Accounts (HSAs), which began in South Africa and were spreading
worldwide, would soon become universally allowed for U.S. citizens.
However, I missed how quickly governments around the world
would embrace wellness food standards, and I miscalculated the voluntary
conversion of many sickness and food industry providers (including,
to some extent, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart) to wellness and
healthy food offerings. I also missed the extent to which the bifurcation
of the United States and the other developed nations would continue
into wellness “haves” and “have-nots.” While millions of people
embraced wellness during the past five years, millions more turned
the opposite direction—the percentage of overweight Americans
alone rose from 61 to 65 percent and the increase in diet-related diseases
like Type 2 diabetes now make the United States look medically
like a third world nation.
These trends have kept us on track to meet or exceed my original
$1 trillion prediction for the wellness industry, and have greatly accelerated
the need and opportunity for more wellness entrepreneurs.
Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further than others it is by
standing on the shoulders of giants.”1 Since I began tracking the
wellness industry back in 1996, my giants have been the wellness revolutionaries
I first began profiling in The Wellness Revolution—men
and women pioneers in wellness who had already made a major difference
by 2002. People like:
■ Frank Yanowitz, the wellness cardiologist who created a business
specializing in preventing heart disease versus just treating
it;
■ Jill Kinney, the fitness expert who built a $100 million fitness
club business that delivers exercise at the workplace; and
■ Steve Demos, the “soy wonder” who founded SILK soymilk and
assembled the first billion dollar national wellness brand.
Their stories, along with an update on where they are today, are in
The New Wellness Revolution.
But, equally significant, since 2002 I have become aware of
hundreds more wellness revolutionaries—people who have also
made a difference in the wellness industry, and in doing so, have
greatly enriched our world. Some of these wellness revolutionaries
include:
viii THE NEW WELLNESS REVOLUTION
■ Peter and Kathie Davis, cofounders of IDEA and ACE, who organized
20,000 fitness professionals into a cohesive international
force that brought professionalism, standards, and
accreditation to the fitness industry;
■ Information pioneers like Tod Cooperman and Joseph Mercola,
who built enormous web-based businesses by simply supplying
wellness information to tens of millions of consumers worldwide;
■ Chiropractors like Fabrizio Mancini and Bob Hoffman who,
along with other leaders in this 100-year-old international profession,
are returning the chiropractic industry back to its wellness
origins;
■ Entrepreneurs like Patrick Gentempo, who are using the franchise
and distribution methods of fast-food companies to build
national wellness franchise businesses;
■ Medical doctors who are trying to put themselves out of business,
like Russ Reiss, a heart surgeon who seeks to eliminate the
need for heart surgery through stem cell research; and
■ Nonprofit professionals like Geoff Tabin, who has taken the
most popular operation in the world, a $3,500 antiaging cataract
surgery, and made it available to millions of people in the
third world by using contemporary technology to reduce the
price to $20 per surgery. As the wellness revolution enters its
next stage, similar opportunities to make wellness affordable to
the masses, just as Henry Ford did with the automobile, are appearing
in all parts of the wellness industry.
Since 2002, the list of wellness revolutionaries, my “giants,” has
expanded one hundred-fold. As I stand on their collective shoulders
I am able to see clearer into our wellness future. I wish I had room to
tell you all of their stories, and I apologize to the many whose stories
did not survive the editing process into this book.
These wellness revolutionaries are the true heroes of the wellness
revolution. Whether you are an experienced wellness professional
looking to grow your business, or you are reading this book in search
of a new business opportunity, their stories will provide you the inspiration
and the information you need to capitalize on the great opportunity
ahead:
The opportunity to make an incredible fortune by doing incredible
good in the greatest industry on earth—wellness.
The Revolution Continues ix
The Next Millionaires—
Wellness Entrepreneurs
If you are an entrepreneur, or are considering becoming one in wellness,
there has never been a better time in history to own your own
business.
When I was growing up in the 1950s, millionaires were fictional
characters in television shows like The Millionaire or in comic strips
like Little Orphan Annie. Nobody actually knew or saw a millionaire.
Even on The Millionaire the “millionaire” John Beresford Tipton
never appeared on camera. I remember asking my dad to go out to
dinner and hearing his reply: “What do you think we are, millionaires?”
But by 1991, the amazing U.S. economy had produced 3.6 million
U.S. households that had a net worth of $1 million or more. Then, in
just the next 10 years, the number of millionaire households doubled
to 7.2 million. It took the U.S. economy 215 years to create the first
3.6 million millionaire households, and then just 10 years to create
3.6 million more.
As explained and predicted in my 1991 book Unlimited Wealth,
what happened in the 1990s was the beginning of a 40-year period
of international economic growth. From 1991 to 2001 U.S. household
wealth tripled—from $13 trillion to $40 trillion—and a similar
expansion occurred in every developed nation except Japan.
There have always been periods of economic growth and wealth
accumulation, but in the past this often meant that the rich got richer
and the ordinary person didn’t stand a chance. What was so unique
about the 1990s was the enormous number of new households that
shared in this wealth. But the 1990s were only the beginning:
The 1990s were the beginning of a period that will be
known one day as The Democratization of Wealth, not
just in the United States, but in every nation from China
to Europe.
As you will see in this book, because of fundamental changes in the
world economy, in technology, and in new legislation favoring the individual
over the organization, we are just beginning a period of democratization
of wealth that would make Karl Marx stand up and
cheer. But even Marx couldn’t have fathomed what is happening today—
for we are not taking from the rich and giving to the poor, we
are creating new wealth in which everyone who chooses to can share.
x THE NEW WELLNESS REVOLUTION
Today, more than 10 million U.S. households have a net worth of
$1 million or more. By 2016, there will be 20 million U.S. millionaire
households. Each household represents approximately 2.5 people,
meaning that 50 million Americans will soon live in a household with
a net worth of $1 million or more.
Number of U.S. Millionaires, 1991–2016
1991 2001 2006 2016 (predicted)
Number of
millionaire
households 3.6 million 7.2 million 10 million 20 million
Number of
Americans
living in a
millionaire
household 9 million 18 million 25 million 50 million
U.S. household
wealth $13 trillion $40 trillion $60 trillion $100 trillion
Millionaires are the fastest growing minority in the
United States and the developed world today.
And as you will see throughout this book, as people become millionaires,
or just increase their wealth on the way to becoming one,
the most important thing they desire with their newfound wealth is
wellness.
The more people increase their wealth, the greater proportion
of their income they spend on wellness.
Is It Nature, or Nurture?—It’s Neither
One of the most fascinating parts of my research is discovering who
is becoming a millionaire today—becoming a millionaire seems to
have less correlation each year with your race, religion, country of
origin, or even your parents or your education.
When the Forbes 400 list of the richest 400 Americans was first
published in 1981, it contained 12 Rockefellers, 10 Morgans, 6 Astors,
and other family names that had become synonyms for American
wealth. Twenty-four years later only 40 of the original 400 (or
The Revolution Continues xi
their children) remain on the list, and none of these family names are
in the top 10. The top 10 today possess 32 percent of the total wealth
of the top 400 richest Americans.
But, rather than the rich getting richer, all of the top 10 on the
Forbes 400 list were born poor or middle class, and only two of the
top 10 finished college. Having an Ivy League education and/or
being born into great wealth may even have a negative correlation for
great financial success.
Moreover, it appears that many if not most of the people on the
Forbes 400 list have something else in common—a brother or sister
who is as great a failure in life as they are a success.
Several recent U.S. Presidents have a degree from Yale and a
brother who has been to jail (or close to it). Donald Nixon, Billy
Carter, Roger Clinton, Neil Bush—none of these people were either
nurtured or natured to fail, and most had the same family upbringing
and educational opportunities as their successful sibling.
Achieving great success today is no longer mostly determined by
the color of your skin, your country of origin, or even your individual
parents. Great success is now, more than ever before in human
history, about making a choice. Of course your education, your
parents, and other factors outside your control play a role, but the
largest determinants of success today are the choices you make.
If you have read this far, you have already made your
choice—the choice to either become one of, or help create
more of, the next 10 million millionaire households
that will be created in the next 10 years.
There are man