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The Next
Millionaires
The emerging industries of wellness
and direct selling are combining to
create the next generation of wealth.
by Paul Zane Pilzer
For 10 years (against medical advice), I eating and living healthier than anyone Today, numerous scientif ic stud-
had put off getting expensive knee sur- ever before in history. They are primarily ies have validated what a few million
gery. I started taking a dietary supple- wealthy people who, as they start to have Americans seem to have known all along:
ment called glucosamine—and within money, start looking for ways they can There are hundreds or thousands of effi-
a year, the cartilage was repaired. Th e be healthier outside the medical estab- cacious treatments to make people feel
surgeon was positively amazed when he lishment. Today, for example, this sec- healthier, to slow the eff ects of aging, or
examined my X-rays. I no longer needed tor spends more than $70 billion annu- to prevent diseases from developing in
the operation. ally on vitamins and food supplements. the fi rst place. But until you fi rst experi-
Th is experience piqued my interest. I Who are these people? Mostly baby ence one of these treatments working for
wanted to fi nd out what else my surgeon boomers: prosperous people from the you or a member of your family, you are
and my other medical providers didn’t ages of 40 to 60. Baby boomers are the probably going to remain a skeptic and
know. I also noticed that people were fi rst generation in history who refuse to miss out on improving the quality of
spending more on new things such as blindly accept the aging process. They your life, and reducing your long-term
exercise programs and fitness coaches, are also a powerful economic force; they health care costs.
supplements and organic foods, alterna- represent only 28 percent of our popula- The best way to learn about wellness
tive medicine and anti-aging therapies. tion—yet this group and their spending is through someone close to you who
I began to research this field and soon represent 50 percent of our economy. has had a wellness experience. You see
arrived at an amazing conclusion: Th is Until recently, marketing to baby your college roommate and go, “My
new and emerging industry, which only boomers had been all about how to help God, John, you look great. You look so
a decade earlier had hardly existed, was them remember what it was like to be healthy—what did you do?” You bump
already a $200 billion business. young—oldies music, retro clothes and into a wellness experience and start to
Th is represents an extraordinary eco- ’50s-styled automobiles. Now, it has find out that there is a whole wellness
nomic opportunity. The millions of gone a step further. Today, boomers industry out there, with all sorts of new
people spending billions of dollars to are starting to buy things that actually products and services.
further their wellness represent a new make them younger in terms of having a
and growing economic sector who are healthier body, more acute senses and a Distribution in the New
sharper mind. Economy
In my 1990 book Unlimited Wealth,
Network I wrote that the new wealth in that
Marketing and decade would be created mainly by
Wellness people who distributed things, rather
As I began exploring than by people who made things. The
this fascinating new great fortunes of the 1990s would be
industry, I found myself made in distribution.
asking a basic question: But that opportunity has come and
How are people learn- gone. The fortunes to be made today
ing about all these new and in the years ahead will be made
approache s to t heir by those who are involved in teaching
health and fitness? people about new products and services
Certainly not that they either didn’t know existed
through their doctors. or didn’t know were now affordable.
Doctors, hospitals and Intellectual distribution, as opposed to
pharmaceutical com- physical distribution, is where the great-
panies are mostly part est fortunes are being made today and
of the “sickness indus- will continue to be made for at least the
t r y ” b e c au s e , u nt i l next decade.
recently, most scien- Manufacturers today report that the
tists and public policy greatest bottleneck they have is not in
leaders viewed well- creating the next great new product; it’s
ness or preventive care how to reach people and teach them that
as “quackery.” these new products exist.
In the ’80s, the rule was the bigger you create if you don’t have the health thing breaks, whether that means losing
the company, the newer and better the to enjoy it. your job, your family or your health.
technology. Today, the rule often is the The concept of “quality of life,” which But if we are fortunate enough to find
bigger the company, the older and more we take for granted today, is actually a a way to integrate work into your home,
out-of-date the technology. fairly recent invention. Our economy and then we don’t have to think about bal-
Where are the greatest opportunities living standards have grown to the point ance between work and family so much
today? Even for people starting right where we not only expect to make a liv- as how we can weave the two together.
out of school, the best opportunities are ing, but we also expect to have the best There is actually something ironic
not to go work for some big company possible experience doing it. about this. The United States started out
(unless it’s a company that makes tools Twenty percent of the average corpo- as an agrarian society of entrepreneurs,
for individuals), but to go into business rate workday is spent just commuting to where everyone was a small-business per-
for yourself as an entrepreneur. and from work—and up to 50 percent of son. The rise of the giant corporations,
the time spent actually inside the work- which my generation took for granted as
Healthy Family, Healthy place is wasted around the water cooler, the “normal” employment path, is really
Economy, Healthy Society gossiping and talking to other people. a historical anomaly. And it’s rapidly slip-
The change in technology is one rea- Today, more and more people don’t ping into the history books as we return
son we are experiencing such a boom in want to spend their time chatting with to our entrepreneurial roots.
home-based businesses. Another reason other workers in the office—they’d rather
is that working from home is a more spend that time with their spouse or their A “Perfect Storm”
personally satisfying way to live. children. They’d rather get their work In many ways, wellness and network
I n t he ne w ec onomy, t he sheer done in a few hours, and then get back to marketing are natural sister industries.
quantity of compensation is no longer the business of being with their families. For one thing, wellness is rich in the kinds
enough. More and more, we have come For these people, a home-based business of new technologies that are best learned
to realize we also want a certain quality today is both a more efficient way to work person-to-person. And for another, it is
of compensation, too. We don’t simply and a lifestyle choice. often the same quest for a better qual-
want money; we want lifestyle. We often talk about the challenge of ity of life that fi nds expression both in
It doesn’t matter how much money keeping a balance between our work and exploring wellness and in pursuing an
you earn if you never get to see your our families. Picture it like a seesaw, with entrepreneurial, home-based business.
family. It doesn’t matter how many pos- work on one end and family on the other. Wellness and network marketing also
sessions you have if you never get to When you’re constantly playing these pri- both represent enormous financial oppor-
use or play with them. And it doesn’t orities against each other, your life swings tunities; either opportunity alone has tre-
matter how great of a personal economy and swings, until eventually the whole mendous potential to create new wealth.
Some companies have combined the best
of both worlds, creating a “perfect storm”
of unprecedented economic opportunity:
A convergence of forces enabling entre-
preneurs to create a satisfying lifestyle,
and—at the same time—tremendous
new wealth.
Over the next 10 years, the U.S. econ-
omy will create 10 million new million-
aires. You have the opportunity to start
now and become one of them. You should
do so not only for the benefits in health
and happiness to yourself and your fam-
ily, but also because you will be adding
to our economy while you also add to
the wellness and personal fulfi llment of
many others. In so doing, you will be
contributing immeasurably to your com-
munity, your nation and the world. YB