All of us are interested in peak performance. How do we, in the most stressful situations perform at the highest levels? Isn’t that a great challenge?

The model for all of us is to look at sports figures, is it not? We have watched Tiger Woods over the years and marveled at how he can make putts of any length when he has to make the putts to win a tournament. We have marveled during this year’s Olympics at Michael Phelps, who has won more gold medals than any athlete in the history of the Olympics. You watch him in the relays, you watch him in his individual events, and you see that he is able to swim against the greatest swimmers in the world, under a tremendous amount of pressure. Of course, he is nervous, as all of them are. It’s a real pressure situation. And he is emotional, but he is able to focus all of those energies that come from anticipation, that come from pressure, that come from wanting to win so bad. And rather than have these emotions detract from him and pull him down and have doubt, he makes it into a positive energy that enables him to post better times than HE’S ever posted. In many of the cases, he is breaking world record times in getting these gold medals in each one of the events that he is doing.

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Why would anybody want to go to Europe when you can go to the Monterey Peninsula? And more specifically, when you can go to Pebble Beach and stay at The Inn at Spanish Bay, and enjoy all of Pebble Beach – the great golf, the great lodges, and shops? But also to be able to enjoy Carmel, Carmel Valley, and Big Sur.

It is the most beautiful area that I have ever visited anywhere in the world. I have been going to Pebble Beach in August for the last 10-12 years because in Atlanta it is so hot and so humid in August that I go to Pebble Beach. The high at Pebble Beach during the week that I was there last week was 70 degrees. The low was 52 degrees. We were never hot, it was always cool – a great temperature for the trip, and great for golf.

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