Produced By - Beyond Networking: Where Meaningful Opportunities Begin | 167: Gil Petersil

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

Gil Petersil is a serial entrepreneur, global speaker, and networking expert who has spent more than two decades helping entrepreneurs and leaders build meaningful relationships that create lasting opportunities. Having lived in seven countries and spoken at more than 1,000 events around the world, Gil has developed a unique approach to networking that blends strategy with genuine human connection. Through his work as the Co Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of ChaTea, he continues to help people strengthen relationships, create valuable partnerships, and build thriving communities. In this episode, Gil shares the experiences that shaped his purpose and explains what being a master connector means to him. If you have ever thought networking was awkward, transactional, or simply not for you, this conversation may completely change your perspective. Gil offers practical advice for building authentic relationships, creating meaningful opportunities, and developing a mindset that has helped him build multiple businesses, make a global impact, and work alongside Tony Robbins while staying true to his values. Connect with Gil:https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilpetersil/https://gilpetersil.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 - Why everyone is scared of networking 01:11 - Introduction 01:35 - Meet Gil Petersil 03:41 - How Gil discovered his purpose 06:28 - How to start networking 08:25 - Why you should audit your networking skills 10:09 - Why networking feels so scary 11:20 - Why networking is a skill you can learn 12:41 - Can anyone become a master networker? 13:45 - The mindset of a lifelong networking student 15:18 - Curiosity and hospitality 16:28 - Connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting 18:03 - How Gil started working with Tony Robbins 23:43 - Adapting through COVID and change 25:33 - Managing multiple businesses and family life 29:17 - Tea, nature and the ChaTea movement 33:01 - How to connect with Gil 35:20 - What's next for Gil 38:10 - Final advice and collaboration opportunities Connect with Tomas:Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Patreon: https://patreon.com/tomaslouckyNewsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRiverside: https://riverside.partnerlinks.io/2752q1ai767zRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All humans are scared of networking. If we look on Google or GPT and ask, what are the top three, top five fears that we have as human beings? The number one fear that we have is public speaking, but what if you flip those words? Speaking publicly, speaking publicly is networking. What about fear of rejection that is networking? What about fear of not being accepted?

That is networking. These are all different fears that people have connected to not feeling connected, not feeling love, not having friends, feeling lonely. Number one problem humanity has right now is loneliness. But like, hold on, we're so well connected. We got social media. We got this. We are more connected than ever before, but we feel lonely. It's because we think that either we don't need networking because I have a job. I have a few friends. Why do I need network? They don't understand it. Or people say networking is not for me. I like something different. Well, no, we're all networking all the time.

Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Gil. Thank you for join us today and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.

I love seeing what you've been doing with your community. It's great. And having that green light in the background is something I want to learn how to do for myself as well. Thank you, Gil. I really appreciate it. And I can say the same about you, about what you've built and your experience and everything. But for those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself?

Yeah, of course. So, you know, I'm the only Gil Peter still on Google. So it makes a lot easier for anyone who's interested to like pause for a second and say, hold on, before I'm going to listen to this podcast, let me check out who this guy is that Thomas decided to ring on board. So, you know, I've been a serial entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. More than 20 years already, I've been very, very active. and during those years, I've lived in seven different countries.

I'm very happily living in Bali right now with three amazing kids. I've gone through a lot of successful failures as a businessman, but I've also gone through many, many experiments when it comes to building relationships, experiments and collaboration, experiment and even building partnerships and friendships. And through that journey, I've been very blessed to have been asked to go and speak at different events

around the world. And I've been on this journey on the mission in the last 15 plus years to study the arts and sciences of human networking. And it's been really beautiful journey to understand that, well, networking is actually not just something we can think about or try to do when we need it. There are actually systems that were built with and we could choose to upgrade those systems. Some people say that they are a set of spiritual practices if you want to take it to that level. Some people say that you need to be more tactical and strategic so that you're not wasting time or just randomly helping anyone. Like you're being very, very attentive and aware of like, hey, all these connections around me, where do I allocate my time? And I've given myself this discipline in life.

I've been very fortunate that I've spoken on the topic over a thousand different events around the world and 100 plus different podcasts. and I'm a continuous active learner of connecting, disconnecting, and reconnecting with human beings and everything that we wish to one day get to where. So we need other people. Wherever we want to get to, we'll need other people. We can't do anything alone. So it's an enjoyable journey, and I think that you're a part of that journey for a reason. Thank you. I appreciate it.

And how did you then, Gil, discover this? You said whether it's your why, mission, or the goal. Was there like a one specific moment, something gradual? I can't remember one specific moment because I've been asked this so many times in my life because it's not that one moment that I made me go, aha, now I need to do this. You know, I'm 47 years young and I've had more than 20 different projects and companies, meaning I've tried a lot of different industries from owning restaurants and bakeries

all the way to software companies and mobile apps, events companies, recruitment companies, tourism company. These days, I have a company that's all about connecting people over tea. I'm very active in the wellness space. So I've gone through a lot of trial and error on what makes sense to me, what fits my soul, what feels right on my destiny. And I believe that everything I've done led me to this point. So at that stage where I decided, hey, I want to open up a restaurant, it's because I had reasons. I felt like, yeah, a restaurant is my thing because I love cooking.

I love serving. I love hosting people. Makes sense to me. Yeah, I love them. But I realized, actually, I don't like charging people for food. So I actually didn't enjoy the restaurant. I wasn't the one cooking at the restaurant with a chef. But I realized that actually, I didn't enjoy it.

So these aha moments came through trial and error. They came through experiments. They came through taking risks. And they came through wanting more. You know, when I was very, very young. And my parents moved to Canada when I was. when I was 10 years old, I was an immigrant. I didn't speak English.

I couldn't really connect to people initially. So back then, this is 37 years ago, I didn't know the word networking. But I knew I had to find a way to connect to people so I can make friends or else I'd be lonely. And then when I was 20 and I moved to England and I was like, hey, if I don't talk to people, I won't help my company. I had a business at the time that I was in a job in someone else's company. But I kind of saw it as my business. I've always been like, I'll act like it's my company.

That's the kind of jobs I've had earlier part of my life. And it's worked out for me, but it was always like, you know, what should I be doing? What is that feeling that I wish to have? So in London, it was like, hey, I want to meet women. I'm 20 years old. I don't know anyone in the country. How do I meet women? How do I start conversations?

Just being honest. I was 20 years old. I was brand new in London. There was no Facebook. I was like, how do I make friends? And throughout my life, every time I'm, I moved industries, I moved countries, these questions came up again. And it came up again and it's like, how do I do it easier, better, more productive, more

effective, more fun, more loving? You know, like, I just got better as the practice came through. I like the mindset and the approach. And I know this is going to sound probably obvious on the question that many people ask you. But how to start networking? Because I'm sure there are a lot of people who are afraid, scared, worried about. about that first step, for example, whether it's online or in the real life. So what would be like your advice, how to start or even better how to do it effective?

It's a very simple but actually a very complex question as well, because networking is something we start from a very, very early age. I'm not going to get overly philosophical right now, but we start networking in the stomach of our mothers. People could say we start networking as soon as we're a baby. We like to actually, you know, Gaga Goo Goo Goo with other babies. clearly we're networking with our parents. If any babies has pets around it, like a dog, that baby is networking with that dog. You know, it's clearly it's there.

As we get to kindergarten, we're networking with other kids. Now, some people don't like the word networking is like, no, networking is like shallow. Networking is like using people. Networking is like, well, no, maybe your understanding of networking. This is not you, Thomas, this is everyone else that's listening. Maybe your understanding of it is completely wrong. Maybe the person who taught you what networking really is had a bad teacher. And maybe networking is not about using people.

Maybe networking is something very deep. Maybe it's very beautiful. Maybe networking is something we do all day long and all we got to decide is like, well, is this enough for me? Am I feeling like maybe I have a job? Do I feel like I'm well connected in the company? I have connections in the company so I can move up. the latter where I have connections in the company so that I can get things done. I work well with other departments.

That's networking. I've done a lot of training on internal networking with HR departments. Or someone could say, well, I'm tired of living in this country. My family is going to be moving to another country. Wow, I'm brand new in this country, whether I'm young with my family or I'm an adult and I have my own family and I want to open a business. So I'm looking for a job. Am I just going to follow the same? traditions or the same methodology I had 20 years ago is like, is there something new out there?

And like everything else that we're learning in our lives, there's always a new system, a new framework, a new strategy. People are teaching us so much in life. Why not understand that networking has all these levels of making it, it's not about starting, it's about like auditing myself and saying, how am I in the world of networking? Like audit yourself. Give yourself a ranking from one to 10. And if anybody out there wants it, I actually have a very simple Excel sheet.

I could send it to you all for free. Just send me a message on social media, telling me that you're interested. Tell me that you heard about it from Thomas. It's great. I'll give you an extra gift as well. And tell me the interest and seeing the audit. Just do it yourself on a piece of paper and look at it like,

how am I talking to strangers? How am I following up with people? How am I networking online or offline? How am I networking when I show up in an event and I don't know anyone? How am I at networking when I get to invite people or to talk in front of a group of people? The reason I say this, and this is really important, Thomas, because you said that some people are scared, they're not so good. It's not some people.

All humans are scared of networking. If we look on Google or GPT and ask, what are the top three, top five fears that we have as human beings? Thomas, what would you say they are? Top, top fear. It's going to be public speaking. So the number one fear that we have, correct, I knew you would know the answer, is public speaking, but what if you flip those words? Speaking publicly. Speaking publicly is networking. What about fear of rejection? That is networking. Yeah? What about fear of not being accepted? That is networking.

These are all different fears that people have connected to not feel. feeling connected, not feeling love, not having friends, feeling lonely. Number one problem humanity has right now is loneliness. But like, hold on, we're so well connected. We got social media, we got this. We are more connected than ever before, but we feel lonely. It's because we think that either we don't need networking because I have a job. I have a few friends.

Why do I need networking? They don't understand it. Or people say, oh, networking is not. me, I like something different. Well, no, we're all networking all the time whether we like it or not. You could sit in a cave all by yourself, which I have done. I have gone to dark retreats to explore. Can I network when I'm completely in the dark with no access to any technology, with no light whatsoever, and I am alone. Can I still network? And the answer was yes. Wow, that is called quantum networking mechanics.

There's something clearly there because we've all had this experience of like thinking of someone and they call you or feeling that you want to talk to someone and they send you a message. So what I tell people is start by auditing yourself and then say, let me improve just one step. Let me talk to one extra person this week. And I would suggest like anybody else either that wants to grow, get a mentor, get a coach, read a book and understand if someone wants to play basketball very well, it's not just good enough to practice. You got to get some coaches that would elevate you.

You want to learn how to cook. You want to learn how to be stronger at the gym. You work with a coach. You work with a teacher. You can't learn how to play the piano completely alone unless you're a savant. And yes, there's a few of those in the world. You work with teachers. So I tell people, hey, networking isn't one of those skills that we've not been given

the right tools. We've been just shown a way out. there and when we try to figure out it on our own. And I believe there's another way. And do you think Gil, that anyone can learn how to work? Not just anyone can learn our network. Anyone can learn how to become a master network. Because when you're a master networker, you can move countries, you can move industries, you could change jobs very easily. You can make new friends within a few days very, very easily. When you're a master networker, you also understand how to have more time in your life,

how to create more time, how to do so much in one day. Wow, like, because this person that networks has not necessarily a bigger network, but they have a deeper network, meaning every single person in the network is amazing. They're extraordinary. They're like full of opportunities and excitement or joy. It's like perfect alignment. These are the kind of people I want to have in my life. Wow. And you choose when you're becoming a master networker. You also learn how to disconnect connect from people, how to let go of some people. What does it mean to uncouple with someone and give yourself more space and time to connect with new people? Of course, anyone can. I'm glad we answered it because I'm pretty sure there are still going to be people who may say that it's not for them

or it's not possible or it's not working. So now they have the answer. And Gil, considering your experience, do you feel like that you've mastered it or is there still more to learn for you? Or what is it actually like for you as the master yourself? So for me, you know, I, I would not refer to myself as a networking master. I've been called a networking guru a lot. I've been on covers of magazines a lot, over a thousand speeches. I've helped governments, countless organizations,

to understand new algorithms. I call them codes, new code of networking. And the new codes of networking is understanding that in order to build relationships, build partnerships, build joint ventures, build friendships, build a network around us, we must learn new codes. We must explore them, study them.

And for me, at least, it's this position that I am a constant student. I believe today, with certainty, I am the number one student in the world, in the art and sciences of human networking, because networking has science and art. It has the physical aspect of being there. It has the intellectual, it has the spiritual level, it also has the technological level. We can use technology these days to help us to network, which is wonderful.

You know, 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago, I did not have 30 years ago, but I didn't have a phone, a smartphone to do that. So networking was done very differently, which is why I tell people, people tend to have learned their networking codes from their families, and then from their schools, from their teachers. those people are older.

They had very older type of codes. We cannot take their codes and model them. We could learn ethics from them how to be nice. We can learn to be friendly with people. We could learn to be curious from people. We could learn that from, we can learn to host hospitality is very nice. I learn hospitality, the importance of hospitality and networking from my grandparents and my parents.

My mom loved hosting people. And that was something I learned, you know. I learned to be very, very curious for my grandmother a lot. It's really wonderful. Just be curious in people, you know, like, wow. Like, it's almost like receiving a gift and like what's inside. It's like meeting a person. It's like, wow, I want to know who you are sort of approach.

So for me, I'm a constant student. I'm constantly learning more and more and more. And even just recently in my life, again, 47 young. and two and a half years ago, my partner and I decided to uncouple as a husband and a wife. We are still parents together. We were married for 13 years. And we didn't believe in old codes of divorce or separation or breakup, like very negative words. Or like, how do you leave a company?

You get fired. You quit. Why are all these words so negative on how do you disconnect from a human being? It doesn't have to be negative. And we took on a different route. And uncoupling is very beautiful process. We are not husband and wife anymore. We have three kids.

We have a business together that we've been running with Tony Robbins for the last 13 years. And we found this new level of happiness. And there's a lot of beauty and connecting, disconnecting, and sometimes in different cases in the world, reconnecting. Reconnecting could also be called following up. When you meet someone amazing. and for some crazy reason you'd never follow up with them again. A quick note before

we continue. One of the things I've realized from hosting this podcast is that I spent a lot of time thinking about the conversations long after they end. That's one of the reasons I started unproduced, a solo podcast where I share ideas, lessons,

observations and questions I'm still figuring out myself. If you'd like to check it out, you'll find a link in the description. Now, back to the episode. So, Gil, you mentioned Tony Robbins, who obviously is a huge name in the space and everything. So can you tell us how did you actually get to work with him? How did you discover him? And how do you work together or collaborate? Yeah, so those are three questions in one. I'll give you the short answer. So I discovered

Tony Robinson when I was 18 years old. I was working on a distribution and warehousing company in Canada. I found myself in a senior position in the company at a young age. And I found myself not happy. I was not fulfilled. I didn't know what it means to quit such a good job. I wasn't great at networking back then at all. I didn't know how to talk to women back then. And I discovered Tony Robbins. I discovered him on one of those infomercials one late night while watching something online. And I bought his CDs and it was quite special because back then it was like $500. And I actually didn't have that money. I didn't have so much cash flow. I took advantage of the system.

They said 30 days money back guarantee. And I did it. I bought it. I copied the CDs. And I sent it back to Tony. And over the years, I've listened to those copied illegal CDs many, many, many times to find motivation in my downtime. And I've been on so many industries. And he's always found a way to motivate me, to inspire me, to help me see more,

to help me understand that, you know, where focus goes, energy flows, to help understand that we can always be raising our standards in life and so many amazing lessons. When I was 33 years old, I was living in Moscow, Russia at the time. I had nine different companies, again, many, many different industries. But again, I found myself in a position where I was unfulfilled. I was in a relationship with the woman that was my wife for many, many years. Back then, she was my girlfriend.

And both of us found ourselves to be unfulfilled. even though we were doing very well, but there was something missing. And one of my mentors said to me, hey, you've always been talking about Tony Robbins. Why don't she go to his event? I'm like, cool idea. And we checked it.

And the events were really expensive for us at that time. It was like all the way in England and London, I was like, okay, flights and hotels, and ticket for the event was like a thousand pounds. I was like, listen, I don't have 10,000 pounds right now. I'm a struggling entrepreneur, doing well in this business and putting all my money in that.

that business. If any of you know what I'm talking about, you know? And I found a way to connect with the organizers telling them, hey, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a connector. I was already a networker back then. I want to come to your event. I'm in Russia. Can I become your promoter? I was shocked. They said yes. We talked about it. If you bring 20 people, you can come for free. I'm like, hey, I just saved thousands of dollars. This is great. And then I calculated if I bring 25 people, I can actually, with the commissions, I could pay for all of the flights and hotel and everything. I was like, listen, we're doing this. We're going for 25 people. We can do this. We don't have all the cash flow. And we brought 25 people. And it was a beautiful journey. The year later,

we jumped up to 200 people. The year later, we struggled a little bit. Oh, we brought 350 people. and a year later we took it to a whole different level and we brought 1,200 people. And when we brought that, we became the biggest promoter in the world ever for Tony Roberts. Because no one has ever been able to bring more than a thousand people from one region of the world as a group. We're talking about like we rented three hotels,

we rented a couple of planes, like we're talking about the serious logistical movement to move a thousand people. back then we were moving them from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, all those countries, moved them to the event in London. Wow. Over the years from 2015, we've done quite well. We would bring 1,000, 2,000 people per year, sometimes even 3,000. In 2019, we brought 3,000 people to his events around the world. In 2018, I was very, very honored where he accepted my invitation and together with another partner, we brought him to Russia, where I was living at the time. Now I live in Bali, Indonesia and we put 26,000 people in front of it. And over the years, it's been really joy to run

this intellectual tourism business and learning how people are networking before the event, during the event and after the event, and using my knowledge, not to just bring people to his event, but to build very, very strong and connected communities, not just for our company. because as soon as all these other countries saw what we did, they're like, Gil, can you teach us? And I'm an abundance kind of guy. I was like, yeah, you have nothing to lose. I'm selling it to this country.

You're selling it to that country. We're not competing. And I started running masterclasses for free to all the promoters of Tony Robbins that wanted to learn what we've done right. And it was really wonderful to co-elevate with them and everybody was growing in the entire industry. It's like those runners that run 100 meters very fast,

and it's the best in the world, and then suddenly this new person comes and sets a whole new record. That's what we kept on doing for about five years. We kept on setting new records, and everybody else were always behind us, and then COVID hit, and then the Russia-Ukraine war hit. And then that business had to change quite a bit,

and it was perfect time, because doing any business for over a decade, for me personally, gets a little bit boring. Yeah, and so then if you don't mind me asking, how did you adjust, or in what way did you change it if you approached it differently, if you stopped it? So the business almost got bankrupt when COVID hit.

You know, we had 1,000 people that were waiting to go to an event in the next few months, and suddenly a thousand people want money back for their flights, their hotels, and their tickets. So no talk about millions of dollars of suddenly people want money back. And we managed it as best as we can. Suddenly, again, we're like, you know, catching up, growing back again. Russia, Ukraine war hits. And again, we had that position, that agreement that we're not interested in promoting it everywhere in the world. Because my partner is Russian, because I lived in Russia back then, that was our region.

So when Russia, Ukraine hit, it didn't help. But we're ethical people. We didn't want to bankrupt the company. We wanted to maintain it as much as possible. Support Tony in different ways. I went to his event, even at the end of COVID, I went to his event in England and I went to an event in Australia. I haven't been to his events for in a couple of years.

Funny enough, I am going to his event in September. There's going to be a massive event in Germany. And I'm not taking a thousand people anymore because I don't have that company that had 80 staff members. I have a small company right now there

for that company with a couple of people. We're bringing 150 people. I have another company called Chati that's more of my love where we connect communities over cups of tea. I have my own brand as a speaker as a coach. I have a collaboration with Human Garage, which is the number one wellness movement in the world.

So I understood that I don't necessarily want to continue growing and I don't need to be the biggest in the world again and again. I'm happy to teach others how to do it. I'm happy. It's like it's a decade of my life. I love it. And I'm okay to kind of not kill it. I like that it's there.

But I don't want to give it my focus so much anymore. I completely understand. It makes sense to me. And you mentioned what you do, what you did before. But Gilwood helps you to manage everything. because so many things you do, of course, enjoy life and need to rest. So how do you make sure that you do over help? I think the easiest way to do more in life is to ask for help.

And asking for help is something that, again, it's one of the biggest weaknesses we have as people. We're not comfortable for ask for help. It's something many cultures, we've been programmed by society and by our parents that we could do things alone. And we've been programmed like stranger is danger. And these two things are completely bullshit.

it's very wrong. Stranger is not danger at all unless they have a gun pointing at you. Like, why are they danger? They're just stranger. Get to know them. Be curious. And we can't do anything alone in our life. Anything. Nothing. I don't think I've achieved anything ever alone in my life. I've always collaborated with someone. I've always been inspired by someone. Someone always helped me. Open the door. Guided me. There's always, I read a book. I read an article and then I used that person's idea to get there. Always. And because of that, I'm content. I'm trying to collaborate with people, constantly looking to hire people. Sometimes they leave. Sometimes I need them to leave. It's okay. Like, you know, hiring someone and not having good

experience is not the worst thing in the world. You know, I've hired people and they quit after two days. A nice, friendly way. But it's like, okay, I've did my best to train them and to hire them and I spend my time. But, okay, it doesn't work out. No problem. There's billions of people in the world. Right now at this exact moment in the world, I believe there's at least 10,000 people in the world that would be a perfect fit to work in my team. Perfect fit. So that means if I don't get it right with a couple of them, that's okay. Move on. Let's try again. If I get, you know, hurt by a relationship or someone's cheats me. Okay, it's happened. Like, okay, breathe, breathe in, breathe out. Move on. Try it again. Like, learn from it. And because I've gone through

that a lot, I've built a pretty strong muscle, a pretty strong immune system to dealing with humans, to dealing with people, to moving forward, to progressing, to understanding that I'm still alive. I have energy. I want to give time to my kids every single day. So I'm going to break down my calendar so that every single day I have time with my kids. I can spend 30 to 40 hours a week with them. I was curious one day because one of my mentors said, Gil, make sure to spend time with your kids while you're young. Because as they grow up, that's it. They leave the house. A lot of my mentor is del. We spend time with the kids. And I was like, well, what does that mean spend more time? Can someone tell me, what do you believe is good enough time for a parent to spend with their kids

with full presence? So I don't sit with my kids in my phone. Never. You don't see me walking into their bedroom with a phone in my hands. A phone is left in the other room. So in full presence, and I'm with them 30 to 40 hours a week. Most people don't understand how. But we have a lot of hours every week. What do you doing with your time? I'm still managing to have seven to even 10 meetings every single day. My meetings don't need to be an hour. They could be 20 minutes, 30 minutes. That's it. Be clear. Because in those meetings, what are we doing? Networking. We're making agreements. We're making deals. We're trying to listen to each other. We're trying to agree on something to progress something. So to me, it's a constant practice of what I call quantum networking mechanics because there's so much detail in there.

And when you practice it so much, suddenly you expand time and you have just a lot more time every day to do more. It's a great reminder because people often have excuses. Even I sometimes think that I don't have time to do something. But after it's really about the priorities. And as you said, time spent with your family, your kids or friends is the most important. cannot neglect it. And I think Gail, that you probably answered it, or partially answered it, but just to be

a bit of time, I wanted to ask you what are some of your hobbies or things that you like to do in your free time, which I assume is spending time in decades, but something else? Yeah, so, you know, my hobbies have always switched around in my life, and I love that I'm a very passionate person. I think passion is something beautiful that we could

practice, and if we're passionate, more joy will come into our life, in general. And I've been passionate about so much in my life. And I, I, always try to find a way to turn my passions and even my businesses into my hobbies. Like, I need to love what I do. Like, if I don't love it, maybe I can adjust. Maybe I can change something.

Maybe I can change the people around it. Why need to just completely leave it? Like, why are you doing it if you don't love it, you know? And it's not easy for people to hear this, but it takes time. And you can either make adjustments in your job. And there's a lot of ways of making it. And then suddenly, like, wow, I'm enjoying it so much more. You can make adjustments in your business and you can enjoy it so much more.

And sometimes it's just a road. map. Like, let me work on it over the next hundred days and then let me test it out. If I'm still not happy, I got to cut it out. Like, lift the band-aid off. Like, disconnect, you know? Sometimes we got to do that. My hobby these days, well, nature has always been hobbies. Waterfalls, nature walks, with kids, without kids, love it always, anywhere around the world. Nature does it to me. From my house here, I see four peaks, four mountains of Bali, we call them the four out of the seven sisters, you know, like I really enjoy sunsets and sunrises, but a pretty new passion and hobby has been in the world of tea. Not just tea in a cup with a tea bag, but actually like tea ceremonies, like the Chinese type of tea ceremonies.

And I got into it a little bit five years ago and then really, really got into it about three years ago. And two and a half years ago, I actually decided to drop a lot of what I do for a living, drop my clients, drop my public speaking, drop even coaching. and I went very deep into creating a movement called cha-tee. And being chaty is what we're doing. But cha, C-H-A means tea for billions of people. And cha-tee for me is this movement that's there about helping people connect over cups of tea. We don't need alcohol. We don't need food.

We don't need to go somewhere. We don't need to complicate it. We can simplify it. Tea gives us presence. Tea gives us something to talk about. Tea has been around for thousands of years and it was always used. to heal us, to connect us, to pacify, to create peace. And I've gone very, very deep into not selling tea, and I don't have my own tea house.

But we have an entire ecosystem. We have, in our community, we have over 100 events every single month that we're currently supporting, we're promoting, we're inspiring them. In our community, we have a concierge type of a company that can bring that type of a solution to any kind of event. And our biggest business model is education. anyone out there that wants to up-level themselves. Maybe they did a yoga teacher's training.

Maybe they did some sort of a Tony Robbins class. And they want to up-level the way they are serving the world and the way they host people in their home, the way they coach someone, the way they build friendships, the way they make more money. We have many, many, many different courses from the best teachers in the world

on how to serve tea, how to buy tea, how to create a tea event, how to maybe even open up a tea house if you want one day. And that's become a, hobby, a passion, and now it's an entire movement that I spend a lot of my time doing. I'm happy to hear that, that it's making an impact about something that you actually enjoy. And if there are people who want to find out more, can you promote or share any, whether it's link or website, et cetera, both related to what you just said and either to find out

about you? Yeah, of course. You know, I like connecting with people so, so much. And I tell people this very simply, if you want to talk to me, don't just follow me. If you want to talk to me, don't just say hi, Gil. Send me a small message telling me, hey, Gil, I listen to your podcast with Thomas and this specific point really touched me. I like it.

I have a question, Gil. You know, send me a message. If you have the courage, take one minute out of your busy world. And one minute, we have a lot of them. And send me a voice message, just one minute. That's so powerful there. And a lot of people are like, oh, Gil, you're not going to answer. How do you know I'm not going to answer?

Why do you think negatively because of your experience? in life. You think what? My team does all the answers. How is that possible? It's not possible. People want to talk to me. They want to hear my voice. They want to get on phone calls with me. They want to get on podcasts with me. So if you're going to say hi Gil, yeah, my team is going to say hi back to you. But if you engage me, I have a very, very beautiful system that allows me to spend about 30 minutes a week on social media. I don't spend much more time. But those 30 minutes a week are very much curated by my team. They're like, hey, Gil, these people want to talk to you

and we believe you should talk to them. And I talk to them. And I love it. And I really, really enjoy. So find me anywhere in any social media. LinkedIn is always the best. We're professionals. Facebook, Instagram, very, very easy.

If you want to have a cup of tea with me, Chati, check out what we do in Chati Club. But you could see that on my social media. If you want to learn what we're doing with Tony Robbins, maybe you want to come with me to the Tony Robbins event in September in Germany. Let me know. We have an entourage experience. You don't go alone. You join our network. You come together. We have each other's back. We introduce people. We support people. We give you discounts. There's a lot that happens around it. If you want to know what we're doing with Human Garage, the number one wellness movement in the world, very, very exciting. Look us up. Get in touch. Tell Thomas to let's do some sort of a gathering together on Zoom. Thomas is going to become a super connector in your community anyways. Thank you, Gil. I appreciate it. And of course, I will leave anything. in the show notes. And Gil, can you share with us, like if you have any plans, goals or ambitions,

whether it's in weeks, months for the audience to be excited about? Yeah, they're massive. You're catching me in a very, very epic place in my life. In the last two years, I've chosen to travel a lot less. And I chose to really grand myself and get more done and spend more time with family and, like, wow, what could I do as a man that for most people would be unbelievable. And I've gotten there. June and July have been the best months of my life for as many years that I can imagine. And what it's opened up is this travel around the world journey ahead of me right now. And there's quite a lot coming up in California and Singapore first, then California, then Europe, Germany and Switzerland with Tony Robbins and some other people.

And the biggest exciting opportunity, and this is again where I don't just teach this. I walk the walk. You know, I walk it. I've always wanted to do something in Japan, but I've been scared because it's such a distant network. They're so different. I've never actually been there. But I wanted to go there, and I didn't want to go there as a tourist.

I wanted to go there and be impactful, really feel connected. And in the beginning of this year, I kind of had that vision, that feeling. I wrote it down. And my birthday in April this year, I had this kind of clarity. I made a wish. I want to do this and this and this. I'm going to Japan for most of a conversation. If any of you are in Japan, you know people in Japan, you can recommend something to do or someone to meet with in Japan.

Please let me know. I'm going there to be a speaker at a very big event. I'm very, very excited. If anybody wants to join me, it'd be amazing. It's all about being someone who's a nomad, being someone who's not stuck in one network. You could be in any network, and it doesn't mean you're moving every week. You can live in any network and find happiness and find joy and find community. Because for me, tea is not just about the tea.

It is about having community. It's about feeling that you have unity. It's about seeing beauty. It's about having clarity. It's about as much prosperity as you wish to bring into your life. So looking forward to having tea with all of you soon. Again, if you want to write me anything on social media and talk to me, feel free to do that. If you just want more content for me, ask me for gifts.

You can write me the word audit, you can write me the word network. My team has a lot of gifts. I've learned from Gary Vaynerchuk, and I've spent a lot of time with people like Richard Branson and Eckhart Tolly to give as much as possible completely free of charge. And that's my position in life. I'm not going to try to sell you anything. If you want something for me, write me, ask for a gift, ask for love. I'll show it to you.

I'll encourage people to obviously take advantage of it. And then very last question, Gil, if there is anything I should have asked you and did not or anything And any final message that you like to leave the audience with before we finish? It's a really beautiful question. I would say one of my favorite questions to ask speakers and in podcasts or just speakers on stages, is like if there's one thing we can help you with, what would it be? That's a really good question to always ask someone who's coming in because most people that come in to speak as a speaker as a podcast guest, they don't tend to ask for help.

They tend to just give, give, give, give, give. My help is very, very simple. If you want to be more impactful in the world and you want to collaborate with me, I am looking for collaborations right now more than ever before in my life, especially with people that want to be impactful to help communities connect. I need more people who want to be strategic partners with me. I don't want you to be my employee. I don't need to be my partner.

Don't overcomplicate it. To be collaborators, meaning I need more people in different parts of the world who want to teach people about networking, who want to work with Tony Robbins, Maybe you want to work with Human Garage. You want to be able to bring tea into your community because you're tired of people drinking alcohol around you in order to connect with each other. I'm looking for more of those kind of people right now so, so much.

Of course. Thank you, Gail, for saying that, and I appreciate your time and everything, just to be mindful of it. I want to say a big thank you for a time for what you said. It definitely inspired me as well. I love your positive, enthusiastic and ambitious mindset. I hope it inspires people as well.

I encourage people to check out the links that I live in the show notes and reach out with anything. Once again, thank you. Thank you for the inspiration. I will keep following and supporting and wish you all the best to the future. Beautiful.

Thank you, Thomas. Bye-bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to Produce by with Tomen. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feedback. Speak soon.