Pamela Bardhi  

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of underdog today. I am super excited to have this amazing guest here with me today. Gil Peterson, how are you my friend?

 

Gil Petersil  

Hey, hey, hey, really happy to be here with you all the way from Austin Bali.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

I know I love your background so much. I wish we could swap places. Now, Boston is so cold.

 

Gil Petersil  

Yeah, we don’t get cold weather here. But everyone who’s listening is invited.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

I’m loving it. I’m loving it. So Gil, thank you so much for being here today. And you’re a rock star of many different things. And I admire all the work that you’ve done that you’re doing and everything that you’re working on in the future. So I’d love to hear sort of a background of your journey, like how did you get to where you are today. 

 

Gil Petersil 

So you know, today I’m in a position where I feel very blessed and fortunate for these gifts that we have been given both in business and in life with three awesome kids living in Bali. Even though just in the last, you know, few months, our business has dropped 98% new business opportunities have come together because you know, we’ve been big in events, we’ve been big in tourism, for quite a while now. And people don’t really travel as much as they used to. But as some doors close, many doors open up. And that’s the blessed position we fill in right now because many great opportunities were brought into our lives like gifts with COVID. And all of these gifts for me at least they’re all very much connected to our passion. That what we call edutainment, education, entertainment. We’re huge believers and have missions connected to bringing people together the deepest and most authentic level of networking, basically, which is something I’ve been studying for the last 10 years. The depth of the sciences and arts, behind human networking, and what really does it really mean to build a community? What does personal branding truly mean? And how do we, you know, scale a business, in the comfort of our own home just using social media. And you know, we’ve gone through a lot of these successful failures in quite a while. And for me, it’s been a really awesome journey that took me through, you know, more than 20 different businesses, ranging from e-commerce and mobile apps to restaurants and healthy dessert companies. And a lot of projects that didn’t necessarily work out as well as I hoped, you know, and some people will say, ah, those were failures, well call them successful failures, which has become one of the most successful and most sought after class, I have offered at many universities around the world, how to attract successful failures into your life as an entrepreneur. So basically, helping entrepreneurs deal with fears and deal with failures and whatever business you’re going to be in whether you have that one big business that you focus on, you’re going to go through failures and ups and downs, and I’ve just become okay with them. It’s okay to have downs. That’s when you truly appreciate the ups. Yeah.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

Absolutely. Now, how did you get started in business?

 

Gil Petersil 

I think I just wanted that like I was young, you know, I was like, 13 14, and I just wanted money. But I come from a very, very simple family. You know, my dad being a carpenter and my mom being a stay-at-home, Mom, when I was born, of course, today, it’s a whole different story. But back then I didn’t really get everything I wanted as money kids I want want want want. And at the age of 13, I just told me that I wanted some money. And there was a Christmas fair, in a shopping mall in Montreal, Canada, where I was living at a time. And I said to my dad, what if I work at this Christmas fair over the weekend, and I sell stuff. And it was cool. So we managed to find some products that I can sell. And that was the first time I made a lot of money. Well, back then it was a lot of money for me like it was over $100 Oh my God, I was a 13 year old boy. You know, this is, you know, 28 years ago. That’s a lot of money. It’s really a lot of money and I was making 100 bucks every weekend. Leading up to Christmas and, you know, on the last weekend right before Christmas, I made like hundreds I don’t remember how much but it was like I remember literally coming home and putting all this money in my bed and you know, doing one of those cheesy things right through the money up. And my mom’s side, and she got very upset with me. She says you need to respect money. And she said money doesn’t grow on trees. And that’s something that’s stuck with me. But throughout my life, I didn’t really believe that I believe that money does grow on trees. And money is made from paper and paper is made from trees. So if you have an abundance mindset, you can actually see money all around you just like I currently see trees and leaves all around me. And then business opportunities started coming into my life from, you know, the age of 18. You know, I left school at school was not really for me, I feel that in multiple high schools and never really went to university and I just got into the workforce at a pretty young age. And through my career until the age of 30, I had many different jobs. I always had a side business. I always had a side gig always had something on the side, one or two things, weekends, evenings, I always hustled to make money on the side. And then I can’t really tell you exactly why back then I wanted money. But I when I’m kind of reflecting on it. I like the freedom of being able to buy what I want. I had I like the freedom of being able to give people discounts, and understanding margins. And understanding that I gave them a good deal. And I got a good deal. This is a win-win. Like I felt good about that win-win in business. And at the age of 33. I went I disconnected from all the jobs and I just started setting up companies.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

Wow. So what was your first company that you set up? What was your first baby, if you will

 

Gil Petersil 

There wasn’t really a first baby. Because again, since the age of 18, I’ve been having side businesses. So there were all these different companies that I set up. And at the age of 19. Even though I worked for one company, I already had another business card at the age of 21. When I was in London, I remember like this little too clearly because it was ridiculous. At any given point, I had four to five different business cards in my pocket for different projects that I was involved in. It was really bad actually because I would know that my left pocket, had these cards, and my right pocket had these cards in my inside pocket that these cards. So based on who I talked to, I took out a different business card. And that was a ridiculous way of developing business. The most successful project that we still have today is the one that I set up with my wife about nine years ago. We’ve been together for 10 years now. And that company started off as a speed dating company that very quickly developed into business networking and workshops, in different training, seminars. And that’s how we started working with people like Tony Robbins and Eckhart Tolle and Jay Abraham and some of the most incredible teachers and speakers and trainers in the world. That to me was like, Oh my god, they’re up there as a guru. And I learned how to bring them down here so I can talk to them face to face.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

Tell me a little bit about that business. It sounds fascinating. I’d love to hear about it.

 

Gil Petersil

So what the business used to be is not what it is today,  business-wise is very much what we call educational tourism. So we took people from the comfort of their homes to different transformational and educational seminars around the world. So for example, the last year 2019, I brought more than 3000 people to Tony Robbins events around the world. And that business entails, you know, hotels and flights and doing visas for people who needed it. And some people don’t speak English very well. So we offer them translation and other languages. And then we did excursions, and many, many, many, many mastermind dinners and VIP gatherings and business breakfasts. And we built a lot around these businesses, focusing on communities who believe the personal development, that was something that you know, we really believed in and we saw that growing and that business grew very, very quickly. Four years ago, we became the leading regional partner in the world for Tony Robbins. So no one actually has ever been able to bring foreigners from a different country into Tony Robbins events in one kind of group and one community and one delegation. And that was quite a humbling position to be in you know, I managed to meet with Tony and his team, often but elsewhere. Doing how we could serve other people how it wasn’t mine to keep. So I wanted to be able to share it with other countries how we did what we did to just coming from an abundance position. And that business transition quite a bit. Of course, during COVID, we have to focus a lot more online. And do online gatherings, do online webinars, a lot of marathons like Instagram marathon, so people just want to go crazy for seven days online while they’re being stuck at home and just really lift their spirits and their skills to another level that they can connect with new people, they can set up new businesses, they can, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel again.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

Absolutely. So I’m fascinated by you, in many respects, because you’re a serial entrepreneur. And I love that. And that’s sort of what I’ve been my entire life to. I started in the restaurant worlds, by the time I was 21, I had two restaurants of my own, and then shifted into real estate development and all that all that stuff. And it’s always interesting to me from an entrepreneurial standpoint, to sort of understand, what was the motivation for you, throughout that time, besides like, just wanting more money? Was there anything else that motivated you?

 

Gil Petersil  

Yeah, no, of course, wanting more money was really in my teenage years, very quickly, in my, my early 20s, I understood that money was not a motivation for me. And still, till this day, I’m not inspired or motivated by money, if I was, you know, I’d work with a lot of what I would call unethical companies out there, you know, companies, tobacco companies, and alcohol companies, and, you know, all these oil and gas companies have offered me tremendous amounts of money to come in and, and work with their teams and support their company and adjust strategies and look at how the network internally externally is being managed, because I’ve worked with hundreds of corporations, multiple governments, and many, many, of course, hundreds of 1000s of entrepreneurs in my life. And that motivation came, when three things happen. Number one, I was able to see someone become better in what I do than myself. You know, and I love that that’d became from a karmic position, karmic management, where if I’d like to achieve something in life, I’d rather find someone else that wants to do it, and help them as much as I can achieve that. So that was a really nice position to see my students surpass my position. And today, the majority of my clients are much, much wealthier than me. And they’re more successfully in some parts of life. And some are not, you know, some are just, they’re now setting up businesses, maybe they left the corporate world, and they’ve had enough to the corporate world. And I don’t want to be a banker anymore, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur. And I helped them kind of set that path ahead of them with the right connections with the right network so that they don’t trip over their feet too much. And, and that was, for me a really nice journey to help people surpass my standards. Number two, to help people go through a path that they’re passionate about, without too many fears without too much pain, because entrepreneurs need to go through pain. What if I could take the pain away from so many entrepreneurs, it’s amazing. And the third level that was really exciting for me, is that I understood that I don’t need to be the one setting up businesses in order for me to be in business. So the more I trained and I coached people, the more business opportunities came to me. So today, I’m able to be a shareholder of multiple companies, I don’t need to finance them. I don’t need to manage the team. I don’t need to do all the work. Other people do the work. I come in a couple of times a week, I join meetings, we adjust strategies, I get them some creativity, I blow their minds a little bit, I walk away, I make money when I sleep. So it kind of worked out that by serving the world with passion with energy. The world tends to kind of serve me without me, you know, while I sleep.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

I love that. So what would you say would be like your mantras? Are they have evolved over the years? Or has it always been like one mantra that you’ve sort of kept?

 

Gil Petersil  

No, they continuously evolve, they evolve when I’m not feeling well, they evolve with, you know, my kids want more my attention, they evolve. I don’t have one mantra, right that is pushing me I have belief systems that you know, different teachers have given me and these different teachers have taught me to constantly look outside of the box constantly look outside of the business model itself. Like Jay Abraham always told me, whatever business you’re in whatever challenges you have, look way outside of that business model, not just your competitors, but looking at a completely different industry. And you’ll find solutions. Tony has always taught me to you know, to drive life with a passion to always raise my standards, always whatever it is that I do. And I expect this for myself, and I expect this from others as well. Someone like Eckhart totally I’ve worked with very, very closely for a while he taught me to try to really as often as I can be here and now. Really just be in the present moment as much as possible. I’m not perfect at that I’m far from it. Being in Bali really helps me being structured with my calendar and what I got to do helps me trying my best to be focused. I’m not usually a very focused person, I like to do many projects. You know, Eckhart always told me to just try to be inflow. Um, I remember when I one specific conversation with Eckhart, when many of my teachers at that time I was doing like 100 plus speeches a year. And it’s about three years ago. And I told Eckhart that I keep on getting feedback from my teachers that I need to prepare more for these speeches, and I need to have better presentations, I need to be rehearsing more so I could deliver a better speech. But Eckhart told me, you know, what, all these years, I never prepare presentations, I never rehearse. I just try to be inflow. And I try to channel the information with confidence that I know I can serve these people. I know I’m coming from a good place. I know I can give them value right now and just give it to them. So I have these different mantras that before I get on stage before I’m, you know, I get into a meeting. Just something to get me going.

 

Pamela Bardhi 

mantras, lots of love. I’m loving it. So now, what would you say would be your favorite business that you’ve ever started?

 

Gil Petersil  

Well, it’s an interesting question. My favorite one? So it’s a tricky question because it’s kind of what my favorite one also be the one that lasted longer. So the one that grew? I don’t know, that’s actually an interesting question. Like, it’s a trick question. So, you know, it’s the ones that grew the most, and they’re still growing are the ones that were still doing now, in personal development, they continuously grew, they went through a lot of difficult times. One of my favorite one was a mobile app company had a lot of fun with that one, there was a very, very innovating ahead of its time mobile app. This was six years ago. It was one of the first of its kind that help people navigate inside shopping malls, which was really cool. Imagine you had a mobile app that helps you navigate within the shopping mall, like massive shopping malls. And it told you where are the discounts? Where are the specials, you can virtually go into the shops and see what’s going on there. You could see clothing, you could be notified of things that you want, that have just arrived. And that was a lot of fun. That was like, you know, I met these young guys. And they were completely lost. And they had technology, but they had no idea how to like do anything with it. And that business was cool because I was new and mobile apps as well. But I managed to learn quickly and connect with people in the industry and study. And like, really, it was like a whole new brand new school for me. Like, I didn’t know anything about the industry. But I studied it. And I connected with people and I brought in investors and I connected with the biggest shopping malls in different parts of the world. And as that business grew, grew, grew. And that was cool. That business didn’t last, unfortunately, because the financial model that we had wasn’t scalable enough, and it wasn’t making as much money as we thought. So everyone kind of lost interest, and everyone just started doing their other businesses.

 

Pamela Bardhi 

That’s good. This was super fun, though. 

 

Gil Petersil 

It was nice to learn. I liked learning new businesses. You know, when I opened up my restaurant, I didn’t know anything about the restaurant industry. But I was very passionate about healthy food. So I opened up the first organic restaurant in Moscow, I was living in Moscow at a time. That was a lot of fun. I opened juice bars, juice bars were awesomely fun. Like, wow, I again, I’ve learned that a lot of the business well actually every business that I’ve opened up in my life was fun for me because it was brand new. It was like a brand new industry in a brand new category. Like I didn’t know anything about it. I had to learn it. I had to start from zero. But I had me I had my connections I had my interest to learn. I had my perseverance. You know, I don’t think that people get to any specific age where like, oh, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I cannot move? Of course, you can. Last week, I was speaking to a friend of mine who’s like 60. I think he’s like 65 70  years old. And he’s completely changing industry for the third time in his life. And he’s super excited about it. And that for me, it’s fun when you go through changes. The first time it’s a little bit scary, of course, yeah. The second time, it’s a little bit scary. But the third time you’re like, well, I can learn this. I can meet people who can help me. I can find some mentors.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

That’s amazing. Because most people, right if they don’t know anything about an industry, and they want to start a business in it, most of the time, they’re just afraid. You know, they’re just like, mmm hmm, no. And like for me, after I got out of restaurants, I went straight into construction. And I knew nothing about construction, but I was like, I’m gonna find a mentor. I’m gonna find somebody and I’m just gonna learn it. And everyone’s like, How the hell do you? Where do you get that? And it’s amazing to me because you have sort of the same mentality. You’re like, I have my connections. I’ll figure it out. I’ll make it happen. So walk me through your mindset when you get excited about a new industry or a new opportunity or anything like that. I’d love to hear your thought process sort of behind that. I just think it’s so fascinating

 

Gil Petersil  

So I think that, you know, for anyone who’s listening, they’ve like all of us, they’ve gone through a massive change. Since you know, March of this year, business suffered. Maybe their jobs suffered, maybe they had to move out of their home, I don’t know, like, we moved out of our home, we were living in Singapore, now we live in Bali. It’s nice. We didn’t come here because it was cheaper. Even though it is so much cheaper. We came here because it was a more free way of life. It’s not that easy to move countries, you know, especially when you’re moving with two kids and my wife was pregnant at time. Now she’s not pregnant anymore. The baby came out awesome. The three kids now, but it’s not easy. But if you have a strong enough reason why, and you’re able to write it down, and you understand that it’s going to enable you it’s going to empower you going through that change starting that new business has become kind of I don’t have a choice. If I stay, and I don’t transition, I don’t pivot, I don’t grow, I don’t iterate, I’ll be sad, you know, I’ll be disappointed with myself, maybe I’ll be, maybe I’ll go into depression, moving out of the existing network. That one is in is the scariest and most exhilarating, step in life. When you’re like, that’s it. That’s enough. I’ve had enough of these people, they keep on complaining about their jobs, they keep on complaining about the government, they keep on blaming other people, I want to step out of this network, I want to move out of this neighborhood. You know, some people have said, I want to step away from this family, which is difficult to do. You know, nine years ago, I had to make a lot of distance between myself and my family. I love them very much. And I even loved him back then. But back then they were like, stop being an entrepreneur try to get a job because my dad failed as an entrepreneur, they didn’t want me to fail as well, which I get it. But like, come on here and find a stable job. Like, why you’re not getting married, why you’re not having kids be more like your brother. He’s been working at IBM for 20 years ago. I was like, I don’t want to hear any of this shit. And it wasn’t just from my family. It was from a lot of different people who I called my friends who were very cool people, but they had very successful jobs. And they were like, no, Gil, like, you know, Stop messing around. You’re trying this, you’re trying that, why don’t you stick to one project. I’m like, I haven’t figured out which projects I want to stick to leave me alone. You know, like, I’m trying to discover myself. And what I know that while I’m discovering who I am and what I want to do, I’m not going to sit back and wait, I’m going to do something to try something that sounds like fun. I’m going to like, you know what, I’m going to start this restaurant. Let me give it a year. Let me like really give it a year and give it my best shot and learn as fast as I can. And like really take it seriously. When I got into the HR industry in recruitment. I didn’t know anything about it like, Well, I know a lot of people, a lot of people need jobs, it’s probably good karma if I help people get jobs because I would get more clients. Let’s go go go go go. And I didn’t know anything about it. And yeah, I didn’t do very well at it. But that’s okay. Because I learned a lot about myself who I am in a business, my strengths and weaknesses in the business. And I think that mindset is the one the perseverance, don’t give up on yourself, you know, if you’re gonna choose to do something, give it a shot three months, six months, 12 months, like we give it a shot. Number two, it’s the ability and knowledge that I could learn anything like I’m not going to suddenly learn, you know, algebra, I wasn’t very good in school. So I’m not going to suddenly learn, you know, I don’t know how nature grows and what makes I don’t know what how the trees are all connected yet. It’s very, very interesting. Maybe I’ll watch a little documentary about it. But I’m not going to go too deep into it because it doesn’t get my juices going. But if something does get my juices going, you know, recently I got into the I got back into the wellness industry. So I used to be in wellness and, and health food shops like GNC and Whole Foods and all this kind of businesses. And I left that industry and I went into personal development. And suddenly, I found because the COVID those industries came back into my life. So now I can tell you that my industry that I really look like we’re you know, growing very quickly is and wellness and educational tourism. So people don’t just come to our retreats to learn. They come to our retreats to heal, and to detox, and maybe they got COVID and they wanted to fight through it. And we helped 1000s of people just make sure to booster our immune system. And that’s amazing, you know, and there’s no need to like, eat crap food or drink alcohol if you don’t need to in order to connect to people. So it’s that mindset of like, well, I can be a superhero if I want to. Yeah, I believe I’m a superman if I want to be Yeah, I can lift both my kids and both arms. I’m stronger now today than I’ve ever been before. A couple of times a week. I put my kids at my shoulders You know, together like 30 kilos, and I’ll walk for a couple of miles. You know, that’s not that easy to do at the age of 40. At least that wasn’t for me a couple of years ago. But because of COVID, I’ve been pushing my body to the next level, because I want to raise my standards. And I think that’s the sort of mindset entrepreneurs out there need. They need to persevere for something they need to choose, what am I passionate about? And if they’re a little bit lost in life, this decides what was that passionate about when I was a kid, and go do something fun. One of my clients was pretty massive in the diamond industry. In Dubai, we spoke to him a little bit, and we wanted to reignite some of his passions. And suddenly, he was reminding me that when he was young, he loved go-karting. And suddenly, now he’s bonding with his eight-year-old son, because they’re go-karting together, and he’s loving it. He’s like, I’m in love with this and brought up this energy in me, I get to bond with my son on the weekends, I’m now like getting other dads involved in this, I’m like, Yeah, get your juices going. Because life is about growing or dying, there is no neutral. If you’re neutral. a flower either dies or flourishes, I choose to flourish all the time, every single day, to millimeters if I can.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

I love it. I love it. And you talked about to a little bit earlier, about having to distance from your family and like sort of maintaining your mentality. And I can relate to that. Because especially when you’re starting out, and you’re a serial entrepreneur, you got so many things going on, there’s a lot of doubt that surrounds you. And sometimes it amazes you to realize that it’s sometimes the closest people to you. And I know that there’s a lot of people out there that struggle with that, you know, they want to start a business, they want to do all these things, and then they have people in their ear like, No, you can’t do that, you know, that’s not normal. That’s not you know, how are you going to pay your bills, you know, and then you get these voices in your head that start to sort of play with you. And I’ve seen a lot of people succumb to that. And so my question for you is, how did you combat that as a way and then just kept going?

 

Gil Petersil 

So that’s really, really important in question, you know, and the way you said it is even more important, even deeper than you can even imagine. Don’t combat it. Don’t, it’s not something you need to fight. And again, it depends on who it is from your family. If it’s a husband or wife, then you can’t really disconnect. You got to make it happen unless you want to go through a conscience. uncoupling is a new way of getting divorces. That’s okay, it happens. You know, I don’t I have nothing against people splitting up. As long as they’ve tried to really make it work. They’ve really no need for therapy, but you really get some sharing sessions and close masterminds, you really try to make it work. But if we’re talking about, you know, siblings, mother, father, people like that make space, create some distance, you can create distance in proximity to actually go and live in another city, you can create some distance where you don’t talk to them as often and might sound like an asshole, some of your listeners like, Oh my God, this guy is such an ass. Well, you know what my parents love me today, as much as they did before. And I love them as well. My parents are better off today than they were a few years ago when their focus was very much about what are you doing? What are you doing? Are you safe? Are you happy, and they didn’t do it from a negative point of view, they did it from a loving point of view, they didn’t want me to suffer. You know, my dad went through bankruptcy and, you know, really big failure in business. And then he had a stroke and a divorce. Like, he didn’t want me to go through that, and I get it. But like, I Hey, man, I need to learn from you. I shouldn’t avoid what you went through, I should learn from it. So that’s why I’m in Bali. And that’s why I do meditation. And that’s why like, I try to calm myself down, and I get a massage once a week. And, you know, I try to remember that life is not about Go, go, go go go. Life is about calming down and finding space to chill. And, you know, 99% of the nights, I read my kids books at night, maybe I’ll miss once in a while. But I’ll make sure I’m at home. And every single morning I see them before they go to school, and I hug them and stuff. And it’s nice. And I think those a COVID gave that to me, which I love. I know, I’m not flying anywhere, oh my god. But by auditing your network, which is a whole long conversation and something I go very, very deeply with my clients when you audit your network, and you understand who is in your network, and then you start to gauge them you actually do it on a piece of paper on Excel on a computer and like you actually start to understand, are these people adding value to my life? Or are they potentially holding me back? Am I inspired by them? Or did they suck my energy? What is the average income that they make? Because if they make an average income of like, you know, $50,000 a year, it’s going to be very difficult for me to make $100,000 a year. That’s why for me, I’m very, very mindful of some of the people who are closes to me, I want them to be more successful than I am in different parts of life. That’s why they can mentor doesn’t have to be a perfect person. And our parents are not our mentors. Again, I’ll repeat that a mentor does not need to be a perfect person, which is the most common mistake people do. They’re like, No, no, that guy, he makes money, but he’s cheating on his wife. He’s a bad mentor. No, he’s not, don’t go out with him at night, where he’s cheating on his wife, meet up with him for breakfast in the morning or lunch and talk business. Like you don’t have to agree with everything they do in life, but you need to choose what you learn from them. And that’s why our parents are not our mentors, because that’s not their place, their places to be our parents and their places to, you know, try to lift us up and try to support us and try to protect us. You know, I understand that as a father myself when I see my two-year-old son running and like, No, no, don’t run, so I don’t want to fall was a two-year-old boy, of course, he’s gonna run what like in my lane? Like, what is this? Don’t run like, you know, of course, he’s gonna hurt himself. And I just close my eyes. Like, oh my god, I hope he’s not gonna cry. We’re gonna hope he’s not gonna cry. Yeah. And then he cries within 30 seconds. Like, he gets distracted by a butterfly. He’s not crying anymore. But that’s life. Because can we distract ourselves with a butterfly? Yes, we can. If our parents or family member or someone is just like hammering us down, be distracted. Find someone else that is inspiring to you, and go spend more time with them. Go start following some new mentors, go start going to some other personal development events, go join some new communities, you know, quit that job that doesn’t teach you anything anymore, and go find another one that you like better, not, maybe it’s not going to pay you as much money. But maybe you’ll be more inspired by this job. Because the team is amazing. And your boss is inspiring. That’s how I always pick my job since the age of 18. Every job I had, I don’t think I was making that much money for a living like really my jobs. How am I? So like, Yeah, no, I was getting, like, really, really bad money. But maybe back then I was okay. But I was making maybe $1,000 a month, you know, in some of my jobs. And like today, of course, it’s nothing, you know, but back then maybe it was a lot of money. But actually, it wasn’t because I wasn’t looking for jobs that would pay me money, I wouldn’t I was looking for jobs, were really awesome bosses. That was my thing. Find a boss who’s awesome. Find a boss who would not be a parent figure to me, but would be a mentor to me.

 

Pamela Bardhi 

That’s awesome, awesome bosses. So basically, it connects to the human, which I think is really, really cool. 

 

Gil Petersil  

It connects to just you know, the simple ways of how we are growing, it connects to, if we have awesome people in our network that keep on lifting it up. One of my good friends and mentors Keith Ferrazzi who wrote the book, never eat alone keeps on talking in the last year, especially but co-elevation, before anybody was talking about co-creation, co elevation is when the people around you are moving up, where if you move up, you take people with you. You don’t go by yourself, you don’t become rich alone. You know, I don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room, I don’t want to be the richest guy in the room. That means I’m doing a bad job. So I surround myself with very, very smart people smarter than me, at least, you know, I love surrounding myself in rooms with people who are very rich. Three weeks ago, I held I was facilitating a virtual mastermind for seven billionaires. I’m not a billionaire. But most of them know me very, very well. They know my capabilities to know my abilities to strategize and think outside of the box and give them some creative thoughts. They know my abilities to facilitate and hold space. And it’s not the first time I’ve done it with them. But for me, I was like, Oh my god, I’m learning so much. I love understanding how they think. Because trying to understand how someone thinks and trying to model them, you can’t copy another human being but you can model that the human beings, you can really grow your standards, which is incredible.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

That is incredible. Oh man, so leading to that. Another question I have for you is what was your biggest aha moment in business? Where you were like, yep, this is what I meant to do this is it? Boom.

 

Gil Petersil  

You know, I’ve been asked this question a lot of times, it’s a question that I can’t think of one aha moments because I’ve had many, but one of the greatest ones that helped me out a lot Well, actually two and both of them I would say it’s because of Tony Robbins who put me in that position my life First of all, who helped me understand who I am inside of the business. Because every business has these different characteristics within it. And unless you understand truly what is your superpowers within the business, you try to do everything. You try to be a jack of all trades or a jack of all trades, and you’re trying to get it all done, and you’re trying to just somehow partner up with people, but it’s not working or hire people. And it’s not working. And it didn’t work for me for many, many years because I wasn’t in the right seats. I was trying to be in all the seats at the same time. And Tony really helped me understand a lot more about who I am in the business. And that really, it’s almost like this small two-millimetre shift, imagine when like, you know, you’ve got a golf ball in front of you, and you hit it as hard as you can. But if you hit it with a two-millimetre difference, in the beginning, it doesn’t look like it’s it makes a difference, but actually down the line, and make some massive, massive difference in the ball, massive, two millimeter difference. And that’s the exact same thing in life. That’s why sometimes we need a mentor to help us adjust the business model help us adjust our thinking, help us adjust the way we motivate the way we inspire the way we manage just a little bit. And that adjustment could suddenly Wow, money’s coming in, clients coming in. Oh, my God, businesses growing? Yeah, so that was the first thing. And the second one was that I can be a business owner and not a business operator. Hmm. And that was a really big one. And I love being a business operator, don’t get me wrong, I love being involved in the business. I love understanding what’s going on. But actually, it drains my energy. And I never really realized that I just thought it was a part of being an entrepreneur, you need to not sleep. And you need to, like you know, work 15 18 hours a day, which there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve done that for years, 15 18 hours, 24 hour days, not sleeping, I was passionate about it, I loved it. But it’s not sustainable. Right. But there are specific ways to adjust yourself and your business by basically, you’re organizing your network a little bit better. Your internal network and your company, your network in your mind, your network and your body, how your body is performing in a business because it’s completely okay to go 24 hours, 48 hours with no sleep. It’s completely okay. But you need to understand how to manage yourself. You need to understand what level of energy you have. And as soon as you’re able to adjust and organize the network differently. Internal and external network, suddenly your business can run without you being there, and you could be sleeping or you could be on vacation.

 

Pamela Bardhi 

Hmm. I love that. Especially because now it’s a society where it’s like entrepreneurship, hustle, and this, and all of that is so glamorized in a sense. So it’s amazing to hear you talk about, hey, there’s a way to do this without, like killing yourself. But I feel like almost, in the beginning, you almost got to put in that work. And then you transition into this new mindset of Hey, I can do this without spending 15 to 18 hours because that’s what it was like for me too. It was like, that’s all I knew, hustle every single day 15 to 18 hours, no problem sometimes.

 

Gil Petersil  

But I think it’s okay. every entrepreneur has that journey. And I know many, many entrepreneurs, I don’t know one who just went from starting a business to not really working hard. And even if they did, maybe for six months, suddenly something changed, something went wrong, then oh my god, then they’re back in. I think it’s okay to work a lot for a living. It’s completely I love working. It’s not difficult for me, I love it. It’s not hard work and smart work. Like, I’m not a lazy person. But I don’t want to work hard. I’ve done that. Right. Now I’ve understood that we can actually work smart by serving other people by thinking about our employees more by really understanding by constantly reviewing our goals and doing that with our loved ones. You know, review your goals and your ambitions and your passions with your husband and your wife. It’s incredible when you’re aligned, how much more it can be done, because my wife is my business partner still today, multiple companies, and it’s awesome for me how both of us are co-elevating ourselves. Sometimes if someone has a bad day, someone who’s not feeling well, the other person lifts them up. It’s wonderful.

 

Pamela Bardhi 

That’s awesome. So what would be your number one key to success when it comes to working with your wife as a business partner?

 

Gil Petersil 

You know, you need to have those lines you need to have rules. You know, seven years ago, I got into a really bad fight with my she was a girlfriend at the time with a bad business and it was connected to money and what should we do with the business and should we invest in more marketing this something like that really, really got upset and I walked out of the house. It was October time I was in Moscow. It was freezing cold I did not have a jacket and I also forgot my wallet at home. I’m a guy. And I’m stubborn. And I’m not going to come home and get my wallet. And I’m not going to come home and get my jacket. Because I’m a tough guy. I could do it outside. But it was cold. And I walked and it was like late, it was like one o’clock in the morning, and I was walking and walking, and at one stage was like, okay, it’s really cold right now, you know, like really cold. But again, we’re men. We don’t want to show our weaknesses. Like now I’ve learned that it’s okay to show weaknesses and be vulnerable and ask for help. So I walked into a coffee shop, and I said, Listen, I forgot my wallet. I’m sorry. Like, can I just have some tea? And they said, Sure, yeah, no problem. Give me some tea. And just to keep warm. And I sat on the corner, I had my phone with me. And I was completely lost, not knowing what to do. The way I’m always thinking like someone’s got the answer. Someone if I don’t have the answer, I shouldn’t think about it too much. Someone’s got the answer. So right away, think who you should call and don’t call your family members don’t call people who are close to you. Because you trust them. I know them called people who have the answer. Yeah. So I called one of my old bosses who was doing business with his wife for 30 years. And I haven’t spoken to him in a very, very long time. And like he was my boss 15 years before them. And I haven’t spoken in a while, but I called him up. And he was in Canada, and I was in Moscow. So even though it was like two o’clock in the morning for me, for him, it was late afternoon. It was like Amen. It’s like it’s Gil is like, Hey, what’s going on in a meeting? Like it’s an emergency, I need to speak to you. And he said, Yeah, give me two minutes, I’ll call you back. And it’s really, which is really like mind blowing. Imagine like you’re catching someone in the middle of the day, after not speaking there for years. You told me it’s an emergency, it means that you must have had a good relationship with him. So I felt good about that. He calls me up and he says, Yeah, man, I’ve been there, done that. Don’t worry about it. First of all, stop being such a hero to men, you got to go back and apologize. Yeah, she’s a woman, apologize, please, that’s a just apology, which is not easy. And then he said something he said, like First of all, sit right now and send her an email. So put your thoughts together and send her an email instead of going home, and potentially getting back into the argument, send her an email, and then send her a text message saying, if you’re still awake, please read my email, I’m coming home. And the email was basically apologising over the email based on his advice, we’re setting the rules for our business partnership. And it was really special because today, we still have these rules. These rules changed a little bit because now we are, first of all, we are husband and wife, then we are parents. And then we are business partners, which is really important because a lot of couples tend to put themselves as parents first. And I personally completely disagree with that. Because if you put yourself as a parent first. you’ll get into trouble with your loved ones, you’ll neglect them, you’ll take them for granted. So we still have our date nights and we still have our you know, make sure to still try to be as romantic as possible. And like feet, massages whenever possible. Like, I can’t be a perfect guy, but you know, you do whatever you can to first treat them like a loved one. And then like parents, so make sure that you prioritize kids before business meetings. And it’s funny, but now my daughter’s only been four years old. I’ve taught her that I’m putting meetings with her in my calendar now. So for example, a couple of nights ago, we had a chocolate workshop at home. But it was all just everybody knows I’m not a bad parent, it was raw chocolate. So raw cacao, so very, very, very bitter. But if you mix it with berries, and with some nuts and stuff, it’s actually quite tasty. So we had a chocolate workshop and I put it into my calendar. That’s awesome. And I wouldn’t know because that’s very helpful for me, because it means that none of my team and I, my assistants can book that time for something else. But that time was for them. And it was really, really cool that we have every single Thursday evening, we have a date night. So we have mastermind nights with my wife and other friends, you know, in a very, very selective of who we invite. So I think you need that balance. So first of all, you have your family and even though my family is completely in the business, there still needs to be that balance. And also there needs to be some sort of a split and responsibility in what each person is focusing on so that you can be co CEOs. In our case, neither one of us is a CEO, we’ve hired CEOs and all of our companies, but we’re co-owners of the company. So we need to be there to support each other and listen to each other. And especially when you go through crazy difficult times, like during COVID time where your business goes from, you know, millions of dollars a month to suddenly hundreds of dollars a month. You’re like oh, what do I do? Oh, that’s when the partnership really flourishes because very quickly you can work as a unit and the business comes back to a healthy position once again.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

That’s amazing. That’s it. I love that you set the boundaries between and the rules between the both of you and that you still have them today.

 

Gil Petersil  

You need something Listen, like, like I do a lot of masterminds around the world. I’ve been facilitating masterminds for the last five years, and I’ve launched masterminds all over the world for like governments and corporations and tons of entrepreneurs and business clubs and stuff. And I love masterminds because in masterminds, you have rules. And if you follow the rules, you create structure. And if you create structure, you can measure results. And if you can measure results, you can repeat results. Yeah, but as I love to say, in all my masterminds guys, all the rules are there to help you. But any rule could be broken, as long as you’re replacing it with another rule. So even in a relationship, if ever we break a rule in like, okay, I can’t make it this Thursday for date night. Let’s make it Friday. Okay. You can don’t just like forget something if you have a rule. You don’t have to follow it to the tea. Trust me, I don’t I want to be healthy. But I love ice cream. You know, what are you gonna do? Yeah, if you could kind of find healthy ice cream? I know. I know. I know. But still, I like a little bit of sugar. Yeah, so it’s just important to create some values. You don’t have to call them rules, you know, create some values. It’s almost like any good company, you have a company culture. You need to create your own family culture that works for you.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

And now another question for you. What would be your best advice to entrepreneurs or anyone out there listening? Specifically, entrepreneurs, I would say because that’s sort of your realm, right? Anyone out there, startup up anything, your best piece of advice? 

 

Gil Petersil  

First of all, I would start by saying, pause here. Go to the beginning, listen to everything again, and write down advice that I’ve been giving you since the beginning. Start there, if you didn’t take any notes, on advice that you’ve heard, it’s the same thing as just listening to music, you’re just being entertained, which is an absolute waste of time. So if you’re going to listen to like, I listened to an average of an hour and a half, sometimes two hours a day, either to podcasts, audiobooks, or really good, interesting videos on YouTube that are there to stimulate my mind to teach me something. And in most of the cases, I’m writing some kind of a note. Yeah, either it’s in my phone, or it’s a piece of paper, I’m writing some sort of a note somewhere. It’s an idea. It’s an inside it’s a question for later on, you know, take things away from people that you look up to. So people love your podcast, they know they should take something away, not just like say, oh, wow, that sounds right, and then go back to their own lives. Right? Yeah. The second thing I would say if you like what someone says. And it really, really resonates with you to find a way to create proximity between you and them. So I was listening to Tony Robbins for more than 10 years before I started, you know, understanding that one day I can maybe meet him. And then I started working with him. If you think about it really took me 15 years, until I started actually working with Tony Robbins. And then it took me another two years until I met him, one on one. And then I’ve met him since then many, many times, both in even in his home and in events and hotels, you know, we’ve had some good connections. And what’s important about that is that you can create proximity with someone and call them a mentor without actually knowing them personally, just by following them like connecting on social media, on LinkedIn on Instagram, for example, with me, connect with me on LinkedIn, tell me where you know me, tell me where you heard me. Don’t just press Connect. That’s boring. Don’t just follow someone on Instagram, say thank you for something, connect, engage, build that first Spark, and then you can slowly build on top of that. That’s the material you know and engage with people that inspire you. And I did the same thing with people like Brian Tracy and Robert Kiyosaki, and even Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street when I saw the movie, I was like, I want to meet him one day, and I did a year later, I met him and I shared the stage with him. That was cool. You know. So that’s number two. It’s very important. Number three, try to follow your passions as much as possible. And remember that you actually could monetize your passion. You really, really could. And you can also develop passions, you become very passionate about things that are broader than what you’re thinking about today. Number four, I would say diversify that your skills and diversify what you do in life. Don’t just be stuck. Try to grow, try to be a plant as much as possible and grow and a plant grows there roots downwards, to connect with other plants. So, you know, like all these trees and everything I’m looking at right now around me 100% of all of them are touching each other underground, every single plant, every single tree, all of them, and that I know, scientifically, they’re all connected, they’re all touching each other, and the grass that’s getting a lot of sun right now, it’s actually giving those nutrients to the other plants that are not in the sun. And the trees that are very, very high up there are bringing the sun in, it’s actually bringing the nutrients to the ones that are maybe under the trees, you know. So we have those roots that grow further and further. So you could touch a wider network. And as you grow as a plant, try to help others to influence others and support others and grab information and, you know, grow, feel free to grow. It’s nice to grow. It feels good to grow geographically, I love having different clients call me up and say, Gil, I want to expand my business globally. But I’m also I’m tired of where I live right now I want to come and live somewhere else. I’m like, where do I start? Like, yes, I’ve lived in six different places in my life. And many, many years. And each and I’ve set up businesses and each of them. So I’ve learned how to walk people through the 1 2 3 of taking their bags and moving somewhere with their family. I’ve dealt with kids, you know, how do you move from the banking into the health industry? Or how do you move from? I’ve been in construction and I want to have a restaurant or like, you know, how do you do that? Wonderful, I can walk people through that. And I think that’s the important thing to not be afraid of change. Easier said than done. I know, change is challenging. But change is healthy for us. Let’s remember that change is healthy. Remember that whenever you’re scared of change.

 

Pamela Bardhi 

I love how you describe the trees and being interconnected. This is why you’re the network mastery coach. Right? Everything is connected, right? I love that.

 

Gil Petersil  

We can get on the spiritual part of how we are all one. Yeah. And you know, when it comes to networking, there’s a lot of depth that people are afraid to learn about, which is human frequencies and how we project energy from ourselves to animals, to plants with other human beings. There’s a lot of vibrations and how emotions change how we actually vibrate as a human, which means you can manifest business opportunities you can manifest, you know, greatness in life. And everyone who’s listening has had that when you were thinking about someone and they call you. Yep, Oh, you were hoping for something and then that person walked up and offered it to you. This is reality. It’s not magic. And it’s not something I was born with. I was born as an introvert. And at the age of 10, I became an immigrant. And since the age of 10, I was an immigrant in different countries, where it’s a new country, a new language, and I didn’t speak the language and even English is my third language, the language that I never learned in school. So whatever people are thinking in their heads right now, our Gil had it he was born with it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, don’t come up with excuses. You know, if you want something in life, go ahead and get there. And you need to understand that building relationship is a big part of it.

 

Pamela Bardhi  Amen to that. That is like the perfect closing remark. And Gil, where can everybody find you and your awesomeness?

 

Gil Petersil  

I’m the only Gil Petersil on Google. So if they cannot find me, it’s not my fault. It’s the kind of you know, ladies and gentlemen if you’re listening to this, and you cannot find me, or you’re thinking I he’s too busy, or he’s not going to respond to me, or what am I gonna say to him? What you need to remember is that when I knew I was gonna be in the same room as Richard Branson, what I did is my research on what is Richard working on these days? What is important for Richard to think about and talk about, and I walked into this room. And after five minutes, I realized that everyone in this room is treating Richard Branson, I can God please tell us what to do, please give us the answers. Instead of understanding that he’s a human being. And he also has challenges. And I very quickly just engaged him, I found that window of opportunity to engage them. And for 20 30 minutes, like a room of 30 people were suddenly listening to me and Richard speaking, because it was different opportunities for us to engage each other with, I knew what he wanted to talk about, and I didn’t want anything from him. So if you want to engage with me at three ways, number one, give me a compliment number two, ask me a question number three, follow up. This is my it’s actually a very, very deep and very complex formula, how to give people compliments, even if it’s just in your mind, how to ask people questions, to engage people to build that relationship, and how to follow up and follow up and follow up and follow up if you really want to build a relationship with anyone killed.

 

Pamela Bardhi  

Thank you so much. I love your brilliance and thank you so much. for your time today and audience, I’m sure it’s gonna love this and they’ll follow you and reach out to you and connect with you. So, thank you so much.

 

Gil Petersil  

Thank you. It’s been fun.