Did I think about something like “calling” or the “meaning of life” when I was in my early twenties? No. As a young man, I was firmly convinced that happiness had to do with “higher, faster and further”. And so I set out to conquer the world. At the age of twenty-nine, I had already founded a group of companies with over 1,000 employees and 17 corporations, from the ground up, out of nothing, but I was farther away from happiness in my life than ever before.

At the age of thirty-three, my life came to a significant turning-point, on all levels. One of them was illness. I was put on strong prescription medications and every time I stopped taking them for a few days, things got worse than before. It was a “time of silence” as I called it, a time of soul-searching. I asked myself about the meaning of life and what I would do if I had all the time and money in the world. I was searching for some kind of holistic cycle.

The answer was the same as the stars, the moon and the sky had given me through an astrologer many years before: "Earth, trees and creative work under the southern sun." All of a sudden, I had a vision of what I had previously dismissed when I was in my early twenties: For a short while, something had drawn me to Greece to produce organic olive oil from my own trees. Every time I remembered that, a warm sensation flowed through me. It was like coming home. I was fascinated by the magic that these trees and their products exuded. Intuitively, I started integrating this tree into my life – as much as this was possible from Germany . I increased my olive oil consumption from about zero to over fifty liters per year. Inside and outside. I was literally bathing in olive oil.

From this moment on, there was no other thought than to treat myself with the power and magic of the trees. I went off of all strong medications overnight and did something I had never done before: I tried to feel myself into the trees and get in touch with them. To feel them, to develop a feeling for them, and to find answers to my related questions: How many olives do you need for one liter of oil? How many fruits does such a tree bear? How many trees stand on one hectare of land? It was a kind of meditation with and around these trees. After about six weeks, I had a feeling for each of my questions and searched for the suitable figure. The result was 5/20/100. A few days later, when I compared these intuitive figures with those in specialist literature, I was amazed. I couldn't believe it, but the numbers corresponded 1:1 to those in the specialist literature I consulted. Could I really believe, that I had made a connection with the trees?

Since I was not able to visit a bookstore myself at the time, I asked my mom to get me a book on the subject of communication with trees and plants. I was ecstatic and inspired by the thought of having made a connection with the trees. “The Call of the Rose” was the title of the first book I read on this topic. It was the first of many. I was completely fascinated and immersed myself into this new, fascinating world that I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. Was it really possible to have some kind of communication with plants and trees? Was it possible to connect with them even over great distances? Was what I was feeling real? I learned: Yes. Everything is connected.

After I had stopped my medication and completely changed my diet, I always started my day with a glass of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon and embalmed myself with olive oil, both outside and inside from morning to late at night. I felt the first small, positive change on the ninth day of my self-created therapy. I became more sensitive and could perceive myself better and better. With every little achievement, my confidence grew that no one else can know better than me what is good or not good for me. I discovered my inner physician – who is slumbering in all of us.

After another 176 days of "feeling into myself", 176 days with not a single relapse, I was completely restored. I was able to sleep on the side of my heart again, had no more ulcers, my skin looked healthy like never before and I was full of vitality. I had accomplished all of this with the power of the olive tree, and, most importantly, without any side effects.

I neither had the faintest clue about agriculture nor did I know how to produce high quality olive oil. Yet, during the months in which I felt accompanied, supported, and even protected by the trees, it became clear that, against all odds, I would walk the path of the olive trees.

I studied these wonderful creations, read everything there was in literature, and tried various olive oils in innumerable blind tastings. In 2001, I set out for Italy, first to Tuscany and later to Apulia. I finally wanted to be able to touch my trees, to hug them, to be even closer to them. I wanted to learn the craft of producing first-class olive oil and offer people who, like me, loved the olive trees so much, the opportunity to get their oil from their own olive tree in the future. After many lunches with olive farmers and a lot of wine, I succeeded in conveying my charming idea with the help of my very little Italian language skills and using my hands and feet, the farmers danced on the tables because they already envisioned tens of thousands of trees being sold.

At the time, I was living in Florence for six months and thought that the many tourists who came here regularly, hundreds of them would certainly dream of getting their olive oil from their own tree. That is why I made two large posters (80x120cm) with the inscription "Your very own 100-year old olive tree" and walked sandwiched by one poster in the front and one on the back through the old town of Florence past hundreds of tourists. Unfortunately, without a single positive result.

I also wanted to present my idea to a couple of farmers in Apulia. One morning, I got to know the grass-green, bitter elixir from the olive leaf, which was freshly made every morning according to a very old recipe handed down from generation to generation. This family also used olive leaf schnapps as a cure-all. I was fascinated – especially when I found out that what healed me, namely precious polyphenols such as Oleuropein and Hydroxytyrosol, are found in the olive leaf up to 3000-times more concentrated than in high-quality olive oil. These polyphenols also serve as reliable protection for the olive tree from harmful influences and allow it to live up to 4,000 years in highest vitality. For me, this is just magical, fabulous and unbelievable to this day.

The idea was born to develop an elixir like this for daily consumption. I told my friend Joaquin in Andalusia about my plans who informed me that Santiago, the “bee whisperer” in Arroyomolinos de Léon would sell one of his olive groves to me. So I set out by car, 3,500 kilometers from Apulia in southern Italy to Andalusia. It was wonderful to sleep in the car and drive through the nights with all these fascinating ideas about the olive tree in my head. Shortly thereafter, I was really the proud owner of my first olive grove. Santiago, the bee whisperer, had actually parted with one of his small groves and sold it to me. 120 mountain olive trees on about 12,000 square meters, all around a hundred years old. I was so full of joy and gratitude that I was too excited to sleep at night. So I grabbed Joaquin’s chainsaw and wandered around in my grove in the rain, through the darkness to build myself a tree house in the midst of my first olive grove.

I experimented with the olive leaf and developed the extraordinary elixir that I got to know in Apulia. On this basis, I developed a very bitter-tasting first elixir from the leaves of my own mountain olive trees, which I filled into bottles and sent to various naturopaths and alternative healing practitioners as well as to my first small customer list of olive tree lovers.

In the meantime, Joaquin accompanied me to the cathedral in Seville, which draws many tourists to take part in the processions. A little ashamed, he stayed by my side when I yet again advertised my olive trees with my posters on my stomach and back. We got into conversation with some people but still did not sell anything.

Weeks passed and I was still waiting for feedback from the doctors and customers to whom I had sent my self-made elixir to test. Naturally, I began to doubt. How on earth should this be possible – without any experience or the necessary knowledge, just following an intuition? "It's just not enough," I said to myself. And as always, when I was about to give up everything for good, there was a sign. That's how it is to this day. Suddenly, I received thank-you notes from customers which still give me goose bumps. They were so touching. I was electrified and motivated to the point of my fingertips and immediately thought of a lot more than just a single product. I envisioned something holistic, an Olive Tree Therapy in luxurious spas, Mediterranean Ayurveda with treatments over several days and weeks. Here, I also wanted to integrate the Olive Tree Meditation that I had practiced years before.

A comprehensive, holistic therapy program like the one I envisioned required products for external application such as cremes, oils and serums for the skin. What is a cream made of, and what role could and should the olive tree play here? All of this was new territory for me, because I had no affinity to cosmetics prior – I was still using my olive oil to care for my skin. How should I obtain the knowledge of how to develop a cream so that it achieves the desired results? I simply told myself: “What has healed you from within can just be the best for the outside, for our largest organ, our skin. So I started studying the composition of skin care products and discovered that almost every product had "aqua" – water – at the top of the ingredient list: water, followed by many other ingredients.

When I asked one of the old herbal women in the village which ingredients they would use in a cream, in addition to and complementing the strength of the olive trees, she replied: "Look at what grows around the olive tree. All of this goes well with it and creates protective and sustainable synergies. Otherwise it would not grow there." I was impressed by how simply and clearly nature works.

Sometime later, I finally got an answer to my most important question. An answer that was unimaginable to me at first and changed everything: Every skin care product that shows the word "aqua" in the first place of the INCI list, is based on a whopping 70 %-distilled water content, plus about 25% of oils and emulsifiers, that connect the water and oil. Here, the industry relies on oils which ideally no longer change and have a long shelf-life. So it is either refined oils that have lost all vitality or mineral oils that can substantially damage the skin. "So there are only about 5% left for real, active ingredients?" I asked myself. And discovered, that it is even less, because most products have additional preservatives and fragrances.
I was speechless. At the same time, the idea was born to replace the approx. 70 % water content with the highly bioactive cell elixir from the olive leaf and the refined oils with the autochthonous Arbequina oil from my mountain olive trees, which resembles the natural lipid layer of our skin. Due to its vitality, it has the ability to support the cell renewal processes of the skin.

Every second, 10 million cells die in the human body while 10 million cells have to be born again. In each of the approx. 50 trillion cells (i.e. 50,000 billion) of which we are made of, 100,000 chemical reactions take place every second, to keep the entire organism running. 100,000 in each of those 50 trillion cells. How important is it then to support these cells in their renewal processes with highly active ingredients? Only living ingredients are able to do that.

I knew there was a long road ahead of me to develop the first prototype of my own cosmetics line.

I didn't want to give up my beautiful idea of the oil from my own mountain olive tree yet, so I planned to travel to Japan. I was convinced that the people there would react positively to my posters and would really rush to my idea. I scraped my last money together and went to the airport in Madrid to make the trip to Japan. Unfortunately, it was just enough to make it to San Francisco. For a lot of money, I had posters made there. From then on, I stood on the corner next to a fruit stand and at the Farmers’ Market, on the weekend. But here, too: there was no reaction other than pitying glances.

Meanwhile, I was living on the island of Mallorca, the birthplace of both of my daughters, and we began to develop the elixir from the olive leaf and to finally sell successfully. At the same time, experiments with the first skin care products showed us what we still had to work on: the chlorophyll in the olive tree leaves could not be stabilized; after a short while, it gave the products a brownish tint.

A regular Western medical doctor in Palma examined the participants in our Olive Tree Therapy program, recording their medical test results at the beginning and end of the 14-day therapy program. Thus, we were able to prove that it is not just a wellness therapy but that real, measurable results are achieved.

The results of the follow-up examinations were phenomenal – without exception –confirmed by an independent medical doctor.

In 2008, author Birgit Frohn, whose book “Naturally healing with olive oil” I had read and literally devoured many years ago, wrote the first book about the Olive Tree Therapy that I had developed in my tree house.

Then, I invited a couple of beauty journalists to personally experience the Olive Tree Therapy at Hotel Son Brull. Among them was Daniela Jambrek, who went on to write our second book, entitled "10 Years in 14 Days," based on the impressive results and experiences of her stay. In this book, the author also introduces the Olive Tree Therapy at home – a wonderful opportunity to experience Olive Tree Therapy on your own, at home, or to permanently integrate the power of the olive trees and the Mediterranean way of life and nutrition, on which the Olive Tree Therapy is based, into your own everyday-life and thus lead a holistic, healthy and conscious lifestyle.

Everything - from the first drop of olive oil to the wonderful elixir from the olive leaves and holistic cosmetics, right up to a healthy and conscious way of life for every day is the result of the power of the olive trees and the products we have developed, which are true miracles of nature in their holistic efficacy.