Super Bowl Excitement???

I didn't see much of the game as I was at a meeting with franchisees from Window Genie getting ready for their Regional Meeting on Monday. One of the guys in our group was a die-hard Patriot fan and kept asking us why we weren't cheering more.

The answer: We couldn't hear the commercials. The NFL 100 year season commercial would have been my favorite. I finally had a chance to watch it today. Any commercial with all of the football players from my era had to be good. Dick Butkus, Jim Brown, Terry Bradshaw and Franco Harris still look great.

My weeks preceding the game and week following the game were my personal Super Bowl of the year.

I had a chance to spend time at Mosquito Joe - one of Neighborly companies a few days before the game. Their President, Lou, was a Navy flyer for 27 years flying F-14 Tomcats and F-16s. He showed me a video of a pilot flying between two aircraft carriers - flying the height of the deck. When I asked him fast the jet was going he said "almost 1,000 mph". Later I learned he flew Tomcats over 1,500 mph. When I asked him if he was ever scared he responded, "Never. I always trusted my team."

LESSON # ONE for the week: Trust your team. We are all in situations as Leaders where we have a team depending on us. Lou reminded me that the converse is also true - we need to depend on our teams.

Lou has a great saying that he often says and it is Lesson #2. "Be Brilliant with Basics." As Leaders we often say success is all about the "blocking and tackling". In other words, the basics. Lou takes this a step further reminding his team to be brilliant at it. I'm stealing that line!

Earlier this week I followed up my trip to see Mosquito Joe in Virginia Beach with a trip to Philadelphia for Window Genie's Regional Meeting. Franchisees from the Northeast gathered together in the city of brotherly love realizing that there was much more love in Philly when the Eagles won the Super Bowl just one year before. Our Regional meeting started on February 4th and it was February 4, 2018 when their Eagles beat the Patriots 41-33.

Rik is the President and Founder of Window Genie. This is his 25th year. In November of 2016 Neighborly, then Dwyer Group, purchased the Window Genie brand. Rik stayed on as President - which has been a blessing to franchisees and to us!

I asked Rik if he ever second-guessed his decision to start his own company. He told me that he did on the very first day he started it. Since then he never looked back. When he started the business in Cincinnati, at age 29 with zero experience, he did so knowing that there were already 45 residential window cleaning companies., He would be #46.

Lesson #Three. Once you make a commitment - remember it is a commitment! This has not been the case in recent years. In my opinion it has been too easy to get out of situations as we've seen with the housing market and also with businesses. If it gets difficult people "just give the keys back to the bank". Rik is just the opposite. It is because of this commitment that Rik and Window Genie are nearing their 150th location.

Back to the Super Bowl for a moments for Lesson #4.

In 1996 Bill Belichick was fired by the Cleveland Browns as their head coach. Some people would let something like that defeat them. Not Belichick. He just won his sixth Super Bowl championship - tying him with George Halas and Curly Lambeau - both pre-Super Bowl coaches. He also has 8 Super Bowl rings - more than anyone else in history, He also won two as the Defensive Coordinator of the New York Giants.

Lesson #4 - Don't give up . . . don't ever give up. To burn this lesson into your mind watch Jim Valvano's 1993 ESPY speech on YouTube. Over 4,500,000 people have viewed that speech. Do yourself a favor and watch the speech today, then think about Belichick's record, Finally, think about today's four lessons and have an amazing 2019!