The economy used to be built on those who inherited wealth, but that’s changing quickly. With the global economy open to new investors and entrepreneurs willing to create from nothing, it’s become possible for players to command the world stage by personality, talent, and hard work. It’s all about results. Tony De Gouveia’s story is one for this new global economy, a gravity-defying rise from normalcy to exceptional economic influence.
Wealth never came to Tony on its own. He spent his childhood focused on school and work, impressing teachers during the day and running the till at his family’s café in the evenings. He learned retail skills and strong character, which served him well when he took over the café at 22. From there, he spent two decades in retail, investing in stores and building businesses he could sell to start more businesses. He loved the retail industry. His destiny, however, lay a bit further up the ladder.
In 2010, Tony got tired of the top-down way of doing business. “I want to work with people, not customers,” he says. He moved into network marketing, investing heavily and making it his full-time commitment. There, it quickly became apparent that he would play a different role in this industry.
To succeed as a network marketer, Tony had to learn new skills, and he chose to learn them differently than others. Tony wanted to be something other than a top-down leader, bossing people around. “In network marketing, nobody works for you,” he says. “It’s not about telling people what to do, but about showing people what should be done.”
It made him a disruptive presence in an industry that needed to be disrupted. Tony came with the right character and values at the right time, a force for change. The network marketing industry began to change around him, in many ways following his lead, as it became more about mentorship and mutual success. To Tony, network marketing needed to be something very different from what his retail businesses had been. It was about something other than being a good boss. “I used to do things for other people, and that’s not empowering them. That’s dis-empowering them,” he says. “For me, it’s all about identifying the next core leader in my team and then helping and mentoring them.”
Tony fell in love with network marketing not just because it allowed him to be a disruptive leader and bring real improvement to an industry that rewarded him with prosperity but also because it let him share these things with his colleagues. “This is the only business model that allows us to do that,” he says. “So I’ve put a name to that business model of mine, which is TUB.”
The Ultimate Business (TUB) is a brand all about creating wealth and freedom for everyone involved. It’s born from Tony’s brand of servant leadership, how he places himself in the center of a circle of colleagues as a mentor and advocate instead of just a boss. He raises fellow leaders with him, creating a team of collaborating, top-tier professionals who create prosperity for one another.
The story of Tony De Gouveia is the story of a disruption in the network marketing industry that turns it into The Ultimate Business. Today, the world is full of network marketers stuck in an outdated status quo, but every day, more join Tony in his new model, where wealth creation is real, and freedom isn’t just some distant aspiration.