Sustained Greatness, Foxborough-Style
Yes I still love Coach Belichick and no I don't think I'll ever stop talking about him
I cracked open the Wall Street Journal recently with the intention of lingering over the sports section and found Bill Belichick dispensing cool, telescopic wisdom in “How to Win Six Super Bowls? Don’t Relax After the First One.” His message is as cold as a January wind in Foxborough: success is fragile, maintained only by relentless self‑scouting and a willingness to cut yesterday’s heroes if they won’t win tomorrow. I can picture the scene. Belichick in the bunker‑like film room, red laser pointer flicking at blown techniques on a play that still went for a touchdown, players shifting uncomfortably under fluorescent lights while snow swirls outside Gillette. The confetti hasn’t even been vacuumed from the turf, and already the staff is splicing tape as if they’d finished 5‑12.
To level set, while closing a transformational PE deal is nothing like hoisting the Lombardi, it sure as hell can feel like it. Congratulatory emails flow like champagne, confetti flies (usually in spreadsheet form), and lunch suddenly involves real plates. That glow is seductive… and perilous. The temptation to coast for the next quarter is real. The coach insists that post‑win vigilance must exceed pre‑win intensity in part due to the well-known psychological phenomenon of loss aversion: we hate giving back gains more than we love new upside, so we subconsciously downshift once we think we’re “safe.” The marginal value of scrutiny is actually highest the moment after a victory, precisely when our brains plead for a nap.
Belichick’s workaround is brutal candor. Every February he audits not just mistakes but lucky breaks, probing which calls succeeded for the wrong reasons. Translate that to your most recent portco exit: the instant the DocuSign ink dries, schedule a retro that deconstructs diligence models, haircuts the hero cases, and surfaces any fluky tailwinds masquerading as genius. Then, like cutting a beloved but declining veteran, retire habits that snagged the win yet won’t travel to the next cycle.
That said, I’d be lying if I claimed the rinse‑and‑repeat intensity comes without a personal tax. In the final weeks of a hairy transaction I’ve been known to slip into conference‑room‑diet mode (too much DoorDash, too little sleep, the Peloton gathering dust…) until the mirror starts whispering that excellence is exacting interest. I keep reminders on my phone to try to keep on top of healthy habits, but the reality is messier. Some closings still leave me ten pounds heavier and two steps slower. I’m learning that pressing pause long enough to grill a decent meal, walk the dog, or just applaud the crew says more about maintaining the engine than taking the foot off the gas.
The essay jolted loose an older reel, too. When I was in middle school my dad allowed (encouraged) “big‑game summits” any time the Pats hit prime time. We’d pile into the living room, tear through trays of wings and that legendary onion‑soup‑mix dip scooped with Ruffles sturdy enough to anchor a goal‑line stand, then bolt outside to play tag football under the porch light until commercials ended. The ritual felt weighty because we repeated it, refined it, owned it (I like to tell myself we were just like the Patriots drilling situational football into muscle memory).
Coach Bill says each season is solved first in the classroom, long before kickoff. Our classroom is the post‑close offseason: integration playbooks, org‑chart realignment, purchase‑price allocation footers, data‑migration sprints in the VDR. Skip that and the next quarter’s performance exposes the soft underbelly. Embrace it and you raise the floor for the next drive. I think the trick is making those unsexy reps feel as inevitable as July conditioning tests in Foxborough.
So, I’ve pinned the article as a season‑opening memo: applaud the deal, pocket the confetti, and get back to practice. The scoreboard resets to 0‑0 tomorrow morning, and somewhere a hungry competitor is studying tape. Besides, there will be time for wings and backyard football when we’re six trophies in. And even then, Coach would probably ask why we stopped at six.