Hello Reader, from your friend Nick, author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party (paperback or Audible).

In this issue: a billionaire pharmaceutical murder mystery, my upcoming events, why you should consider teeth whitening strips, victory against ADA scam lawsuits, the Navy's crappy little ship, and a bunch more.

Why you’re getting this: I'm Nick Gray and this is my Friends Newsletter. I send this every month to interesting people I’ve connected with and friends I want to keep in touch with. You can un-subscríbe any time and I won't be mad. I won't even be notified!

me and my family on an Alaska float plane — I rode in a float plane last month! Family sightseeing trip in Alaska.

Random Links

💊 Murder, Money and the Battle for a Pharmaceutical Empire

$3.6B net worth at time of murder. 6 years later and no clue what happened.

📞 Call Me Anytime: Why I Say This to People

Why do I try to get people on the phone as fast as possible, and why do I prefer random calls instead of scheduling something? In short: Because it’s fun and builds my network of interesting people. All while helping me maintain a flexible schedule.

📱 Instagram Reels Best Practices

I had a phone call with a Meta representative, perhaps after my clip went viral or perhaps just randomly, as part of their Instagram Creators program. She shared all the best practices with me on a call and I typed them up on this article.

👮🏻‍♀️ Attorney Sentenced To Four Years In Prison For Filing Fraudulent Lawsuits Under ADA

Amen.

💸 Braid Is Dead, Long Live Braid

For finance nerds: My friend Amanda started and now just shut down a fintech company. This is her recap of what happened: "A dispatch from the wild, vicious world of consumer payments."

⚡ 100 things you should be doing for your business

A neat exercise for any business owner. Jack Rubin originally posted this on his X / Twitter account as a rant against people over-optimizing their email popups. I put it into a Google Doc for easier reading.

🏷️ The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: 500+ Reviews on Amazon

Can 1 little networking event change your life? How can you use this for a kids birthday party? And why does this book have a 4.8 star rating across 500+ reviews on Kindle, Audible, and paperback? Duh because I spent 6 years and $60,000 writing this. Filled with tactical, practical, actionable advice like the exact scripts to use, basic shopping lists under $100, and more.

🏄🏻 Empty Waterpark: Instagram or TikTok or YouTube

I finally went viral with over 27 million views across Instagram and TikTok for this one video. Roasts from teenagers are at an all-time high. Tens of thousands of new followers. Daily book sales are flat. Otherwise my life is the same 😅

My upcoming events: Austin & NYC

I am hosting 2 interesting events in Austin Texas for my entrepreneur, author, and creator friends.

It will be a mix of networking and small group discussions about life & personal stuff. No panels, no upsells, no self-promo.

Half-day Symposium & Workshop: Nov 7 from 1:45P to 6P
Full-day Symposium & Workshop: Nov 30 from 9AM to 6P

You'll meet interesting people and have inspiring or thought-provoking discussions. You might learn some things for your business or career, too.

If you want to attend, email me back. Tell me what you're working on if we haven't met and why you'd be a good attendee.

I'm also hosting these other things:

1M+ Creators in Austin: 25 October 2023 for Instagram and TikTok people with over 1M followers. The first one we did was a huge hit! See group photo below.

1M+ Creators & Authors in NYC: 16 November 2023 hosted with best-selling author Nir Eyal. If you know any creators with large audiences in NYC that I can invite, please LMK.

2-Hour Cocktail Party in NYC: probably on 15 November 2023, for new and old friends (TBD). Or a meetup at the Met Museum on Friday, 17 Nov 2023.

In summary: I'm excited to experiment with longer, deeper events and facilitation. This is fun for me.

Teeth Whitening Strips

This is a reminder that the easiest thing you can do to immediately look more attractive is to get those at-home teeth whitening strips for $30.

They are extremely safe even for sensitive teeth.

Any brand is fine; I like Crest Whitestrips. I'm not going to link one specific kind so you don't think I am spamming or sponsored.

The common ingredient in all of them is either hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide.

If you have sensitive teeth just space out the strips every few days.

Some people look at teeth a lot more than you’d imagine and make subtle judgements if you have off-color or stained teeth. I drink a lot of coffee and black tea so mine are prone to this.

Also swish water in your mouth after you sip your black coffee to minimize future stains 😅 I always forget to do this

This is an easy way to level-up and be more hot to others 👍

Million+ Creators Meetup

Two weeks ago I hosted a meetup for TikTok and Instagram creators in Austin who have over a million followers.

It was one of the best meetups I've hosted. I facilitated it like a mastermind or a skill share.

I will write up an article with some of the learnings or lessons on how I facilitated it, what made it work well, and things that I learned. For now, here's the group photo:

group photo of about 12 people — Me and a bunch of internet famous nerds at Noah Kagan's beautiful home.

Quotes & To-Read Articles

The answer to "What idiot made this!?" is almost always "A well-intentioned person making tradeoffs you hadn't even considered."

Click here to see a full list of my favorite quotes.

To-Read Articles -- these are on my reading list. I haven't read them yet but they look interesting:

🏛️ Walmart heir wants museums to attract more people; donates $40M

NPR: "Alice Walton's foundation Art Bridges is providing $40 million in grants to 64 museums around the country, it announced Wednesday. The grants, ranging from $56,000 to more than $2 million for a three-year period, are intended to fund programs to attract new audiences, whether that means extending hours or offering meals."

🎨 How Larry Gagosian Reshaped the Art World

New Yorker: "The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them."

👄 How to Make $ Hosting a Conference, by Sam Parr

Have a purpose, Have a plan, Land a whale, Make speakers happy, Be ignorant, and more.

🚢 The Inside Story of How the Navy Spent Billions on the “Little Crappy Ship”

ProPublica: "Littoral combat ships were supposed to launch the Navy into the future. Instead they broke down across the globe and many of their weapons never worked. Now the Navy is getting rid of them."

The End

Thanks for reading my Friends Newsletter.

I'm headed to Orlando on Sunday to help manage networking events at BPCON23, the BiggerPockets Real Estate Conference. Then I fly to New Orleans to help run networking events at FinCon23 which is "a digital marketing event for 1300+ people creating Personal Finance content."

Have a great weekend!!

🤠 Nick Gray

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