Sep 14, 2016

Friends newsletter: Obstacle course

By Nick Gray • Issue #8 • View online

Hello from NYC! That’s me in the green glasses up there, Nick Gray, your friend on LinkedIn.

This is my Friends Newsletter. I send it to people I’ve met recently and friends I want to keep in touch with. Feel free to unsubscribe at the bottom and I won’t be offended.

The past two months have been a whirlwind.

Lots of travel, lots of challenges, and I’m learning what it means to be a leader and a C.E.O. of a growing business.

To anyone who is or has been a manager, parent, or coach: I have respect for what you do. I’m making plenty of mistakes in my journey as a C.E.O., but I love my job and what we’re building.

Communication is something I’ve been working on lately. My style (abrupt) and frequency (not enough) leave much to be desired, especially with a distributed and remote team. Making sure that our message and our priorities get shared to our guides and our support squad… I want to get better at that.

P.S. Museum Hack is doing great. We’re on track to double in sales and staffing this year thanks to the hard work of dozens of people on our team. Can you believe we’re almost 40 people now? And we just opened tours at the Art Institute in Chicago!

Obstacle Course // Mud Run

(img) My friend Nina Simon made me do this...

This past Saturday morning was the hardest I’ve worked out and the dirtiest I’ve gotten in years. My friend Nina Simon (new book!) invited me to do a road trip to Pennsylvania for a mud run obstacle course.

I made this short recap video. BONUS: Me in a Speedo.

4 Interesting Articles I Read This Month

How to effectively wrap a charging cable

Simple quick video. Your cords and charging cables will stay wrapped, won’t get tangled, and are very easy to unwrap.

rumble.com • Share

6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

This has been shared a lot, but I read it on a plane recently and thought the advice was good compared to the pop-candy talk that’s in a lot of millennial-focused stuff shared on Facebook.

Like this: “Remember when Chick-fil-A came out against gay marriage? And how despite the protests, the company continues to sell millions of sandwiches every day? It’s not because the country agrees with them; it’s because they do their job of making delicious sandwiches well. And that’s all that matters.”

www.cracked.com • Share

Here’s How Museums Are Inventively Embracing Pokemon Go Swarms

From July, but wanting to share: Museum Hack was quoted and referenced in this Bloomberg article that got widespread distribution. Our Pokemon tours are still selling well in NYC.

www.bloomberg.com • Share

The Gentleman’s Guide To Dating: How To Be a Man in a Sea of Boys

My sister sent this to me…

jamesmsama.com • Share

Other Misc Cool Stuff

Mevo, first hardware-specific camera for Facebook Live via Danielle Strle. Review here from Engadget
Amazon’s Interesting Finds “will give you pages of really cool, surprising stuff.” via Recomendo, a great newsletter
Things I Would Buy If I Didn’t Have To Pay Rent, by my friend Anna Gray, I love her newsletter! Great style. Recent newsletter
Easy Invoice Generator https://invoice-generator.com I used this for a recent speaking engagement. Super simple and free.
ZivaMind: My friend Emily launched this web-based meditation practice. I tried it for 1 week straight and enjoyed it. (Not a sponsored link, I legit liked it, you do have to pay for it if you sign up.)
Case Studies from Museum Hack: We’ve been hired as storytelling consultants by over 50 museums and cultural organizations, plus over a dozen big companies like Bloomingdale’s and Estee Lauder to train their sales teams.

My Videos from Australia

In August, I spent a week in Cairns and Brisbane with Tourism & Events Queensland leading workshops about Storytelling and Tourism. I also made these two fun videos.