In this episode of The High Profit Event Show, host Rudy Rodriguez welcomes transformational coach and seasoned event facilitator Tony Litster for a deep and inspiring conversation on how to move beyond the traditional event model and create experiences that truly transform lives

With over two decades of experience leading, facilitating, and supporting more than 100 live events, Tony shares his proven methods for creating meaningful emotional connections that help attendees not only absorb information but feel more alive and more of themselves. Rudy and Tony explore how events can shift from being informational to transformational — and why emotional connection is the ultimate key to lasting impact and profitable engagement.

One of the major themes of the episode is creating transformational experiences through emotional connection. Tony explains that people don’t attend events simply for knowledge — they come to feel. The goal of a high-impact event, he says, is to help attendees experience themselves in an expanded version, free of shame and full of possibility. By doing so, event leaders build deeper trust and inspire action that lasts long after the event is over.

Tony also shares three practical tools for deep engagement that any event leader can incorporate immediately.

1. Breathwork — a fast and accessible method to help participants shift their energy and focus in under two minutes.

1. Shame-Dissolving Exercises — reflective activities that allow attendees to feel seen and accepted, dissolving barriers that often block growth and connection.

1. Reflective Writing — guided writing moments during events that help attendees gain clarity from within, turning insights into actionable plans.

The conversation concludes with a powerful discussion on building post-event accountability and community for long-term change. Tony describes his “accountability pod” model — small peer groups that meet for short daily or weekly check-ins — designed to maintain transformation through consistency, community, and humor (yes, even the famous “piss pledge” challenge!). These pods, first developed during the pandemic, have sustained participant engagement for years, helping people stay committed and connected long after the event ends.

By the end of the episode, Rudy and Tony highlight what sets a high profit event apart: not just revenue, but results. It’s about crafting an environment where attendees feel seen, supported, and inspired to take the next step in their growth journey.

For event leaders ready to elevate their experiences, Tony shares a simple but life-changing daily ritual available at TonysRitual.com — a practice that blends breathwork, focus, and self-accountability to create lasting transformation.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to design events that go beyond content delivery to ignite emotion, foster connection, and create communities that thrive.

Want to connect with Tony?

Tony’s Ritual: http://tonysritual.com/

Interested in Working with Tony 1-on-1: https://www.tonylitster.com/apply-now

Website: http://tonylister.com/

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tony_litster

Welcome to today's episode of the podcast. We have a very special guest with us today, all the way from, I think you're in Boise now, is that right, Tony?

I'm in Boise, Idaho.

All the way from Boise, Idaho, Mr. Tony Litster. Welcome, sir.

Thank you, Rudy. Always exciting to talk to you, brother.

You too, man. We've had some very special experiences over the last, what, five or six years we've known each other? There have always been very quality experiences, and interestingly enough, it's almost always been around events, whether it's been a Burning Man experience most recently, or a retreat in Costa Rica with The Legendary Group, and several things in between. We've always met and learned and grown together around events or in events, which is interesting because that's like the theme of this podcast in this interview.

Yeah, we've hung out in some cool places in the world.

We have, man. I've had some cool experiences. For our audience who maybe is hearing your name for the first time, I want to give a little background for our audience. One, why should you listen to Tony? Well, Tony's been in the event business for over 20 years, since 2005, and he's been a serial entrepreneur for a long part of his life. Events have only been a part of his life, but since 2005, he's participated in hosting, facilitating, co-facilitating, supporting probably over 100 live events, I'm sure.

Oh, at least, yeah.

Yeah, and you've also been part of a real estate education team that produced over 200 million in education sales via live events. So you're definitely no stranger to leading them and I know you're also a master when it comes to facilitation at live events and helping people make the shift they need to make so that they sign up for the next program, the mastermind, the coaching program, or the next event, and really having that internal shift.

If you don't figure that part out, it's hard to be in the event business. If you can't figure out how to generate that energy and that excitement and that enrollment, it's a tough business to be in. But if you can figure out that piece, it's very rewarding.

Yeah, absolutely and for our audience here, I really want to give you a golden hook here because Tony, I'm telling you, he is one of the most sought-after business coaches around. He's in a lot of circles, and he works very exclusively, only privately, one-on-one, and he only has, like, one spot available. So he's super exclusive. He's kind of like a ghost. You know about him, but you don't get to see him today. You get to see him. You get to meet him. He's an expert in a lot of domains. So I invite you to really tune in to what he has to share here today and ask yourself, how can you apply this right away to your own part of your business? So, Tony, I want to go ahead and turn it over to you, sir, to set us up here for today's content.

Yeah, I think the key I always want to start with is people want to feel themselves. Not like, oh, it's me, my personality. They want to feel. We want to experience more of what it is to be us. So when people come through event spaces, if we can get them to feel more alive, if we get them to feel more engaged, more excited, more passionate, we start to create a vision of what's possible in their life, they want to take the next step with us. So the purpose of the event, some of it is to give information, but I think that's a small, small part of it. I think that the event is there to create an experience so that the person experiences themself in an expanded version. The whole point of personal development is for us to occur to ourself differently. So whether it's, I did real estate events, I did personal development events, I've led ceremony types of events, all these different events. Yes, there's some content. Yes, there's some things that the thinker brain goes, oh, I need to come here and I need to learn this to justify the expense that I'm having. But at the end of it, as we help them experience being more alive, as we help them experience dissolving some of their shame, as we make their dream come more alive in them of what they're creating in their life and why our event and our offering, our coaching program, our follow-up workshops, whatever it is, why that fits in the vision of what they have, it's a feeling that we help them to get and I think that's really the, that's my favorite part of the event space.

Yeah, everyone's going after a feeling. That's something that one of my mentors, Scott DeMoulin, really emphasized because he's a speaker coach. He said, at the end of the day, you've got to ask yourself, what is the feeling you want to leave people with? Because that's what they remember ultimately, and to your point, you were saying the point of the event is to help them become more of themselves or feel like more of themselves. In the green room, you're sharing how, when you can help them to feel more of themselves, ultimately, they're going to become higher paying clients, whether it's a coaching program, a mastermind program, or the next event. That is the master key to unlock at the event. So I'd be curious, Tony, to hear from you. I know you're a very experiential guy. We have about 15 minutes or so remaining in this interview. What's like the golden, if you can break that down for us even more, like specific, actionable things that people can, event leaders can use to help people become more of themselves and ultimately improve their sales and enrollments at their live events.

Yeah, and I think the way I want to structure this, I want to talk specifically, I'll cut right to the chase and get into what are some of the experiential things that we can take people through that pretty much anybody can do. They're not that hard to learn. The mechanics are pretty simple. So they have some tangibles, some takeaways of going, oh, I can implement this in my event. I can implement that in my event and then I want to talk about on the follow-up side of things, if there's time, the structure that I found to be the most valuable to get people actual results. Because the reality is people are distracted. There's so much distraction. There's so many different things going on. So our goal at the event is we've got to bring them into focus, into this moment, and then people have shame. There's all this comparative b******* that happens in Instagram and that whole world of, oh, I'm not successful enough. I haven't done this enough. I don't have these many followers, or I haven't gotten this result and so when people get distracted and then they have shame, they run around like a chicken with their head cut off and they come into our event because some piece of it drew them in that said, hey, I'm going to help you get this specific result. I'm going to help you make more money. I'm going to help you improve your business. I'm going to help you improve your relationships. I'm going to help you come up with a system or this process and that's hopefully going to eliminate some of their shame and get them some kind of result, either in their body, their relationships, or their money. And so we get them in there and I think that the number one most effective, easiest to use, most applicable of all the tools to help people feel is breathing and breath work and it can be as simple as, like, if you're driving, don't do this because you might get a little bit lightheaded. But we'll do, like, a simple little breath work right here to see how simple and how fast. In two minutes or less, it's going to totally change your state.

We're going to do 10 breaths. We're going to gulp it in as fast as we can gulp it in. Then we're going to hold it and if you're standing, you can hop while you hold it. And then at the end, we're going to shake it out and go. I do this at Rhythmia, all right? Okay, so here we go. Simple. It doesn't require any education here. 10 breaths.

Really gulp it. Okay, take it and hold it and if you really want to amp this up, hop. Now, you have to let some of it out so you don't pass out. Go like this. You got to let it a little bit out. Let it out, otherwise you'll get too lightheaded. Then push it all the way out and hold it for a second and when you need to breathe, we're going to shake and take a breath and go. Okay, that's it. See how simple that was? It was like a minute and a half. You can sit back down. We're good. That was the whole breathing exercise. But breathing in its simplicity changes people's states really, really fast and so I like to build that in. Little simple breathing exercises. It's part of the follow-up. The power of the follow-up that I'll talk about in a second that we do is also having people commit to daily breathing exercises. Simple little processes and then if you really want to level it up, there's advanced breath work and people make it a big deal. Rudy, you've attended my breath work workshops. I never went and got certified. I hacked it. I got on and people, they'll come to my breath work. I did breath work at Burning Man this year and they'll go, I've never experienced breath work like that ever and I've done it a hundred different times. I just went and hacked it. I just got online and signed up for people's breath work and did it and I'm like, oh, I like that. I like that. I like that. I like that. I like that. You don't need some certification. You're just guiding people through breathing. But it's so incredibly powerful. Okay, second of the tools, shame-dissolving exercises.

So we all have shame. Shame is anytime we have that sensation that says how I am is not okay. I need to be something other than what I am. I need to feel something other than what I'm feeling. I need to have some kind of result other than what I have. My body needs to look different. My bank account needs to be different. Whatever it is. Something that says this moment's not okay. That's shame and think about how many places we have that. We all have that. I have that. Even though I teach this. Shame is this inherent human experience. So the magic to dissolve shame is to understand the mechanism. Shame occurred in the presence of another being. Somebody responded a certain way to us. They looked at us. They scoffed at us. They judged us. They yelled at us. They rejected us. They abandoned us. Something happened and then that other person responded and our system went, oh, no, something's wrong with me. I'm not lovable. Oh, no, I can't let these people see me. If I let people really see me, they're going to abandon me. They're going to reject me. They won't listen to me. That's shame. And so we can do shame-dissolving exercises by simply letting people witness each other. This can be done on Zoom, on private, like the, that when you put people in the group settings in Zoom, it can be done in live event space and it can be done on any layer as wild as you want to take this. If it's a business event and people aren't really used to sharing deep, vulnerable expressions, it can be like, hey, let's dissolve some shame about what did you not get done in your business last week that you know you should have got done and then they get on there and they go, oh, man, I knew I should have sent those emails and I just, I beat myself up on what the hell's wrong with me.

And instead I played video games or I smoked weed or I did this, whatever and the other person's job is to simply reflect and go, I see you and it's nice to see you. Thanks for letting me know this part of you. Because if we come into the container of shame and that part of us goes, I can't let them know this about me. I can't let them know that they're going to reject me and we actually face in and we let them know that part and the other person doesn't reject us. That's an important part of the container. We have to teach people how to do it. You just reflect it back. Wow. It's nice to see you. Hey, good job for showing up. Thanks for letting me see this part of you. Then that part of us that's inherently scared to be seen because we're going to get kicked out of our tribe and we're going to die in the wilderness goes, oh, they didn't reject me. And you can take this depending on the type of event space you're in. You can take this to some pretty deep shame dissolving places and you have to make the container a little safer. There needs to be some more trust. But I went to a men's group. I was leading breathwork at the men's group and the guy gets up and he's talking about all these things. He doesn't want us to know about him and he strips down naked. He's like, okay, now it's your turn and so I was like, what? Okay, I guess. So we like stripped down naked. It's a room full of dudes and like stand in front of each other. It was like, well, I don't want you to know this about me. You can take it to extremes like that. I was like, that was the most extreme. But the idea is this can be done and it's so powerful. It is. I think in coaching, I've coached for 18 years, maybe almost 20 years now, thousands of hours, maybe 11, 12,000 hours of coaching. It's what I do now is I actually coach CEOs to dissolve trauma out of their system and to dissolve their shame that they don't have it all right, that they screw all these things up and when we dissolve these things out, because it's so inherent, it brings back our creativity.

It brings back our willingness to take risk. It brings back the part of us that's excited and that's alive and that's playful because we're not, we're not stuck in this like inner place that the self-punishment. So this can be, I think it's the most powerful part of one-on-one coaching as well, is giving reflection, letting that person be seen in a container where the coach just goes, wow, thanks for letting me see you. Yeah, got it. You're human. Welcome to the planet and that part of us is like, oh, I can't let this part be seen. It dissolves and it's so powerful. Now, if you do this in your event space, you start getting people high on their own breath. They start feeling more alive. They start feeling more activated. It breaks down the social barriers. You get people to shake and make funny noises. It breaks up the social rigidity. Then you have them actually meet each other and you start these exercises gently and they can go deeper and deeper and deeper if you want them to. Whatever level you want them to. Could just be business shame. Could be relationship shame. Could be body shame. Could be the things that we've really messed up in our lives that we don't want people to know. Shame. Got to be a little careful about that. I don't like it to be like a full confession of every bad thing we did to some stranger. I don't think that's useful. But up into that line, it's so useful. It's crazy powerful. Then what happens is they go, man, I just feel so seen here. I feel like I could be myself in this community. Wow. Yeah, I'm learning these cool business things, but I'm also learning how to show up and how to not be afraid to take risks and I get to be more of me. Then they naturally are like, what else? I want to stay plugged in. You saw this, Rudy, when you were running sales for our events, we would create these experiences of bonding.

People are like, I don't even know what they're selling, but I want it. Because they felt, they got seen, they got witnessed. Third one, because we only have a couple of minutes to talk about this. How many more minutes do I have left? By the way, I haven't been watching the clock.

Yeah, probably about, I'm just looking, eight minutes. Let me check. Four minutes, four minutes.

Oh my, four minutes?

Four to five minutes. Yeah.

Okay, got it. All right, perfect. Third, riding exercises. Introspective riding exercises right there during the event, because they're too distracted in regular life to do this. They're too busy and if you start to build this in where you do breathing first to get centered and focused, like that little breathing thing, they like woke you up as part of this podcast, brings you focus, brings you centered and then if we were to do riding exercises in real time, we carve out the space, they're there, they turn off their phone, they start to go introspective, and they start to get their own answers. When you take somebody and you charge up their energy with breathing, and you dissolve their shame and bring back that dreamer, you bring back the curious part that wants to experience more layers of life and no longer as afraid because we dissolve the shame, and you get them to start riding. Then there's so much magic. Their own plan happens coming out of them. So now let's quickly talk about the follow-up container. I think the follow-up container, if it's going to create actual change, needs to have accountability and needs to have daily state change. Those are the two factors. I got really disgusted in the event space industry, watching people come into events and have big aha breakthroughs and go home and not change. Like it was disgusting to me. I really, really don't like it. So I looked at how do we create containers afterwards that actually get results? And number two, the container afterwards doesn't take all my time because I like to have a life. I don't like to just be on the phone, right? So I need to have a balance of this, of real results and a life.

So what we did is we would create accountability pods where we get a group of three or four people, maybe four to five max, and they make a radical commitment for the next 30 days that they're going to meet sometimes twice a week, sometimes it's every day, five days a week, whatever the group decides to is fine. It's a 15-minute call. This is the structure. You have to keep it to 15 minutes. So it honors everybody's busy schedules. 15 minutes. One person goes around the room and asks, did you do your accountability from yesterday? There's two points of accountability. Point one is the morning ritual and I don't have time to talk about it. It's a little breathing ritual, kind of like what I just did. If you want to see the morning ritual that I do, it's on just a landing page called tonysritual.com. So go check that out. Tonysritual.com. Use it with your people. You're welcome. So they do their daily breathing to change their state. And second, they make a daily commitment on an action of whatever it is. I'm going to send out this email campaign. I'm going to talk to this person. I'm going to call this person back. I'm going to do whatever it is. So the first person in the little accountability pod, they go around the room. Rudy, did you do your accountability from yesterday? Yeah, I did my ritual and I sent the emails. Great. Okay, Tony, did you do yours? Yep, did my ritual and I called this person back, whatever it is, the nudge, change your state, nudge your business forward and then somebody gives like a little insightful thought, a spiritual thought, an inspirational thought of the day. Then everybody goes around the circle again and says, what's your accountability for today? Today, I'm going to do my ritual and today I'm going to write this thing for my book. I'm going to do whatever I'm going to do. They make a daily commitment to simple daily tasks.

They're changing their state every day. It's going to change their frequency over time. It's going to change their brain over time and they're taking a little nudge on their business and then the thing that holds it all together is the piss pledge. The piss pledge is my favorite part, even though I hate it. It's like, I hate it, but I love it.

And not for kids.

This is the game. This is when it really becomes real. The game is, and I'm in two piss pledges right now with my clients and the game is I will do this, whatever this commitment is sometime in that 24 hour clock before the next call, or I take a drink of my own piss and the visceral response, everybody is, everyone's like, gross. Like the viewers of the podcast are like, ah, that's right. That's why it works. It's a game and it brings you to the table to say, are you really playing this game? Or you're doing some b******* like, Oh, I'm going to do it. But I know you're either going to do the thing. You're going to drink your piss. Neither one is powerful and it's okay and some days I choose to drink my pee because I don't want to do the thing, but I show up powerfully for my team. This is the magic sauce. When you have events, I'm going to wrap all this up. People, they're looking for some sign of inner guidance. They're looking to feel certainty. They're looking to feel confidence. They're looking to be able to take action in their life and better their life. When we bring them into the event space and we give them these experiential feelings of themselves, we help them come alive through breath. We dissolve their shame. We give them introspection from their own answers and then we build a container afterwards that's actual community. I don't have to facilitate it.

Community. I don't have to facilitate it. They facilitate it and it's actual accountability on a daily basis for the game that they're playing one month at a time. People get results and it's wild, Rudy. When you helped us set this up years ago, there's people five years later that I hear, and they're still meeting in their little accountability pod. When we came up with this during COVID, they're still doing it. Years later, like my dad joined one of our programs back then. He just met up last week with one of the ladies that was in his accountability pod from five years ago. She was coming through town, and they had lunch together. So this is really the result that we're looking for. Anyway, I wish we could have all afternoon to talk about this. That's my short version.

This is good stuff. People need to reach out to you and come to one of your events or breathwork sessions. For our listeners here, go to Tonysritual.com. We're going to include the link here with the show notes, likely around whatever you're seeing here around the interview, Tonysritual.com. And Tony, just tell us a little bit more about what they're going to find there.

Yeah, it's just there's no opt-in. I just had so many people asking me, what are you doing in your ritual? So I got tired of answering it. So I made a little video. Shows the ritual. There's a short version and then an explanation version. So if you want to see what it is, build it into your life, build it into your coaching programs. It is what people come back and say changes everything for them. It's that simple little ritual.

Yeah, it's interesting how the little rituals can add up to big things over time. Like five years ago, people starting that, that those pods and still going today. That's pretty, pretty cool. I think you were saying in the green room that the reason it still goes is because they're getting what they actually need.

Real community, real accountability.

Yeah, yeah. So guys, this has been, and gals, a great and very different episode because Tony went into specific tactics and the things that he uses that works for him. And yeah, they're unconventional. But it's what he's found that's worked over the course of 20 years of doing live events and really having a genuine desire to not just get more sales, but also to change people's lives and get them the results that they're seeking. So if you're a CEO and you feel you resonate with Tony, I also encourage you to reach him, reach out to him, TonyLister.com. We'll put a link around the episode as well. Reach out to him directly. I know Tony, you don't do a lot of private and you do some private work, but you're very full right now with the exception of maybe one spot. So if you're a CEO, reach out to Tony. He's actually worked with some of my friends who are CEOs of seven figure plus companies, and they have raved about working with Tony as well. So Tony, you probably didn't know that they say that about you.

I didn't know you were going to say that. Can I say one little piece?

Yeah.

My favorite people to work with are the people that have tried everything else. They tried it. They tried the psychedelics. They tried the therapy. They tried all these different things and they there's like stuck points and they're like, I've tried it and they're really ready to come and face it. Those are the, I love working with people on that because I spent 25 years to get to the point to go, oh, that's how you unlock that piece. So those are like, if someone's in that, business owner, entrepreneurial type person, it's in that place where they've like tried all the pieces and there's like something they can't unclick. That's why, that's why I get so excited. So I always work with a few people and I've got my real estate business, my other stuff I'm doing, but Yeah. So if that's, if that's the person, we can have some fun.

Perfect. Awesome, brother. Thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast today. It's been wonderful to have you on today.

Thank you, Rudy. Appreciate you, brother