Gil Petersil is a man who understands science and the essence of human networking as intimately as only a handful of other people in the world do. His mission? It is one grounded in its simplicity: to serve people and add value through authentic human-to-human relationships.
He shares: “I’m really enjoying how life has given me this opportunity to serve people from something so simple by teaching the importance – the authenticity – the honest part of human networking.”
Networking is vital for the future of humanity. “I believe in 50 years we’re not just going to have local, country, and global relationships, but interplanetary ones too,” he believes. “How are we going to grow a sustainable and connected colony on Mars? Authentic networking is the only way to develop a colony – and establish an interplanetary species.”
Gil is a global leader in networking, business strategy, and mastermind methodology. He’s a visionary, serial entrepreneur, and international speaker passionate about serving others and adding value.
Gil promotes new perspectives on how business connections are made, having developed a unique approach called Authentic Networking from his profound understanding of group mentalities based on inclusion and culture. He utilised his curiosity around the human connection to evolve and ignite his passion for serving by ‘inspiring others to stand in their light and shine.
Since the age of 13, Gil’s been an entrepreneur. When he was 10, his family began to move around the world – and he’s been an immigrant ever since. Now, living in Bali and as a successful entrepreneur, Gil can reflect on those lessons learned. “Through those journeys with my family and my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve discovered a lot about myself, such as my challenges and inefficiencies – things that school never taught me,” he shares. “The things that family and society never taught me is the importance of those relationships around me, how to nurture them, build and scale them, and sometimes monetize them if needed. I don’t call myself a networking guru. I see myself as the number one student of human networking in the world, studying the arts – the sciences of it.”
Gil believes networking is vital for building friendships, discovering passions, and fostering community, even extending to interplanetary colonization.
He explains: “What does it mean to build confidence if you’re showing up in a new city, in a new country, you don’t speak the language, you need to get a job to help your family? How can networking help you adjust yourself to adjust your communication skills? If you’re bad at networking, moving countries is a nightmare. If you’re good at networking and developing yourself, you can easily move countries and change industries – and that’s just on a business level.”
As the leader on the power of authentic networking, for Gil, networking is the set of spiritual rituals that are deep habits that people have learned to take on in life. “Before going to sleep, I’m not on my phone doing random things. Instead, I’m thinking about my tomorrow, prioritizing who I want to spend my time with, and thinking through how I will have great meetings, interviews, and coaching sessions with those people. I’m already putting great intentions into those encounters. I manifest the type of people I want to meet at events. I adopt a curious mindset to ask people the right questions to see how I could change their life in business in one minute.”
Gil shares the truth. “Adopt a ‘how can I help you’ mindset when meeting people. A curious mindset gets people talking. Listen – and be in the moment without any distractions or noises – not to reply but to add value. Building an authentic connection with someone starts with clear intentions.”
Simply put, networking requires that a person thinks outside the box. Do your research in advance, be curious about what the person needs, and find that opportunity to speak to them authentically.
The world is experiencing a trust deficit. Is that due to missing human connections from ineffective networking and relationship building? Gil certainly thinks so. According to him, businesses play a huge part in this. Rethinking this, Gil built a successful programme during the COVID-19 lockdowns called Ethical Deal Maker. Essentially, it teaches people that using networking effectively and authentically to make deals, bring deals, attract deals, and close deals is totally okay.
“Closing deals isn’t my life’s mission – it’s not what I live for because I don’t live for money – but it’s really great if you can build amazing relationships,” he says. “Learning how to become an ethical deal-maker comes from trust,” he says. “Trust is built through building relationships where you can do something for them and knowing they’re expecting something that you will deliver on. Trust is lost in the world because of a lack of transparency; we simply don’t see much of what’s going on.”
Another lesson from Gil: “Find a way to tell the truth even if it hurts. During COVID-19, talking with people worldwide, I quickly understood there’s no such thing as business ethics because we’ve all learned business in different ways, come from different cultures and business sizes, and have different expectations. We need open communication. That’s how we achieve ethics and trust in business – and society. You can achieve honesty and truth: be completely vulnerable at times, confrontational, and have open communication even when it is hard to do that because you’re avoiding the truth; that’s going to lose you trust. That’s when you need to have sharing sessions and put your heart out there.”
What does he foresee AI’s impact on the future? Gil views AI’s rise as nonthreatening, believing it elevates humanity and emphasizes the need for deeper, authentic networking. “If we authentically learn how to network deeper and learn how to use the time to network effectively and authentically, there’s a potential for humans to surpass AI just because we will be able to network with each other in a way that computers will never,” says Gil. “You can have a soul-to-soul connection after meeting someone for just 5 minutes that AI will never be able to surpass.”
How do we maintain our lead over AI? “By playing a different game,” he shares. “If we play the AI game of speed, repetition, and technology, we will lose. But if we play the game of context, connection, feelings, and emotions, we will win. No matter how sentient it becomes, generative AI will never match human connections; we’re far superior in that.”
If we could put Gil into a time capsule until his 100th birthday, what would we look back on? “I want to know that I’ve managed to influence billions of people in the world to use very simple hacks, methodologies, habits, and rituals to not only empower them to become better and more successful, more happy human beings, but to really build stunning, beautiful relationships around them,” he shares. “To not fear new relationships, but to embrace new relationships.
I believe in 50 years it is not going to be local or country relationships, but global ones and even interplanetary relationships.” What is his message in a bottle? It is truly poignant considering our interplanetary future: “Live with passion, connect with love, and seek help when needed,’ resonates with our interplanetary future.
