Some Super Bowl, eh? A real rarity - the game was better than the commercials. What can we take away from Super Bowl XLII to help us in the business world?

1. Experts can be wrong. Basing decisions on facts and statistics and accepted theories usually works, but not always. There’s no such thing as a sure thing. That’s why in business just as in sports …

2. What counts is what you believe you can do. Remember in Rocky, when Apollo Creed’s trainer is watching Rocky on TV pounding his fists into a slab of swinging meat? The trainer gets worried because he realizes that Rocky means business. The Giants meant business, too. They didn’t think they were attending a coronation - they thought they were playing a football game. When you believe in yourself and your team, you can do anything.

4. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Sure, the Giants caught a break when Eli Manning eluded about seven Patriot rushers and completed an impossible pass to a receiver covered by the other four defenders, but it was desire and hard work that put the Giants in a position to make the play.

5. Play the whole game. Reps usually don’t lose sales because a prospect says no. They lose sales because they don’t hang in there long enough to get a yes. When the Patriots took the lead with minutes left in the game, the Giants could have accepted their fate - after all, the Patriots were unbeatable, right? Wrong.