Developing Online Networks with Gil Petersil | E048

Developing a digital ecosystem.

In this episode of Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, and writer, interviews Gil Petersil, a serial entrepreneur, public speaker, coach, and expert in editing and altering online and offline networks to make massive impacts on lives and businesses!

Episode Highlights:

  • 1:19 – Gil Petersil introduces himself and what he does for a living.

  • 2:26 – How did Gil get into this line of business?

  • 5:24 – What is involved for clients who wish to work with Gil?

  • 8:50 – Gil explains how he understands people using the network around them.

  • 11:38 – Jason and Gil discuss the need to transform your network over time.

  • 17:30 – Gil explains how inexperienced most people are with building networks around them.

  • 18:58 – Jason and Gil talk about COVID has affected the network building abilities of different companies.

  • 22:39 – What can financial planners do to fix their plateauing networks?

  • 24:40 – Gil and Jason explain why all knowledge should be given away for free.

  • 29:15 – Jason and Gil discuss how painful effective networking can be.

  • 31:05 – What would Gil change in his industry as a whole?

  • 32:11 – Gil explains the biggest challenge that he has faced getting to where he is today.

  • 32:58 – What excites Gil the most about what he is working on today?

3 Key Points

  1. Through sharing and micro-learning sessions, Gil helps business leaders to innovate and adjust the strategy of the business by changing the way that they interact with their internal and external networks.

  2. It’s important to consistently evaluate your environment and network as your life and business change. Transformation is the only way to grow in a healthy manner.

  3. While advisors should charge those who want to spend time with them, knowledge should be given away for free. By providing value to those around you, value will always come back your way.

 

 Tweetable Quotes:

  • “I think that realizing that being a great student and needing to be a wonderful teacher for the world in the theme of human networking came to me with all these successful failures in business.” – Gil Petersil

  • “I don’t know how to be a full–time parent and full–time business owner...I want to be great at both and if you want to be great at both, you need to be ready to ask for help.” – Gil Petersil

  • “One way of doing it is to help people think differently, which is what a consultant can do...It always comes down to understanding the network around you.” – Gil Petersil

  • “When you learn to connect and disconnect consciously in your network, incredible results come out in any size of life or business.” – Gil Petersil

  • “Knowledge should be free...If someone wants to spend time with you, then you should be charging for that.” – Gil Petersil

Resources Mentioned:

Transcript:

Producer: Welcome to the Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners podcast. You will hear about industry  insights with award-winning financial planner and entrepreneur, Jason Pereira, through the interviews  with different experts, with their stories and advice. You will learn how you can navigate the challenges  of being an entrepreneur, plan for success and make the most of your business and life. And now your  host, Jason Pereira. 

Jason Pereira: Today on the show I have something I recorded originally for Fintech Impact, my other podcast. This is  actually not going to air on Fintech Impact for a couple months, but when I had the conversation with Gil  Petersil that you're about to hear, the networking specialist, I thought the content was incredibly  pertinent to business owners in general. So while this is not a financial planning topic, we're definitely  going to file this under how to grow your business and how to think about your life. So with that on to  today's guest. Gil Petersil is a serial entrepreneur, public speaker and coach, and he's become known as  an expert in networks, in particular online and offline networks and how you can edit and change and  alter them to have massive impacts on both your life and your business and what that, here's my  interview with Gil. Good morning, Gil, or good evening, where it is you are. 

Gil Petersil: Good evening, all the way from Bali. 

Jason Pereira: Gil Petersil, tell us about what it is you do for a living. 

Gil Petersil: Well, for many years now, I've been experimenting with networks. I've been doing my best to become a  great student of the world of human networking, understanding how communities are built, how  companies are structured, their teams, how entrepreneurs network outside of themselves to attract  those mentors and investors into their lives or team members. And I've been able to set up a few  businesses around it, working with some of the greatest teachers in the world and building large  communities around them like Tony Robbins and many others at that level that we build close  relationships with. In the business world as a consultant and as a coach, I help organizations of all scales  from governments to mid-size corporations to brand new startups to build that network that they need  around them and reorganize what they already have to have better results in their business. 

Jason Pereira: Excellent. So we're going to dive into what's involved with that and know what the impact is. Before we  do. Give me a little bit about your history. How did you get into this? What was the impetus of this  career shift or this career altogether? 

Gil Petersil: Yeah, no, I think that realizing that being a great student and needing to be a wonderful teacher for the  world and the theme of human networking came to me with all these successful failures in business. I've  been working from a very, very young age. I was born in Israel, but I lived in Canada, Israel and Russia for  10 years each in my life and through a lot of different jobs that I've had, diverse jobs, from working in distribution with small companies and big companies like Walmart to being in the jewelry industry and  the banking industry, moving into an entrepreneur in setting up 27 companies from juice bars and  restaurants to e-commerce companies, FinTech companies, and a little bit of everything, it's always  been about that experiment with working in partnerships, making great deals, creating win-win  solutions. 

Gil Petersil: In that journey I was basically discovering who I am and what I should be doing. And I can't say that I'm a  hundred percent there, but I'm pretty much in a good path with a wife and amazing three kids. And I'm  still discovering and transforming myself. And what it really means to me, it means that I've gone  through being the worker and the employee and the salesman and the marketing manager here. And  I've gone through being the waiter. And today I can do while giving back, I could do while teaching. I  could build a company that does promotion and does events. And we have a company that's a software  company for barter. It's a brand new exchange. It's a brand new currency of allowing people to barter. A  company of retreats here in Bali during COVID when everything is dead around you. 

Gil Petersil: Suddenly you start a little mini retreats, keeping to the law, keep it to how many people you're allowed  to have, but having a lot of them, allowing people to still connect, even creating little networking clubs  for kids, that are allowing kids, my kids, I didn't want to be at home the whole time. I don't know how to  be a full time parent and a full-time businessman. I got a two-year-old and a four-year-old they need  networking. 

Jason Pereira: Yeah. Yeah. That's a myth by the way. You can't do both of those. So let's just be clear about that. 

Gil Petersil: I think many, many people do in the world and I love that and it's incredible. And I have so much love  and respect for them, but I want to be great at both. And if you want to be great at both, you need to be  ready to ask for help. So I like asking for help from people who are better. So some of our friends came  in and said, "Hey, let's rent this villa not far from my house. And everybody kind of bring their kids there  every day. We keep their... No one really outside needs in and it's a school." And that was cool for me,  that really developed into a community. There are brand new parents that I could meet and something  for my kids. So it all translated through this never ending transformation and constant movement  through one breakthrough or another to get to where I am today. A lot of success failures and some  good wisdom that I could use every day to share with others. 

Jason Pereira: Interesting. All right. So let's talk about what it is you do when you actually get involved working with a  business. So you help improve their networks. You help basically help them leverage networks that  basically better their business. Tell me about what is involved. Someone comes to you and says, "I want  to hire you to take my business to the next level." What happens? 

Gil Petersil:So, I love questions like this because then I kind of have to think, "Okay, let me think about a really good  example, a case." I can think about something like really, really recent. So doing COVID, during  distressed times, "Oh my God, nobody in our network is buying. What do we do?" Or like, "Oh my God,  my internal network, my team is stressing about health. They're not coming to the office. They're not  responding to emails. They're working from home inefficiently. So suddenly the internal network is not  actually working well." So for me, it always starts with, "Tell me about your biggest problem. Really  what's your biggest problem in the business?" and then we break that down into maybe three really  main problems the owner, the heads of the company see. 

Gil Petersil: Now as someone who's been through it with small, medium and super large organizations, I can't say  I've seen it all, but I've seen enough patterns in the network itself to try to understand, "Okay, let's look  at who is the leaders in the network? Let's see how are they communicating. Let's see if there's too  much bureaucracy within the network so they're not actually connecting." And then I create some mini  activities online, offline, doesn't really matter these days. I love doing it all online. And I put them  through either it's small masterminds or it's sharing sessions with specific well-timed micro group  coaching sessions. And when I say micro, I mean like they could be very, very short, just 30 minutes.  Long ones that like an hour and a half, no need for a whole day. I don't believe in doing full day training  with a team. There's no need. 

Gil Petersil: There's need to do, experiment, repeat a week later or two weeks later to kind of see how it works. You  need to slowly, slowly adjust the network. If it's external clients, you create strategic partnerships, you  create innovative solutions for them to give you money, whatever it is, whether it's through subscription  or future buying at discounted rates or with it's through introductions and cash backs through one of the  cryptos. There are so many ways to adjusting the strategy of the business by shifting the way the  network is kind of transacting. So the network has always, I don't want to get superficial with you guys,  but not superficial. It's actually quite deep, but the network, you could see this vibrating all the time, but  it's also transacting all the time. We're talking to each other, messages, buying something, deal-making. 

Gil Petersil: And I created a program called the Ethical Dealmaker, which I only offer to people in my masterminds  and the ethical dealmakers all showing up. Me agreeing to be here with you today, that is an ethical deal  that we made and we both showed up. That's cool. Showing up to lunch and meeting up with someone,  that's an ethical deal that could be made better if you bought them lunch, the deal could be multi million dollar deal that these people on these sides will do these things. That's really all it means.  Organize the network differently. 

Jason Pereira: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I listen to what you're saying about this and a lot of it comes down to, I  think a lot of what you're doing is trying to get people to take steps back with their networks and looking  at it from a different lens, because it becomes, like Einstein's definition of insanity, repeating the same  thing over and over again, expecting different action. So you were doing something in business,  something happened, exogenously, a shock, or endogenous, whatever it is, that now makes that  impossible without, would that be COVID or whatever, or not as powerful. And your response is, "Oh no,  this isn't working anymore," as opposed to saying, "What else can work within the ecosystem that I've been ignoring? What advantages have I not taken care of? How can I accomplish these same kinds of  deals, but in a different way?" Does that kind of sum it up to some degree in a very small nutshell? 

Gil Petersil: Yeah. But the one way of doing it is helping to think differently, which is what a consultant could do. I  help them audit the network. I help them audit truths around them. Who was involved in the deal? And  it always comes down to understanding the network around you, who are these three or seven people  around you, you can completely reboot your life. If I don't know anything about you and I asked you  maybe for 20 minutes to an hour about the network around these specific questions, I could tell you a  lot of things about you. A lot, man. I can tell you what's going right, what's going wrong in your business.  I can tell... There's so much that you could tell about a human being or a business by understanding the  way the network is functioning. And I just look at the network as people. 

Gil Petersil: And if you look at like, you probably know mind maps, when you have all these circles in a piece of  paper. So I see the network around us as a 3D or a 5D view really. Where is your 5D network of people  that if you connect them together, for example, I love introducing people for living. It's a big thing that I  do professionally for my clients when they need the help, if it's the right ethical deal, I adjust their  network by putting two new people around them, whether it's a mentor, whether it's potential clients,  whether it's investors, whether it's just friends to share. How many entrepreneurs come to me and say,  "I need more entrepreneurs around me who are mm, mm, mm." I love that. Or like, "I need more people  around me who are not in my industry." I had this one guy, amazing guy from Moscow, runs a $300  million company. 

Gil Petersil: And he's like, "Gil, everyone in my network, everyone that I ever invite to my house for barbecues are  just people in my industry." And they're mostly Russian speaking people because he was living in  Moscow. He's Russian guy, very, very nice guy. And he wanted like, "I want more CEOs in different  industries and different countries. I want to practice my English." It was interesting. So it all comes down  to how do you now get him to understand the strategy, get him to audit his own network with my  support, get us to then agree on a strategy forward and slowly, slowly you adjust his network. And three  months later, he's organizing events in his house every couple of weeks that are completely  international. He's traveling to events for small meetings of associations of communities of other people  that are not his peers, but are at similar levels of business and society than he is. 

Gil Petersil: So it always comes down to this network that you can audit. It always comes down to how do you look  at the people around you and understand it's not just me. If I want to develop my business from 100,000  a month to a million a month or 10 millions a month or a billion a year or whatever it really is, it always  comes down to how do I somehow, I don't want to say upgrade my network, it's not nice to say that, but  I need to transform it a little bit. 

Jason Pereira: Yep. Well, I mean, it makes sense. There's that old saying about you're the average of the five people  you spend the most time with, right? And that's the personality side. When it comes to your business,  the reality is that your network is everything from your vendors to your customers to your employees. And we're just really talking about all the nuts and bolts and gears and cogs that basically make up the  business. So you replace one piece of that with something that is a better version of, or more powerful  version of, that same function, then you're just going to benefit from that. 

Gil Petersil: 100%. And that statement that you're the average of the five people around you, I've kind of argued  that on over 100 stages and panels in the world. And I've also played the devil's advocate with it because  it's so not true for most people, because you're not constant in your life. That's the thing. You travel, you  move around, you change industries, you meet people. So, not a very big percentage of the world only  has five people around them constantly because sometimes they can see a video for five minutes of  someone. And that video will become, in their world, five days, because they'll be thinking about this  person. They'll want to watch that video again. Suddenly that one video, that one interaction with a  person became an explosion on your life. So that average of five is not really. It's more about how you  associate to the people around you, your intention to them, your perception of them and your attitude  towards them. 

Jason Pereira: At the end of the day, it goes back to relationships, right? So you're basically helping them better... Let's  put it this way, I'll give you another analogy. You're helping them tend the garden of their relationships  and their network. Right? 

Gil Petersil: I love that. [crosstalk 00:13:14] I definitely use that a lot. We have these gardens around us. Some of us  have jungles because we don't tidy it up. Some of us have deserts because we really focus just on  ourselves in life. We don't focus on others. We don't serve our community. We don't serve our country.  We don't serve this kind of team that we have around us. And you start to have deserts and patches and  sometimes in some places, it doesn't rain for a long time. So suddenly all your grasses are yellow and  that's real. That is completely real with a network and that can become a cancer. Some people have  cancers. I've done so much studies on how our health is affected by our network, where people had  cancer, like really bad one [inaudible 00:13:54] and there's so much research on this. And they took  them out of their network and placed them somewhere else in a community of maybe people their age  that have all been healed or healing. And the cancer went, not once or twice. There's thousands and  thousands of cases out there, probably even more. And then with some people, they went back to their  existing communities, cancer is back within a couple of months. Now this is also in businesses today. You  can have the wrong clients and if the wrong client is there with you, maybe your business is not growing.  And that's an interesting one. The wrong employee that you don't want to fire. Just because of that one  employee you don't want to fire, you're not pushing one piece of the network out. [crosstalk 00:14:35]  Listen, telling your mom that you don't want to talk to her too often because you know that that part of  the network right now is not good and then suddenly seeing after a year or two years, how they flourish,  they flourish, they become an amazing human being. And then your relationship grows. That wasn't an  easy thing for me to do. But when you learn to connect and disconnect consciously in your network,  incredible results come out in any size of life or business. 

Jason Pereira: And the entire employee thing's interesting. I think anyone who's been in business would attest to the  fact that inevitably at some point, you're going to have at least one employee that is not only a detriment to the business long run, but is actually sucking the life out of the rest of the organization, or  at least the people around them. And oftentimes, simply getting rid of them does wonders for  productivity for everyone else because suddenly everybody comes to work happier. 

Gil Petersil: That's what I'm saying. And most executives are afraid of even talking about it because sometimes they  think it's too complicated. It's actually not. You can achieve a lot of these things in a 90 minutes session  time. It's done a lot about your employees. And then, you need sometimes a little bit more time to  maybe outline an exit plan for that employee, but it's wonderful to disconnect key people from the  network. 

Jason Pereira: Well, it's key. I mean, it's, it's interesting. I like to say that I think Netflix has largely built the corporate  culture around the entire concept of it. I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with their HR policy on we're not  a family, we're a team. And if the pitcher's arm goes dead, the pitcher gets replaced, right? And  unapologetically because it's the team that matters. And ironically, the person who came up with that  policy eventually was basically let go from the company, but just because their usefulness to them that  that function had basically expired. And it's, I have this line, it's a true line, right? 

Jason Pereira: It's something I believe that when I unfortunately I have to let someone go and there's obvious upset, at  the end of the day if they weren't great at that position, I think I legitimately, we were all meant to do  something and be fantastically good at something in this world and keeping someone in a position  they're not great at and they don't love is an injustice to them as well as it is to your business. So it's not  an act of maliciousness. It's, in some ways, an act of mutual benefit. 

Gil Petersil: In all cases, I believe that creating space or distance between yourself and another person in your  community and your network and your family and your team is always a great value to you because it's  almost the same thing as going through a detox or cleansing for a week. You kind of cut some things out  of your body and you're doing something great for your body because your body is also a network that's  very, very advanced in the way it works. And we look at our body as a network. Then we need to  understand that whoever is listening to this today right now and thinking, "Well, I'm a great network. I  know how to do network," if we think about it, then for me personally, and I've been on the cover of  magazines and over 500 speeches around the world about this topic, I see myself on my greatest day as  a six out of 10 on networking. And that's on my greatest day, not constant. 

Gil Petersil: And what I realized is that we want to compare ourselves, compare ourselves to the way our bodies  work, the way our bodies interact with a female body, my body with a female body and suddenly we  have a kid. That is a very advanced network. So we are in a very, very junior position of truly  understanding how to build a network around this. And I figured out some life hacks and some tips,  some methodology, some formulas that are not yet perfected, but they're working very well there. The  governments like Latvia that invited me to do a Magnetic Latvia campaign to companies like KPMG that  invited me to see if I can shorten the life cycle of a lead from nine months to six months. And yes, I did and it was really, really cool. And then we did it again for many, many clients. And instead of nine  months for a company like KPMG to cut it down by three months, that was awesome. 

Gil Petersil: And the immense amount of entrepreneurs I've worked with has been fun to show them if they don't  build that network in the first one, two stages, you are guaranteed to fail. If you don't have those key  mentors, those key people to share something with, if you don't have a couple of people in the team that you really believe in and they believe in you, it's just not going to work out. Not many people that I  know I've ever built a business completely on their own. And if they did completely alone, then they  probably don't have a really balanced family life and they're making just enough money to survive. It's  all about the network building. So I've had fun doing it. And in all industries, we need to do it better,  especially during COVID time. It's important right now, more than ever, to review our network. 

Jason Pereira: Well, I mean, I would say in particular, I mean, many, many, many industries end up scrambling because  of the inability to operate within traditional in-person networks, right? Part of this podcast and various  other things, I'm very much tied into number of firms specifically in the digital marketing realm. And  COVID, morbidly, was the greatest gift that I've been given to them because suddenly everybody who'd  ignored the digital marketing realm, basically they had no other venue for trying to grow their business.  Just had no choice but to pay attention. I mean, there's a reason why it likes to Shopify have done so  well this year. It's because, oh, if you didn't have a website with e-commerce before, you kind of need  one now. Right. It was the world kind of put a gun to their head and said, "This has to happen." 

Jason Pereira: However, this is where I would say that the power of networks is far more valuable, once COVID hit, is  that it's one thing to be able to support that kind of business. It's something else to have the business  flow to the website in the first place. And that's the harder part, especially if you're starting from zero at  a time of crisis. 

Gil Petersil: I love companies who during COVID time decided that we're going to change our mission. We're going  to change our target audience. We're going to become the company we wanted to become. There's so  many out there that have went after their values and passion. There are many, of course, that COVID  was the biggest gift, as you mentioned, because it just helped them scale. How many people knew about  Zoom a year ago? Come on. It's awesome. And suddenly it's like, "If you don't know about it, I'm not  going to hire you. If you don't know how to use Zoom effectively, perfectly, don't even talk to any of my  companies. What's wrong with you? I'm sorry. Really." And it pushed many people to innovate. It  pushed humans to innovate because suddenly my grandmother and my whole family gets on a Zoom  call on a Friday night to say something to each other, but it pushed companies to say, "Hey, if we don't  innovate in retail, we're dead. 

Gil Petersil: "If we don't innovate in restaurants, we're dead. If we don't innovate in hotels, we're dead." And I've  been very blessed to have worked with both FinTech companies as well all the way down to hotels that  interested me somehow, large groups, and helped them to innovate. And for me, it always starts with  like, "Who are you talking to? Who are those people you're talking to? And who in your team talks the best? Who's managing those relationships? What are you saying to them? Let's talk about that." And it's  usually done very quickly. 

Jason Pereira: So let's talk about your key pieces of advice for people who are saying, "Okay, all right, I get it. I need to  overhaul a bunch of the people in networks around me." What are the first steps that you tell people to  undertake? Where did they get started? 

Gil Petersil: First of all, I'd love to ask you to ask me more a specific question than that one. Give me a specific  example. Who are we talking to? Because if you ask me, give me an exact example, I will tell you exactly  what that person should be doing. 

Jason Pereira: Fair enough. So let's utilize, let's see how specific I can get. So specifically 

Gil Petersil: Yeah, one of your clients. [crosstalk 00:21:52]. 

Jason Pereira: Fair enough. Fair enough. So actually, so let's just say it's a services business, right? And that services  business has plateaued, right? They've gotten to a point where they're earning good money and the  growth, actually, I'm going to pick on my own industry. This is hilarious. I'm going to pick on the financial  planning industry, the number one source 

Gil Petersil: Which one? 

Jason Pereira: The financial planning and advisory business. Okay? 

Gil Petersil: Yeah, good. 

Jason Pereira: You inevitably ask any advisor where they get all their business from or what their plan is for growth and  number one, number one is referrals. Okay? When you ask them how they're going to drive those  referrals, nine out of 10 times blank stare, right? So more often than not advisors work their lives to get  to some level of sustenance, whether that be successful or barely enough. And then they kind of just  plateau for a long period of time. What are they doing wrong in terms of networks and what can they do  to fix that? 

Gil Petersil: So again, I'm not going to generalize for all of you because some of you who are listening right now, like  now I do it differently, but let's just say that Gil has worked with a few financial planners from some of  the biggest offices in the world to a lot of single cowboys who are pretty good, actually. So let's just say,  I hope that the person who's listening right now is not someone who's working on their own, because if  you're working on your own, that's already your first mistake. You're working on your own. Your  network is weak. Your network is basically potentially competitors or clients sort of thing and then your  family, your friends. Your network needs to be people who you collaborate with. So, first of all, I would  say, do you have a mastermind with who you believe are your best competitor? Really? 

Gil Petersil: Do you have a mastermind [crosstalk 00:23:25]? Because there's an abundance of people with money  out there. If you don't believe that stop being a financial planner, you believe in scarcity, it's not going to  work out for you. So if you really agree with me, there's an abundance of money and abundance of  people that have money and so many more people are still not getting it right, which means they need  someone like you who's listening right now, then you understand that if you're in some sort of a  community, an association, a mastermind, a brain trust, even, I've helped out with some brain trusts in  companies and communities, then you're constantly sharing with others the best software, the latest  technologies, the latest trends. You're sharing with others. It's human being. It's not some sort of a  random article on the news from a media company that gets paid by someone to do that, but it's people  were talking to people. 

Gil Petersil: So it's networks. So for example, now there's a big trend in the world to have accounts on Telegram,  because a lot of people on WhatsApp, these groups have become small, too small on WhatsApp. So a lot  of people have gone to Telegram now, much bigger groups. So I'm a part of these networks, these  communities of people, who to some people's eyes are exactly my competitors and to others are exactly  my perfect clients, but I don't try to sell to them. We share data, we share our expertise. Knowledge  should be free. So I believe that any financial planner who's listening right now, if you're not giving all of  your knowledge for free, then you're doing something wrong. All of your knowledge should be given for  free. And what you should be charging for is time with you. If someone wants to spend time with you,  then you should be charging for that. 

Gil Petersil: All of your knowledge should be given for free because today knowledge is free. And most financial  planners, I don't agree necessarily in the way they charge, but again, I've worked with some and it works  for others. So I can't really say, because I'm not a financial planner. I have three of them that work with  myself and my companies. And I can't say that any of them have delivered the best results in the world  for me. But yeah, financial planners should work in tight networks and be near their competitors and  share with their competitors, in my opinion. 

Jason Pereira: You're preaching to the choir on that one. I mean, I put out a ton of content on practice management  and other stuff and oftentimes people are like, "Why are you giving this stuff away?" And it's like, "Well,  first off I benefited from other people doing the exact same thing. And secondly, it's like the end of the  day, to think you're going to survive in the digital realm from the concept of information asymmetry is a  flawed concept." Right? I can access information on anything at the touch of my fingers. And then somehow you think that you have some sort of pearl of wisdom that the consumer is going to say to us,  [crosstalk 00:26:03] "Oh no, I can't find that anywhere else." It's not, it's not. 

Gil Petersil: Yeah. 

Jason Pereira: And frankly, the wisdom that you have was acquired out there in the world anyway. 

Gil Petersil: From a network. 

Jason Pereira: So I'd like to think that you've somehow... From the network. Exactly. Right. So I just don't understand  that. I mean, it also speaks to a lot more effective marketers I've seen in my day, very few of them doing  it in this industry, which is providing a lot of good quality content marketing. That is invaluable. I mean,  people will often ask me, why do I waste my time to podcast and this other stuff? The first question is  how much business does that bring in, right? And the honest truth is in the first year or two, next to  nothing. Since then, a lot. And part of it is just consistently being out there and putting out your  message. And when I say a lot, people are often shocked by where it comes from. Well, I will get  referrals from other advisors. Why? Because they've come across a case that is a little too complex or  outside their comfort zone. 

Jason Pereira: They are familiar with my work. They are familiar that I am in that area of specialization or comfort zone.  And you know what? They basically reach out and send them to me. So for those of you listening, you  would think that putting it all out there and sharing you with the universe is not valuable, it not only  comes from the quote unquote business you're going to receive from the clients you're targeting. It  comes from, as Gil talked, about the network. I have competitors and colleagues who send me business  all the time because of the work I do. So there's the case study. 

Gil Petersil: A good case study. I hope it helps your listeners. There's a lot more case studies out there, guys, that if  you want to reach out to me, go ahead. I'd love to take you on as a case study. I'm always looking for  something new and exciting and challenge. I still haven't found a good challenge that I could really be  challenged with. They're all quite easy these days. 

Jason Pereira: It's interesting because I think it goes so much back to it's your idea about the concept of scarcity versus  abundance. And I've always been of an abundance mindset. And I often find that the advisors who have  the biggest scarcity mindsets are the ones who end up holding themselves back at a certain point in  their career and actually leaving the business altogether. I find that if you're obsessed with, "Oh no, I  have to get that last cent. That last penny," whereas someone once described to me, it's not so much  that they have enough marbles, it's that they have all the marbles they can see. Right? If you literally think that there aren't more marbles out there in the universe is playing a game where you get to lose in  the long run. 

Gil Petersil: Yeah. A lot of people in the world have that and I used to as well. And it's strange to repeat it because it  was because of my network. Because of my family members, I had a scarcity mindset, my childhood, and  because of some of the friends I used to have, I had a scarcity mindset of what does it mean to make a  lot of money and how easy it really is to make 10,000, then 100,000, $1 million a month? What does  that actually mean? Is it really that difficult? Or can I just talk to the more people who do it instead of  talk to too many people who don't do it? And it's like, when you start to audit your network and you  start to ask yourself questions, like do these people give me energy or not? Do these people inspire me  because of what they do, how much are these people earning? And once we understand that we need  to climb out of this network, that's when it got hard for me. 

Gil Petersil: When I moved countries, when I disconnected from friends, I've had to sacrifice a lot of my network, a  lot of my life. I've had to go through a huge amount of pain, in my opinion, in order to learn so I don't  keep it for myself. I have to share with others because I know that networking is extremely painful,  extremely. Going to a network event and talking to strangers, following up with people and not knowing  how to add value, disconnecting with people in your life, that's extremely difficult and it's painful in  most cases. And I've had to develop myself. It's not that I had to develop a thick skin, but in some cases I  needed to because it really hurt. But then I developed strategies and methodologies to overcome it  quickly by counting to three or myself as an introvert, walking on the outskirts of a room of an event or  standing when my wallet against the back. 

Gil Petersil: These little simple acts helped me become a stronger networker, to understand how to follow up or  how to get on a stage in front of 10,000 people without being concerned and fearful of how you will  now affect this network. I had to count to three, and then get on the stage and do it. So you start to  devise these simple methodologies that you can apply in businesses. You can apply in life and suddenly you're in a better relationship with your loved one. And the relation with your kids gets adjusted and the  way you're applying so your employees or your partners treat you is different and suddenly everything  grows. And it doesn't always work perfectly, of course. We make mistakes, but if we make mistakes in  networking and we're able to actually follow those mistakes with kind of a guide, with a consultant, with  a mentor, with someone who can coach you through this networking transition, that's okay because  that's a simple pivot. 

Gil Petersil: You can do it better and better every single time. Every time. It's like going through the gym. Every time  you go to the gym, if you do it every day, you get better and better on how to use the machines and how  to adjust your body and how to be healthy on the inside and the outside. Networking is exactly the  same. Make sure it's healthy. 

Jason Pereira: Well, personal growth only [inaudible 00:30:57] healthy stress. Right? So let's wrap up. There's three  questions I ask before we wrap it up that I like to ask you. The first question, is if you had one wish for something you can change in your business or in your industries that you operate as a whole, what  would it be? 

Gil Petersil: Cool question. I would, um. 

Jason Pereira: It stumps everyone. It's hilarious. 

Gil Petersil: Yeah. Well, you can look at it as a really big question. And then you start seeing [watch this 00:31:18].  It's not that big and there's a few things, and then you got to pick one to share with you right now. I  would say maybe it's always actually the way that I manage my time within the network. If I could  change it and I could have this new piece of technology that would allow me to measure myself and the  network itself and the way I lead my team, I'm not always a good leader, and I'm sometimes I forget that  I'm a leader in the company, I try to be a coach, I would just adjust, I would measure and adjust the way  I network as a human being constantly, with some sort of a bracelet or something that would help me  understand this better. I think it would be the biggest gift for me and a big gift to the world. 

Jason Pereira: Excellent. It's a new type of fitness tracker that we can get. A second one 

Gil Petersil: New med tech, I don't know, health tech. If somebody's listening and they got it, let me know. I'll help  them develop it. 

Jason Pereira: The second question I have for you is what's been the biggest challenge in getting your business to  where it is today? 

Gil Petersil: The biggest challenge is also the biggest benefit. It's kind of pushing myself to not give up. People let you  down, it's easy to give up. Big event fail. You lose millions of dollars. It's easy to give up. So that's been  kind of the biggest challenge. And it's also, yeah, it's all these bumps in the road, I could say, these mess  ups, when that network, that relationship, it's usually one person that something goes bad. It's the one  relationship here, the one relationship over here, that something goes bad and that's always been the  biggest kind of challenge, not being able to be a perfect networker. Doesn't exist. 

Jason Pereira: The last question I have for you is what excites you the most about what it is you're working on today  and gets you up in the morning everyday to keep on fighting the good fight? 

Gil Petersil: That's an easy question. I feel inside of me that what I'm doing right now is right. It might sound weird to  some people spiritually. I feel a lot that the universe is telling me I'm doing the right thing, because  whether you believe in karma, whether you believe in luck or whatever it is, I'm getting a lot of rewards  and gifts from the world, from the universe. I'm getting a lot back. So I know I'm doing something right.  It's not about getting money, but there's an abundance of a lot around me in life. There's an abundance  of everything where I look, whether it's colors of fruits in my house. At any given day, I'll have like 13 or  14 different fruits in my house. Why? Because it's an abundance of healthy food and healthy lifestyle  and a lot of nature around me. I got two rivers behind my house. 

Gil Petersil: I think that when you see that abundance and you feel good inside, you know you're serving the world. I  do a lot of charity work more than ever before in my life. I love being able to not just feed people, but  give them systems to eat every day. It feels right, but it's still not there. I actually feel that there's  something massive around the corner. That's why I'm constantly adjusting my networks. I'm hoping that  someone who's listening right now will reach out to me and like, "Gil, you've been looking for me your  whole life." Maybe it is. That's why I talked to everyone who reaches out to me. It's fun. 

Jason Pereira: Excellent. So, Gil, Before we wrap up, where can people find you? 

Gil Petersil: Wherever your users are, they can find me. I'm the only Gil Petersil in the world. So if you can't find me,  it's not because of me. Just Google my name if you type it well, but LinkedIn is a good place to write me.  And I usually respond within 24 hours. If it's not me, it's my assistant, then she'll pass it on to me.  Instagram is cool if you want to chat a little bit. I check out Instagram, not too much, but I try to be on it  10 minutes a day. Otherwise the visual network overwhelms you. You need to focus on the offline  network. So I have a team of people that helps me. I love talking to new people, so, ladies and  gentlemen, reach out to me. Email, of course, is also good, but don't email me. Social media. Check me  out before we talk, and then I can check you out. 

Jason Pereira: Fantastic. Excellent. 

Gil Petersil: Good stuff. 

Jason Pereira: Gil, thank you so much for taking the time today. 

Gil Petersil: Thank you, Jason. That was fun. 

Jason Pereira: Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Take care.

Gil Petersil: Thank you. 

Jason Pereira: So that was my interview with Gil Petersil. I hope you enjoyed that. And as always, if you enjoyed this  podcast, please leave a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time,  take care. 

Producer: This podcast was brought to you by Woodgate Financial, an award-winning financial planning firm,  catering to high net worth individuals, business owners, and their families. To learn more, go to  woodgate.com. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify,  or find more episodes at jasonpereira.ca. You can even ask Suri, Alexa or Google Home to subscribe for  you.

FPCBOJason PereiraDigitizing, Financial Planning