"The Next Millionaires", by Paul Zane Pilzer, Your Business, July 2007.

More on
The Next Millionaires:

"Crisis or Opportunity - The 6 Myths and Realities of Economic Opportunity," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Your Business Magazine, October 2006.

"Crisis or Opportunity - The 6 Myths and Realities of Economic Opportunity," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Your Business Magazine, July 2006.

"Creating Fortunes in the New Economy," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Success From Home Magazine, September 2005.

"A Tale of Two Industries," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Success From Home Magazine, November 2005.

The Next Millionaires, by Paul Zane Pilzer, Direct Selling News Magazine, June 2005.

The Next Millionaires, by Paul Zane Pilzer, Success at Home Magazine, published March 2005.

A vast amount of wealth is being created over the next ten years. Here's why--and how you can be a part of it.

As an economist, I deal with large-scale trends in the economy, often measured in billions or trillions of dollars.

But people don’t often grasp the meaning of billions and trillions. We aren’t really concerned about “the economy”—we’re concerned about “Our economy.” We want to know, “What can I do in this new economy to succeed, to take care of myself and my family?” I wrote The Next Millionaires to explain where our economy has been, where it is today, and where it’s going—but even more importantly, to bring all of this down to the level of “your economy.”

Since 1991, U.S. household wealth quadrupled from $13 trillion to about $52 trillion in 2005. Reading such figures, you might say, “That’s interesting… that sounds like good news.” But it becomes very personal when we look at what this actually means to individual entrepreneurs who are involved in the most economically vibrant emerging new industries.

There is something very different about this enormous increase in household wealth—something that has never happened before, and which has significant implications for people’s individual lives: This growth is occurring not only among an exclusive group of the already-rich, but throughout a broad demographic that includes millions of “ordinary people.” I call this the “democratization of American wealth.” Let’s take a quick look at how this works, and then see some of the most powerful ways to ensure that you can be part of this exciting trend.

The Wellness Industry

Ironically, of the $2 trillion we spend on health care in this country, most has very little to do with health.

“Health” is defined as “being sound in body, mind or spirit,” but what we call “health care” has a very different focus, and would more appropriately be called the sickness industry.

Sickness industry: Products and services provided reactively to people after they contract an illness, ranging from a common cold to cancerous tumors. These products and services seek to either treat the symptoms of a disease or eliminate the disease.

Wellness industry: Products and services provided proactively to healthy people—that is, those without an existing disease—to make them feel even healthier and look better, to slow the effects of aging, or to prevent diseases from developing in the first place.

I stumbled upon the wellness industry in the 1990s, as so many do, through an experience with my own health. For 10 years (against medical advice), I had put off getting expensive knee surgery. I started taking a dietary supplement called glucosamine—and within a year, the cartilage was repaired. The surgeon was positively amazed when he examined my X-rays. I no longer needed the operation.