Networking Expert’s Cheat Codes for Building a Personal Brand & Community That Converts

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Slay The Gatekeeper – "Networking Expert’s Cheat Codes for Building a Personal Brand & Community That Converts"

Host: Courtney Johnson
Guest: Nick Gray
Date: October 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into actionable “cheat codes” for building a personal brand, networking, and community-building that actually lead to opportunity and conversions. Courtney Johnson and networking expert Nick Gray get tactical about hosting meetups, building authentic relationships, leveraging newsletters, overcoming fear, and injecting playfulness into the tactical grind. The goal? To give listeners step-by-step, real-life strategies for slaying the gatekeepers—by becoming the person who can open doors for yourself and others.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Building Your Own Stage & Personal Brand

• Main insight: Don’t wait for permission or invitations—create your own opportunities.
• “If they won't give you a stage, then build your own.” – Nick Gray [00:00]
• Being visible and top-of-mind is more important than perfection.
  • “It doesn't matter how bad the post is. It doesn't matter if it's breaking all the rules. You gotta get the consistency first. Then we can optimize.” – Courtney Johnson [00:03]
• The role of personal brand: People do business with people they like and recognize.
  • “People want to do business with people they like. They learn about you through your personal brand.” – Nick Gray [00:17]
• Most people are not proactive—those who show up consistently gain outsized opportunities.

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2. Stretch Activities & Overcoming Fear

• Courtney shares her “stretch” activity—reaching out to 25 aspirational guests.
  • “I had like seven of the 25 say yes.” – Courtney Johnson [01:34]
• Perseverance pays: Invite until they say yes.
  • Nick recalls a story about inviting a famous author, underscoring that tenacity creates access. [02:10]

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3. What Can You Offer? The “Give First” Mindset

• Many aspiring connectors stall because they feel they don’t have value to add.
  • “I feel like I need something to add to them... That feels very take, take, take.” – Nick Gray [03:47]
• Courtney reminds listeners that community and personal brand are assets that high-level people often lack.
  • “Community, personal brand are huge assets... that you probably think are really obvious that a lot of those people don't have.” – Courtney Johnson [04:14]

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4. Personal Websites: When & Why?

• Hot take: Don’t waste resources on a fancy website right away.
  • “I tell them not to do it at first until they're consistent posting on social media because no one's gonna find their website.” – Courtney Johnson [05:01]
• Nick agrees but advocates for at least owning a domain and putting up a very simple page for Google search credibility.
  • “Everybody should have maybe their own domain name and a simple homepage... ideally they want a simple homepage.” – Nick Gray [05:49]
• Tools: Carrd ($20/year), redirecting to a Google Doc for simplicity.

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5. Cheat Code: Airport Rides

• Nick describes offering airport pickups as a unique, memorable networking tactic.
  • “Let me come and scoop you up. I live 10 minutes from the airport... no coffee, no lunch, no expectations, but I'll just snag you.” – Nick Gray [07:38]
• The key is to add value without asking for anything.
• This technique only works with some pre-existing social proof.
  • Included anecdote: picking up the Morning Brew founder led to deeper connection over tacos. [08:41]
• Courtney’s team plans immediate implementation, especially for high-traffic events.

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6. Cheat Code: Hosting Meetups

• Create your own opportunities: Host your own events, even if they’re small.

  • “If they won't give you a stage, then build your own.” – Nick Gray [10:29]
  • “I'm gonna make my own meetup, and I'm gonna speak at my own meetup. Boom. I'm a South by Southwest speaker.” – Courtney Johnson [09:48]

• Execution tactics:

  • Use “green level days” (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) instead of busy social times to maximize attendance and minimize no-shows.
    • “Red level days… Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday… I call those red level days because they are socially competitive.” – Nick Gray [14:49]
  • Start with a “core group” for social proof (“If only these people come, it will still be good.”)
  • Time block events: Set a clear start and end time—2 hours is ideal at first.
  • One-to-one invitations outperform group blast messages.

• Benefits:

  • Meetups lead to business opportunities and top-of-mind awareness.
  • In-person events have far higher conversion to clients than webinars or posts.

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7. Scaling Up: From Meetups to Conferences

• Host smaller events to gain confidence before bigger commitments.

  • “Hosting a full day or multi day event is running. Host a meetup and get the reps first.” – Nick Gray [20:20]

• Consider starting with half-day events to avoid food/logistics fatigue.

• Venue hacks: Unconventional spaces (e.g., furniture/rug stores) can be easier, more beautiful, and affordable.

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8. Friends' Newsletter: The Networker’s Secret Weapon

• Nick’s quarterly friends’ newsletter keeps weak ties strong over time.
  • Newsletter prompts: Three favorite recent watches, books, things you’ve bought, life updates, a selfie.
  • “These are those weak ties where we find we really get the best benefits in life.” – Nick Gray [27:19]
  • Success story: A distant Airbnb guest-turned-newsletter subscriber hired him for a high-paying gig 15 years later.
• “If you’re overwhelmed by content, try a quarterly friends’ update instead.” – Courtney Johnson [28:31]

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9. Integrating Vulnerability & Authenticity

• Adding a “real” human component (photos, life, struggle, humor) makes your brand and content memorable.
  • “I have a great example… [client integrated personal interests] and became a category of one.” – Courtney Johnson [32:51]
• Recognize true boundaries vs. fears posing as boundaries:
  • “Our ego can be very sneaky, our fears can be sneaky and we can disguise a fear as a boundary.” – Courtney Johnson [34:26]

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10. Consistency vs. Optimization: Posting Content

• Focus on consistency first, optimizing later.
  • “There's the consistency game and the optimization game.” – Courtney Johnson [32:51]
  • For beginners, start by curating content (books, podcasts), not just original posts.
  • “At least once a week” is enough to be in the top 2% on LinkedIn [37:02]
  • “You just have to do it. And that's gonna get you opportunities that people that are way too afraid to do it will never get.” – Courtney Johnson [41:08]

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11. Playfulness: The Ultimate Cheat Code

• Your vibe attracts your tribe—fun converts.
  • “People want to be around people that are having fun.” – Courtney Johnson [44:21]
  • Nick’s story: Only works on things he’s passionate about, even if he leaves money on the table. [45:02]

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12. Show Up With Curiosity & Diversity

• Invite people from varied backgrounds for richer events and relationships.
  • “If you're going to host a meetup, don't only invite business people. You want to invite your creative friends... It makes the event a little richer.” – Nick Gray [46:48]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• [00:00] Nick Gray: “If they won't give you a stage, then build your own.”
• [00:22] Courtney Johnson: “We don't want to research, we want to just go with the person our brain tells us... because I see their LinkedIn posts.”
• [05:01] Courtney Johnson: “No one's gonna find their website... it's a procrastination tool 100%.”
• [07:38] Nick Gray: “Let me come and scoop you up. I live 10 minutes from the airport. I'll drive you right to your first meeting.”
• [10:29] Nick Gray: “If they won’t give you a stage, then build your own.”
• [14:49] Nick Gray: “Red level days… I call those red level days because they are socially competitive.”
• [27:19] Nick Gray: “It's not that our best friends refer clients to us. It's this random person that we haven't talked to in a year who says, oh my gosh, yes, this person really helps with personal branding.”
• [32:51] Courtney Johnson: “It's what makes you a category of one... you become and you can demand so much more money and resources.”
• [34:26] Courtney Johnson: “Our ego can be very sneaky, our fears can be sneaky and we can disguise a fear as a boundary.”
• [41:08] Courtney Johnson: “You just have to do it. And that's gonna get you opportunities that people that are way too afraid to do it will never get.”
• [44:21] Courtney Johnson: “People want to be around people that are having fun.”
• [46:48] Nick Gray: “Don't only invite business people.... It makes the event a little richer.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – 01:36: Stage-setting & value of “building your own stage”
• 03:46 – 05:49: Addressing “what can I give?”; the value of non-obvious assets
• 05:49 – 07:11: Debating personal websites—when and why to launch
• 07:35 – 09:47: Airport rides as a cheat code
• 09:47 – 12:28: Hosting meetups—DIY stage-building, moving from meetup to conference
• 14:49 – 19:26: Tactical breakdown of hosting a meetup and maximizing attendance
• 25:34 – 30:41: Friends’ newsletter—framework and impact
• 32:51 – 37:02: Consistency vs. optimization, content curation for the hesitant
• 41:38 – 42:51: Top-of-mind awareness & why in-person events beat digital
• 44:21 – 47:32: Playfulness as a business tactic, injecting fun
• 47:37 – 51:34: Nick’s dreams, new projects, and how to connect with him

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Final Takeaways

• Consistency beats perfection. Start with small, doable actions—even before you feel “ready.”
• Offer value first: host, curate, convene, connect others.
• Networking “cheat codes” (airport rides, meetups, newsletters) are all rooted in genuine generosity and playfulness.
• Mix the personal and the professional to create your unique “category of one.”
• In-person beats digital for results—don’t be afraid to start small.

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Find more from Nick Gray:

• nickgraynews.com
• “Friends’ Newsletter” sign-up available on his website.

Host: Courtney Johnson
Podcast: Slay the Gatekeeper

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Action Step: Host a meetup!

Transcript

[Nick Gray]

If they won't give you a stage, then build your own.

[Courtney Johnson]

It doesn't matter how bad the post is. It doesn't matter if it's breaking all the rules. You gotta get the consistency first. Then we can optimize. A lot of times our ego can be very sneaky, our fears can be sneaky, and we can disguise a fear as a boundary.

[Nick Gray]

People want to do business with people they like. They learn about you through your personal brand.

[Courtney Johnson]

We're lazy. We don't want to research, we don't want to go find the best speaker. We. We want to just go with the person our brain tells us, oh, I'll book them for the speaking event because I see their LinkedIn posts.

[Nick Gray]

People come to meetups because of who they're going to meet, and they want to meet really interesting people. And you as a host can do a few simple things to make your meetups better than everybody else and to run the best meetup in town.

[Courtney Johnson]

Getting results from personal brand is so easy because you don't even have to be, like, the craziest content creator, the best video editor, the most amazing writer. That all comes with repetition, and that's gonna get you opportunities that people that are way too afraid to do it will never get. Welcome to Slay the Gatekeeper. I'm your host, Courtney Johnson, and I am here to un gatekeep the gatekept. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy. Hi, Nick.

[Nick Gray]

Hello. Hi.

[Courtney Johnson]

So I have a funny story to tell you.

[Nick Gray]

I can't wait.

[Courtney Johnson]

I was doing a leadership coaching program where we had some stretches we got to do, and one of my stretches was to list 25 people that I really wanted on my podcast that were really stretchy. And I'm like, they're all gonna say no. You were actually on that list.

[Nick Gray]

Really?

[Courtney Johnson]

I had, like, seven of the 25 say yes.

[Nick Gray]

Thanks for including me. Yeah, I really appreciate it. That's a cool activity. So the idea was what to list stretches of, like, stuff like, ooh, maybe I could talk to this person. Like, like what seems like a reach. And then it was a challenge to you to reach out to them.

[Courtney Johnson]

Exactly. So for some people, it was asking people to be on your board or ask collaborations or some people's even asking for donations for a cause they were fundraising for. And mine just happened to be podcasts. And it was. It's a great. A great stretch.

[Nick Gray]

That's nice. I like that. This reminds me of a story number one. Like, I should do this.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Nick Gray]

To think about, like, hey, who do I Want to meet? Who would I want to invite? What would a stretch be like here in Austin then to reach out to them? And I do less of that. But when I first started hosting events in New York City, I went to this one woman's dinner and she had a very famous author at her dinner. And this was like, I'm not trying to speak negatively, but I thought she was like kind of a nobody. I feel bad saying that, but like, do you know what I mean? It was like. And she had what was the equivalent of like Seth Godin or somebody like that who came to this dinner. And I was like, how did this girl, this woman, get this guy to come? And she said, well, I just invited him. And he said no for like four or five months. And eventually when I kept inviting him, it eventually worked out and he said yes. And I was like, oh my God. God, you can just do things. You can just invite people to stuff and eventually they might come. Which I thought was so inspiring.

[Courtney Johnson]

We. We have free will.

[Nick Gray]

Yeah.

[Courtney Johnson]

What's like one or two people that you. That would be on that list for you?

[Nick Gray]

Two people in Austin that I can think about. One is a guy named Joe Lonsdale. Joe Lonsdale was like a co founder of Palantir and some other things. I think he's a really smart guy. He started multi, many multi billion dollar businesses. The other is a guy that I've just heard is really cool. His name is Zach. He's Michael Dell's son. And apparently he is like out to prove that he can make his own way. And he's doing this like energy battery storage technology stuff. But from all the entrepreneurs I meet with here in Austin, they say like, oh yeah, he is like an up and comer, like a young hustler who's just killing it what's in the gap.

[Courtney Johnson]

Of you and reaching out to them.

[Nick Gray]

I feel like I need something to add to them or like something that. That feels more give than take. Because now for me to reach out to them, I would just be soaking it up and just be like, dude, I want to learn from you. What is your life like? That feels very take, take, take. At this point in my life, I don't feel like I have something to truly give them. I'd really have to think, wow, what could I give to them to make it worthwhile for them to meet with me before I try to take something?

[Courtney Johnson]

I would say community, personal, brand are huge assets that you have that you probably think are really obvious that a lot of those people don't have especially like I want to prove myself. I want to show people that I can do it. Like great. And you can do that through a personal brand. Right? I think you, you got so much value there.

[Nick Gray]

Oh wait, I forgot something else that I want to talk about.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Nick Gray]

I think that your listeners and viewers, they need to have their own personal website and I want to hear what your thoughts are on this. If you advise people as they're building their personal brand, what do you tell them? I have my own thoughts, but I want to know what are your thoughts? What do you tell them Whether it's on LinkedIn or something else, of creating their own personal website.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I think we're gonna disagree on this one.

[Nick Gray]

Okay.

[Courtney Johnson]

I tell them not to do it at first until they're consistent posting on social media because no one's gonna find their website. It doesn't matter to have a website. And what I see, a mistake I see people make is they drop ten grand and spend four months building this website where that time and money would be better suited of building the audience and, and then sending them to the website. Cause a lot of times they're like, well my initial goal is just to get enough coaching calls or consulting clients or design clients to where I can leave my full time job. And in that space you gotta go client first. It's not the branding and the positioning, it's whatever. Get a paid calendly link up, start getting consistent there and then build a website. So I just think it's, I think it's great and helpful and really establishes a lot of authority and can be a procrastination tool 100%.

[Nick Gray]

So yes, I agree with you. Plus if somebody's spending even a thousand dollars or more on their personal website, they, it might not be a good fit for them. Full disclosure, do you sell this to people? Can they hire you or your company to build a personal website for them? You should maybe as like an add on service or something. So here's what I think about a personal website. Number one, I think that they should not do it until they're consistent and posting online a lot. But I do think that everybody should have maybe their own domain name and a simple homepage that literally can just be like a Google Docs file that maybe they just redirect it to something. But ideally they want a simple homepage. One of the services I like is called Carrd C A R R D. It's $20 a year, helps you put up a basic page, you can make it in 30 minutes but I like people having. Once they've been posting for like a year and they built up something, I like it simply for the Google search results on their name. And I've heard from people that are recruiters that whenever they find that somebody has their own personal website in addition to their LinkedIn and other stuff, that it is a small signal that they're like, oh, cool. Like, this is a small positive marker.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I do agree. I think it's a matter of just getting it out rather than getting it perfect.

[Nick Gray]

Yes.

[Courtney Johnson]

I love carrd too.

[Nick Gray]

Yeah.

[Courtney Johnson]

So you've got some really good, insane cheat codes. And what I love about you and your work is it's so tactical. It's so like, you can in your book too, you can implement this today. And one of my favorite, favorite cheat codes you've ever talked about is airport rides. When I saw this, I'm like, I'm immediately implementing it, telling my team to implement this for me at south by Southwest. Tell me about airport rides.

[Nick Gray]

Wait, you have to do it at south by.

[Courtney Johnson]

Absolutely.

[Nick Gray]

So we'll link to this in the show notes. But I wrote an article that basically said, look, I got to meet all these really interesting people by just saying, hey, I will pick you up at the airport during south by. Or during ACL or sometime when I knew that they were coming here to Austin. Now, I happen to live in a city like you do, where if you want to get an Uber or a Lyft or a ride share, you have to walk a long way from when you get out at the airport. The same thing happens in New York City and Los Angeles and some other cities where the rideshare can't pull right up to the gate and however people can. And so I tell people this, I'm like, hey, you're coming to Austin. Let me come and scoop you up. I live 10 minutes from the airport. I'll grab you and I'll drive you right to your first meeting. No coffee, no lunch, no expectations, but I'll just snag you. And I think this really only works if you are someone like you or me or someone with a little bit of existing social proof. So I don't think it would work if you're an absolute nobody with no social media where someone can't do a little bit of due diligence on you because they do want to know if it's safe. Right. But the gist is that I just reach out to folks. I say, hey, you're coming in town. Let me grab you. I'll Drive you straight to your next meeting and we get a chance to say hello. I'm not asking for anything. When they show up, I have, like, a little cooler made with, like, little drinks or seltzers. I love Diet Coke and Coke Zero. So I have some sodas, some seltzer water, some little snacks, and I drive them to where they're going. Now, a great way that this worked out for me was one of the founders of Morning Brew, which is an email newsletter, was coming to Austin. I said that I was going to drive him straight to his meeting. The important thing is to never say to them, like, oh, let's get coffee. I'd love to pick your brain. But he was the one who said, hey, I'm really hungry before my meeting. Is there a place in town we can grab a bite to eat? And then I got to spend, like, an hour with him having tacos and hanging out, which was really nice. And it's allowed me doing that. I've got to meet some pretty interesting people and spend quality time with them.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I see Alex Lieberman, Nick Cuber, Cody Sanchez, Noah Kagan, like, and more and more and more airport rides.

[Nick Gray]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Courtney Johnson]

All right. I'm implementing this immediately. Love it. Okay, next cheat code is hosting meetups. I mean, this is, I feel like the ultimate cheat code. I. I wanted to speak last year at south by Southwest, and in order to get in the energy of it, I said, okay, I'm gonna make my own meetup, and I'm gonna speak at my own meetup. Boom. I'm a South by Southwest speaker. Then stuff started to happen because, like, I'm speaking during south by Southwest. I started getting way more speaking opportunities around it because I made it up. I didn't make it up. I really hosted an event, and it was really there, but it was just a meetup. And that's one outcome that can come with it. But there's so much more. So, yeah, curious. Your cheat codes around. Around meetups.

[Nick Gray]

Um, I love that you did something really great, which was sort of like, if they won't give you a stage, then build your own. And that's really the way to do it, especially for someone like you, who has such a great audience and knows so many like me. Also, practical, tactical tips that really help people with the hosting meetups. It's kind of in the same vein. I think you'll notice of a lot of my theme of what I do, which is try to add value first before you try to ask anything of somebody else.

[Courtney Johnson]

And.

[Nick Gray]

And a good Way to host a meetup would be to think hey, how can I actually do a good meetup that people would enjoy? Well, the reality is is that today most meetups are so bad they're just show up and hang out and maybe talk to somebody there. But it's really left up to the guest to like build up the confidence and figure out who should I talk to and go up and talk to them. I think we have to be realistic. People come to meetups because of who they're going to meet and they want to meet really interesting. And you as a host can do a few simple things to make your meetups better than everybody else and to run the best meetup in town. Before I continue and talk about that, is this on the right track of what hosting a meetup wise you think that your listeners would want? Because I want to give them what would be helpful. But can you tell me what's the mindset? Why might they want to host one where for what purpose? Things like that. And then I'll give really good advice.

[Courtney Johnson]

The mindset is they want to usually they want to create something really big. Eventually they want to create a conference, they want to run retreats, they want to facilitate big circles and they might think that one day the perfect opportunity is going to drop down and I'll own a whole retreat when really it's getting in the practice of bringing people together, facilitating people, leading people, that slowly builds up to something bigger and bigger. So how I think about it and share this with my clients is what's the minimum viable product on the ultimate dream. And Meetups is a great, a great mvp.

[Nick Gray]

I love this by the way. Sponsor break. Don't you have a mastermind or something?

[Courtney Johnson]

Yes, I do have a retreat coming up.

[Nick Gray]

When is it coming?

[Courtney Johnson]

Fully focused retreat? It's in October actually. I'll put the official dates in the show notes. But it's really cool. It's just a co working retreat. So it's women entrepreneurs come together. Time away from kids and family and responsibilities. Everything is taken care of of you know, yoga class, workouts, food, cleaning, everything. So you just get to show up and dedicate all that time to whatever project your book, your new website launch, your whatever it might be. And it's just a really, yeah, a really great time to be in fully like full focus mode. And this is like guided co working sessions around it. It's really fun.

[Nick Gray]

Do you guys do like pomodoro sessions for that or focus sprints?

[Courtney Johnson]

It's focus sprints. Yeah, it's Two hour focus sprints where we start with the meditation, intention setting, like physically wr writing down what we're doing. Then we have a really cool like curated playlist that are actually like scientifically backed to put you in in focus flow. And we have scents that put you in focus flow, we have supplements that put you in focus flow. It's the whole thing is super optimized for your deepest work.

[Nick Gray]

What I love about this is it's a retreat that gets people to produce actual results. It's not one of these entrepreneur things where you just get filled with hope and motivation and then it's left to you to do it. It's really said, hey, let's get hyped up, let's make a plan and now let's do the work. Which I think we need more retreats like that.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, it's not separating from day to day, it's like fully integrating the day to day. And I do see this as a huge, I've done a ton of co working meetups and I actually see this as a huge future of meetups because we have so much information. We have, we can, we have all the world information at the tip of our fingers and AI that can tell us exactly the right steps. It's the implementation that's the gap. And so I love hosting co working meetups where we're all going to be at this coffee shop for three hours. We'll talk for 15 minutes, it's no talking for two hours and then we could talk for 30 minutes. Just a great way to bring people together. That's a win win because people are already working. Where I find it can be hard to be like after you're done working now, come to this happy hour. But if I'm like, it's a Wednesday, you're going to get that big project done and you're going to get an entire day's work done in three hours. And like anybody will come.

[Nick Gray]

So let's take that idea of hosting a coworking meetup and let's break it down for how your listeners could actually host their own. Yeah, here are the things that I've found. Number one, I find that there are what I call red level days and green level days for hosting events for a happy hour or for a meetup at night or something that's after work. Red level days, which I don't recommend, people starting with are generally like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I call those red level days because they are socially competitive. There are times when people have other events going on. They may get invited to something out, you're more likely to get no shows. And the reality is, what do you think the number one fear for a new host is?

[Courtney Johnson]

No one will show up.

[Nick Gray]

That no one will show up. Right. That is the number one fear. And I've helped hundreds and hundreds of people host their own first meetup to know that when you host on days that are green level days, like Tuesdays and Wednesdays right now are my favorite days for hosting, you get more people to say yes and you get less people who no show and flake out because of other commitments. So let's say that somebody wants to host a co working meetup. What I've found is that when you time block something with a two hour time, this works for happy hours at night as well. But also I think it could work for co working. Maybe you'd want to stretch it. But I do find that two hours is an easy amount of time to say yes for something. Now, of course you can extend it and it can go later, but when you list both a start time and an end time, that's what really makes this successful. So I would suggest for somebody that if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I really want to host a coworking meetup, by the way, I'm not sure if that's the best place to start. I still think a happy hour type meetup might be a little better. But let's just riff on this idea. If I was going to do it, what I would do is something like 9 to 11am on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning. I'd find a cafe that has a table where we can sit. And then I would do one very important thing Before I announce to the world that I'm hosting this meetup. I would get what's called my core group and that would be that I would reach out to a couple close friends or people I know online. I'd say, hey, I'm thinking about hosting this co working meetup. Do you want to come? And if I did it at this date and time, would you come? Then I would get a couple people who would say yes to that date. And then I'd be like, okay, cool. I've got, let's say five people who I know are going to come. And if only those people come, then it will be successful. That's when I create the partyful invite. That's when I create some sort of rsvp. I share it to more people. But by doing a couple of those things, number one, choosing A green level day, not a red level day, two time, blocking it for only two hours. Set a start time and an end time and then picking a core group that I know will say yes first. That helps me get over that fear that nobody else will come. It builds the social proof that others have RSVP'd. And then I could invite some more people.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I do something similar. I don't do this as much now cause I have a bigger audience. But when I was starting any offer I would create, I would find a few people that I had mentored and been like, can you join this class, this course, whatever, for free, in exchange for being really active in the zoom comments, being really active in the chat, leaving a great review, like all of that. So I knew I had this comfort of like, look, even if nobody signs up for this, even if nobody come to this class, I know that these people will be there and at least I can beta test it with them. It really is like an expectation setting because you got to invite like I don't know, I feel like what, what's a show up rate?

[Nick Gray]

Like 30% probably for live events, for, for free meetups it is around 30% and I think I did find a way to boost that over 80 or 90%.

[Courtney Johnson]

Wow.

[Nick Gray]

By hosting on these green level days, doing a lot of reminder messages, doing double opt ins so we don't just blast it out. For example, maybe somebody's thinking, oh my God, who am I going to invite? Oh, I'm in this WhatsApp group with people in town. I'll just share the link there. You can't do that. You have to invite people one to one through the DMs, through text message, through email, and then you tell them the date and time and if they say yes, then you send them a link to sign up an rsvp. Sending reminder messages is helpful. There's a lot of specific tactics I've learned for hosting a good meetup, but I do want to riff a little bit on what about for someone who wants to host their first, what is it exactly? Their Mastermind conference. Will you talk a little bit about what type of person that might be? Maybe we can riff on it a little bit for someone who may want to do that and I'll try to add any advice that I have there.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, I attract a lot of clients that have ability, big dream and desire to transform the way that we connect in business. So a lot of, a lot of my clients have dreams of either conferences or retreats or like one day, huge workshops with 50 to 200 people where there's an integration of wellness, connection, inspiration and business. And a lot of times they haven't done anything yet. So yeah, we kind of riff on this. Another recommendation that I usually give them too is like find brands that are already doing events and you can plug in whatever you want into their activations. Like, I find that a lot of brands, for example Novo is my bank account and I've done a lot of partnerships with them. They're actively looking. They're like, we got budget and location and everything. We want a creator to come in and tell us what to do and create some sort of event. So that's always. That's also a direction I've seen people have success in.

[Nick Gray]

I do like that idea of latching onto a brand who may want a little bit of programming or something like that. So you're doing something amazing which is you're telling people you need to walk before you can run. And hosting a full day or multi day event is running. What I have seen and I think what you don't want for your clients is that the average person who tries to pull this off will do it exactly once, get burned out and say that was simultaneously the best thing I've ever done and the last thing I want to do again because it just destroyed me and they just get completely burned out and they don't know what to do. So I would say that hosting a meetup and getting familiar and the confidence of running programming would be the best thing that they should do. Now what I did before I hosted one of my first conferences was I hosted a lot of meetups and then I hosted a half day event and I chose to host something from 1pm to 5pm so that I didn't have to deal with meals and food. That removes a huge piece of the logistics that I'm sure you know is just like an absolute nightmare. But once I could get people into that 1 to 5pm time slot, it got us out of the happy hour, out of the casual and into their work day. And that half day slot was a really interesting spot to play with. I wrote up a whole blog post, an article that we'll link in the show notes of exactly what my schedule was and the agenda and how I broke that down. But I would suggest your people who really want to host a retreat or a full day thing or a mastermind or a conference to build up the reps of hosting things like a meetup, like a half day, then a full day, trying to get away from as much catering and meal service as possible. So, for example, if they wanted to do a full day doing something like maybe 10am to 5pm with like, optional lunch, that's off site. And I say that the lunch is the hard part, but maybe they feel great about this. And, like, you know what? I can host lunch myself. This is no problem. I found that I don't want to be an event planner. Like, I want to be an event host. And the less that I can get into food and logistics and venue stuff, the more that I can stay in my zone of genius, which is like teaching and hosting that. That's a lot better.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, the article is really good. I'll, I. I'll put it in the show notes. And I really encourage everybody because it's literally step by step ex what you did, how much you charged, how it went, the entire itinerary. It's fantastic.

[Nick Gray]

One pro tip, by the way, that I heard there's this guy who's built here in Texas an incredibly profitable business by hosting what are kind of meetups, but instead of a meetup, he calls it a symposium. And he gets a couple speakers to just, like, sit on stage and talk for a little bit. And he charges $100 per thing. He gives away a lot of free tickets. And then on the back end, he has a funnel for where he gives away free tickets to his $99 symposium, but then charges them to be in sort of a mastermind where they get to be on zoom calls and things like that. And by that one little trick of calling it a symposium, he gets people really into the professional personal development mindset and not of the meetup, social networking happy hour. I think it's a really smart thing to do. He also hosts it sometimes at these really nice furniture stores that will. That are, like, amazingly decorated, don't get a lot of traffic from like 5 to 8pm and he'll come in and be like, hey, can I bring like a B2B audience into this beautiful space? Let us set up a little thing. We'll have about a hundred people, and they're always really happy to do it.

[Courtney Johnson]

That's genius. I actually have. There's a store in Austin I would love to host at. It's a Turkish rug store. There's just this really cool old guy that, like, gives you Turkish coffee every time you go. It's just so beautiful. It's like an entire room. Ceiling, walls, everything is rug. So I'm gonna have my event there.

[Nick Gray]

I like this idea.

[Courtney Johnson]

I'm sure he'd be happy.

[Nick Gray]

I like this idea.

[Courtney Johnson (Intro Voice)]

I get it. You wanna create content but you're stuck. You feel like you start creating content and then you stop, you push and then you pull back back. You create this big strategy and you don't actually implement it. And I know you, I know that you have a million content ideas in your notes app that you just haven't actually started to create. This is exactly why I created Content Club. I created Content Club to be a place where you can come and bring all of those ideas and we guide you through the content creation. So what is Content Club? We meet every single morning at 8am Central Time. My team and I give you a prompt, we give you brainstorming, we give you coaching support. We all create the content together and we all post together and like and comment and engage on each other's posts. So if you are desiring a community and a container that can help support your content creation and bring you into being a extraordinary and results driven and containers consistent content creator, I will see you tomorrow morning 8am Central on Zoom In Content Club.

[Courtney Johnson]

Okay, our next cheat code is around your friend's newsletter. Yeah, love it. Tell me about this.

[Nick Gray]

So I think all your listeners should have their own friends newsletter that they add your friends and family to it sort of against their will and it could be a quarterly update that they send out. And the important thing is you have to add value. And so if you're thinking what would I include in my friend's newsletter? I'll tell you exactly what. Number one, look through your Netflix history. Look through whatever you watch online, YouTube, Netflix, short form video, whatever, and pick out three or four of the best things that you've watched. If you listen to podcasts, choose three or four of the best episodes that you've gotten the most value from. If you're a reader and you read a lot of books, pick the best books that you've enjoyed over the last year or last few months and tell people what those are and why you like them. Next, look through your Amazon order history or if you buy things elsewhere, what are some of the best things that you've bought that you use every single day? It could be fashion, maybe I bought this new blue shirt that I love, or these new shoes. What are some things? I want you to pick three books, three things you've watched, and three things you've bought. And let's lead with that by adding value to show people because everybody loves to discover new things. Next, you're gonna list some little life updates. What's new in your career? What projects are you working on? Do you have any new house projects, whatever? And then finally you're gonna add a selfie or one cool photo. So look through your camera roll, go to your favorites if that's helpful. Find a good photo and add that there at the very end. Send this out. Tell people at the top, hey, this is my quarterly friends newsletter. I'm just trying to send out some updates. It's hard to stay in touch with social media. Send me back a note if you don't want to receive it. I won't be offended, but I'll try to send it out in another few months. And if you get into the cadence of sending that, what you're going to do is grow your network of what they call loose connections. And these are those weak ties where we find we really get the best benefits in life. It's not that our best friends refer clients to us. It's this random person that we haven't talked to in a year who says, oh, oh my gosh, yes, this person really helps with personal branding. Oh, you gotta reach out to her. I think I get her newsletter somewhere. So that's my suggestion on how to start it. I've been doing my own for 15 years probably, and I've met some incredible people who they just still read my newsletter. Maybe I haven't talked to them literally in years. Specifically, I'll give you one example. One guy who joined my newsletter, I think I added him because he liked, stayed at my apartment when I had an Airbnb in New York City. And like I still stayed in touch with him because he was on my newsletter through all the years. And he recently hired me for this conference, flew me out, and I think I'll probably make 30 or 40 grand on that one conference from hosting from this guy who was on my newsletter from 15 years ago. And we just stayed in touch through all those years.

[Courtney Johnson]

That's so awesome. That's also such a good maybe alternative, maybe addition to content. A lot of people feel overwhelmed on content. They're like, Courtney, I'm just never gonna make. I think that's a really good either edition or alternative if they're super against content for the listeners. Layla Shakely also does this, so she was like my very first podcast guest, I think. But she was inspired by your quarterly newsletter and her hers is really great too. She like gives updates on her kids and her business and it's really cool.

[Nick Gray]

Friends newsletters are great. And if you're already posting on social by the way. A great way to figure out what to put in your newsletter is just look through your past content. What has the most engagement. Create little summaries of the stuff that you're already posting. Link to it from your newsletter if you want to be like, hey, boom, boom, boom, I wrote about this, whatever. But sending out these quarterly newsletters is a really great supplement to people who maybe already follow you. And it's also a way for you to add a little more personal life updates that you might not feel comfortable sharing on a public post for the whole world to see. And so that could be as simple as just like, hey, here's some, like, here's my skincare routine, right? Like, I'm never going to share. Like, like, as a guy, like, who am I to share about my skincare? But maybe I am going to say, hey, I started this vitamin C serum and like, I'm using it in mornings. It seems pretty cool. Sharing that type of personal stuff is important for these newsletters. And you do want to add value and make it personal, make people feel like this isn't just a summary of your social media that feels inauthentic, but that does feel a little vulnerable.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, yeah, you definitely have included a lot of vulnerability. You've talked about dating, you've talked about like hair loss, about travel, about your personal life, your personal struggles. Like, I find a lot of people in their personal brand have a hard time integrating other areas of their life into their personal brand. It's very like graphic design. I'm a graphic designer. Here are three graphic design tips, blah, blah, blah, without integrating anything personal. So what would you tell those people that are like, oh, that feels really, really scary and crunchy? Because it's not just your friend's newsletter. You also blog about those topics. You post about those topics.

[Nick Gray]

Let me think about how to share that because I'll share my journey. My journey was when I was in my 20s, I worked in the aviation industry, which was extremely conservative and not a lot of people sharing online. It would have been more harmful for me to share online. And so I didn't. They didn't really share online. And that's why I did my friends newsletters, because I didn't have the space to really post sort of publicly. So I did friends newsletters as a way to share about what was going on in my life. I would say that I was really influenced by a book named Storyworthy by a guy named Matthew Dix. And Matthew Dix is a acclaimed moth storyteller who tells the best personal Stories. And his book really helped me think about telling stories. What is the hook? How do we tell stories that are impactful to change the way that I write and share online? I think that it really depends on the person as far as how vulnerable they want to be. Because there is fake vulnerability that I'm sure. We've seen a lot of stuff on LinkedIn that gets blasted for people who do that. I don't have a good piece of advice besides saying that. A VC friend of mine who was sending a weekly newsletter, I really encouraged her to add a weekly selfie at the bottom of her newsletter because the newsletter was just so business focused. It was just all business and deals and it was coming from her, from her name, but it was just all deals and no photo of her or anything. And so she didn't want to do it. And then she eventually did and she said that selfie is now the most commented on. People say they always look for it. When I forget it, people say what happen happened. It gets people to scroll to the very bottom of the newsletter. It adds this human touch to an. Otherwise it's just a boring news like aggregation. And now that she adds that personal touch, it really gets people to read more and really to engage more. So I think that stuff is helpful. You probably see it too, right? When do you tell people to add photos to their social posts? Especially LinkedIn.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, at first I tell people just to get consistency, right? Just to drive to the gym. It's just post on LinkedIn. It doesn't matter how bad the post is. It doesn't matter if it's breaking all the rules. You gotta get the consistency first. Then we can optimize. Because I find that people get way too overwhelmed when it's like, no, you didn't do that, right? And we have, it's. There's, there's two games. There's the consistency game and the optimization game. So once we get to the optimization game where we're like, great, now you've posted 20 times, you're feeling like you're in a flow. Let's optimize. Usually the first thing I tell them is to start integrating personal photos. Even if it's just a picture of their coffee at their desk, it always performs better. And what I would say to the integrating personal and business is it's what makes you a category of one, right? If you only talked about, say like exiting your companies and you only talked about selling a company, whatever, and none of this other stuff was a part of you, it'd be Boring. You would be like every other newsletter that talks about a company X. It just doesn't. No one cares. Right. But once you integrate all parts of you that you love networking and you love to travel and you have these fun tips and you write books like that is what creates a category of one where you are the only Nick. So I encourage people. I have a great example of this. I had a client that was. She's a marketer and she was obsessed with video games and she's also from Canada and speaks French. She was so hesitant to post about her love for video games and she didn't think it was relevant that she spoke French well. She started integrating this into her content. She gets hired as a marketing lead for a gaming company to market to French Canadian audience. Right. She is a category of 1. How few people are marketing experts who speak French from Canada and are obsessed with these certain video games? Right. You become and you can demand so much more money and resources. If you are a category of one, you are the only one to solve that problem. So what I ask my clients is, is this coming from a true boundary or a fear? The true boundary is I don't post about my kids online. I don't post about my partner, they haven't consented to that. Or, you know, I don't talk about my business until I leave the business because my clients are confidential. Whatever, stuff like that. That is a true boundary. But a lot of times our ego can be very sneaky, our fears can be sneaky and we can disguise a fear as a boundary. Oh, I don't talk about health. I. I just don't. But maybe really that talking about your health journey is the unlock that actually gets people to want to work with you because they see themselves in that journey. So it's like getting really, really clear on, on the fear versus boundary.

[Nick Gray]

I have more questions getting clear on the fear versus the boundary. And so the boundary is a hard line. I don't post about my kids. The fear is like, I don't want to talk about my health journey. That's not important. Like, how does that go with me growing my lawn care business? Right. When you tell people to get started. So there's two games that you said, one is the consistency game, the other is the optimization game. Is that right?

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah.

[Nick Gray]

When you tell them just get started on the consistency game. Does somebody wonder, like, oh, this is my first. Like, I haven't posted in a year. Like, what do I even post? Like, my first post has to be a banger. That must Come up a lot. And what do you tell them?

[Courtney Johnson]

It does come up a lot. And what I tell them is to focus out. So the first posts don't need to be about yourself. It's not here's my lawn care business, or here's my health journey. It might be, here is one book I really, really like, and here's a quote from the book. Or here are two podcast episodes that have really helped me this year. Focusing out, curating content, like very Tim Ferriss. He doesn't create content, he curates other people's content. So starting with being a content curator, it takes the pressure off of you because I say, guys, this episode with Nick was awesome. Like, go read his newsletter. This was a great blog post. Right? And it just. It takes the pressure off because you're supporting somebody else and it still gets you in that consistency. So a book, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a creator, an author, a speaker, talk about other people.

[Nick Gray]

So use that as your first post. And how often do you tell people to post to LinkedIn?

[Courtney Johnson]

At least once a week because there's a billion users on LinkedIn, which is insane. Less than 2% of those post one time per week. So just by posting one time per week, they'll be in the top 2% of the whole platform. That's a great place to start because you're gonna start seeing results. So few People post on LinkedIn that even if you have shitty posts once a week, you're gonna stand out more than the other person competing for that job that's never posted and doesn't use LinkedIn.

[Nick Gray]

When someone hires you or works with you to help them with this, do you give them, like a menu of possible things to post with or how do you help them know what to post with to hit that, like once a week thing?

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, it's actually really, really cool. So I have a content club where me and other facilitators meet on Zoom every single weekday morning at 8am and we say, all right, guys, here is your post of the day. The post of the day is we are curating three books that have helped us in our career journey. Then we coach people around it. So sometimes the posts are more complicated, easier, spicier, whatever. We coach people about where their fears are coming up. Oh, that's a really hard topic for me. I feel like this might be controversial. I feel like I don't know what to say. Who am I to share this? All of the fears and limiting beliefs come up. We coach them around it. We brainstorm what the post is going to be. And we send them off like 40 minutes while they're still on camera on zoom. We co work and at the end we all post together and share our wins. So it creates a daily container where you have no excuse. You cannot let the limiting beliefs get in the way because your hand will be held. So it's a fun way for people to drop in. Some people come once a week, some people come every single day. And it just allows for this crazy amount of consistency and then people get in the flow. It's like some people stay for a long time, some people want to do the workout challenge and then they feel consistent on their own. So it's a. It's so fun.

[Nick Gray]

That's cool. There's someone that I know who I went to high school with and she just posts on Facebook and she shares just stuff and she just shows up. And through that consistency she's really become a better writer and has like subconsciously learned. I don't think she ever set out to say like, I'm gonna learn how to like write for engagement, but you just learn, right? Like when you show up, you start to see what hits, what doesn't, how to write better. And I love her updates and I, I feel like I'm so close to her. And I think that's what we want people to do on LinkedIn or these other channels to just keep showing up and just keep posting so that people feel like they have a relationship. And that's what I think we've learned, is that people want to do business with people they like and that they learn about you through your personal brand.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, it's just creating top of mind awareness. Like if I say think of a chef, like, who's the first person that comes to mind for you?

[Nick Gray]

Joshua Weissman.

[Courtney Johnson]

Great. Joshua Weissman owns Top of Mind Awareness Share in your brain. So you're more likely to get his cookbook or go to his cooking class or watch his cooking show where maybe I want to be top of mind for graphic designers for startups in Austin, Texas. And I can do that very, very easily on LinkedIn just by posting once a week. So even if your audience isn't ready to buy, you own top of mind awareness share. So when your audience comes to the buying or hiring or funding decision, we're lazy. We don't wanna research, we don't wanna go find the best speaker. We wanna just go with the person our brain tells us, oh, I'll book them for the speaking event. Cause I see their LinkedIn posts and what's crazy about this is like there's so much. I call it psychological manipulation just for good, but it really is a lot of it's. If I go in too into it, it gets crazy. Cause there's like addiction psychology integrated into this, like cult psychology that I use. But the, the basis of it is owning bits of people's consciousness and attention. And it's just like the rocket ship to getting anything you want. And because like, everyone knows how to do it. Everybody knows how to build a personal brand. You pick a platform and you post every day. It's like, that's not the gap. The gap is the emotion, the fear, the limiting, the beliefs, the what are they gonna think about me? The what if I get fired? What if I share this thing I'm passionate about and people disagree with me? That is the gap. And most people are unable to get over that gap. Which is why personally, I think that getting results from personal brand is so easy. Because you don't even have to be like the craziest content creator, the best video editor, the most amazing writer. That all comes with repetition. You just have to do it. And that's gonna get you opportunities that people that are way too afraid to do it will never get.

[Nick Gray]

I think that, number one, I love this idea. And it makes me think about how with hosting meetups that I find that it is that top of mind awareness that all the stuff that people do online is great. The reason that I was attracted to hosting meetups was because it is a little bit harder than just to sit down and to post something. And I found in my life, especially for your listeners, that if you're already personal publishing and you already have a little bit of an audience, hosting a simple monthly meetup for just interesting people that you happen to know in town can be a really great way to break out of that noise and build these relationships in person. I always found that simply inviting someone to a meetup, even if they didn't come, raised me in their kind of top of mind awareness. Because they're getting those messages, they're getting those gifts from me, which is an invitation to come to a meetup with other really cool, interesting people. Maybe similar to a podcast invite, where when you host your own podcast, you get to invite people to come be a guest. And even if they can't do it, that is a gift that you get to say, hey, I would love for you to come be on my podcast. That's a little thing that you get to do to people. Yeah, it's neat.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah, two things. One, in person also just converts so much better. Like if I do an in person event, I'm leaving with clients every single time. And that doesn't always happen on a webinar with a social post. Have you read the book Content Based Networking?

[Nick Gray]

No.

[Courtney Johnson]

Oh, you would love it.

[Nick Gray]

I need to read.

[Courtney Johnson]

So good. It's basically how to get a conversation with anybody for free. And it's, you know, you start a podcast, you start a newsletter, you create content for that person and they'll have a conversation, which is a huge benefit to having a podcast. Right. Like, I have a podcast for a lot of reasons. And one of the benefits is, is this, like you can talk to really cool, amazing people that might cost you a few thousand dollars to do like a consulting session. Yeah. Or to go to an event where they're at. It's like an immediate access and there's a podcast ladder where I can say, hey, I just had Nick on my podcast. Oh my God, I really admire Nick. Yeah. So do you wanna come on my podcast too? Right There is this social proof and this gift around it, but it doesn't have to be through a podcast. Right? Like having a guest like anywhere on, on any of your content, doing a collaboration, even doing an event, it's. It's super sneaky. It's a, it's a great book. I recommend it to all my clients. Cool. So I have one last cheat code that I, I just think you do so well. I don't even know if you're conscious of it, but playfulness. Like you have a playfulness and fun about everything that you do. Just like a fun levity. Like you don't take yourself or others too seriously. You're always having fun. I just think that's like the ultimate success cheat code. People want to be around people that are having fun.

[Nick Gray]

I think they do want to be around people that are having fun. I don't have any good way or advice on, on how somebody could do this, but I could share that my last business that I made was doing these renegade museum tours. So I had a company that was called Museum Hack and we would go to all the biggest museums in America and we would just give these crazy tours that were led by stand up comedians and Broadway actors. And we had so much fun doing them. And I think what made that successful was I really wanted to create a business or a product that I would be proud to share with my friends. Something that I truly loved and would want to be a customer for myself. There's this New project I'm working on that's a museum donor database. I'll link to it in the show notes. But it's this database of all these people who donate to these museums. I was talking to this big venture capitalist about it where we were just hanging out. I just wanted to get his feedback on it. And he said, oh, this would be so good if you did it for real estate and you did donors or, but instead of the art museum, you did it for real estate listings. And you can get the same data but do it for real estate. And oh my God, that could be a billion dollar business, all the tech you're building. I said, wow, you know what, Andrew? That's a great idea. I'm never going to do that. That sounds so boring. It sounds like I don't want to be looking up like property records, like even if I could make a billion dollars on it, like that just sounds boring. I don't like that industry. I don't want to do that. And I think what's always driven me is trying to work on the things that I really want to work on. And that comes from a place of privilege, of having some successful exits in the past where now I do get to work on the fun stuff. I only work on events and these conferences with people who I really want to work with where I feel challenged by that. And that's a tough balance, I think that it's hard to figure out. And if I had to tie it back into what we're talking about, I really would say that hosting a meetup for somebody, this is going to be a stretch on how I tie this together. But it would say that if you're going to host a meetup, don't only invite business people. You want to invite your creative friends. You want to invite that barista who always has a great one liner that smiles when you walk in the door. You want to invite these different people that make your event a little richer in the conversations and the kind of community. And if you only focus on, okay, I want to host a meetup for C level executives that work in media buying. Like, I don't know, that's just gonna feel like a networking a boring meetup versus if you have half people like that and half just other random folks in town. Whenever I position to people, I say, look, you wanna tell people, hey, I'm meeting all these really fascinating people here in Austin. I'd love to host a happy hour to bring some of them together. That's a way that creates a really successful Meetup that you might not know.

[Courtney Johnson]

I love that. I love to do that at my dinner parties. Just take the most craziest, opposite people and put them in the room together. It's always so lovely.

[Nick Gray]

It's so good, because you never know who's gonna get along, and you're always really surprised.

[Courtney Johnson]

So fun. All right, I have two. Two last questions for you. One, Nick, what's your dream?

[Nick Gray]

Mm. What's my dream? For my 42nd birthday, which was about a year and a half ago, I hosted the Dream Conference, the type of conference I'd always wanted to attend for myself, and I really love doing that. I invited 42 of my most interesting friends from all around the world, and we got to hang out for two straight days. I love hosting events like that. And I've gotten to get involved in other conferences. I'm not sure if I have a specific dream.

[Courtney Johnson]

What would you do if you had unlimited time, money, resource, energy, and access to everyone on the planet and they had to say yes to anything you asked them?

[Nick Gray]

Ooh, ooh.

[Courtney Johnson]

And the laws of physics don't exist.

[Nick Gray]

Ooh, I like that idea. I think that there's something there of maybe reimagining or reinventing the TED conferences. TED now has evolved in a way that I think even Chris Anderson, the founder of ted, would admit. It's just become sort of a beast of a monster. And if you look back to the very early days of ted, if you look back to the dinners that Chris Anderson used to host or maybe still hosts, that idea of really gathering the most interesting people, giving these talks or these speeches, putting really an interesting people in the room for a mix of both thought, leadership and inspiration and actual work. I think there's something to that. I'm not sure exactly. Right now. I think my dream just really is to get married and start a family. And I'm going through this different phase of life right now where in the past, if you asked me, I may have said, oh, my dream is to get to 100,000 followers, or my dream is to go viral again. I think now I'm in a new phase of my life where my dream is I want to be a father. Like, I want to have kids, and I want to build that family and that kind of community here.

[Courtney Johnson]

Yeah. Oh, that's so beautiful. I have a same dream right now. And then what's your ask? What are you looking for right now?

[Nick Gray]

What am I looking for right now? Now I'm experimenting. I've built a team around me that helps me with My own website and newsletter and things like that. And so I've been experimenting. There are easy ways for people to build their own personal webpage. And if you're not going to make the service to help people do that, then I have a service I've been experimenting with where for about $30 a month, me and my team will help people repost their existing content that does well on LinkedIn. We'll turn it into blogs, we'll get it ranked on search engines. I've been experimenting with that. And so I want to do it for free for about five more people. So if any of your listeners want to try it for three or four months, please, you gotta buy your own domain name. And so that's about $10 a year. My favorite place to buy is on Cloudflare, so I love domains.cloudflare.com, it's about $10 a year. But then just putting it on a simple WordPress and WordPress is a little intimidating to people. So that's kind of what we help with. So that's something that I'm playing around with. What do you think about this name, by the way? I've been calling it, I don't know, some people might hate it, I kind of love it. But I've been calling it Minor League Famous.

[Courtney Johnson]

That's funny.

[Nick Gray]

Which is like, I think I can help you look Minor League famous on Google and like on ChatGPT. And that's one of the things is that these LLMs like Grok and ChatGPT and Claude, they can't always scrape your LinkedIn and your Twitter content and things like that because it's blocked by the scrapers. But if you have your own personal website that, by the way, I don't care how it looks, I just want like a plain text website that's easy and fast on my cell phone that the robots can scrape really well. So that's a new service. I'll link in the show notes. I'll do it for a couple months for any of your listeners, maybe for five of them for free, just if they give me feedback on it. Like, how does this work? Like, how can I make this from a nice to have to a must have? How can I get you ranking on Google? So I've been experimenting with that.

[Courtney Johnson]

Love it. Okay, can't wait to try.

[Nick Gray]

Cool.

[Courtney Johnson]

Well, Nick, how can people find you? Connect with you? Subscribe to your awesome newsletter.

[Nick Gray]

Oh, you gotta check out my friend's newsletter. My website is nickgraynews.com and I'm on all the social media. Ickgreynews.

[Courtney Johnson]

Beautiful. Yeah, we'll have everything in the show notes too.

[Nick Gray]

Cool.

[Courtney Johnson]

Well, thank you.

[Nick Gray]

Thanks for having me.

[Courtney Johnson]

This is so great.

[Nick Gray]

Host a meetup.

[Courtney Johnson]

Host a meetup.