Preface of The New Wellness Revolution

3. 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 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 many paths to success you can choose. It is my hope that you will choose a business or career in the emerging wellness industry. For as you will soon see, starting or building a wellness business creates the perfect storm of opportunity to make a lot of money and to do incredible good.

Next Section: New Wellness Trends