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I am a serial entrepreneur. I have worked all of my life. I had a little wagon when I was five years old in Washington, DC, and I would go down to the Safeway grocery store and take the little old ladies’ groceries from the Safeway store to their houses. That was back in 1945, and they would give me a nickel or a dime. I had a paper route when I was seven years old. I delivered newspapers every afternoon during the week and at six o’clock in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays.

I have built businesses all my life. I have built 15 different companies. I believe the greatest business people in the world are entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs get it done now. They don’t put off until tomorrow what they can do today. They’ve got energy, they’ve got a belief system, and they’ve got a passion for what they are doing. I used to think in my younger life that the big business people, the guys who run these big companies, were “the bomb!” But now I know that “the bombs” are the ones that build their own companies. People like Bill Gates, the college dropout. Michael Dell from Dell Business Systems with one quarter of college under his belt.

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This is Masters’ week. This really starts the golf season. This is the first major tournament and is played in Augusta, Georgia on the Augusta National Golf Course, which is hallowed ground. It was started by Cliff Roberts and Bobby Jones – the legendary Bobby Jones. And of all the golf courses in the world, I’ll suggest to you that this is the one that every golfer — no matter who they are — wants to play. This golf course doesn’t have a lot of rough. It has pretty wide fairways but is one of the most challenging golf courses in the world, and people would pay anything to be able to able to play one round of golf on this course.

I’ve played it many times but I want to take you back to January 31, 1976. I had a friend named Phinizy Timmerman. Isn’t that a real southern name? He was Chairman of the Board of Graniteville Mills in Graniteville, South Carolina, which is about 10 or 15 miles from Augusta. He was a member of Augusta National and would invite me to come play with him in the off season of my football days because in ‘76 I was still playing professional football with the Minnesota Vikings. Phinizy Timmerman, “Phinny” as we called him, was a real competitive little guy who wanted to beat me in the worst way.

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Changing one’s routine is very important. Sometimes we call it vacation or just getting out of our daily rut. Going to a different town, a different city, a different venue or seeing different people is so important to all of us. It gives us a chance to relax, recharge, and come back to our lives with a new enthusiasm and a fresh perspective.

Let me tell you about a vacation that I’ve taken every year since 1990, and I took it again just a few weeks ago. My wife and I go to St. Barth, which is an island in the French West Indies, 1852 miles southeast of my home in Atlanta. GA. The atmosphere is very relaxed and very French. On this island there are no Marriott’s, there are no high rise buildings, there are no golf courses. Nobody wears a coat, nobody wears a tie. There are great beaches, and a pretty harbor town. It’s very laid back, and of course, great weather.

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