A magical search for a coincidence

I'd like to start my performance by saying

90 percent of everything is crap.

It's called Sturgeon law
and what that means

is that the majority of anything
is always bad.

I have a giraffe here.

I'm going to throw the giraffe
behind my back

and whoever catches it is going
to help me with this next thing.

Sir, you caught the giraffe.

I have a playing card in my hand.

Freely name any card in the deck.

Audience member: 10 of hearts.

Helder: 10 of hearts.

You could have named any card
in the deck,

but you said the 10 of hearts.

90 percent of everything is crap,

so there's this to prove that
Sturgeon was correct.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Sir, this is not your show.

(Laughter)

Keep the giraffe for a moment, okay?

Jesus.

Crazy people.

Well, the truth is,

why is the majority of everything bad?

And my answer is: I think we stop
thinking too soon.

I'll give you a clear little example,

something that people used to do
around the turn of the century.

This--not this century, the other one--

the idea was to take a piece of paper
and fold it inside out

using only your weaker hand,

in my case, the left hand.

Something that would look like this.

By the way you reacted, I can see
your lack of interest.

(Laughter)

But that's okay, I understand why.

We stop thinking too soon.

But if we give it a little bit more thought,

like a paper clip.

A paper clip makes this a little bit
more interesting.

Not only that, if instead of using
my hand with the fingers,

I use my hand closed into a fist,

that makes this just a little
bit more interesting.

Not only that, but I will impose myself
a time limit of one second,

something that would look like this.

Now -- no, no, no.

Sturgeon may be correct.

But he doesn't have to be correct forever.

Things can always change.

Sir, what was the card?

The 10 of hearts?

There's this to prove that things
can always change--

the 10 of hearts.

(Applause)

Secrets are important.

And secrets are valuable.

And this is the best secret
I've ever experienced.

It starts with a deck of cards
onto the table,

an old man a the claim,

"I will not touch the deck till the end."

It doesn't matter who the man was,

all that matters was that sentence
ringing in my head,

"I will not touch that deck till the end."

Now during all this time,

he was holding a small notebook

that sometimes you'd open
and flip through the pages

and look at something.

But I was not really paying attention
to the book

because I was paying attention to
deck and the claim he had made before,

"I will not touch the deck till the end."

Now, Sir, you have the giraffe.

Go ahead, throw it in any direction
so that you can find someone else at random.

Perfect, Sir, you're going to play
my role in this story.

The old man turned to me and he said,

"pick a red card or a black card."

My answer was,

Audience member: the black card.

Helder: Indeed!

It was a black card.

He said, "It could be a club or a spade."

Audience member: Spade.

Helder: Indeed! It was a spade.

He said, "It could be a high spade
or a low spade."

And my answer was,

Audience member: a high spade.

Helder: Indeed! It was a high spade.

Since it's a high spade, it could be a nine,
a jack, king, queen, or the ace of spades.

And my answer was,

Audience member: king.

Hedler: The king of spades, indeed.

Now sir, let's be fair.

You selected a black, you selected spades,

you selected the high spade,

and you selected, what, sorry?

Audience member: king.

Hedler: King of spades.

Did you feel I influenced you in any decision?

Audience member: No, I just felt your energy.

Hedler: No, but it was a free choice, correct?

Because if not, we could start all over again.

But it was really fair?

Audience member: Oh, absolutely.

Hedler: Now, the old man turned to me

and he asked me one more question,

"a number between 1 and 52."

And the first number I thought of was,

Audience member: 17.

Hedler: Indeed! It was the 17.

The old man only said one more thing,

"this is the end."

And I knew exactly what that meant.

I knew that he was going to touch the deck.

Everything that you're about to see
is exactly as it looked.

He took the deck out of the box.

Nothing in the box.

He counted, "one, two, three four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

The tension was building.

(Laughter)

"...11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17."

And on the seventeenth, instead of
the king of spades,

something appeared in the middle of the deck,

that later I would realize
was actually a secret.

The old man stood up, he left.

I never saw him again.

But he left his notebook,

that was there from the beginning.

And when I picked it up,

that was the best secret I've ever experienced.

We are defined by the secrets we keep

and by the secrets we share.

And this was his way of sharing his
secret with me.

(Applause)

Crazy shit!

Now, I believe that amazing things
happen all the time.

I really do.

And the reason why we don't see
them as often,

it's because we don't place ourselves
in a position

to search for those amazing things.

But what if we decided to search
for those amazing things?

For those small coincidence in life
that are truly amazing.

So you have the giraffe,

go ahead, throw it in any direction

so you find one last person at random.

Sir, I'm going to ask you,

do you have, with you, a United States
one dollar bill?

Audience member: I think so.

Hedler: Yes, you see? A coincidence.

(Laughter)

Let's make sure you have it.

Do you have it?

Audience member: Yes.

Hedler: Yes? Perfect!

Now, I want you to do the exact same
thing I am about to do,

I have a dollar bill here to explain.

I want you to take the dollar bill,

and fold the Washington part inside, like this.

So you get this kind of big square, okay?

Now I want you to take the bill
and fold it like this, lengthwise.

So it becomes like a rectangle,

and then again--really fold it, really crease it--

and when you have it, please fold
the bill again

into a little square like this

and let me know when you have it.

Do you have it? Perfect.

Now, I'm going to approach,

and before we start,

I want to make sure that we do this

in very, very serious conditions.

First of all, I want to ensure that we
have a marker, we have a paper clip.

First of all, take the marker

and go ahead and sign the bill.

And this is the reason why:

later, I'm going to be doing a bunch
of stuff on stage.

I don't want you to think,

"Oh, while I was distracted by Hedler,

someone came on stage and swapped the bill.

So I want to make sure it's exactly
the same bill.

Now not only that,

I want you to take the paper clip

and put it around the bill.

Even if no one comes onstage
and switches the bill,

I don't have the time to come open
the bill and close it

and see what I don't want to see.

Is that Fair?

Now you can give me the marker back,

and just like that, very clearly,

I want to make sure that we place this

in full view, from the beginning of this experience

and to make sure that everyone
is going to see it,

we're going to actually have
a camera man onstage.

Yes, so you can see--that's your signature?

Yes?

Now, we're going to use also a deck
and a glass for this.

And we're going to put ourselves
in a position

to search for an amazing coincidence.

Do you mind, can you help me with this?

Go ahead and take some cards and shuffle.

Go ahead, take some cards and shuffle.

And do you mind, can you
take some cards and shuffle?

Go ahead, take some cards and shuffle.

You can take some cards and shuffle.

Go ahead take some cards--

You can shuffle cards in a variety of ways.

You can shuffle cards like this.

You can shuffle cards
in a more messed up way,

something like this.

You can shuffle cards in the American way.

As a Portuguese, I don't feel entitled
to teach you guys how to do it.

But the important part is after shuffling the cards,

always remember to cut and
complete the cards.

Do you mind doing that for me?

Please cut and complete.

And when you have it,

place the cards up in the air.

And you too, cut and complete
and up in the air.

Up in the air.

Up in the air.

Up in the air.

A deck of cards cut and shuffled by

one, two, three, and four and five people.

Very clearly, I'm going to gather the deck togeher.

And just like that.

I'm going to search for a coincidence
in front of everyone.

I'm going to try.

I have some cards that maybe, maybe
they don't mean anything.

But maybe that's because we are
not paying close attention.

Because maybe, maybe they mean a lot.