How to Create Your Own Private Island

There’s one saying that has lived in my head, rent free, ever since I heard it.

Create your own private island.

Sounds weird, right?

It’s not that scary.

I promise.

Let me tell you a little secret I learned from some very wealthy people in the fall of 2023. People wonder how X knows Y or “how did you cross paths with that person?” The rich have a lot of secrets they don’t give away. Once you catch wind of one of those things, it rocks your world for a minute and you’ve got to really think about it.

That’s what happened when I attended a private party in Los Angeles for the the 2023 All in Summit.

The party hosts were an ultra wealthy guy from Saudi Arabia who attended USC and an ex-professional soccer player that went to school at Princeton. I wouldn’t have known that from talking to each of them for over a half hour.

Why?

They were some of the most inviting, friendly, genuine and humble people I met that whole night. The hosts, the center of attention.

It got me thinking.

How do these people have so many connections and relationships. Where opportunities just fall in their lap?

They created their own private island.

Not literally. But this was a 15 million dollar home in Beverlly hills that was next to Justin Bieber’s place and looked over Adelle’s. They created an environment where they wanted their type of people to come together and congregate.

If you want to find people that are like you, you need to find them, collect them, befriend them, and never let them go.

Bring them around more, tell them to invite their friends to a dinner you’re hosting. Start being a human router of people. Invite them all over to hang out with you on a Friday night. Introduce them to your friends.

If you keep complaining that you can’t meet the person of your dreams at a bar because those kinds of people are the people for you. Why do you keep going? They’re not going to be there, and they probably never will.

You CAN fix this.

You just need to look somewhere different. Go find them.

Think about how investors work. They are obsessed with making sure they have good deal flow, they dont want to miss out on an opportunity to put their check into the next multi billion dollar company. They make sure the founders know who they are, so when they’re ready to ask for money, all the investor need to do it just thumbs up or down the ask.

But that can’t happen if they’ve never met that person.

Like warren buffet, I’m a big simp for the compounding effect. Just not for finance, but for relationships. When you go to a bar, or meet someone on hinge for the first time. You’re starting from zero. You have to a lot of dancing and impressing to win that person over. What if that person met you at a party or event through a mutual friend vs randomly approaching them? there’s a higher level of trust with your reputation than being “some random person that just approached you out of nowhere”

How does the average person builds relationships?

Think about the time and energy that goes into this. The average person goes to a ton of different places and never really makes deeper relationships at any of them. Meaning they are essentially starting from square one in every social situation.

That was my late 20s where I am essentially starting from square one in every social situation. Every weekend is exactly the same. Bars, gym, brunch, bars, social, soccer, meal prep. Same thing, every weekend.

It feels like groundhog day…

Instead of spending time forcing advantageous situations, average people spend their time forcing new interactions through

• Bars

• Events

• Dating Apps

• Friends of friends

Friends of friends is the tried and true way of developing trust between yourself and others. But if you’re starting from zero, you typically default back to bars, dating apps, and work. There is going to need to be a happy medium of finding new people if you want to branch out.

Seem contradictory? A little bit. Hear me out.

We’ve eliminated the other three options and now you have events and friends of friends. Lets dive in.

When I moved to San Francisco in January 2024, I was essentially starting from zero. I didn’t know anyone. This week, exactly three months after I moved here I hosted a party of almost 30 people at my house. I met them all through 3 simple steps

1. Go to events, places, or venues that you find interesting.

2. Say hi to someone, leave meeting at least 2 new people

3. Stay in contact. Follow-up with what I call the secret weapon. Call out three highlights of your chat. Finally, ask “Let me know if there is anyone else you think i might get along with (or find interesting)”

Cook, rinse, repeat, cook again.

You’re doing this from a place of genuine curiosity and it takes reps to get good at it. It’s going to take some time and effort. This will become second nature to you soon enough.

Trust me.

How Relationship building should work

Ok you started to find these people. Now what?

This is where things start to compound.

As you find and collect these people, start inviting them to events and dinners.

Nervous? So was I.

No one has ever been upset by getting invited to something. They’ll feel thought of, included, and it’ll make them feel good. They’ll appreciate it. I read that in Nick Gray’s book the 2 hour cocktail party.

Send them content you think they’d find interesting. Blog posts. Events. Music. Niche level news for the space you are both in.

Relationship compounders spend the majority of their time manufacturing advantageous situations. Over time, the compounding relationships will create new, invaluable relationships, with barely any time, effort, or energy expended.

So how do you avoid getting into the groundhog day funk, and become a relationship compounder?

• Have your old relationships lead to new relationships

• Create relationships that start off on a positive note

• Go to places where the people you aspire to be like go hang out

• Curate ways for people to come to you when they want to start a relationship

Aristotle Onassis:

You’ve probably never heard of Aristotle Onassis… he was one of the wealthiest businessmen of the 20th century. He started off as a tobacco trader, who soon realized the real money was being made in shipping, and became a shipping magnate as well as one of the richest men in the world. He was also known for dating famous actresses, ex-first lady’s, opera singers, including Jacqueline Kennedy and Maria Callas. How did he do this? He knew how to manufacture advantageous situations at venues he controlled. He approached relationship building different than most people.

He bought a massive yacht. This is brilliant

I know what you’re thinking… I cant afford a yacht.

Me neither.

But we can manufacture our own settings.

Coming back to the story.

When Aristotle bought that yacht, think about how easy it was to develop relationships with someone when they board your yacht for a business meeting.

Social proof? Check

Credibility? Check

Everyone views you in a positive way? Check

Then there’s the physical act of getting them on his boat. You feel like you’re on his turf now. You’re on his terms

I love the private yacht concept. It just sounds a little too douchey.

I like “private island”

It sounds slightly less douchey, and I don’t like boats that much anyways.

Create your own private island

When I was struggling to find motivating people in San Diego, I started taking note of all the people I found interesting, motivating, or energizing. I would start inviting them to activities we found interesting, try to spend more time with that person, or parties at my house where I brought other people together that I thought were cool.

In June 2023, I read Nick Gray’s book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. That’s when everything clicked.

I threw my first cocktail party following his format and I was immediately hooked.

I LOVED bringing my friends together, they were skeptical at first, but I had people coming up to me asking when the next one was and making sure that they could be invited.

I couldn’t stop…

I went on to doing one every month for the rest of the year until I moved to San Francisco.

This April, I just threw my first one after being here for only 3 months.

I created my own private island.

I had new friends I crossed paths with, that I wanted to see more of.

So I asked them to come to me. They now trusted that I would bring people around them that they would not just like, but LOVE hanging out with.

When I moved to San Francisco I followed same framework I just shared with you.

I started hosting cold plunge parties. I then combined that with my friend Alex Schachne and Mark Natiello. We’ve now got +25 people coming every Sunday to cold plunge with us. I think it’s going to get even bigger.

People started to reach out to me to meet, or grab coffee. It’s hard to carve out time consistently to meet people every week. So you have to make it easy for them to come to you…

Create your own private island.

For me my private islands are:

• Cocktail parties at my house

• Weekly plunges – Marina Plunge Club

• Maybe I’ll find one more…

Now go create your own.

Let me know which one you’ll make.