Recently, I renewed my flight medical certificate, which requires a thorough physical every two years. Angelo, the attending physician, reminded me of something about the average lifespan of an American: We used to live to be about 65; now it's about 75. Angelo mentioned that he thought our generous government set up Social Security and Medicaid to kick in when we reach our early sixties, knowing most of us would not be around to collect. Makes sense to me. I got to thinking about how much it costs for us to survive — not to mention really live — those extra ten years. It could be between $500,000 and $1 million. That is a lot of money/assets to acquire, especially if you don't know whether you are going to need it. The traditional 40-year career does not exist anymore. The average person today will change jobs more than seven times in their working career, many of them changing whole careers several times.

"Choose an income-producing occupation that allows you to not only earn income for the now, but more importantly stacks up income for the future."

The idea of working for 40 years to retire on one-third of what was not even enough for the 40 years just does not make sense. Yet it is still the ruling paradigm.

Challenging this 40-year career model is The Four-Year Career™. The trademarked concept is simple: Choose an income-producing occupation that allows you to not only earn income for the now, but more importantly stacks up income for the future. Build something while you earn that keeps on earning. It is called Residual Income or Royalty Income and the wealthiest people in the world have been focusing on it for hundreds of years. Inventors do it. Songwriters do it. Movie producers do it. Actors now do it. Authors do it. Commercial real estate developers do it. And, Network Marketers do it.

Build something that will keep on churning out the income, whether you are there managing it or not. This creates financial freedom, a concept that is not well known, explored or enjoyed by most people. What does it take to do it in the movies, or publishing or real estate? For the most part, I don’t know. There are experts to guide you if that is your inclination. I do know what it takes in Network Marketing. Is it easy? No. Do you need lots of money or education? No. Do you need some time, lots of self-motivation and a great company to stand behind you? Yes. Can you do it? Yes.

Financial freedom means different things to different people. It depends on one’s appetite. Some people can be free on $1,000 a month, while others need $2,000 or $3,000 per month. Still others desire ten times that much. Regardless of what the amount is for you, think about what your life could be like (or if you prefer, what it could have been like) had you not had to work most of it. Think of the interests you could have explored. Think of the places you could have gone. Think of the time you could have invested in your relationship with your children in their street-smart education. Think of the fun you could have had. Think of the things you could have created: writings, paintings, buildings and gardens. It’s not too late to think in the present tense.

I think about the quality of life that most of us live now. We have good lives. We get to experience, for the most part, a fair amount of what life has to offer. But what could we do? What could we build? What could we create and contribute if "earning a living" were not the mandatory daily grind? What if we had our basic finances handled by age 25 or 30? What quality of life could we enjoy?

I am not suggesting that money is the most important thing in life. It is just that we spend most of our time earning a living, so we must place a pretty high value on what it provides. Just think of the time you could free up and what you could do with it that is more important than money.

It seems that maybe, when it comes to quality of life, we could turn our own society upside down and inside out by pioneering the paradigm of The Four Year Career™. Dive into a royalty income opportunity you enjoy and do it passionately and powerfully enough to get yourself set up for the rest of your life. You can always continue that career for as long as it suits you; or you can launch another without sacrificing income.

With financial freedom your dreams can come true — even if you live to be 120. Imagine living twice as long as your forefathers/mothers, with ten times the quality of life. I think that adds up to 20 lifetimes. Financial Freedom. The Fountain of Youth.