Our guest, Gil Petersil, is a Mastermind Facilitator, Business Strategist, Networking Mastery Coach, and a passionate accelerator of people. After living, studying and working in Israel, Canada, England and Russia, Gil uses his broad knowledge and experience to enable both people and businesses to flourish through the Mastery of Strategic Networking. He is an engaging speaker who shared stage with such legends as Brian Tracy, Allan Pease, Keith Ferrazzi, Robert Cialdini, Michael Roach and Jordan Belford.
Listen NOW!
For more information on Gil, social media links, biography and exclusive materials, please visit our website.
Our guest, Gil Petersil, is a Mastermind Facilitator, Business Strategist, Networking Mastery Coach, and a passionate accelerator of people. After living, studying and working in Israel, Canada, England and Russia, Gil uses his broad knowledge and experience to enable both people and businesses to flourish through the Mastery of Strategic Networking. He is an engaging speaker who shared stage with such legends as Brian Tracy, Allan Pease, Keith Ferrazzi, Robert Cialdini, Michael Roach and Jordan Belford.
Listen NOW!
For more information on Gil, social media links, biography and exclusive materials, please visit our website.
Alex Romanovich (00:00):
Hello, this is Alex Romanovich, and welcome to our next edition of GlobalEdgeTalk. Today we're with Gil Petersil from Bali. Of course, he is a world citizen. He will tell us more about where he is typically, but of course, we're in the midst of the COVID pandemic and he will tell us about his selection for the destination. But let me do a very quick introduction because this is a very interesting individual, very accomplished. Gil Petersil is an international expert on business strategy, effective networking mastermind methodology. He is a passionate student of human networking. He co-own seven international businesses. He is a leading regional partner for Tony Robbins. Remember him? Tony is still going strong. Love Tony. We'll talk about Tony as well. Gil is a visiting professor at multiple global universities. We'll talk more about this. He is a book writer and author of a book called New Code of Networking, which is going to be fascinating to talk about, the bestselling author, and I guess we'll talk more about if there are any other books that are coming down the pike as well. He is a serial entrepreneur with 200 plus mentored companies and continuing. And he is an amazing presenter, he presented at over a thousand events, completed 150 interviews. This is going to be one of those interviews, and we'll talk a lot about Gil. Gil, welcome to our studio.
Gil Petersil (01:38):
Hey, Alex. Thanks a lot for having me.
Alex Romanovich (01:40):
So first of all, how's the weather in Bali and let's talk a little bit about your selection for this destination.
Gil Petersil (01:48):
Well, the weather in Bali is always incredible. The sky is blue, a few clouds that are out there are beautiful and white. I'm looking at palm trees right in front of me. I have a swimming pool outside of the office, and I got two running rivers within a hundred meters away from where I'm sitting right now. So I really can't complain, to be honest.
Alex Romanovich (02:08):
So it's a disaster of a location, I guess.
Gil Petersil (02:11):
Oh my goodness. I'm really grateful that my family and I made the decision to stay here when COVID hit the world, because what I'm told right now is this is Bali like it was 30 years ago, which is pretty much empty, no traffic, not too many people. It went from millions of tourists coming here regularly and have hundreds of thousands of people on the streets, they literally have thousands of foreigners actually being stuck here in total, which is quite unique situation to be here.
Alex Romanovich (02:44):
Incredible. We'll talk a little bit about digital nomads, you being one of them, of course. And a lot of very interesting countries and destinations that are offering now all kinds of incentives for people to come and live through this pandemic with them. By the way, we're not recording video for this particular interview, but we will be asking you to send us plenty of pictures and maybe even short video that you can make locally. But let's talk about where it all started. And let's talk a little bit about your early years, how you became an entrepreneur, what sort of inspired you and what precipitated you to begin this very interesting career?
Gil Petersil (03:35):
So, entrepreneurship for me started at a very young age, the age of 13 I was very much inspired by having money in my pocket to buy things. It was very, very simple at the age of 13. I just wanted to buy crap whether it was candies, whether it was random toys, I just wanted to buy things. And I came from very, very simple, humble family. My father was a carpenter and he still is, my mom was a stay at home mother and wonderful life that they gave us, but we didn't really have much money and I couldn't really get everything I wanted. Like most kids, they can't get everything they wanted. So I don't know how it really came about, but at one stage I told my dad I wanted to make more money.
Gil Petersil (04:21):
And it was a very, very simple opportunity to buy a small space in a shopping mall Christmas Expo. And I told my dad, I'd like to sit here over the week. And it was during Christmas vacation and I'd like to sell something. And I was 13 years old and my dad was like, all right, let's find something you like. And we ended up finding some audio cassettes, if you remember those, most of your viewers, maybe never even seen an audio cassette, I don't know, maybe they have. But I was selling audio cassettes and that was kind of fun. It was selling audio cassettes for holiday songs. And in that one week I made more money than my dad made for over one month. And that was kind of triggered something. It triggered something in me that suddenly I had money in my pocket, I felt like a man, I felt like empowered and that stuck with me.
Gil Petersil (05:20):
And even though I had jobs until the age of 30 I've always had a side gig. I always had something on the side, whether it was selling hats, whether it was having a side restaurant, whether it was having juice bars, whether it was selling jewelry, whatever it really was. I always had a side gig, something that I was doing on the side to make me extra money outside of the job that gave me some stability. And that never really left my blood, even though I don't like my dad is an entrepreneur in the family, but he's really had one made businesses whole life. And that didn't really go well. So, I don't really have entrepreneurship in my family, with at least this kind of perseverance to not give up if these fail. But I learned a lot from my dad to not give up.
Gil Petersil (06:12):
My dad didn't give up, even though his business was failing again and again and again and again. And then, unfortunately, his body gave up and he had a stroke and that was a really difficult time in his life. And I learned a lot from that as well. That as an entrepreneur, you can go through a lot of stress, but you need to learn how to manage it. You need to learn how to not worry about the little things, and need to know how to brush things off your shoulders, and how to forgive people very quickly, and how to just let go of not being a perfectionist, which I've been for a lot of my life.
Alex Romanovich (06:42):
I think there are great pieces of advice you're giving our audience, but something just peaked my interest. You said that you did a lot with a lot of different projects. You had a lot of different side gigs and that gave you stability. There's a notion there that entrepreneurship is about doing different things, right? And people actually call other people entrepreneurs when they notice that they're involved in different things, different projects, side gigs and so forth and so on. Versus one steady job that in the past would give you stability, right? So you said something really interesting that true stability isn't a diversity of different projects and different things you're doing versus doing something one time or attaching yourself to one particular job. So is it true that entrepreneurs are always involved with multiple projects? Or can you be an entrepreneur working for one particular company or doing one particular thing?
Gil Petersil (07:55):
It's a really great question, because a lot of my mentors over the years always said to me, Gil, focus, focus, focus, because over the last 20 plus years, I've had 27 different companies. And this stability for me came from being able to have multiple revenue streams. And I know many successful entrepreneurs who are doing millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. And they've had this one company they've been focused on and it's just been growing and growing and growing. Is that an entrepreneur? They call themselves an entrepreneur because they're a business owner and maybe they have some side investments. But personally, for me, that's not really an entrepreneur. I think for me, an entrepreneur is not someone who's necessarily taking one business in stable and growing and growing into a corporation. And entrepreneur is really someone who's identifying problems out there in the world, who talks to a lot of different people and finds out what challenges are they having.
Gil Petersil (08:49):
And they're looking for solutions. And an entrepreneur is someone who gets passionate about finding other solutions. He doesn't mind the adventures. He doesn't mind some risks. He doesn't mind diversification because that's what gets his blood going. To me at least that's an entrepreneur, but I guess that's just my opinion because that's what's been driving me. It's being able to fail in one thing, but not call it a failure. I call it a successful failure because I'm like, well, the fact that I learned so much about how not to make mistakes in juice bars, I suddenly became a consultant for one of the biggest juice bar companies in the world. That was interesting. Wow, I had some really interesting successful failures in restaurants, but now I understand the ins and outs of how restaurants really work. And I appreciate restaurants both back end and front end. And you tend to develop these senses as an entrepreneur by going through these successful failures. So I think for me, diversification does, at least for me, create some sort of stability because I'm able to a little bit balance myself not on just one thing, but on a couple of things. But again, that's just me.
Alex Romanovich (09:59):
Well, as our pandemic is proving globally people who have a certain level of diversity can actually do different things probably better off than the people who are working for a large company. And all of a sudden they wake up tomorrow and they don't have a job. And not only they don't have a job at a current company, they have a very difficult time finding a job in the new company because nobody's hiring. As a matter of fact, everybody is firing or everybody's laying off. So I'm in agreement with you that having that level of diversity and having a side gig, a side skill, a side passion if you will, your ability to quickly turn on the dime and deliver something of value in a totally different area is going to give you a lot more stability now in comparison to one of the things that are really nice, and steady, and stable and so forth.
Gil Petersil (11:03):
100%, Alex, I resonate with that so much because a lot of my clients these days especially are people who have, they've made a very successful career for themselves. They were making half a million, a million dollars a year in a good job, and they were happy and stable. And they had their insurance paid for, a medical paid for, salaries paid on time, but suddenly would such situations happen in the world. And it's not the first time. And it's not the last time. And suddenly nothing is in your control. Suddenly you don't have a grasp on your own life because you haven't developed skills of adaptation. You haven't developed skills of dealing with a crisis. You haven't developed skills of developing these kinds of fences, where you see, well, whatever pandemic happens, there are still billions of people all around me, and most of them have some kind of a problem.
Gil Petersil (11:58):
What skills do I have right now that could solve those problems? And if you go through life trying to develop these skills, whatever the universe brings at us, and the universe is going to bring a lot more than just COVID at us in the next 5,10, 30 years, we need to be ready for that. So I'm not saying that having a job is bad. I'm saying that having one job for too long, where you get too comfortable, I believe is not human enough. I believe that as humans we must work our bodies, our bodies must be flexible. Our spine must be flexible. That's why working out, or dancing, or yoga, whatever people want to do to get their body working out is the same thing as you've got to work out your mind and you got to study different things, and adjust yourself, and pick up new skills, and pick up new talents as you go through life. Because whenever life itself throws you into the deep end, suddenly you have another skill that can help your family eat that night or help your family make sure your kids go to a good school and make sure you buy your kids a new computer.
Gil Petersil (13:09):
So they can study from home because imagine how many kids suddenly had to study from home around the world, and most of them didn't have computers and they're studying from a little phone, and most of them didn't even have a phone, they have their parents' phone. And I'm meeting people here in Bali, we've given out hundreds or thousands of dollars through a lot of charity movements that we'd had in the last few months. And it was amazing that some people wanted food, but many wanted just a phone so they can be connected to the world and they can learn something new. So I think as entrepreneurs, we're here to serve the world. And I think that everyone should awaken a little bit that entrepreneurial spirit they might have inside of them. And it's not necessarily going to set up your own business, but maybe go be around some entrepreneurs, go be around an entrepreneurial environment, going to work with an entrepreneur.
Alex Romanovich (14:00):
So let's talk a little bit about entrepreneurship and specifically about your partnership with Tony Robbins. I've visited Tony's sessions in the past a long, long time ago. As a matter of fact, I brought when I was a head of business development and marketing for one company, I brought 25 to 30 engineers and other folks like that with me, and they were kicking and screaming there, they thought it was total bullshit. They thought it was, hey, this is for salespeople. This is so fluffy. This is so bad. This is not something we want to do. After three days of being in the session and actually walking on coals and going through this entire coal thing and listening to Tony, they all came away and saying, Alex, this was the greatest thing since we don't know what, and there are geeks, there are people that don't believe in this kind of stuff. What was your experience with Tony? How did you partner with him? What are some of the incredible stories you can tell us about your affiliation with Tony Robbins?
Gil Petersil (15:13):
First of all, it's a wonderful story. Thank you, Alex. I really, really resonate with that because Tony came into my life about 20 years ago, 23 years ago now, when I was sitting in Toronto, Canada in front of my computer, I was the head of operations of a fulfillment and warehousing company, I was just working late one night and it was on the web. And advertising came with Tony Robbins to buy his CDs. And I don't know, something just clicked with me. And I kind of felt like maybe personal development and self-help was something I wanted at that stage in my life. I was 19 years old, and I bought the CDs. I'm a little bit ashamed to save this, but I've already said this to Tony and he was laughing, but I took advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee.
Gil Petersil (15:59):
And I thought, maybe this is not for me. I listened to it one time. It's not for me, but I did something a little bit illegal, like copy those CDs. And then I returned them. And again, I said the whole thing to Tony, Tony forgave me himself. So I've already paid him back. I think a thousand times maybe much more. And then over those years every once in a while I listened to those CDs again, I kind of came into my life. Tony was kind of in and out of my life, but never really fully in. And about nine years ago, my wife and I, back then she was my girlfriend, we're going through a very difficult time. I had nine companies at the time, but again, having nine companies and being in your early thirties, not having the right structure, not having the right team, not having the right experience, I was making a lot of mistakes.
Gil Petersil (16:51):
I was like not thinking, but cashflow. I was more excited about the opportunity in the future of making millions and not making sure that I have enough money to pay rent. And yes, that day came, when I'm looking at my wife or girlfriend at the time, I was like, maybe I don't have money to pay rent. And that was a very, very challenging moment of my life because I really thought she would leave me that day. I really thought that that's it, my life is ending. But that day I remember so clearly how she came and she stood behind me because I was crying, I just like giving up on life. I didn't know what to do. And I told her, maybe I need to go to get a job. And she said, no, you're an entrepreneur, stick with it.
Gil Petersil (17:29):
I still have a job. She had a job in the banking industry, but she was making like 600 bucks a month and that was not enough to pay rent. And she had her own debts and all that. And it was amazing that for a few months we kind of just struggled and struggled and struggled, couldn't really pay rent. I managed to somehow negotiate with the landlord, who just believed in me. And then an opportunity came to go to a Tony Robbins event. And someone said, yeah, Tony is going to help me. I like actually Tony is going to help me. And the opportunity was to go to a Tony Robbins event in London. I was living in Moscow at the time. I looked into it, I was like, oh my God, $2,000 for the tickets for both of us, the flights, the hotels, all of this stuff.
Gil Petersil (18:11):
I was like, where the hell am I going to get $4,000 right now when I didn't have money to pay for rent. And I kind of gave up and then this one guy said, no, come on, man, let me connect you with a friend of a friend. Maybe you can find a way to become a promoter. I had no idea what that means. At that time I had an HR company, I had a juice bar at a small restaurant, I had a mobile app company. All of them were struggling to make money and all of them were not making money to give me basically. I had no knowledge of promoting international events of educational tourism, bringing people from one country to another. It's completely different business, but again, it's an entrepreneur. I was like, let me try.
Gil Petersil (18:56):
Connected with a few different people, I managed to connect with success resources, with the biggest company in the world for educational events, still is today. Today, of course, I'm very good friends with the owners. I am the biggest partner they've ever had historically in their company. And I said to them, I really want to become a promoter of blah, blah, blah. They said, you need to bring a couple of hundred people. I'm like, it's not going to happen. They said, okay, if you bring 25 people, well, actually no, they said, if you bring 20 people, we can give you and your wife a free ticket as long as you promise that you will try to grow the year later. I said, yes, yes, yes, of course, we'll grow to the hundreds a year later, but just allow us to 20 people would give my wife and I free tickets as promoters. I got very excited, started selling tickets, forget that we actually don't have money for the flight and the hotel and understood that if we got to 25 people, we'd be able to afford the flights, the hotels, enough food to live in London for one week and see what happens.
Gil Petersil (19:56):
And that was like, all out, man, we had no money to come back to, and we went all out with these 25 people. We've got all these incredible pictures of my wife sitting on my shoulders. We went crazy. We went all out because we had nothing to lose. It was at that, it's giving up, it's going bankrupt, it's going to get a job. And I think that entrepreneurs should never give up on their beliefs. They should never give up on their passion. They should never give up on themselves. And we went and it was amazing. And that experience was incredible. When we came back, it was such a good experience that was like, tell now, wow. We have to somehow find the money. We have to get more tickets. We have to bring more people. And when I came back to Moscow, things just started popping up.
Gil Petersil (20:42):
Suddenly I got a job as a head coach at the number one university in Russia, suddenly coaching clients came to me, suddenly I was in the right vibe. I was able to focus. Out of those nine companies that I had, I walked away from five of them just saying, listen, guys, good luck. It's your company. I have zero interest in shares. It's okay. You don't owe me any money. I just had the right sort of flow in my life, which is important for an entrepreneur to be in a good flow. I had good focus. I had the motivation. I had an inspiration. Now the most incredible thing is I didn't have enough money to suddenly go out and buy a lot more Tony Robbins tickets. But I remembered this day very clearly. It was a Friday evening. I come home from work. My wife sits on the sofa, looks like something is wrong.
Gil Petersil (21:27):
She said, I'd made a big mistake. Don't be upset with me, please come and sit down. A young Jewish boy, I'm like, oh my God, what's going on, one more bad news? Please, I can't handle more right now. Things have been going well for us. She said, please, please, sit down. I made a mistake and she tells me, I didn't tell you, but over the last six years, while I was working in the bank, my parents always taught me as a good Russian girl to save money and buy a house one day. What do you mean? She's like, I've been saving money, and I didn't tell you, I took all the money and I bought 200 tickets for Tony Robbins event.
Gil Petersil (22:03):
So the only thing I said to her at that point that I remember clearly is like, and that's the Jewish in me? Oh my God, please, tell me you negotiated. And she started laughing and she said, no, it's okay, it's not finished yet. We can go and negotiate. But I already committed with 200 tickets. I paid some money to deposit. And long story short, the next year we brought 200 tickets. The year after we brought 400 people, the year after we brought 1200 people and that put us in the number one position in the world, no one has ever been able to bring more than 700 people to a Tony Robbins event from an international partner. We brought from Russia 1200 people to the London event. The year after we brought 3000 and the year after we brought Tony Robbins to Russia. And with some partners, we put 26,000 people in front of him. That put me on the same stage as Tony, at that stage I was already meeting up with Tony after events.
Gil Petersil (23:00):
He knew who I was very well. That year he invited me to his home and just said, listen, what you did no one has been able to do. Let's talk about how we can make more good things happen in the world. And since then it's not just Tony that I built a relationship with because Tony is an incredible human being, that's doing so much for the world. He's given more than 500 million meals just last year. This year he's surpassed that by a lot. But I've been able to build relationships with his network. And that is the power of networking. It's not just networking with you, Alex, but if I want to build a relationship with you or anyone that's listening and willing to build a relationship with you, they shouldn't just jump on you because you're a busy guy.
Gil Petersil (23:45):
They should jump into your network and see how they can add value to your community, see how they can add value to your team. And I got to know his family members. I got to know his team. I got to know his leading community members in the platinum group. And that was just adding value, and adding value and serving. And because of that, we managed to grow a multimillion-dollar business. I managed to grow as a speaker myself, as a high-end coach. And I'm very grateful to him and everybody in his community for who I've become today.
Alex Romanovich (24:16):
That's an incredible story. And thank you for sharing this story. Something also picked my interest when you were talking. You went from not having anything, you went from almost losing your apartment or almost losing pretty much everything you had. You had failing businesses and you took a leap of faith. And that leap of faith was one project, one association. What can you say to our audience of aspiring entrepreneurs? People who maybe are looking to start something new or people who are coming from a failing type of experience. What can you say about taking a risk, taking a leap of faith?
Gil Petersil (25:10):
This question is so much more powerful than anyone can imagine. And I think you understand how deep spiritually deep this question actually is when someone wants to become that entrepreneur, they've had enough of the corporate industry. I had enough of my boss or I had enough of this company. I want something else. Like I want to change in life. I want more freedom. I want to make a difference. It's that moment where you feel, it's not even your brain, it's not your heart. It's your gut, your gut feeling that just steps up and says, that's it, that's enough. I want more out of life. At that moment most people make a mistake, when they think I need to do it alone or even worse, I need to do it with my husband or with my wife.
Gil Petersil (25:59):
I need to find another entrepreneur, who's doing something similar and work with them. That is the focus. The focus is when you have that feeling of wanting to become a leading entrepreneur doesn't mean that you need to do it alone. It doesn't mean that it's all your responsibility. It doesn't mean that it's all on your back and your shoulders. It means that you need to collaborate. You need to partner up with other people. Don't go get a job, find another entrepreneur that you can complement. And that is the power of a real entrepreneur, creating collaboration matrixes. And this has been what has led me to become who I am today. I've been able to create a lot of successful partners, not just for myself, but as a coach today, I help entrepreneurs all over the world create partnerships, strategic partnerships for them, every entrepreneur out there. Every human being has talents, and what they should do is whether they believe in karma, and it's finding a karmic partner. When they believe in serendipity and they just go out to networking, looking for people that complement themselves or they just understand, that alone they will not be able to achieve anything in their lives. I don't believe anyone could truly achieve much in their life. We need strategic partners. We need clients. Yes.
Gil Petersil (27:26):
Collaboration is not something that people need to become great at, partnerships is not something that people are born with. It's something that people get experienced with. Myself being able to write a book about networking and teaching networking all those 500 companies and hundreds of stages around the world, I've been called a networking guru on the front cover of many magazines, but I was not born that way. I was born an introvert and I still am an introvert, since the age of 10 I've been an immigrant in Canada. And then I'd get an immigrant to the age of 20 in England. Then again an immigrant to the age of 30 in Russia. And then again, an immigrant at the age of 38 in Singapore. And then again, here in Bali. And every single time I had to start all over again, what I've understood that partnerships and collaboration is just about being able to not mind building relationships with other human beings, when you rely on them, you choose to trust them, you serve them without expectations. You serve them with appreciation a lot more.
Gil Petersil (28:26):
And I believe, at least from my experience, that there is nothing truly beautiful that I could achieve in my life without another human being. I would never be able to learn how to cook unless I was inspired by other human beings. I would never be able to start up a business unless I was inspired by goals that I've seen others achieve. Every single thing we could do in life is somehow relating to another human being inspiring us, motivating us, supporting us, pushing us something, which means that if there's an entrepreneur out there who really wants to do something, instead of going out there and just doing it themselves, finding another entrepreneur who's currently doing it, then maybe from three to five steps ahead of you and work with them for six months or a year, serve them, learn from someone who's a few steps ahead of you. And you don't have to call them a mentor, but treat them as a mentor, respect them as a mentor.
Gil Petersil (29:21):
People like Tony Robbins, and Jay Abraham, Keith Ferrazzi, BrianTracy. These people have been mentors for me since a very early age, since my late teens, but they were mentors from a distance because I believed in them. I loved them. I followed them on social media. I listened to them. I tried to get inspired and model values. And today I'm able to call any of them. I mean, I get an email back from Brian Tracy within 24 hours. I mean, to call someone like Jay Abraham and Keith Ferrazzi and get on a call with them within 24 hours. Tony Robbins I can't really call right away. He's a very, very busy man, but if I needed to, I can get communication with him and it took years until I was able to do that. And I think that's the biggest message for entrepreneurs out there is don't just try to solo-create. Co-create and co-elevate with other people and find other people that inspire you because they have similar dreams and goals.
Alex Romanovich (30:23):
Excellent, excellent passage here. And I think it's really important. I think you've said something very important, which is find a mentor, listen to others, partner with others. There are so many people out there that take more than they give, or they do before they listen, or they act before they at least look at the failures of others. How important is it to pay forward in entrepreneurship? How important is it to give before you get? Only because a lot of folks are struggling with this, with the balance of how much time do you invest, how much money do you invest? How much do you invest in a friendship, or partnership, or a session with Tony Robbins, for example, before you begin to do something meaningful or before you simply begin to make money? So how important is it to give before you get?
Gil Petersil (31:29):
So, it's such again, I love your questions, Alex, they're very, very deep. And the answers are not short because, example with Tony Robbins, people shop at his events, they pay $500-800 to an event they show up and they start complaining that they don't understand everything. They start complaining that there are not enough breaks for them to go for lunch. They start complaining that Tony is speaking too quickly. They start complaining that I don't believe I can get all these results. And they're complaining from a position of fear. And I completely understand. I've been in that position. I've been in that position where it was easier to blame someone else. It was easier to say to that fitness instructor, hey, I'm paying you money to get me into shape, get me into shape. But if my head and my heart are not there, when I'm working out, my body is not going to get into shape.
Gil Petersil (32:29):
It's not that I can get my fitness trainer to work out for me. I need to put my shoes on and get to the gym. That's not the easy part. People are saying, I want to go on a diet, but they constantly cheat. And they constantly cheat on themselves. People said, I want to find a good employee and they bring in a good employee, but they treat them like a slave, not like someone who is not just working for me, but remember that when you're hiring and this is something I keep on reminding myself because I'm far from perfect at this, I'm constantly making mistakes and anyone who's listening can easily go out there on the web and find my defaults, and find my faults, not my defaults, my faults, and my imperfections.
Gil Petersil (33:16):
I have so many of them because I'm constantly learning. I'm constantly learning how not to make these stupid mistakes that we make as human beings and how not to allow myself to make a judgment too quickly, or to make a decision too quickly. Now, as an entrepreneur, it's important to create a balance between being a perfectionist and waiting, and waiting, and waiting until we have the perfect product in order to launch it, which is unhealthy, as an entrepreneur, we must launch MVP as soon as possible, a minimum viable product, and then learn, and pivot, and ask for advice, ask for criticism and learn how we could do things better and ask our customers.
Gil Petersil (34:00):
One of my great mentors and friends, Bob Dorf, co-author of a book called The Customer Development Methodology, which taught you about at any given point, if you want to start a business or develop a business, going speak to 100 customers or potential customers and ask them, and based on their answers, that is what you should be doing, because you don't really know what your customers want. It doesn't matter how good of an entrepreneur you are. You must listen to others. So I think for entrepreneurs out there who are afraid, I get you guys, I get you people. I'm still afraid sometimes, but because I have failed so many times I've come to learn that failure doesn't hurt that much. And it's the same thing with kids. I got three little kids right now. And when I had my first daughter, she's only four years old and I didn't want her to fall and I didn't want it to run too quickly.
Gil Petersil (34:50):
And today, my second boy, at this time he is two years old, oh my God, when he runs, I look away sometimes because I'm afraid, I know he's going to fall and he's going to cry for 10 seconds, and that's it. With entrepreneur it's the same. When we fall, it actually doesn't hurt that much. When you have no money in the bank, that's when perseverance sometimes kicks in. That's when your passion really kicks in, when you're like, I'm not going to give up on myself, but asking people for help is what teaches you to be humble. It teaches you that other people have gone through this mistake and they don't mind sharing. And there is that balance between give and take. I've learned that the givers gain, lost the fees really there, that when I meet people for example at the event, I'll give, give, give before I expect anything in return. So one of my philosophies now, and I teach this a lot in my workshop is that when I meet a new person, even if I meet them a second or third time, my mindset is right away. What could I learn? And what could I give?
New Speaker (35:58):
Right away it's not, what did this person give me? Can this person become a client? Can this person somehow make a difference in my life? It's one about what can I learn? So it's like I'm turning on my curious mindset. Let me try, let me work on being inspired by this person. It's not that they need to inspire me, let me be inspired by them. Let me learn from them. So I'll ask them good questions and then let me turn on my, how can I serve this person? How can I suggest the book, recommend someone else, just be in service to them? And that has helped me so much in my life. And it's not just my mindset. It's a lot of people's mindsets, especially if they're successful and they're happy. Maybe not every rich person in the world will believe in that, but most happy people that are successful, I know believe in that, because I know many of people like that
Alex Romanovich (36:53):
Very inspiring, very inspiring, and very thoughtful of you to share this with us. We're almost running out of time and I, first of all, I'd like to suggest that, and if you don't mind, that we do a couple of more sessions like these, a couple of more interviews, maybe one more, maybe a couple of more, it's going to be up to you. But there are so many amazing topics to discuss with you. For example, we talked about being a digital nomad, being the world citizen and not really caring where you are in the world, especially at times like these, obviously with your preference, but not really caring where you may be as long as you can deliver, as long as you can deliver knowledge, you can deliver sharing, you can deliver a passion and so forth.
Alex Romanovich (37:48):
So that's a great topic that we want to definitely discuss. And another topic that we want to talk about, and I would like to ask you to talk about is personal branding. I think it's on everybody's mind. I think with COVID and maybe we'll discuss it now. What COVID showed us is that all of a sudden people wanted to be out there digitally, socially. They had no choice for that matter, they had no choice, right? And all of a sudden they realized that if they did not have that personal brand if they don't possess that recognition, they may be simply lost in the sea and the ocean of content, in the ocean of Zoom sessions, in the ocean of videos and podcasts,` in the sea of interviews and so forth. And they began to struggle or they begin to struggle with their differentiation, with their personal brand, what do they stand for and so forth.
Alex Romanovich (38:53):
So the question then becomes what can you do, what can one do to promote their personal brand in the situation we're in right now? Which is COVID where everybody is now using Zoom, everybody is now recording something, everybody is now talking about something or writing a blog post, or trying to reach somebody, the amount of LinkedIn inquiries into my LinkedIn. And I don't consider myself a famous person or anything else like that, but the amount of traffic, all of a sudden is just outstanding. So any parting thoughts on the personal brand?
Gil Petersil (39:35):
So you mentioned some really important stuff. The personal branding stuff is definitely a part of being a global citizen as well, because, I've managed to somehow live almost a decade of my life in every country as I briefly mentioned before at 10 years in Israel is where I started. And then 10 in Canada, almost 10 in England, 10 in Russia, a couple of years in Singapore, and Bali was almost like a mistake that became a gift because Bali was a big part of our brand. We came on vacation for a couple of months with a family, and then when COVID hit, I kind of looked at my wife and I was like, well, we were pregnant at the time, we just had a baby a couple of weeks ago. And we understood that going back to Singapore during COVID, maybe it was not the best choice for us, even though Singapore is one of the most incredible places in the world.
Gil Petersil (40:21):
I love it very, very much. For us, at that stage, Bali was better. And I think that's a big part of the brand because a part of the brand is who and what you associate yourself with. And a huge part of what I do with entrepreneurs and corporate leaders out there in the world is I take them through networking audits and I help them understand how strategically they can actually work within their network and actually can affiliate with other networks by merging communities and merging ecosystems. Now I've done this with governments, multiple governments around the world. I've done this with a hundred plus massive corporations around the world. And of course, I've done it with over a hundred thousand entrepreneurs in big and small events. And what I've always learned that personal branding, who you are is not just who you choose to be because the man you see today is a man that I created, this man did not exist.
Gil Petersil (41:12):
English is not my first language. English is my third language. English is not a language that I ever really learned in school. It's a language that I picked up from the TV and from a lot of practicing and networking. So the man that you see in front of you is a man that I created because based on values, based on mentors, based on what I think and still believe is right. Now the many you see in front of me today is not a perfect man, because I'm still not done. I'm still in the process of molding myself to be a great father and a great husband, as a great mentor, as a great businessman, as a great community leader, as a great philanthropist, I'm a social entrepreneur. I do a lot for Bali. So it's really important for everyone out there to choose as a human being, not just what my values, but who in one of my associating myself with.
Gil Petersil (42:00):
Just because I have an iPhone doesn't mean I'm cool. Just because I'm healthy, doesn't mean I'm really healthy. Am I happy? Am I serving? Am I doing charity? Am I feeding people during difficult times? So being a digital nomad is actually not how I brand myself because I think that some digital nomads or people that are maybe like a freelancer, there's someone that can work on their own. They have one suitcase. They can pick up themselves and move around. I'm more of a global citizen because I've got three kids, I've got a wife, I've got a couple of helpers working with us. I've got a big house, but I could pick up my family and leave tomorrow if I have to. And because I've trained myself and I've helped many, many entrepreneurs and many people out there to train themselves how to lift anchors and build a brand new network around you very quickly.
Gil Petersil (42:50):
And this is something that I've done. And now I've learned how to teach others. How can you lift yourself up and choose a country that's good for you? Choose a country that's good for your family because of the culture, because of the language. We chose Bali because of the ecosystem. It's a very healthy place with incredible fruits. Imagine, Alex, twice a week, I have 15 different kinds of fruits being delivered to my house from farms that are within a couple of hours away from my house, from farm to table. I don't go to the supermarket anymore. I want to deliver it to my 15 different fruits. All of them are local. Imagine how healthy I eat, imagine the sort of diversity of nature. I like nature, even though I've been a city boy for more than 20 years, I love nature myself. I love being surrounded by nature.
Gil Petersil (43:41):
I love having water around me because as an Aries, I have a lot of fire inside of me. So it calms me down, but Bali's maybe not for everyone. And if you don't like having a couple of geckos and lizards around your house, and if you don't like ants somehow here and there, then Bali is not for, you need to be okay with nature. But the message out there for people is to choose the place that's right for you. Please, don't be stuck in an apartment for the next few months because we might go into another quarantine, we never know. We might happen again, we never know. Be in a place where you're comfortable, be in a place where you feel like you can slurrish and you could serve the world and make a better life for yourself.
Alex Romanovich (44:23):
That's incredible. I'm listening to you, I am imagining another interview where we not only talk about lifting yourself geographically but also lifting yourself career-wise, lifting yourself up network-wise and really training yourself. And I believe a lot of folks will listen to you and say, I would like to attend one of the workshops that Gil Petersil is teaching someplace, because that experience of losing everything or losing something and then moving to a new place with the mission of giving before receiving, with the mission of sharing before taking, with the mission of living a full life and understanding the surroundings, being multicultural, being multifaceted, being diverse, and lifting yourself from whatever it is you're doing, right? And quickly or somewhat quickly reprogramming yourself into doing something else, which is relevant, right? The word I love, absolutely love, and the word that's on my website in many places is relevant and relevancy. Because if you're not relevant, if you, Gil Petersil, cannot be relevant to your surroundings in Bali, then your experience is probably not going to be very fulfilling, right? And that's what I want to discuss with you more of because I think it's going to be extremely inspiring to not only our audience but many audiences out in the world.
Gil Petersil (46:07):
Happy to do that, Alex. The easiest thing is, so first of all, I love your questions very, very much. I'd love to serve your audience more. I'd love to get to know your audience. So what I would say is if you're listening to this right now and you want more of this, send me a message on LinkedIn or on Instagram, and tell me, I listened to you with Alex and the GlobalEdgeTalk, and I want more, tell me what you want more of. I'll make sure and come back to Alex's team as well, tell them what you want more of. I'm happy to come back and answer those questions.
Gil Petersil (46:36):
And Alex, if you want, some of the audience, if they really want, we could even do a little session on Zoom and bring in some of your key audiences. Those who apply and want to come on Zoom and want to ask the questions live. I love doing these kinds of things. I'm spending at least 30% of my time right now serving the world. I don't want anything in return except helping people go through challenging times because I'm not done going through challenging times. Sounds like my life is great. I've been in the tourism business and then the events business for the last 10 years, my business went from millions, hundreds of dollar within 24 hours. I had to recuperate, I had to pivot, I had to adjust myself. I had to become creative to each of the mentors. So I'd like to serve people out there so they can go through these tough times as well.
Alex Romanovich (47:23):
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart once again for sharing some amazing ideas and some amazing tenets. And would love to come back in the near future and do another session, do another interview. By the way, we will be posting links. We will be posting information about Gil. We will be posting a lot of the videos, pictures like we always do, and we will absolutely encourage any type of inquiry to Gil directly about anything that you would like to maybe hear in the future, or maybe there is something that's very urgent and you would like to have Gil weigh in on some of those types of issues, or problems, or objectives you may have. So once again, thank you for being with us and until the next time.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
Thank you, Alex. Thank you everyone.