In the latest episode of "The High Profit Event Show," host Rudy Rodriguez engages in an insightful conversation with Jon Block, the visionary founder of Red Pill Experience. The episode serves as a journey into Jon's innovative approach to leading events , where he discusses his transition from large-scale, conventional events to more personalized and transformative retreats.

Jon Block shares his passion for creating events that are not just gatherings but life-altering experiences. He emphasizes the importance of crafting unique and original events that deeply resonate with attendees. These events are designed to align with core human values of health, wealth, and sovereignty, a shift from the standard event planning model. This move towards intimate retreats reflects Jon's philosophy of making every event a transformative experience, something that cannot be replicated in online settings or typical hotel conference rooms.

The conversation also ventures into the realms of entrepreneurship and alternative investing. Jon offers his expertise on educating entrepreneurs about expanding their horizons beyond the traditional stock market. He discusses the potential of public speaking and live events as powerful tools for financial empowerment. His insights provide a fresh perspective on investment strategies, highlighting the importance of seeking opportunities that not only generate profit but also align with personal and ethical values.

A significant focus of the episode is on Jon's approach to leadership and community building within the events industry. He talks about the concept of building communities or tribes around shared values and the role of a leader in such settings. According to Jon, true leadership is about empowering others and fostering unity, rather than merely guiding or instructing. This approach to leadership is pivotal in creating a sustainable and supportive community where every member is encouraged to step into their own leadership roles.

Listeners can find a wealth of memorable quotes from Jon Block throughout the episode, such as “We owe people something original that they cannot possibly experience on Zoom,” which encapsulates his philosophy on event planning. Another impactful quote, “Leaders create other leaders,” sums up his views on leadership and community building.

If You're eager to delve deeper into the insightful discussion between Rudy Rodriguez and Jon Block, links to the full episode are provided in the show notes.  Engage with "The High Profit Event Show" on social media platforms and subscribe for more enlightening episodes.

Want to connect with Jon?

Text “Tribe” to 26786 for Abundant Tribe Leader Roadmap

Website: https://www.abundanttribeleader.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonblockxp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jbcreations

Welcome to today's episode. We have a great guest with us here, a recent but yet dear friend, Mr. Jon Block. Welcome to the show, sir.

Oh, yes, Rudy. Great to be here.

And, John, I know we literally met like two weeks ago, but we went deep fast, didn't we?

Sole connection incident. Thanks to Tiamo and JeTaime De Vettori.

What a wonderful, serendipitous connection. I'm so glad that we got to become friends and now have you as a guest on the show. Excited for today's interview for a variety of reasons. I want to share with our audience here a little bit about your background so they lean in and get excited about tuning in. One, as an event leader, you want to tune in to what Jon's about to share, because he's actually presented on over 500 stages and has mentored over 1500 entrepreneurs on public speaking, live events, and also investing, investing in real estate and other alternative investments, which we'll talk about in the podcast. He's been hired to train HBO and Google. So you've been on some big stages. You've done some pretty big things, including founding a bunch of tiny homes, a tiny house block in San Diego's first ever tiny home village with 25 tiny homes. That's pretty cool.

I can definitely share more about that. I've had ups and downs, a lot of lessons from it, which are part of my passion for alternative investing.

I'm going to be really curious to hear a bit about your transition from events or how you've combined events and investing. You also have a beloved partner, Dr. Manci, who is not on with us today, but unless she may come on for a future episode, who is your co-founder for your alternative investors legacy, your education and consulting companies specializes in those high returns and lower risk investments outside of Main Street, Wall Street. You are the founder and creator of the Red Pill Experience, as well as the Abundant Tribe Leader. These four day events that you host around gathering affluent people around the core values of health, wealth and sovereignty. So really excited to have you on the show and hearing all about your experience with leading events.

Thank you, brother. The Red Pill Experience name digs right into the core philosophy of why do events. I believe this to be true of anyone who's in the events business. We owe people something original that they cannot possibly experience on Zoom and if they've experienced some version of this event before, then we owe it to them to step up our game. That's a high bar to set because a lot of events that happen at this point, I personally have an aversion to hotel ballrooms. Whenever I go into a hotel ballroom, I immediately associate it with past events I've been to. So it's actually harder for the event leader to remove some of that residue from previous events, maybe the way that I've been sold to, for instance, at those previous events. With Red Pill Experience, it's really calling forth people who are ready to think outside the box, starting with how we do the event. We use mansions for this. We bring in gourmet chefs. Every morning when I welcome people, it's dropping in. Then I say a little invocation to call forth the divine spirit to empower us to rise together. Then when we open our eyes, I say, welcome to your Red Pill Experience. This is a nod to the movie The Matrix for anyone who's not clear that the context of there are various systems of control and oppression that stop us from having our greatest health, wealth and sovereignty and who is drawn to Red Pill, which is really exposing the truth. Are these leaders who are standing for greater health, wealth and sovereignty? So hence, outside the mainstream of whatever health, big pharma, Western medical system, wealth, Wall Street's investments, corporations, anyone who is entrepreneurial and they can stand outside of it.

That's who we bring together and doesn't have to be just affluent people. Anyone who is out to experience abundant life and aligns with these values. That's who we invite to join us.

Awesome, brother. In the agreement, we're talking about how things have changed in our current landscape. You're no longer focused on big events with 200 coaches in a room per se, but rather having more intimate, deeper relationships where there's more possibility for collaboration and creation inside of those containers. Love to hear more about your mindset and philosophy when it comes to this new approach with events, more intimate types of events and just where you see the trend is going.

It was in 2012 that I attended Millionaire Mind Intensive and the peak potentials, T. Harbecker. He wasn't one leading, it was Adam Markell. I saw the way that they were selling from the stage and the way people were rushing to the back as if people were rushing to claim $5,000 instead of spending $5,000. I'd never seen anything like this. I was just blown away by just how much money was cycling through at the back of the room. So I tried to do my own version of this and I tanked so horribly, man. I didn't have as many people in the room as they did, but at my first workshop, I had about 25 people there, friends, anyone I could rally together for an evening workshop. I said, rush to the back of the room if you want to be a winner in life. If you want to be a stuck loser, then stay in your seats. What's it going to be? But doing my own version of what I saw them do over at peak potentials. People just stared at me, irate, insulted. One guy said to me afterwards, actually a friend, Jason, he said to me, I'm never coming to see you speak again. If anyone asks, I'm telling them to avoid you. This is a hostile environment you create. That really hurt because I wanted to help people. I just thought I'm here to unstuck you. That was my rationale. Yet I recognized that I was being inauthentic. I was playing someone else's game, running someone else's race. A year later, I tried to do the model that I saw as I grew my business and improved my salesmanship. I did an event called Conscious Business Summit, which is kind of ironically named. I did the free scholarship model. So the $97 seat deposits are refundable when you get there.

I had about 50 people at that one. I spent about four months just working on that exclusively. Then I made an offer for my $5,000 program and nobody moved at all. I just got so frustrated with them at the front end. I lost it. I'm not proud of this at all. But it's real. I just said, why are you not buying? I want to know. Stone silence. Someone says, eventually, because I keep at it, right? Why are you not buying? Seriously, like, who of you are courageous enough to share and to speak in your truth? This is a safe space. Then someone said, I don't see the value. Then I'd be like, why not? It was really bad, Rudy. I'm cringing as I remember it. I was married at the time. My ex-wife, Ronnie, was the one running it. Then I just collapsed in her arms. I said, I think I'm done with this industry. After nobody signed up and we were in the hole, however many, $20,000 or so from the production and having nothing to show for it, I thought, I'm done with the coaching industry. That would have been the case if I really knew what else to do with my life, to be honest, like nothing has ever lit me up as much as transformation and creating community. Goes back to when I was in high school and I saw all the cliques and white people just didn't talk to each other. It was like a prison only. It just wasn't by race or gang. It was just these arbitrarily lines drawn off like jocks and skaters and math people, theater people. I threw a party when I was in senior year for my friend Bobak with a specific intention to melt all these cliques together.

I saw people talking for the very first time, having lunch together for the very first time, having friendships that carried them through the rest of high school. I thought, well, there's no higher calling in life than to bring people together. So I knew that doing events was going to be part of my fabric. So I just had to do it in a different way. Eventually settled on the retreat model. We're talking about how in the past, when we were growing up, there were maybe a handful of networks and some cable channels. Nowadays, there are millions of networks and channels between podcasts and Youtube, all streaming. What that points to is having smaller audiences. Like 60 Minutes can't get the audience that it used to. That's not the game that they are out to play anymore. There's a diffusion. Celebrity is not what it used to be. You don't have a Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt emerging the way that you would back in the day. That's because attention is so diffused. So it's having a core audience that really loves you and that will show up again and again for what you do. To that regard, doing retreats, intimate events of, say, 15 to 50 people. That's really where I believe the industry is headed. Not so much trying to cram as many people in the hotel ballroom as possible, trying to get 200 plus people. I find that game exhausting and not reflective of really the experience you want to have nowadays.

John, that was a powerful story or a couple of stories there that I heard, and I really put myself in leading in describing that nightmare situation of $20,000 in the hole. No one signing up. Frustrated. You collapsed in your wife's arms ready to quit. I imagine many people, if not everyone listening to this at some point, had a very similar experience or has a very similar fear that they're going to experience that. So remarkable, man. Would you mind just kind of going back to that moment and sharing what carried you through that moment? I know you had that experience as a child. For youth in high school that inspired you, like what got you through that moment, the ready to quit, but yet continue?

It was truly not knowing what else to do with my life. I think when you're clear on your vision that some part of you recognizes that you cannot unsee that there's no turning back. This is something I know to be true of anyone I've admired who's really attained something substantial in life. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey. Plan B is to make plan A work. For me, plan A was having a thriving business where I'm leading transformational events. That was a non-negotiable. So I always kind of had that in the background. So there was a moment where I said, forget all this. I think that's just part of being human at times. I went back to my one-on-one practice. I thought that was simpler. Then I filled that up. I had that game down by that point and was just reminded once again, that events are really where we get to shine. I believe so strongly in it too, in the transformational space, because of this pressure on the guru, I've known some 10 figure business owners who just burnt out, were so sick of their business and just wanted to get out of it. I knew a seven figure business owner, a coach who committed suicide. I believe one reason for that is because of the pressure that the guru model puts on us. I have all the answers come to me, learn my signature system, and you can have some semblance of my success. There is a low grade narcissism to it. More than anything, this pressure, this presentation, is kind of a celebritizing thing that I don't resonate with.

When you focus instead on tribes and say that, all right, this is a tribe that I'm curating. I'm being paid well to be the leader of this tribe, to curate the group, to be the host, creating the experiences. You're going to make so many amazing relationships inside of this tribe. Everyone is a leader. That to me is true leadership. Leaders create other leaders. This is something that's got roots in Martin Luther King, where it's been said by Michael Gerber and I read the E-myth. He said that the tragedy of Martin Luther King was that he was not an entrepreneur, an incredible visionary leader and he had some leaders underneath him, yet what it took to really create a movement or a business that could end racism in America, it fell short. Versus someone like Walt Disney who created leaders underneath him to carry on after he passed. This is something I feel really strongly about is that type of leadership. I think a lot of coaches and speakers are caught in their own celebritizing and their own system. There's a scaling issue and forget exit strategy for many of them. That's what we want to disrupt by saying, all right, you're going to create a tribe that actually has some brand equity out there. And there are examples, whether it's a CEO space, a group that I'm part of called Bellwether Alliance. Many out there that don't really predicate themselves, BNI, certainly Ivan Meisner's, where it's not predicated on the face and personality of any one person.

It's about the quality of the tribe. I believe this is what people are craving right now, especially since so many people see themselves as an expert. Yes, there's teaching and guidance that needs to happen and let's let people shine in their expertise within the tribe.

So powerful, John. What I'm hearing you say in all that is that there is a distinct disadvantage to the guru model. Not only the stress of trying to live a somewhat perfect life, but also the inescapability of it, like not having true leaders that can run a business beyond the guru. You referenced the event by Michael E. Gerber. I remember also reading that book, actually my late mentor, Vernon Lavia, that was the one book that he told me I had to memorize if I want to have any success in business. In that book, he specifically talks about overly talented people being the bane of the existence of any business. I forgot that. Love it. At the same point you're making is like, hey, you can't build a business on one personality. You have to be building leaders, systems, processes, tribes. So that's what made me think of it. He said that. I'd be curious to learn more, a little bit about how you go about building these tribes and teaching other people how to build these tribes around the core values of health, wealth, and sovereignty. I know you do the Red Pill Experience twice a year. Then from there you lead people into the Abundant Tribe Leader program. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how you do it?

RPXP we host two times per year. It's a four day in-person retreat. I happen to live in San Diego and I'm pretty meticulous about the event experience. I do have a film background, so I see it as an obsessive film director creating it. So I like my multiple site visits and we happen to be fortunate where it's a destination for folks. So we do like to rent large estates in San Diego for it and the values of health, wealth, and sovereignty is what Dr. Monsi and I have come to. Just it unified us on our first date. This is what we're standing for in our own lives and for humanity. I do believe that statement about true love exists, not in staring into one another, but outwards in the same direction. This is the same direction that she and I were staring and that a couple has to stand for something. I can go on a separate tangent on this one, the difference it makes when a couple truly stands for something. Then a lot of your disagreements have a lot less weight as you're up to something big. As we looked at what was missing health, wealth, and sovereignty, we thought, well, who would be our partners in realizing this? This is a framework for any tribal year to consider. What are you standing for across humanity? Play a big enough of a game that you pop up this umbrella or this big tent. I think of myself as a PT Barnum of sorts where I pop up the big tent and then invite the stars to shine underneath it. There are other people who are also going to resonate with health, wealth, and sovereignty. I was saying to you in the green room that I'm not brilliant the way that Jesse Corrin or Jay Forsett, who've been two of my mentors are, where I've seen them just get into the skin of their clients and be able to see through their eyes, how to speak to their particular niche.

That to me is a skill that I don't particularly have. I think a lot of coaches like I was in the past are trying to play a game that they're not really well suited for. This perhaps is more of an artist type thing where this is like a vision that I have and expression and anyone who's a speaker coach who has a creative background, this is especially for you where you have a certain vision to put out into the world and you need partners to help you realize that vision. The vision in this case is going to be some flavor of probably awakening humanity. You decide what your angle is. So with the Red Pill Experience, we're drawn to this concept, which is a little controversial because there are systems of control and oppression on our planet. From government to corporations, mass media, and there's interlocking at the highest levels that stopped the individual from having the greatest health, wealth, and sovereignty. So it's through entrepreneurship and the limitless power through entrepreneurship and investing as well, that we see that we can unlock the potential for people without a greater health, wealth, and sovereignty through empowering leaders. So getting back to your question, we have the abundant tribe leader then where folks come in who recognize that they themselves want to lead their own tribes. They align with our values. So we're able to mentor them a lot more effectively than if I had to figure out a niche that I want to necessarily be a part of, like I would go to every one of our clients retreats first hand because we have the same values and we're able to refer to one another a lot more easily as well. And because we're not playing for like big sold out arenas here, we're talking about retreats, then it doesn't take much to be profitable and that to me is something given my past bombing experiences with events, I find to be essential is that you have to be profitable.

One reason I love the name of your show, having profitable events is essential to give you the affirmation from the universe that you're on the right path. It's not about how much money, but it does have to be sustainable. This is what encourages you to keep on this path.

Thank you for sharing that, man. Being here and you say that profit is actually a feedback that you're on a path. That's the right path because it's sustainable. I remember a mentor, I once heard say a definition for a business is the ability to consistently deliver value into the market in a sustainable, consistent way, consistent and sustainable. I think sustainability is the profit. Otherwise you can't continue to do what you do, at least not fully, without that.

Absolutely. You have to ask yourself in terms of sustainability, is it sustainable to be doing these hotel ballroom events? My gosh, did they charge a lot of money coming out of COVID and I'm not blaming them. I mean, they took some big hits during COVID. They're trying to make up however they can. I remember doing an event for $6,000. This is actually the event. I wish I met mom. See, she walked into my ballroom and this was a year ago and it was a nice hotel in San Diego and it was $6,000 for the room rental for three days, including the AV. So I was pretty pleased with that. We bought 40 people at that one. Then the next one, they clearly had a discussion about not making enough money off my events because he said for me to come back, it would be a $20,000 food and beverage minimum that I would have to hit in order to have access to those rooms. I took that as a nudge to go in a different direction. It's not like that's a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. It just did not reflect what I wanted to put out energetically because I knew that it would put a certain responsibility on me to sell if I was doing the lower cost model, which I've since shifted because it was part of the pivot towards really leaning into retreats. You know, I've done music and arts festivals. I've done conferences. I've done lots of seminars. It was really as of a year ago, I said retreats are really where it's at. Some of these things clicked into place in terms of where the industry is headed. We sold out both of ours that we've had so far. We had a space for 25 at the first one, got 25, a space for 40 at our next one.

We got 40. Next one we're playing for 60 and that's what's going to happen there. In my consciousness, that's the only way it can go. We have Tribe now as part of our year long container. So that's part of how it works to fill the room. So as a strategy, you want to have your equivalent to Jesus and his 12 disciples as a tribe leader, decide who your loyal, dedicated fans are. I know that Tim Ferriss has a quote along these lines about your hundred loyal fans, I think it is, or a thousand loyal fans. That's a different kind of game than say the retreat of that business. I'd say 12 is a very good number to shoot for. So if you say, all right, first retreat, get my 12 people in and create this incredible bonnet experience. Jesus is a great example because of the unique groundbreaking controversial philosophy of what is known as Christianity. At the time it stood out to people. It was a sense of I'm getting something that I can't get anywhere else. That's a standard to hold yourself to as a speaker and event leader. It bothers me, frankly, that speakers don't hold themselves to that standard that they're recycling too much. So we've had so many great visionary leaders to model after Jesus, Martin Luther King, someone like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. I mean, you can apply a lot of their unique groundbreaking philosophy and how they've been uber successful with it. Then say, how am I bringing this to the retreats? Cause I owe people something they haven't seen before. Is it risky? Yes. Is it going to confront your sense of being approved of and liked by everyone? Yes. I've got that from childhood, having been bullied so much and eating lunch by myself every day for two years straight, seventh and eighth grade.

Yes. I had this thing about acceptance and fitting in. What I know to be true is that the deeper you go in yourself as a tribe leader, the more your tribe appears. When they do appear, the more they will stand by you. The more they feel there's something unique here. I'm going to keep coming back and tell my friends to keep coming back.

I'm really hearing that you're committed as a leader to a tribe leader, as an event leader, but creating unique experiences that people just can't get anywhere else and not just recycling. Something from T Harbeck or as an example but really creating a unique experience. Also the power of gathering your 12 loyal fans or followers and really building that way. Building with the foundation of that small loyal circle.

I'll give you another example of a masterful communicator. So that was a three day event I led a year ago for the right to pay the $6,000 for that ballroom. Then Mansi walked in halfway through day two during the plant medicine panel. She thought, why is there a plant medicine panel happening during a communication seminar? I dig this. This is different from what I thought it was going to be. I didn't expect to have a life partner come out of that initial experience. It just shows that she could have that experience. Others can as well, where I believe in the power of plant medicine. It's been really transformational for me. It's impacted my mindset and communication. It fits, it draws me in my heart more, which of course affects your communication. So it'd be remiss for me not to do a discussion about plant medicine there. Just bring it all of yourself into the event. I think this old adage of don't discuss politics and religion with people has to be contextualized. I wouldn't say to make it front facing is the way to go, but certainly once people are in your event. You can use these as opportunities to break past stigma, projection, ego, control attachment, and really create more unity in the room. I would assert if you are a tribe leader, that one of the reasons you're on planet earth is to create more unity on this planet. So I would say go for those topics and you're right. People will love you for it.

Religion, politics, and money. Don't talk about that. That triggers people, but I get what you're saying. In your event, you have a container. Use those as tools to help people see what, where the opportunities are for them to actually go closer together.

Well, it holds you to a standard too, of being a masterful communicator and being someone who honors all people. Like if you talk about politics, for instance, you get to honor all sides before you actually get into the meat of what you're here to say. That framework I think is very useful. Just as a quick point here, that if you can be someone who honors all sides of a situation. You can do that with a person. Then anytime you have a conflict, you are a gift to humanity. It's only because you decide that, all right, I've got something to say about this topic, the cost of admission to enter this particular theme park. Is that I honor everyone upfront and then throughout too. I'm not blaming anyone. I believe there's a lot of value and where people are coming from with this. Here's my particular take. You get to decide what's true for you or not. In that regard, there's nothing polarizing about it. This is where people fall short, obviously, because they lead too much when it comes to these topics of, I think this way, I'm trying to jam my point of view down your throat. Well, of course, people are going to recoil and fight back against that. We get to rise above that.

One of my mentors, Scott, my communication coach, actually talks about the concept, the steel manning, being able to describe someone else's perspective as well, if not better than they can before trying to make your point. It's a skill that he says has been lost or overlooked more today. People are just so fixated on arguing their point. But we're bringing it back.

This is where as speakers and coaches, we're the Jedi of the universe. I went to USC film school, so it was Star Wars, George Lucas everywhere. What that imprinted on me, though, is that especially as I am, where I go beyond the surface of things like Star Wars is to me, not so much like the special effects, what stands out to me is the force, the Jedi as a way to bring light across the planet. I do see speakers, coaches, transformational leaders as the Jedi of planet earth. We've been too locked up in our bubble. Basically, we have the best trained army in the world that is just behind the castle gates, drilling over and over again to each other and not going beyond where there are all kinds of chaotic issues happening in the world and how each person addresses is up to themselves. But we do care about philanthropy is something that we are getting more into now. We've had to sort out some of our offerings and so forth. But I'm very clear that part of our path is to take it to the streets, so to speak, as much as we can. In the issues that we discussed, too, I mean, that's basically where most of it happens is inside the actual events to be able to not separate ourselves from what's happening in the world. I think as leaders, we get to draw the correlation between if we do this work, here's how the world becomes a better place. Here's how someone who's starving in Africa could potentially benefit from decisions that you make in your business.

Like I said, with a couple looking out in the same direction, that's what the mission is so important for the business, that's why it's what calls you forward despite those tough times bombing at an event.

I appreciate you sharing your higher calling and mission here and coming back to this idea of unifying people and unifying the world. I hear that that's your call to arms as a leader and as a tribe leader to bring people together. We already have enough separation. We already have enough duality in the world. It's this work that actually can bring people together, bring peace. So thank you, brother. Jon, it's been a wonderful interview. As we wrap up here, I know you have a gift for our audience. Do you want to share that with us at this time?

Yes, so I created for the audience here. Thanks so much for listening and being with us up until now. I'd love to continue the conversation with you. So we have an Abundant Tribe Leader Roadmap. This will take you step by step in how to become an Abundant Tribe Leader. Some we put a lot of work into creating and it's our gift to you. You just text TRIBE to this number two, six, seven, eight, six. You text the word TRIBE to that number. So text TRIBE to two, six, seven, eight, six, and you receive that right away. We do have the Red Pill Experience retreats happening twice per year. So if you're curious about that, you can go to rpxpretrea.com. There is a nice video there you can check out. We also have abundanttribeleader.com, which talks about the program overall and has more videos there. Then we do have alternativeinvestorslegacy.com, which is really on the next level, in terms of busting out of the financial matrix and people can really radically alter the trajectory of their financial future and their lives, ultimately, by deciding what they do with the funds that they have available. So we have resources there and you can book a call with us to pursue that further too.

Awesome, thank you so much for all these resources. So go ahead right now. They got your phone and text the word TRIBE to two, six, seven, eight, six, to receive that Abundant Tribe Leader Roadmap. I'm going to do it right at the end of this interview because I want to check it out myself. Thank you, Jon, for being on with us today. We'll be sure to include all these links in the show notes. You can go ahead if you listen to this, go down the show notes and you can find all the links that John has referenced. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful day.

Thank you, brother Rudy. Together we rise. We rise.