I originally was a Game Guy who thought the only variable which mattered was me when it came to my outcomes with women.

However, experience has taught me humility and to drop the ego I was so keen on protecting, despite opportunistically putting it to the side for short-term wins.

This enabled me to put things into perspective, where success and failures also rely on factors outside of oneself, no matter how much I wanted to think otherwise.

The following will help you avoid getting bogged down or becoming overly confident, so that you are not too sensitive to the Peaks and Troughs of the Game. These are the 8 lessons I learned where you have to temper down skills (micro) and look at market dynamics (macro) using financial markets as an analogy:

1. Success Often Looks Like Skill, but May Be Luck

A trader makes a fortune and thinks he is brilliant, when he may just have been lucky in the short term.

A man may think his game or his strategy is what won her over, but often factors outside of his control (her mood, timing, life circumstances, sheer chance) played a huge role.

Lesson: Don't overestimate your skill after a success or underestimate it after a rejection.

2. Survivorship Bias

We hear about the few traders who "made it", but not many who failed.

We notice the guy who confidently approaches women and gets a girlfriend, not the 10 rejections he faced before.

Lesson: Rejection is the norm, not the exception; you just don't see other people's failure.

3. Alternative Histories

A bad decision can still look good if luck intervenes, and vice versa.

You might say the "perfect line", but she just broke up with someone and isn't open - bad timing, not your fault (although sometimes, she will just want to jump on another dick to feel better about herself). Or you might say something clumsy, but she laughs because she is in a playful mood.

Lesson: Don't judge yourself purely by outcomes; judge by whether you acted with confidence and a clear vision of what you were doing, why you were doing it, and how you delivered.

4. The Problem of Induction

The Turkey thinks life is safe until Thanksgiving. Past Success does not guarantee future safety (ask Long-Term Capital Management).

A relationship may feel solid because things have gone smoothly so far, but circumstances can change fast.

Lesson: Stay humble and don't assume that what worked once will always work.

5. Biases Distort Perception

Traders see patterns in randomness and get overconfident.

You may misread signals, think rejection means you are unattractive, or believe success proves a "magic formula".

Lesson: Be aware of the narrative you tell your brain. Much is randomness, not cosmic meaning.

6. Nonlinearity of Payoffs

One Bad Bet can wipe out years of gains.

One desperate or disrespectful move can ruin reputation in a social circle, while one brave approach can lead to a life-changing encounter. Equally, getting with the wrong woman unprepared can cause you to lose the identity you have built for yourself, and once it is over, you have to start again, gaining what you lost in the process.

Lesson: Manage downside risk (appreciates consequences for what you do are not equal, so weigh them accordingly) while allowing for significant upsides (put yourself out there and increase your exposure).

7. Scepticism Toward Forecasting Experts can't predict the future.

You can't know whether she will like you until you try.

People may think they have the formula to get a 100% success rate, but no one can predict chemistry; you can only increase the chances by adopting the right attitude.

Lesson: Focus less on trying to predict outcomes, invite the chaos, but whichever way the wind blows, know that it won't affect you regardless. The less you put your ego into it, the less the variations will matter.

8. Stoic Attitude Toward Randomness

Accept Randomness, don't take success or failure too personally.

A "yes" or "no" is often not about you, but timing and chance. I look at some women that I did not entertain when my head was not in the right place, and I would entertain now. Of course, 10s would have always been welcome with a YES, but I would have still made a mess of it, because we are humans, and it is not natural that we are not emotionally consistent, no matter how much we believe the opposite.

Lesson: Build resilience. Measure success by how authentically and confidently you act, not by how many wins you rack up.

Conclusion

Just as traders should not confuse luck with genius, you should not confuse every "yes" with proof of skill, or every "no" with evidence of failure. The process is what matters more than random outcomes. That is what poker also taught me.