Oliver Tausend

I was born in 1970 in the south of Germany. In Germany, 25 years after WW II, the economy was still prospering.

We were far away from the social troubles that appeared in major cities like Berlin in the late 60ies. So I grew up in a typical German middle class family, my dad went to work and my mom raised my brother (* 1974) and me. Yet, there was something different. In contrast to other families in our rather rural region, my young parents moved from a very little town in Swabia named Heubach (near Schwäbisch Gmünd and Mutlangen) to Tongeren/Belgium just after my birth.

My father signed up as a NATO soldier, he was in the army for four years. I can’t really tell that I’ve got any memories about that early period in my life, except from some photos and stories. What I can tell is that I’m proud of my parents for doing that, leaving their own parents alone, at the age of 20 or 21 with a small baby, and living in a foreign country. That was different from many other parents. And this attitude doing things differently than others and going “our own way” should have a certain impact on me and my life. There’s no need to tell you that the oil price crisis of 1973 did arise – this crisis didn’t affect us. Empty highways (“Autobahn”) on Sundays ? Bicycle riders on the “Autobahn” on Sundays ? There was no “Autobahn” in our area…

My entrepreneurial journey started when my friend and I wanted to sell lottery tickets to people in the streets of our little town. We didn’t assume that this might be a problem. On the contrary, we believed that this might help people to save time. But, we soon learned that it was a problem to sell blank lottery tickets that were available for free in relevant stores.

The second attempt was when my friend and I wanted to sell our used stuff (toys, comics etc.) on our town’s main street where a lot of pedestrians passed by. Our little stand was hardly established as 5 minutes later the owner of the local sports store (for us a Big Dog) crossed the street, came to us and told us that we would need an official permission to sell stuff on the street. German bureaucracy at its finest. The Big Dog obviously feared our competition.

The third and last attempt in my childhood and youth was when my friend and I offered our service on the annual town feast. We offered to people to bring back the emptly bottles and beer glasses from their tables to the stand where they purchased their drinks and hoped that they would give us the deposit money the stand owner would give us back for the emptly bottles and glasses. But people would rather stop their conversation, stand up and walk on their own in order to save a couple of pennies.

After these failures I gave up. Today I know I gave up far too soon.

And today I know you need to be accurate when it comes to business because government regulations require permissions, for example. And they force force you to keep good records of your business. In order to think big, you also need to think small. Other than that, the whole building might crush.

After that, I pursued the traditional way of schooling. Unemployment rates rised in Germany in the early eighties, so our teachers could put us under pressure easily with the classic:”You need good grades in order to get a good job.” So did I, I was a rather mediocre student, so I tried harder and I got excellent grades. I never wasted any thought about entrepreneurial activities any more. After my “Abitur”, I started a practical professional education with a bank (Deutsche Bank, wow) combined with an academic theoretical education (in 1990). Within three years, I was done. I had credentials in banking and business adminstration. I was perfectly prepared for a banking career, I had something to fall back on, I had a safe and secure job. Parents’ dream gone true.

After another three years of banking, I was fed up with the low pay and it was terribly boring (1996). I wanted to make more money, this was the ressurection of my entrepreneurial spirit. I became self-employed in the industry of financial consulting and partnered with an acknowledged German company named MLP. Simply put, they did the back-office, the technical stuff and an awesome education so I was able to focus on generating clients and business. That was already in early 1997. I was payed on one-time commissions and I did a good job, so I succeeded in quickly this businesses.

That sounds like a great business model, and it is. But it has several flaws. One flaw for me was, that I became somehow addicted to the front-up commissions that flooded my account. But I had a hard time to keep the money. Please refer to my post about Financial Intelligence in MLM Network Marketing Part III to learn more about that.

The other flaw is that there is hardly any residual aspect in this business. I was the system producing money, but I didn’t build a system producing money for me. You build nothing. So I am very alert when it comes to residual aspects of MLM opportunities. I immediately left my first MLM company as soon as I read and understood their policies and procedures and comp plan. While there is never 100 % security in life, I would never again join an MLM company with annual renewal clauses, ongoing obligations, termination clauses etc. But guess what, most policies and procedures do contain these clauses. Hardly anybody knows about that because hardly anybody reads this stuff, so hardly anybody cares. So they talk and talk and talk about residual or passive income – until…

Here, I see my mission: I help fellow marketers to read and understand the foundation of their businesses so that they are able to choose the right vehicle to fulfill their dreams, this is done with the help of Mentoring for free.

Very helpful for my transformation were the seminars I attended together with my wife. When it comes to money, I want to point out the books and coaching of Robert Kiyosaki. My Rich Dad coach asked me to write my dream. I’m not sure, but I think up till then, I never dared to dream. I did my best to hide (or waste) the money I earned – and it was a lot – because I subconsciously believed that it is no good to have too much money. You may want to read my posts about my lessons from Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Cashflow Quadrant”.

So nowadays, I’m happy and grateful to pursue my entrepreneurial journey with my dad’s work ethic and my mom’s loving, giving and caring attitude without the limitations I set up for myself when I grew up. I took the decision to let go of the limitations and to use my God given gifts and talents to their full extent.

To a prosperous life,

Oliver Tausend
+49 1512 9125216 office Germany
+1 201 984 5664 office US
Skype ID: guernsey2016
otausend@me.com