and community growth.
It's good.
We, there, you know, there's so much that's going on
in the Kajabi world.
So, you know, they've been,
they've been really, really busy this summer,
like really busy this summer.
And so it's, yeah, you know, they're,
where they're at is really continue to love their heroes.
Well, and it's just fun to watch them keep going,
keep going and keep moving.
Yeah, their community is awesome.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey there, and welcome to Vision Pros Live.
I am your host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I'm really excited to have my friend Maruxa here today,
who's also a wonderful, amazing community growth leader.
When we're talking about great communities,
we're talking about communities like Kajabi.
The Kajabi platform hosts over 60,000 courses on it,
course providers rather,
and their community on Facebook is more than 40,000 strong,
if I remember correctly last time I looked.
And Maruxa is ultimately the director of that community
and making sure that they have an awesome presence
and they're building great tribes within that.
And I'll let her fill us more in on what she does
and how she helps with community revolutions.
So we'll be coming back to that in just a minute.
In the meantime, I wanna mention two of our sponsors,
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We use it ourselves for our podcasts.
So CapShow is fantastic.
In addition to that, iconmakerlive.com
is coming up next week
and they're gonna be making some seriously awesome offers
over the coming days.
I was just talking to Tom this morning
about the process for the event, what's coming.
And they're planning on having a thousand people
attend this virtual event
to help people launch their podcasts.
On another fun note, Maruxa just announced
that they're launching their podcast later today.
So it'll be really cool to,
we'll put that in the show notes
so you guys can connect with her beyond this actual episode.
But I can tell you right now,
one of the best things that you can do for your life
as well as for your business
is establish your own community.
If you can create a community
where you know that you're accepted, that you belong,
where you're providing value to others,
it's one of the most enriching experiences there is
and gives you an extreme amount of purpose.
So it'll be a lot of fun to talk to her about that.
So real quick back to iconmakerlive.com,
that starts on Wednesday of next week.
There may be a couple of VIP sessions before that
on Tuesday, I can't remember exactly,
but all I know is what Tom Matson is building
and sheryl Plouffe is absolutely phenomenal.
And I hope to see you at that event.
I'll actually be with them in person for it,
but the virtual experience is going to be just as powerful.
And we're gonna be doing things like connecting people
to their dream 100 based on our social connection.
So if there's people in my circle or Tom's circle
or Sheryl's and beyond,
we're actually gonna be doing outreach,
strategic partnership, engagements,
and that's just scratching the surface
of so many things they have planned for that event.
So beyond that too,
if you're blessed enough to listen to this
and you have an extra dollar to spare,
then I hope that you look at the water project
and see what the water project's up to.
It's very easy to Google.
We'll also drop the link in the show notes.
Jaime, if you don't mind for today,
let's go ahead and put a specific project in the show
and honor that project.
And perhaps several people will be able to contribute to it
and who knows, maybe we'll raise the money today itself
by going and checking that out.
So go ahead and check out the project
and I'll show you what area of the world,
what area of Africa specifically is in dire need
of having access to clean drinking water.
And if you can give a dollar to it,
then I hope you can do so
and then just feel the gratitude
of being able to be in a position to do that
while having clean drinking water yourself.
So without further ado, let's bring Maruxa on stage.
Maruxa, thank you so much for joining me
on Vision Pros today.
Jackson, it is a pleasure to be here.
Thank you so much.
And I love that you're supporting the water project.
I absolutely enjoy supporting them as well.
So I'm glad that-
So awesome.
We're able to share that together today, yes.
Yeah, that's so cool.
And that just goes back to like the overlap we've had.
When we met at Kajabi, I was like, oh my gosh,
sister from another mister, like right here,
right in step one, I was like, this is so cool.
It was at our mastermind table, wasn't it?
It was, yeah, it was the VIP day,
the first day of the full Kajabi event, Kajabi event.
And yeah, we were at the same table
and we were trying to figure out a solution
to improve Kajabi's experience.
And that was quite fun.
It really, you really stood out to me, like profoundly.
So here we were in this table, guys.
And imagine you're at a conference
and you have several hundred people in the room
and you don't know each other.
Well, Kajabi gave us the opportunity to incubate an idea
to improve a feature or create a benefit for their solution.
That was a really great idea.
But we're also under the time constraint
of like 10 to 15 minutes to do this.
And you don't have a group leader at the table.
You've kind of got to figure that out.
And so we're all alphas.
So we're like, okay, this is gonna be fun.
And I'm just imagining like, man, how's this gonna go?
Is this gonna go really well
or is this gonna turn into a disaster?
It'll be cool to see.
And sure enough, like it went super well.
But what really struck me was Maruxa practices the art
of slow to speak, quick to listen.
And they say, if you wanna be a great leader,
hear everybody else out first, hear what's going on.
And she was, she was reserved, she was waiting.
And everybody discussed their different ideas.
And patiently she came forward with a concept and idea
that ultimately shifted the focus
of what the entire conversation was based on.
And I continued to watch Maruxa do that
as we interacted with others throughout the conference.
And I was like, wow, no wonder why she's
such a great community leader.
You got these crazy, amazing listening skills.
Where did you develop that?
Oh my gosh, I've never had someone pick that up.
And I appreciate that very much.
How did I learn that?
I think I learned that probably
through being the oldest child of four
and the second oldest of 39 first cousins
in a very loud Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Filipino family.
It's a big mix.
Big, I mean, my family, yeah, my mom's one of 11
and they had 39 children.
And so, and we all live, most of us live in the Philippines
or in Florida, some in California,
but when we get together, it literally,
it's just a massive party, it's just what it is.
And so I think part of my role in the family
was always like the gatherer of all the humans
because it just was naturally how I'm designed,
but also to create something with such cohesion
and such a large group of people
that are so different from one another.
I had to be strategic, right?
And so I guess maybe I learned a lot
of my skillset from there.
And then just over time, just I think as a leader,
I recognize that listening is one
of the best leadership skills that we can ever, ever have.
If we are constantly looking to step to the mic and speak,
we're likely not paying attention
to what our people really care about.
And so it's obviously there's a balance, right?
We need to speak as well.
And for me, it has been one of the best practices
is to just be in listening modes.
I can really understand that what matters
in any room I'm in or any community,
it's going to be felt by the heartbeats in the room.
I think when we build communities
and we build gatherings of people,
we're often trying to like, we as individuals naturally,
we're like, okay, how do I look?
How do I, you know, we kind of like do this,
like how am I posturing?
Or am I showing up in this room?
Right.
The most powerful thing we can do
is actually be present to the others
because the others are going to tell you
and tell us what it is that they're really caring about,
what it is that they're yearning for,
what do they desire in this world
to make the world a better place
or to change this thing or to impact something, right?
And so we get to, as leaders,
we get to be in a stance of listening
so that we can be better leaders,
so we can be leaders that are actually effective
and impactful in the world.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we're going to be diving deep
into the advanced realities
of community growth and leadership.
So everybody who's listening, you know,
whether you're starting a community from scratch
or whether you've got a community of over 100,000 people
already participating in it,
there's going to be aspects of this conversation
that are going to dynamically help you optimize
the opportunity to help those people belong.
I mean, I know they're in the right place
and ultimately to help you become a more effective leader.
So with that said, Maruxa, who should be listening?
Why do you feel they should listen to you
and what are they going to get out of today's show?
Oh, great question.
So who should be listening?
I would say it would be individuals
who are really wanting to create major impact
in their lives, right?
So people, visionary leaders,
typically are the ones who really hear me
and want to take action
because I want to invite listeners
and that's why you should listen today.
I want to invite visionary leaders
to be able to not stay in vision, right?
Vision is so powerful,
but if a vision just stays in the head,
then where does it really go?
It puts me in the ears, it stays in the head.
So we need to actually move that into action, right?
So today, if you're a visionary leader
that is really wanting to see that vision come to life
into fruition, let's stay in the conversation
because that's how in which I will be able to support you
and how do you gather the people well?
So I think what they're going to get out of today's show
is learn about gathering,
learn about how do you create a movement?
How do you create an impact-driven company
where you put people first,
recognizing that profits always follow
when we put people first, right?
So we'll be diving further into what that looks like,
both for you as a visionary leader,
as well as for your teams,
and then for ultimately the people that you're serving.
I love that.
Well, you kind of nailed the next question,
but I think there's more depth
that you'll be able to dive into because of it.
So what's your vision for those leaders that you serve?
Great question.
So my vision truly is that leaders are able
to be fully, fully aligned into their leadership
as they go out into the world.
The biggest concern I have when people are like,
I wanna create an impact-driven movement,
or I wanna build a big thing,
is that they go forth with such passion,
but without intentional strategy, right?
And so my vision is that we get grounded in,
first and foremost, to who we be in the world,
and how does that beingness allow us to take that vision
and bring it to reality, to life,
from a place of love, from a place of care
for those that we're serving, and for our teams as well.
Excellent.
So let's shift gears a little bit.
What's your personal vision, Maruxa?
I'm a big one.
My personal vision is to bring humanity back
to the human race, point blank.
In this digital world that we're in,
we can make amazing connections,
but we can also make a lot of major, major,
bring a lot of danger to the conversation.
And if we start to expect as consumers,
if we start to expect another level
of bringing love into conversations
and into gatherings, digitally and otherwise,
what's possible?
So that's really where I spend my energy
and my time and my vision at this point in my life.
I love it.
Okay, I think everybody on this broadcast
can appreciate that reality as well.
Let's talk a little bit about Kajabi.
So you've been the community director,
running the community at Kajabi.
Titles don't matter so much to me
as the value that's being provided there.
And I believe I was at 40,000 strong
in the Facebook community.
How many community members are there currently in Kajabi?
Yeah, great.
So just to be clear,
I'm actually not their community director,
not necessarily for the title,
but they have an amazing executive directorial team
over there.
And I actually...
There you go, Jaime.
There's our fun Kajabi video with Heather.
I love it.
Shout out to Heather Hargrove.
Yes, oh, I love that.
That is so great.
That was one of my favorite moments.
That's it.
I absolutely adored that.
What I actually have been supporting Kajabi on
for this past year is really getting grounded
into how they can continue to serve their community
so significantly and so powerfully.
So I've been working with their executive teams,
their director of community
to really hold their leadership and their vision
and bring that forward, right?
So yeah, so right now it's over 40,000 folks for sure
in their Facebook group.
And they've also built into their own platform.
They've acquired a company that they're now integrating in
to their core platform for members of Kajabi or Kajabi Heroes
to be able to start utilizing community more intentionally
within the platform itself.
So instead of having to go out to Facebook,
they can stay in there as well.
Which is really interesting.
They ultimately, from what I understood,
it was launched kind of as part of the event
that we went to.
At least that's what it felt like for me
as an outside user that was kind of unaware
of the Kajabi culture, even though I was using a tool.
And so next thing you know, we're being ushered
into a more close knit circle
with gamification involved as well
and rewards and scavenger hunts and integrations.
I mean, you guys went to extreme levels
to help people really value
what I consider more like a city experience.
We look at communities online,
I correlate them with cities
and it's like, what's gonna motivate me
to be a part of that online community?
Are there attractions?
Are there groups?
Is it safe?
Are these the same types of people I wanna be around?
You guys really took that to the max.
I hadn't seen that done that well.
Yeah, I have to say, I know the product management team
at Kajabi is just amazing, truly.
They really wanna listen to all of their heroes,
their Kajabi heroes and integrate what it is
that we're needing to create
even better community experiences.
It's new, right?
They actually, they acquired the company
in the fall of last year.
They started beta testing it with some of us as members
to get the experience of it.
And they're now listening to the feedback
to improve the product even that much more,
which is exciting, right?
Yeah, so it's wonderful.
It's been a wonderful, I mean, it's wonderful to use their tools.
Like I use Kajabi personally myself,
just like you Jackson, right?
To build my own membership, my own community experience.
So it's been fun to be like,
ooh, look how they're utilizing gamification here.
Oh, that's cool.
So even someone like me
who's been building communities for 23 years now
is constantly in the learning of how to utilize the tools.
And Kajabi is really wanting to bring in strategies
and tools and techniques
that are going to really help their Kajabi heroes
be able to bring more cohesion
within their community experiences themselves.
Well, it's kinda like, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
I was just saying, yeah, it's totally fun.
It's totally fun to see what they're doing over there.
Absolutely.
And so, you know, we can put the titles
all we want and the analogies
and they're gonna be somewhat applicable.
And I think in a lot of cases, very applicable.
Back to city.
So I look at the visionary,
kinda like the mayor of the city.
And there's still a city manager that's needed, right?
There's a team, the mayor's job isn't to do everything.
It's to delegate, you know,
it's to bring in the right people
to help with the strategies on different levels
and to stay focused on their strengths.
So that's where I see you coming in
to help with the processes.
Like you were one of those executive leaders
that helps expand that process and fulfill on things.
So we're gonna dive into more of that too.
But I wanna know first,
what is your worst business experience ever?
Oh man, that's a great question.
You know, last year, I think I had my worst experience ever.
Okay.
It was last year.
It was, well, we brought on a potential client.
We ended up refunding that client completely.
You know those moments when you make a choice
based either on ego or something that someone said
on the outside that you know in your gut,
it's just not right.
Yeah, I've done that a lot.
That, yeah.
I've been there.
So that's honestly, that's what happened last year
is that we took on somebody that I just was not a yes to.
And I'm typically very picky,
but I was listening to another person
and I allowed that person to, you know.
Oh yeah.
Influence my decision.
And yeah, it wasn't great.
I think the biggest part of the worst was that
this was a particular experience
where they weren't actually wanting somebody
to partner with them as a city manager
in that analogy of the mayor.
And they wanted to be the mayor and the city manager.
And you know, but then get the results
they were expecting my mind to bring into it.
And I was like, ooh, this is tough
because I'm not actually being allowed into the conversation
but then given, you know.
So that was really tough.
I learned a lot from it.
I learned the importance of taking it stand
and knowing when a yes is a yes and a no is a no
and being comfortable with a no, you know.
And it gave me opportunity to in my own reflections
of my own personal, like a personal assessment of myself
to say, oh, look at that.
That's people pleasing right there.
I was trying to please, you know,
this particular partner of mine
and another from another project
by taking on this client that was a heck no for me.
And you know, it burnt me.
And so at the end of the day,
I made the choice to give my, give him their,
give that company the money back, their money back.
And we lost about 50 grand on that deal, you know.
And the money I gave back was less than 50
but the amount of work my team put in and everything.
It was, I definitely had to lick my wounds after that
and I was not free.
But now we got a lot somehow in some way and move forward.
Absolutely.
And if there's a business owner
who's been in business for longer than three years
that doesn't know what that feels like,
then they're either perfect or they're headed right for it.
So we know the feeling and thank you for owning that.
It's cool to see you too.
Own out loud, you know, what your assessment was
of your mistakes and the process, you know,
and recognizing what you can do better.
And hopefully other leaders who listen on this
will also think through the same experience of,
all right, what am I accountable for?
I'm in this process and what can I do
to prevent this happening in the future?
So let's dive into the more fun one.
What's your best experience in business?
Oh my gosh.
Can I just say that I have a lot of best experience?
Yeah, of course you can.
Yeah, I appreciate gratitude.
I'll take it in droves.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, I think, so that experience last year
actually really taught me a lot
about my best experiences, right?
And like my best clients and savoring experiences
with my best clients.
And so this over this year, I actually built my,
like my own internal community,
which has become my favorite, most best experience,
I would say, because it's now made up,
it's called the revolutionaries.
And it's made up of industry leaders like Kajabi
and amongst other clients I've had
in multiple different industries.
And so I think I would say my best experience
has been finally calling in what I've wanted to create
for a long time and not keep putting it
on the back burner, right?
It's been a vision of mine for three years to do so.
And so over these last eight months of building out
what I call this brain trust called the revolutionaries,
I'm swatching these industry leaders become friends.
Some of them even call each other family at this point.
We had an in-person event in Cancun, Mexico in June,
and members were, you know, just amplifying each other
left and right and center, encouraging each other.
And I'm just sitting there being like, this,
this right here is magic, right?
And it's because I've been in the practice of just,
who do I want, who makes my heart pound louder and happy,
you know, like this makes me come so alive
and only inviting those people
into the opportunity to work with me.
And there in turn, we both win, right?
Because we're both, we end up in a long-term friendship,
collaboration or partnership in some way
that invites so many more transformative wins for everybody.
That's amazing.
That's awesome.
And it's so funny.
It sounds like, and don't let me lead you to this.
You can say Jackson, that's not the case,
but it sounds like the catalyst for opening that
was the worst experience.
Are those uncorrelated or did they?
That's a good question.
Here's why I asked that.
Last three people I've asked on this podcast,
which is when I started asking this question,
all three of them, that was exactly what it was,
was their worst experience led to their best.
And so again, I don't wanna create a false correlation here.
I would say it's a mix, right?
I think it was one of the final straws, right?
For me, because I knew that I didn't want to be
in that cycle ever again in my life.
Where I was just taking on clients that were,
cause there was a moment right there
at that exact point when we decided to take them on.
There was a little bit of a cashflow crunch.
And I was like, should I not, should I do,
and I said, yeah, right?
And I think that the impact of that finally led me
to finally just like putting my foot down
and being like no more.
And that vision I actually wanted to bring to life
five years ago, i.e. the revolutionaries
that I've been building there,
I couldn't not do it anymore, right?
I had to do it.
I was so compelled to do it because of that bad experience
that just totally knocked me off,
felt like it was a knockoff my game, right?
And then the funny thing is, right?
You have this cashflow crunch.
So you take on a client that doesn't feel aligned
and then you return the money.
Major cashflow crunch at that point, right?
Yuck, horrible.
Never again will I want to be in that situation.
So that's, yeah, I guess so.
It was very much catalyst for only saying,
I'm only working with people that I really love working with
and let's go, let's go.
If that's new, let's go.
Yeah.
Right, so if you are in that worst case right now,
like be prepared to utilize that,
to set your boundaries, set your standards.
Follow Marusha's example
and the last several people we've had on the show as well
and recognizing the opportunity to level up your game.
So Marusha, let's dive into your most powerful lesson.
What's a powerful lesson that other visionaries,
I said most, I'm gonna detract from that.
The relevant powerful lesson right now
that visionaries can learn from your experience.
Oh, that's a good one.
I would say, don't hold yourself back.
Don't hold yourself back.
You know, about a year ago, my company,
we did business as our company name,
a little over a year ago, was called Create Cell Impact
and it had been that way for a while, right?
I went to an event in Scottsdale last year
that rocked my world and part of that was the invitation
to be fully aligned into who I'd be in the world, right?
Not what do I do?
So if you ever were to meet me in person,
I would probably never ask you,
what do you do for a living?
I would ask you, so who do you be?
Who do you be in this world?
Right?
And the reason for that, the intention for that
is because of that powerful lesson I learned
and it was really the recognition
that I get to claim all of myself and all of who I be
and that includes how I brand myself,
that includes what my message is.
Why do I have to hide?
Why do I have to water down any of it?
I don't, right?
So I went from Create Cell Impact,
had this incredible powerful experience at an event
that made me realize my family lineage, if you will,
were revolutionaries.
And from that, that is what I'm called into,
moving into my life and into the, you know,
to impact the generations to follow,
my daughters and whoever else
is going to come after my daughters.
And so that, that's powerful, right, to me.
That is an incredibly powerful thing
to be paying attention to
is don't hide from who you really are.
When I claimed revolutionary communities
as my branding and where we were going as a company,
I owned, I started to own all of myself.
I started to own my message.
I started to own my voice.
I started to really find that fire within me
to, and invite that conversation
into everything else that I do.
So my clients were able to resonate with that in a new way
because that's who they saw me to be,
but I just didn't see myself to be that in many ways, right?
So it was really, really powerful for me.
And I absolutely wanna invite all of us
to continue to be present and true to ourselves
and not continue to place small.
I love that.
And to double down on that,
it's something that I don't hear a lot of leaders talk about,
including myself.
And it's also one of those secret, sacred powers
that I know matters so much, your genealogy,
where you come from, like,
who helped raise you, create you.
There's a lot of ways that it can be put.
My mom's really big into genealogy.
And I would say she's a super blessed individual
that's done a lot of really cool,
amazing things with her life.
And so when you, being in that social circle around you
in Kujawa, we're meeting a lot of new people,
the amount of times that you just authentically
and naturally brought up genealogy
and brought up the revolutionary past and who's there.
Like it shows how committed you are
to becoming a representation of that.
For those listening,
there was a study in the New York Times years ago.
Let me mute, hi me real quick.
There we go.
There was a study that talked about how those,
one of the singular threads of success that exists
is those who are in tune with their genealogy,
with where they come from,
tend to have far more success
than those who don't know where they come from.
Have you heard of that study before?
No, but I can, I 100% can, when you said that I-
You're a testament to it.
That's what I watched.
I'm like, whoa, look at her.
And sure enough, she's all about genealogy, like no wonder.
Yeah.
It's a visceral feeling when you said that because yeah,
I mean, I hear my father, my father's voice on my ears
and say that like telling us about the ancestors.
And he's actually in the process right now,
like building out our entire tree
that from like the 1400s or something in Spain, right?
And in all of that, he's wanting to impart this sense of
like who we actually are, who do we be?
Who do we come into a room with?
We come into the room with our great grandparents.
We come into the room with our aunts and uncles
and all of these amazing humans that made us who we are.
Now, I would imagine they're not perfect.
None of our family lineages-
Thank goodness.
Yes.
And we, as the people that are on this planet right now,
get an opportunity to bring the wisdom
if you want it to the conversation.
I would even say, I mean, this is kind of getting woo,
but even if you don't know your genealogy,
there's ways to tap into that, right?
Yeah.
And so, yeah.
So, yeah, I don't want to necessarily go down that path
because that's not my expertise at all,
but it is something that I do.
There's an appreciation for it.
Yeah, I believe there's so much power,
so much power in knowing.
So I appreciate you bringing that study in for sure.
Awesome.
Well, we'll drop it in the show notes
for anybody interested in seeing that.
And in the meantime, let's dive deep into
revolutionary communities and what you're doing.
What is revolutionary communities
and what's on the horizon for your venture?
Sure.
So revolutionary communities is our company.
What we do is we support visionary leaders
to fully embody and live out the vision
they have for their company.
Many, my clients will work with me
and my clients will work on projects
or in their companies that are really,
they're impact-driven companies.
They're the ones that are really focused on people first
and with profits to follow.
And we do that in multiple different ways.
We do that through one-on-one consulting,
either with myself or one of my community architects
on my team.
And we also have, we're about to launch,
well, actually today we just launched our podcast.
Woo!
Exciting.
Thank you.
By the same name, Revolutionary,
there it is, Revolutionary Communities Podcast.
And literally you guys are finding out
before it actually goes live in 30 minutes.
So that's very exciting.
And we're so, I'm so happy to be able to do that here
with Vision Pros with you, Jackson.
So that's there.
And we're gonna be actually creating,
so one of the things I love talking about
and I share often is that,
there's one thing to have a vision for a community
and then there's the actual,
how do you actually build the thing?
And so while we talked about the revolutionaries,
these little industry game changers,
these folks that have been doing it for a minute,
there's a lot of amazing humans in this planet
that are not yet at that level of industry game change,
but they want to find their way there.
They want to get to that place.
So we're in the process of creating a curriculum
and an entire community called the Wayfinders
to help our impact-driven visionaries
go from zero to a thousand core members in their community
and then thousand to 10,000
and then ultimately 10,000 to a hundred thousand
in their community.
So I'm gonna be, we're gonna be hosting it on Kajabi,
of course, and really beginning to support
more visionary leaders to grow these beautiful,
what I call groundswell communities
and ultimately into revolutions in their industry
that are really gonna be game changing
their entire industry moving forward.
Wow, all right, that's fantastic.
So the Wayfinders, I love the name
and let's talk about this groundswell.
Teach us about that if you don't mind.
Sure, absolutely.
So groundswell-
I'm taking notes by the way.
Oh, good, I love that.
So here's how I see community, right?
Community is an iterative process, right?
And I think oftentimes, again, we go from vision,
we see the masses in front of us.
Many of us who are visionaries,
we can imagine speaking on stages
to thousands of people potentially.
Or we even imagine for those who don't necessarily
want all the limelight and those big spotlighted stages
and such, they can imagine themselves
with like maybe retreat experiences
and like cultivating these beautiful,
smaller in-person circles, right?
Those are all forms of community.
But to go from having community to now actually
really creating major impact in the world,
millions of potentially hundreds of thousands
to millions of people, there's a process to get there, right?
And so the first part of the process,
phase one is what I call the first wave, the first wave.
And the first wave is where we are starting
to find our early adopters, the people that are totally,
you know, you bring out a concept
and they're leaning in immediately.
You and them are speaking the same language
and it's like palpable, right?
So this is before we get, you know,
before we get to the ground,
so we have to get our first wave clients into clients,
customers, you know, people who follow, you know,
followers into the same conversation, right?
So I often like, and these are like estimated numbers,
depends on your industry, what the vision is
for how you're gonna grow the community, et cetera.
But typically on average, first wave is your first thousand
people that are coming in, right?
And so in that first thousand people,
we are really cultivating a couple of things
very intentionally.
We're cultivating our leadership as visionary leaders.
We're getting comfortable being in front of people,
comfortable using our voice,
comfortable in our leadership,
making really interesting, sometimes tough decisions, right?
All of that is because, and the reason it's so important
to do that and to do our own inner work at this point
and always, but especially at this point,
is because while you are practicing courage
to get your voice out there
and to really expand your voice even more,
you're gonna find that your members are going to be
a reflection of you in your own work, right?
I have a master's degree in mental health counseling
and I studied marriage and family therapy specifically.
And there was a specific type of therapeutic process
called the IMAGO, it's called the IMAGO therapy.
IMAGO stands for reflection of, right?
The idea is that we are attracted to partners
that are reflecting something that we're needing
to work on in our lives.
And the same is true for when we are attracting a vision,
a community of people that we wanna work with.
We often are attracting or wanting to work with people
that maybe will be able to be supported by something
that maybe was a wounding in our own life at some point
in our own journey, right?
And so from that, we doing our inner work is everything.
So in the first wave, that's really what we're paying
attention to while bringing in and really nurturing
those first thousand people into their space with us.
From there, around a thousand people and we want to scale it
10X that vision into 10,000, let's imagine.
That's really where we get into the ground swell.
The ground swell is really, the term comes from nature.
It is what happens when you have an earthquake tremors
underneath the ocean floor.
And as the ocean is tremoring and shaking,
it causes shifts in the wave to create these larger waves
to come towards the surface.
Ultimately, waves could potentially turn into a tsunami,
right?
And change the landscape.
But in this ground swell, this is where we now are wanting
to invite ourselves into our first 10,000,
going from a thousand to 10,000 minimally, right?
This could go a little bit higher again, depends,
but this is, you're not yet industry game changer,
but you are changing the landscape.
You're now causing shifts in conversation
in your industry, shifts in mindset in your industry.
Right?
And so once we start to get into that,
this is like where Kajabi is right now, right?
They're a little bit beyond that.
They're also industry game changer.
They're moving more into the revolutionary,
but what you're wanting, you can imagine is that,
at this level, not everyone knows you yet,
but man, you're starting to turn heads big time.
And your early adopters in that first wave
are starting to share you with the rest of the world,
even more so, right?
They're excited about it.
They can't wait for more to be shared.
After we go from that place of the first 10,000,
then we wanna go from 10,000 to 100,000 in our community.
Right?
So this is where, this is really,
this is a whole other level of community expansion
and build.
And at that level, we're now looking at
what I call the revolution or the landscape change, right?
You're now really shifting conversation.
You're a name in the industry.
People look at you with respect.
They might not agree with you, but they'll respect you
because it is one, it's a conversation
that literally is shifting how other people are doing
whatever it is in their industry.
Right?
So another column of mine has a million person community.
It's called the erotic blueprints.
I know it's a little bit spicy,
but it's kinda like the five love languages
or understanding your sexuality and your sensuality.
And they were on a show on Netflix and it grew.
I mean, that topic obviously is a topic
that many people are interested in,
but it grew significantly.
And they went from their first 100,000
in their community to a million.
So they're really at that level of revolutionary.
Oh, thank you.
Yes.
That's the erotic blueprint, that's right.
So that's what we, we're,
not everyone wants to get all the way
to revolutionary status, right?
That's not necessarily where everyone's ready to go.
However, as whether you're at the first wave
or you're in the groundswell or you're in that landscape
change that moves into revolutionary,
recognize that all of that's great and good.
And at least now you know where you're going, right?
And you can say, okay, I'm good.
I wanna stay in first wave.
Like that feels really aligned for me.
I have a lot of clients who choose to stay in the first wave
because they don't want to have the burden or the stress
to carry a million people through life
and their, through their work.
And then others are built differently, right?
And so, and all of it's okay.
So it just gives us a framework now to make some choices
about how we need to move our companies forward
even more intentionally.
I love how much room you make for visionaries
to maintain their status as a visionary for their life.
You know, you know in your heart and mind
what's best for you.
You may lose sight of that at times
and some people may convince you to abandon that at times.
But I love that you articulated that
as the final component of teaching those phases
and what powerful phases to be aware of
and to have kind of a mindset of recognizing like,
okay, if I'm experiencing these symptoms, these realities
if people are, you know, paying more attention
to the shift in conversation that's taking place
or positioning me as a thought leader
which requires a really deep level of self-awareness too.
You know, being able to look at
both your self-awareness perspective
and the world's perspective of you.
You have to be willing to take a big step back
to listen to that.
So thank you.
That's beautifully said.
Anything else you would like to add?
I think you hit it.
Yeah, I mean, it feels really complete.
And I would just say, you know
I think there's three core values
that I know I personally lean into
to be able to hold the container
for so many amazing communities.
As I get to be the leader or the visionary
the mentor to so many in partnership
with so many visionary leaders, right?
Right.
And so for me, there's three core components
that I often invite my clients to think about.
And I wanna encourage each of us to think about this
if you're willing.
And the first one is the value of love, right?
We hear a lot about communities
and having to create like fractions, like,
oh, you have to stand for something
and everyone else is the enemy and all this stuff.
Okay, I guess so.
Or you can just be really convicted
by the thing that you really care about
and bring along people that also give, you know
a lot of love to that same topic or that, right?
And changes everything.
Love, the idea of love and choosing to come
from the energy of love and the essence of love
into every conversation, every interaction
even when it's hard and that person
on the other end is like a stinky person, you know
not just like meaning by smell, but like.
Yeah, they're difficult.
Yeah.
How do we pause for a minute and come back to ourselves
before we go into those conversations
so we can come from love?
I had a conversation just this morning
that could have gone really ugly.
And I had it like, cause I'd gotten a text
and it just looked, you know, it just wasn't great
the way in which it was being presented.
And I just was like, okay, it's time to practice, right?
I came into that conversation, Jackson
it was one of the most transformative conversations
for both of us.
And it was, and it was because I made that choice.
I chose to show up in conversation from love.
I love that.
The second value is courage, 100% courage
because when we make the choice to be visionary
the number one thing that stops what I believe
leaders have big vision from leaders to actually create
and make that vision happen is courage.
It's the invitation of the yes,
the invitation to get up anyway,
even after we fell down and we hurt ourselves badly.
It's to share the thing that is not popular,
but right for the moment with love and with respect.
And then the final value to bring in is to me personally
it's adventure, right?
Because once we have love and we have the courage
and we start to say yes and invite in
guess what we get to be on?
An adventure, like a massive adventure.
And it's the openness.
Adventure to me is like an umbrella for openness
love or love, but play, openness and play and curiosity
and awareness to what else and what else and what else, right?
I love it.
That's really, really powerful.
So that's how I would say is that to do all this gorgeous
stuff, those three, bring those three values in
allows us and empowers us to go forward and rise.
So cool.
That's so aligned with first class business too what we do.
Oh my God.
That's one of the reasons why we resonate so well.
So what's the best way for people to connect to the immersion?
That's a great question.
I would say the best way LinkedIn,
feel free to go to LinkedIn or if you want to get to know
more of this work, the podcast, I mean, it launched today
and the first six episodes that we'll be airing are all
like foundational Maruxa is not interviewing anyone,
just really foundational concepts to really engage in.
So if they go to revolutionary communities.com
forward slash podcast, that will be a great place to land in.
You'll see the, yep.
You'll see all of our episodes that are currently published
and you'll also get a chance to join.
We're about to launch a community where we're gonna be
going deeper into each of these episodes as a community.
So you can also subscribe to whichever
on whichever platform from there as well.
Awesome Maruxa.
It's been so great to have you.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Visionary pros out there, eat this up,
share this with friends, people who you want to succeed
and thrive in your communities.
Part of the process of building a community is being able
to lead it, but also another big part of it is being able
to exist within it to follow and being able to learn
how to apply these principles in communities
that you already exist within.
We are all part of many communities out there.
So thank you again for all your time Maruxa.
Best wishes with the podcast.
I know we'll be staying in touch.
Thank you for being a friend
and a phenomenal leader in this world.
Thank you so much Jackson.
It's been a pleasure to be here with you
and all of those that are able to be here with us today.
Absolutely. Take care of vision pros.
We'll see you soon.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to vision pros live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out.