Of Learned Pigs, Fireproof Women & One Psychic Octopus Called Paul

Ricky Jay is an accomplished actor, author, and sleight-of-hand magician. You may recognize him as Gupta in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Die.

Jay, who is an expert card thrower and magic historian, wrote several books including ‘Cards As Weapons’ and ‘Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women’. He also wrote ‘Jay's Journal of Anomalies: Conjurers, Cheats, Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters, Imposters, Pretenders, Side-Show Showmen, Armless Calligraphers, Mechanical Marvels, Popular Entertainments’. Jay is seriously passionate about these pointlessly talented, almost forgotten, entertainers in history over the last two centuries. The facts he includes may be anecdotal (from playbills and posters), yet if Jay did not write about these people, we would not have known about them. His action of writing the books and having them published, led to our knowledge about these people.

So, the psychic octopus Paul predicted that Spain would win, and he was spot on! How did he do it? Pure fluke? Statistical odds? Probability? It is, after, all either/or: Fifty, fifty. Or, was it weighted in favour of one prediction over the other?

I just watched the film ‘21’ (with the talented but straight-faced, actor Kevin Spacy) that is about card-counting students from MIT taking on Las Vegas casinos. Their actions are not without consequences, as there are rules for playing with money in that town. Their system of gambling is based on cheating the system, so as to gain advantage play (in gambling parlance) over the house. The house, eventually, wins and ‘things are not what they seem to be’.

As leaders, it is relevant that we explore systems thinking - one of five pillars proposed by Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline. Systems thinking allow us to access our predictions. When you determine the connections, implication and relationships between things then we can extrapolate possibilities. When you use cause and effect, we can attribute a nexus between action and result. Decision-making, whether via a decision-making tree or algorithm, determines your outcome. There is systemic impact for our actions and inactions. When Shakespeare wrote in his case study, Hamlet 'To be, or not be - that is the question' he may have alluded to systems.

I watched the first half of the World Cup Final, and decided that it would head nowhere until later this morning. Spain won at extra time. I know a few of my friends will cash in on their bets today. Good on them. I wonder how they made their accurate prediction? By influence, intuition or through their own systemic thinking…


*6th in my age group, and 26th overall at yesterday's Tri-Factor RUN. My run splits were fading. Note to self: pace and be patient.