This week, we are joined by Caspar Berry. Caspar started out in acting aged 16 actor in BBC show Byker Grove with “Ant and Dec”. At Cambridge he had commercial success directing award-winning short films and TV commercials, then went on to write two feature films which were produced by Film Four and Columbia Tri Star before he had graduated.
Aged 26, he decided to take a risk and move to Las Vegas with his life savings in his pocket, and for next few years, became a professional poker player.
Caspar later returned to the UK to set up 21st Century Media which he later sold to Bob Geldof's Ten Alps plc. He now gives talks and mentors around the world on all his disparate experiences.
In this episode
How Caspar’s early life decisions, driven by comfort with risk, led to diverse experiences
Poker as a metaphor for decision-making processes in life and business
The complexity of assigning probabilities to actions and the challenges posed by unpredictability
Differences in risk-taking between individual and team sports
The concept of 'negative metrics': sometimes the pursuit of certain performance metrics (e.g. home runs in baseball) might lead to higher failure rates (strikeouts)
A Load of BS Events
Liam and I are hosting our inaugural business of sport and entertainment event on June 17th early evening in London.
We will be joined for discussion and drinks by Lord Ian Botham, Sir Andrew Strauss and Mo Bobat at the fabulous Patrick Mavros atelier on the Fulham Road.
If you’d like to join us…
We have a handful of seats available to podcast listeners. If you’d like to come, please email danielsjross@gmail.com with subject line: ‘A Load of BS Events RSVP’
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Till next time,
Daniel and Liam
Caspar Berry on poker's life lessons