Foreword By Jason Blumer

Gil has been the entrepreneur's coach for many years. My businesses were cultivated under Gil's tutelage, and they are thriving.

I took the BizTrek marketing course with Gil and a small community back in 2010. As I've reviewed those lessons, I am still in contact with some of the "Queen Bees" as Gil calls them. Identifying these people and their value to my market has been a key to building our companies. It's fascinating to see the outworking of this initial devotion and commitment some 15 years later now! Gil's stuff works.

Gil teaches courses and theory and long form content with commitment to the hard work it takes to be a founding entrepreneur. But this book is different and decidedly a fresh approach to tap into the mind of Gil.

These short 65 lessons may be one page each, but they are the accumulation of wealth from decades of Gil's sayings, quips, and parables. And they are so very true. Most of the success of my work can point back to lessons like:

• "Leaders cannot be tree huggers" - one of my hardest lessons on moving away from being a lone wolf.

• "Find a community and you will find an audience." - Gil led me in building my current community business, so this is particularly meaningful to me. Gil's teaching on the Hive changed how I viewed the world of business.

• "It is human nature to resist change." - Gil taught me the value of going deep and staying longer than anyone else on the one valuable thing. He preaches focus all through this book and it has lasted me two decades now. Stay true to your focus and you get enormous loyalty in return.

There are so many I could comment on. To sum it up, I have lived by the mantra to change people's lives. In all my businesses, we are after that one life that needs to be empowered, encouraged, or challenged. Gil lives that in his coaching (you know this if you've ever hung out with him in person); now you can get it in this book.

Take just 5 minutes per day to dig into each lesson and you'll be encouraged to stay the course and change lives.

I'll leave you with some advice. It will take you years to implement all these lessons, but if you do it over the next 20 years then you'll be successful. Guaranteed. Sorry if that's not encouraging, but Gil preaches this. You must be in this for the long haul for it to be successful. Be that one business or brand that stays the course for many years, and you'll see the pay off. Just ask Gil. He's been building businesses and mentoring entrepreneurs almost longer than I've been alive!

This book boils it all down for you. Now it's up to you to absorb this knowledge in this easily digestible testament.

I'm rooting for you!

Jason Blumer
Founder & CEO
Blumer CPAs and
Thriveal CPA Network