more thing on writing. Uh I push leaders to have a writing practice whether they choose to publish or not. I think choosing to publish is a good idea usually because it can work as a have a magnetic effect to um and maybe a serendipity machine as you've written about. What what are your thought processes on I mean this goes hand inhand with having a personal website on the importance of having a writing practice as a leader?

I think it's really important. I like what Matthew Dixs has. What's it called? Stories for life. It's the activity

homework for life. Homework for life. Yeah. um, homework for life where every night you just write down some note of just some sort of anecdote, something that stuck out for you and it gives you ideas about things to write upon. That'd be my best advice. If you're thinking about writing, if you're thinking about following Ryan's advice to have a writing practice, look at what Matthew Dick said about um, homework for life.

Nick, man, uh, could go forever. The book that I highly encourage people to get, especially about events, the two-hour cocktail party, how to build big relationships with small gatherings is really, really good. Where else would you send people to learn more about you online?

I have a new project about museum donor databases. It's a weird world that I'm obsessed with to help support nonprofits and museums and science institutions. It is called um um www.patronview.com and I'm trying to create like a Wikipedia or like a tech crunch for philanthropy. So that's a new thing I'm into and I'm online. You got to look for Nick Gray's friends newsletter. It's something that's a labor of love where I send out my best suggestions and stuff on Amazon, things like that.

You encourage people to write like you talk. And that's just one of the first things I said to you when we connected before I hit record is that you are one of the best at actually writing like you talk. That is way harder to do than you make it seem. But I agree with you. If you can write like you talk, it will pull people in. It'll have a magnetic effect. It just takes a lot of reps. I think it takes a lot of practice um and not trying to perform and also not outsourcing your thinking to AI. Use the tools, right? Understand how to use them, but don't outsource your thinking.

I'm seeing far too much of that, too. And I think that's a big problem. And if you're not careful, that could happen to all of us. Uh yeah, it'll spit back something that could be decent, but it but you don't want to outsource your thinking. I do not think that's a good idea, especially as a leader.

I I totally agree. It's helpful as an editor, but maybe not as a writer. Exactly. Awesome, man. Thank you so much. Hey, I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. This was great.

Yo, host a host an event. If you host a meetup, let us know. If you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment and say hello.

Love it, man. Thank you, dude.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Easiest Way to Strengthen Your Network This Year | Nick Gray’s PLAYBOOK"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Nick Gray (Guest).

What is "The Easiest Way to Strengthen Your Network This Year | Nick Gray’s PLAYBOOK" about?

Nick Gray emphasizes the importance of hosting events as a way for leaders to strengthen their networks by connecting interesting people. By creating opportunities for social interactions and adding value before seeking it, leaders can foster relationships that are enjoyable and meaningful, ultimately enhancing their influence and community connections.

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

43 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including master of ceremonies (MC), Nick Gray, personal website, Google LLC, Artificial Intelligence, RSVP. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Easiest Way to Strengthen Your Network This Year | Nick Gray’s PLAYBOOK"?

The episode runs 52 min; the transcript is about 9,876 words in 111 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.