In any other profession or manner of earning money, you get a unit of pay for a unit of work. Many people are paid for each hour they work (hourly wage), or for each week or month that they work (salaried positions). Others are paid for each procedure they perform (doctors for example) or they earn a return for each investment they make (stock markets, commodities or even real estate). Still others are paid based on how much product they sell or move (commissioned sales positions). In each case, you are exchanging a unit of work (hour, week, procedure, sale, or trade) for a unit of money. When you do more work, your get paid more money; conversely, if you do less work, you get paid less money. This type of income is called linear or temporary income - when you stop working, you quickly stop being paid. The more time you work, the more money you earn. As you gain experience and become more efficient or proficient, you may earn promotions and raises; this is almost always accompanied by additional responsibility and many times more time is required and more risk is inherent.

With Network Marketing, your goal is simply to duplicate yourself, much like a franchised business. When you find someone that understands the power of Network Marketing and they join your business as a professional network marketer, you have duplicated yourself. Now, you are getting paid for what they sell as well as the ones that you sell. Over time, as the business grows, you can have hundreds or even thousands of people in your organization, and you can be earning money on all of their efforts, thousands of times more money that you could have ever earned on just your own efforts. Now you have moved into the other type of income - residual or permanent income. Whether you are working or not, the people in your organization are working and you get paid. Month, after month, after month, forever! For most people, this is the only way to ever achieve financial freedom.

When you earn temporary income, the way you earn more money is by working more time. Through network marketing, as you help other people start their own businesses, you duplicate yourself and you begin to earn money on the efforts of others. Over time, as the amount of money you are earning from the people you helped surpasses your personal effort earnings, you can reduce your personal efforts. As you build and grow your business, you actually earn more money for less and less of your own time - in other words, you achieve time freedom. Compare this to a typical business. Over time, as your non-network marketing business grows, you have to hire additional employees, perhaps open additional stores, deal with government agencies and insurance companies and payroll companies. The list goes on and on.

With a typical business, you never really own it, the business owns you.