The SEAL Method—See, Analyze, Learn

After seeing the penguins happily waddling along, we took a right turn and saw a crowd of excited kids gathered around a pool. So we went that way. Turns out, we were just in time for the seals’ training session. And what I saw during the following ten minutes was a magnificent demonstration of one of the most important concepts in game theory and economic theory.

But for you to fully understand this principle, I first have to describe what we were looking at.

A seal trainer was walking around the pool, holding a bucket. In the pool were five seals, who knew exactly what was in that bucket: juicy, delicious fish. Just for them. All they had to do was clap their flippers.

In the middle of the pool was a podium. And every time a seal would climb on the podium, the trainer would show them how to clap. She even showed them the fish, just waiting for the seals to do their thing so she could reward them.

But the seals wouldn’t clap. In fact, they couldn’t. As soon as one seal climbed up the podium, another one would jump, push it back in the water, and take its place. Now the new seal had the trainer’s full attention. But it too couldn’t clap, being too busy securing its spot on the podium. Soon enough another seal would come up, push it back in the water, and take its place.

And so it went on for a while. The seals were constantly competing for the limelight. But they were missing the point! This struggle for attention had only one outcome: no seal was clapping. And no clapping meant no fish.

Eventually, one of the seals came up with an ingenious solution to game the system. And by the end of this post, you will know how to apply the same trick in your own life. But before we get to that, let’s look at what all the other seals got wrong. And what life lessons we can learn from them.