Spending a week on a deserted island is one of those romantic ideas that's better in theory than in practice; sure, the privacy is terrific, but what about the lack of room service and fruity cocktails, not to mention the all-important umbrella?

An excellent compromise is spending a few days at the Peter Island resort, in the British Virgin Islands. Peter Island is a huge private island (1,800 acres) that's about a 20-minute boat ride from Tortola. Half of the island is a yacht club, so expect to see plenty of big boats that belong to members of the Forbes list of the World's Richest People.

The island's owner is no stranger to the list himself. Jay Van Andel, co-founded direct-sales giant Amway with high school friend Richard DeVos in 1959, and bought the island in September 2000, having been a guest there over the years. Forbes estimates that the 78-year-old Van Andel, who also owns the NBA's Orlando Magic, is worth $1.5 billion. (DeVos is slightly richer, with a fortune of $1.7 billion.)

The resort itself occupies one section of a peninsula, but most of the island is left untouched. No cars are allowed on Peter Island and young children are discouraged from coming. The hotel staff zooms around on golf carts so there's no noise apart from the sound of tropical birds chirping and glasses clinking from the outdoor bar.

Guests are met at the airport by Peter Island staff, and then are whisked off on Peter Island's private ferry. The boat runs all day so guests who have cabin fever or simply want to explore Tortola have an easy way to island-hop.

The beach is right outside your window

The best rooms on Peter Island are the beachfront cottages, located on Deadman's Bay, the main beach that has the water activities as well as the all-important bar. The cottages are painted green to blend in with the hilly backdrop, and the interiors use natural materials such as stone and wood. With their wood-paneled walls and pitched ceilings, the rooms have the cozy feel and look of a boathouse. The gigantic bathrooms have two-person Jacuzzi tubs and are enclosed in glass, so you can relax in the bath and still have an ocean view (and yes, there are blinds for the bathroom-shy). Each room has a balcony or a terrace; the lower-level cottages lead directly to a grassy lawn with a hammock, and the beach is just steps away. None of the rooms have televisions.

A row of cottages are also available near the marina, and while they are similar to the beachfront rooms in terms of space, the décor is more traditionally Caribbean, with wicker furniture and brightly colored bedspreads. Peter Island also has several stand-alone villas that are available for rent, such as the Hawk's Nest Villa and the Crow's Nest Villa. Two more homes are under construction and will be available in December 2003. With only 52 guest rooms, the resort never has more than 116 people so it never feels crowded.

Most guests will spend their time on Deadman's Beach, which has a long, crescent-shaped beach as well as the casual Deadman's Beach restaurant, which serves lunch and dinner. Guests can eat in the open-air pavilion or on tables set up on the beach, so your toes can be in the sand as you dive into burgers and Carib beer. Most water-sport activities are complimentary, and guests can take their pick from sea kayaks, windsurfers and snorkeling gear. Guided snorkeling tours are also available daily.

Exterior of a beach cottage

The most secluded beach on Peter Island is the aptly named Honeymoon Beach, where only one couple is allowed at a time. The resort can also pack a picnic lunch for couples looking to spend a good portion of their day there. If Honeymoon Beach is booked, White Bay Beach is an excellent alternative. Guests must take a shuttle to the beach, and it has only four thatched roof hut umbrellas; there's a good chance that the beach will be empty or there will only be a handful of people there. When guests are ready to come back (or are getting too sunburned), the beach has a handy phone box to contact the front desk, so there's no waiting around for a shuttle.

The most formal restaurant at Peter Island is Tradewinds, and gentlemen are asked to wear long pants and collared shirts after 6:00 P.M. (While the dress code is pretty relaxed, guests should always cover up.) The food is mostly Caribbean and West Indies-inspired, so expect jerk chicken along with blackened grouper or grilled swordfish. Deadman's Beach restaurant also has a wood-burning oven, and the pizzas are excellent. Meat lovers will be pleased with the large selection of lamb and steak dishes at both restaurants.

Guests staying more than a few days should take advantage of the daily excursions, such as trips to the Baths of Virgin Gorda, which are dramatic rock formations. Mountain bikes are also available to zoom around the island, and there are also tennis courts and a spa. Golfers can sign up for trips to St. Thomas. But if you're like most visitors to Peter Island, you'll spend your days simply strolling between your room and the beach, and the biggest decision you will have to make is deciding which of the two restaurants you want to have dinner in.

Known for its fine dining and located in the region known as the sailing and yachting capital of the Caribbean, Peter Island Resort combines the sophistication and exclusivity of a private island retreat with the relaxed, understated elegance of the British Virgin Islands.  The January 2004 issue of Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report named Peter Island as the Caribbean “Hideaway of the Year” grand award winner.  With 52 rooms and suites, four villas, a full-service luxury spa, 1,300 acres of lush, untainted tropical island, five beaches, a private yacht, tennis courts, scuba diving and a staff that goes “above and beyond” to satisfy guests. Peter Island Resort has truly evolved into the idyllic “Caribbean Classic.” 

A handful of people got together and explored the possibility of an Association that would provide an opportunity for Free Enterprise in action. The Association’s first name was The American Way Association and was established as a not for profit Trade Association on April 30th, 1959 in the state of Michigan. 

The founding members were truly interested in establishing an American Way of life for themselves and their families. It cost $1.00 to join the Association in the beginning. The Association elected officers and established an address to begin pursuing products and services that would flow through the Association.

Even with a plan in place, there will be times when you are down. The plan may not be going fast enough, you may have to change more than you thought, fear may be holding you back, or the criticism of anti-heroes are getting to you. At these times you will be glad you associate with a community of other like-minded heroes. Many people do not understand that in a free enterprise system, truth and error battle it out on the market. If you are going to be an entrepreneur, you must realize that criticism is part of the profession. A hero does not fear the free transmission of ideas, because he believes in his cause and he will prove the truthfulness of his cause by his or her results. Let me quote from Ed Opitz:

“A society should have freedom of worship, press, and the academy, so that truth and error might slug it out in the forum; truth needs no authority other than itself, and error should have none…Truth needs champions willing to go to the mat for it, willing to expose entrenched error in full and free discussion, willing to expound truth attractively, until the old falsehoods finally slink away. The fact that certain ideas have, at a given time, gained ‘majority acceptance’ is only another way of saying that ‘the masses have an ideology.’ This fact tells us nothing as to the merits of the ideology the masses have accepted, by comparison with those they have rejected. Widespread public acceptance of an idea is no valid test of the idea. A philosophical judgment is not passed merely by a show of hands, pro and con. Nor is man’s intellectual stature measured by the results of a popularity poll.”

Though different books and different authors, the same point is made. If you are going to have above average results then you must do above average things. A heroic life is formed by doing heroic deeds on a consistent basis. A community of like-minded people is extremely important to the hero since the majority of people he meets have passively accepted the anti-heroic doctrine pumped into them by our socialistic educational system. He needs, for example, his local church; a community of like-minded believers who do not rely on public opinion polls to determine what they believe. The hero understands that the truth will never be disproved by error. And he understands that the reason he sees so much name-calling and slanderous attacks from anti-heroes is because their doctrine simply cannot stand on its own merit. They must make noise to distract the masses from that fact.

In the Industrial Revolution, machines were developed that changed the way people worked. Suddenly, the sunlight made no difference as to when people could work. In an agricultural society, farmers had worked from sun up to sun down. Technology changed peoples lives because machines could run at night just as well as in the daytime. Those with the vision to see what this machinery might do for them were able to take advantage of this change. They led the way, showing people how to make the transition into this new way of life. This is how these leaders prospered and became wealthy. Many others who could not or would not make this change suffered greatly for it. Some went out of business. Some lost their livelihood. Some simply never know what they had missed. Machines were here to stay, and people learned how to live with changes that had come with them.

In the Information Age, electronic communication has been developed that is once again changing the way people work. Now location makes little difference as to where people work. In an industrial society, people had to go to a factory or office to work. The Internet is changing peoples. lives because now people can function electronically no matter where they are. You can fax a letter to someone and they will receive it almost immediately. E-mail has opened the way for orders to be placed and goods to be shipped in the same day. Those with the vision to see what this method of communication might do for them will be able to take advantage of this change. They can be the ones to prosper. This is what we want to be able to do with you! We want you to lead the way with us, showing people how to make the transition into this new way of life. As we lead, we will prosper together. Electronic communication is growing every day, and we are learning how to live with the changes that come with it. This is a great opportunity for all of us!

~ Jody Victor

That belief has long been conjecture, but in recent years scientists studying the mind-body connection are finding that an optimistic outlook can improve more than just mental health.

Christopher Reeve's death this week, nine years after being paralyzed in a horseback riding accident is, to some researchers, an example of just how Reeve's positive attitude during his post-accident life surely contributed to an improved physical state.

"There is no doubt in my mind his positive attitude extended his life — probably dramatically. The fact that it didn't allow him to recover function of all limbs is besides the point," said Carol Ryff, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been studying whether or not high levels of psychological well-being benefit physical health.

"There is a science that is emerging that says a positive attitude isn't just a state of mind," she says. "It also has linkages to what's going on in the brain and in the body."

Ryff has shown that individuals with higher levels of well-being have lower cardiovascular risk, lower levels of stress hormones and lower levels of inflammation, which serves as a marker of the immune system.

Her research on positive mental states is among 44 current grants funded by the National Institutes of Health evaluating optimism. Most research in this area has focused on negative feelings, such as how stress, anxiety and depression affect physical health.

"Science in this area is at the very beginning," Ryff said. "For a long period of time, you couldn't even get funding to do research like this because there was such a preoccupation with illness and dysfunction."

Hard to measure happiness

It's clear that stressors produce abnormal changes in the immune system, said Ronald Glaser, director of Ohio State University's Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research. Glaser and his wife, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a clinical psychologist also at Ohio State, studied the mind-body connection and found that chronic stress and psychological stress can impede wounds from healing, may impair the effectiveness of vaccines and can weaken the immune system of caregivers.

Kiecolt-Glaser says there is less definitive work on the benefits of a positive outlook because clearly defined scales, such as those used for measuring depression, don't exist for studying happiness. That makes a positive attitude much more difficult to quantify.

"In laboratories, there are lots of easy ways to make people depressed or anxious for a long period of time. It's harder to make people happy," she says. "The whole distress, anxiety, depression part matters more, from everything we know, than positive emotions. It's not as easy to see a positive effect."

The scientific recognition of a mind-body connection in health is gathering steam. Once the purview of new-age books that claim to show the path to healing, the evidence is in the rise in clinical trials: The NIH last year funded $143 million of mind-body research, with estimates of $149 million for 2004 and $153 million for 2005.

"Mind-body medicine is now scientifically proven," says Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who is considered a pioneer in the field. "There are literally thousands of articles on how the mind and brain affect the body."

Benson, author of 10 books, is founding president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston, a non-profit organization devoted to studying interactions between mind and body. He says Reeve's focus on improving the plight of others with disabilities, like Michael J. Fox's work with Parkinson's disease, in some ways may help them personally more than they realize.

"When a person can focus on something other than illness, it allows the body to take advantage of our own healing capacity," says Benson. "Hope in something beyond the illness and dedicating oneself to cures for the illness" rather than dwelling on oneself and one's illness "gives purpose to life," and helps prevent the negative effects of stress while medical science does its work.

Feel-good alternatives

Medical science also is taking note of alternative medicine. Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo., has worked with the Reeve Paralysis Foundation to benefit those with spinal cord injuries. Terry Chase, the hospital's coordinator of patient and family education, has been confined to a wheelchair since being hit by a drunken driver while riding her bicycle 16 years ago. She says the hospital's alternative medicine program provides acupuncture, massage and aromatherapy to help patients feel better and stay positive.

She says they do "whatever we can to put people in a better place for their own healing — whatever healing they're going to have," she said. "We can't say it will cure them, but it may help them feel better and be more relaxed."

Perhaps one of the most vocal advocates for the power of a positive attitude is Bernie Siegel, a surgeon, author and motivational speaker known for such books as Love, Medicine & Miracles and Peace, Love & Healing.

"When people are willing to make an effort to cure what's incurable, I'll work with them," he says. "What goes on in your head affects your body."

But the message of well-intentioned morale-boosters such as Siegel sometimes is misunderstood by those who expect too much from the power of the mind and mistakenly think positive thoughts will bring about miraculous physical healing.

Ryff says people need to think not in terms of a cure, but of a better life.

"It's putting an impossible burden on the power of positive thinking to say in all cases, if this stuff really works, people should be cured. The right way to think is that this positive attitude orientation can actually keep life worth living and can possibly extend the period of life you have," she says. "It won't make the disease go away."

Forrester Research & Shop.org team together each year to create "The State of Retailing Online," which predicts the growth of several online categories. Here's how much the top three online categories are expected to grow this year:

Health & Beauty: 61 percent
Apparel: 42 percent
Flowers, cards, etc.: 41 percent

"This isn't really news to us," says Dexter Yager. "We've always known that health & beauty would explode online. The trends prove we've always been on the right track and that we're about to see a lot of rapid growth in the business."

 

"What if you took 3 of the biggest business movements in history—franchising, discount buying clubs, and the Internet¾ and combined them to create one brand new business model? Would that be powerful? Yeah, it’d be absolutely powerful! So what if we expanded this concept to include full stores—not just a few products, but entire stores? What if we then turned that into a virtual franchise opportunity and stuck the whole thing online? Would that be powerful? Yeah, it’d be powerful! What would we call it? Interactive Commerce. We’re so excited because we’ve taken the best of the past and combined it to create the best of the future"

- Chuck Goetschel