February 4, 2008 - Volume 3, #11

Good Morning:
I've gotten a bunch of messages over the last 12 hours wondering if I was OK. First of all, thanks to everyone for their concern. We had about 50 people at Chez Incite last night to watch the game and it was quite festive. Tom Petty did a great job in the halftime show, although most of the commercials just sucked. I was thinking $3 million for that piece of crap...

I thought cleaning the carpet from all of the cake and wing residue was tough, but I had no idea how hard it would be to clean up my exploding head. Blood and gray matter everywhere, all because of a short pass to the left corner of the end zone.

The Giants shocked the world last night. I couldn't be happier, although I do feel for the Pats fans. Not too much because they can be a fairly arrogant crowd, but they've earned that arrogance. I'm just happy for Eli Manning, Strahan and the rest of the G-men. I even like Tom Coughlin now. Winning the big game will do that.

I don't have time for a full Incite this AM (another day, another airport), but I did want to address something I saw in the Pats and something that we need to avoid as security practitioners.

Overconfidence.

Tom Brady's comments after the game were very telling: "It is extremely disappointing. This isn't something any of us prepared for."  They didn't think they could lose. They really didn't and that was the problem. The Pats have done just enough to win a number of times this year, as have the Giants. But on any given Sunday, any team can be any other, especially on the biggest stage in sports.

Overconfidence will get you killed. There are a lot of very talented professionals out there in all fields. And they all think they can't be beaten or had or even make a mistake. They are wrong. This was just a game, so no one really got hurt - except a lot of bruised Patriot egos.

But in other walks of life, when you are overconfident - people die. The soldiers on the battlefield. Doctors and other health care professionals. Law enforcement. There is no room for arrogance in those practices. I'd also urge security practitioners to not be lulled into a sense of complacency or overconfidence. If you've got things under control today, take pride in that. Just don't think it'll stay that way tomorrow.

The bad guys are good and they just need to be right once. They just have to find that once seam in your defenses, and Plaxico goes in for the deciding 7. Go in every day and do the right stuff. Don't take anything for granted because there is always someone bigger, stronger, and hungrier waiting to hold up their version of the Lombardi trophy in a ticker-tape parade.

And that's all I have to say about that. 

Have a great day.

 Super_Bowl_XL picture originally uploaded by Dave And Thomas

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