Hello Reader, from your internet friend Nick in Austin, Texas. I wrote the book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party and previously started a company called Museum Hack.

​I got engaged! That seems big. More on that at the end.

In this issue: a great pancake recipe, The Most Generous Man in NYC, how to increase your surface area for luck, why you should have your own simple personal website - especially with ChatGPT and AI searches, my summer morning routine, a profile of MrBeast, and more.

NICK GRAY FRIENDS NEWSLETTER

Why you’re getting this: I'm Nick Gray (about me) and this is my Friends Newsletter. I send this every month or two to interesting people I’ve connected with. You can un-subscríbe any time and I won't be mad. I won't even be notified!

Random Links

💰 The Most Generous Man in New York (NYmag) or (backup link)​

"Before his mysterious death, Matthew Christopher Pietras donated millions to the Met and the Frick. It was stolen." Pietras tried to steal $10 million from George Soros's son to make good on his Met Opera pledge - the fraudulent transfer was flagged just two days before he was found dead... via Lauren

🤞 How to increase your surface area for luck​

I like a lot of this. Some of my key take-aways:

1. Highly successful people experiment frequently. They try lots of different things socially, intellectually, and professionally, focusing on the number of attempts rather than success rate.
2. Speed matters. Meeting 1-2 interesting strangers per day is ideal; meeting only 1-2 per week is too slow to achieve breakthrough success.
3. Operate from genuine curiosity. Talk to people without specific goals.
4. Give generously before expecting returns.
5. Host regular, low-stakes events. Be the person who initiates gatherings (like monthly bagel brunches, or a 2-Hour Cocktail Party!) to build and strengthen connections.
6. Expect an awkward beginning.

🎌 Overtourism in Japan, and How it Hurts Small Businesses​

Great post by Craig Mod, and yet I'm guilty of being an overtourist at times: "If you’ve ever wondered why overtourism can be a kind of death for parts of a city... it’s because it paradoxically disincentivizes building small businesses. Nobody opens a tiny restaurant or café to be popular on a grand, viral scale. Nor do they open them to become rich."

📺 ‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star (Guardian)​

I hung out with Jimmy, aka MrBeast, for a few days in North Carolina earlier this year thanks to my friends Shaan Puri and Ben Levy. I now believe that Jimmy is a true savant. I respect him and the work he's doing. This is a Guardian profile from a month or two ago on him that might be a good primer if you think he's just a clickbait YouTuber.

🌤️ My Austin Morning Routine (Summer 2025)​

I wrote on my personal blog about my current hour-long routine of how my mornings start when I’m home in Austin, Texas. Including: coffee with chocolate LMNT salt, 1 mile light jog, face plunge in a bowl of ice water, protein smoothie, and more.

🎤 Speaking at EO Fort Worth: Networking, Hosting Meetups​

I was invited to speak and lead a small workshop at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization chapter in Fort Worth. Here's how I hosted it, our agenda, and why it was successful.

I Will Make You a Personal Website

If you post on LinkedIn, X, Threads, or even on Instagram at least once per month, and if you care about how you show up in Google and ChatGPT...

Then you should definitely have a simple personal website on your own domain name.

Having a personal website like I have on your own domain name can help you get new clients, make new friends, hire better employees, or just rank higher in Google.

You can do this yourself easily and for not a lot of money. First, buy a domain name on Cloudflare for $10/yr. Then connect it to Carrd ($19/yr) or WordPress ($48/yr). Build a simple site and add some of your best content that you've already posted over the past year or two. Format it nicely for mobile and search engines. Finally, update it every few months and create some internal and external links to rank.

The problem is that most people will never take the time to do that. Or they make a website, and then forget about it, and their site goes stale.

But I've been doing this myself for 10+ years. And now I have a team of writers and editors who I work with. We know what works.

As a test, we made a few dozen sites for my friends like these: Nicole Rojas, Chad Rubin, Chris Petkas, David Kirkpatrick, Chris Sparling, and Teejay Hughes.

David finally has a personal site after sitting on his empty domain name for years. Chris gets dozens of visitors every week from Google visitors doing research on his business. And Teejay likes having his website so people don't have to look at his Instagram or LinkedIn.

I think I'll start to charge for this service. Probably $29/mo plus a $199 setup fee. Some people are paying us $99/mo and even $499/mo to help them write new articles, send out their newsletters, etc.

But I think what most people need is just a simple personal website with a few good articles. And I think we can do that for $29 per month.

We do everything for you: build it, update it, make links, etc. It really is "set it and forget it," as long as you post something almost every month on LinkedIn, X, Threads, or Instagram.

What do you think: is this a service you would use? How could I make it better?

If you want a free website for a few months before I start charging everyone, or if you want to pay me now to build you something awesome, email me back with your social media links. I will see if you're a good fit based on what you post.

And if you want to do all this yourself, without paying me anything, just email me back and I'll send a Google Doc with my best tips for what we do and how you can do it manually.

Lauren's Corner: Pancake Recipe

You might remember Lauren from her very popular home gift guide, or men's holiday gift guide. Here's her new pancake recipe that she's obsessed with. I can attest that they are very delicious.

• 1/2 cup Cottage Cheese
• 1/2 cup Oats
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tablespoon Baking powder
• Splash of maple syrup or vanilla
• Sprinkle of cinnamon

Blend everything together (in a blender!) and cook on griddle with butter! 🥞

The End

Well, as I said in the intro, my biggest life update is that I got engaged.

Lauren and I are getting married in a few months in a super small close-family wedding, then we'll have a bigger reception here in Texas next year. And then we want to try to have a bunch of kids together.

That feels big, right?

Last year, I didn't have a lot of big rocks in my life. I'd sold my last business and my book had been out for a few years. I literally posted my phone number on the Internet and told people to "Call me anytime!"

I loved my extreme flexibility and over-availability.

But then I met this amazing woman who I totally fell in love with. We moved in and started building our lives together.

I also started my "free websites for friends" project, which keeps growing. And I started another new project that I'll launch soon—it might be the most exciting thing I've worked on in a long time. I want to work on those things all the time! And manage my investments and write this newsletter.

I am simultaneously so lucky to have all of this... while also feeling like I'm struggling to adjust.

I often feel that I'm falling behind, or like I don't have enough hours in the day, to do everything that I want to do.

It means I have to let go of a lot of the independence and spontaneity that I held so close for so many years.

I'm learning how to live with someone after living alone for much of the past two decades. To be a bit more offline (I never check Instagram anymore!) and living life a little less by the seat of my pants.

I also know that the things I feel like I'm falling behind on aren't important when I zoom out and think about what I actually want—which is to have a partner and to start a family. Those are the big rocks that I'm ready for now.

Anyhow. I'm excited for the future. But also still figuring it out, day by day. Giving up parts of me from so many years as a bachelor that no longer serve the man that I want to become.

Thanks for reading,

🤠 Nick

p.s. Here's the About Me on my website if you forgot who I am. We met [HOWWEMET GOES HERE].

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