Everywhere you look... LinkedIn posts, family Whatsapp groups, business case studies... people are obsessed with outcomes.

The CEO whose company tanks? Failure.  

The lottery guy who scratched the right card? Genius.

We don’t even blink before passing judgment. Because deep down, we’ve internalized a lazy formula: 

good result = good decision, bad result = bad decision.  

Poker players, though, have a more brutal word for this error in thinking: "Resulting".

Think of Dinesh Karthik in the 2018 Nidahas Trophy final. Last ball, 5 runs needed. He goes for the six. Crowd loses it. He’s a hero.  

But imagine for a second if he mistimed it, got caught at the boundary. The same shot would’ve been called reckless, irresponsible, “worst decision of his career.”

That’s "resulting" in action. Same decision, same logic, same probability... just a different roll of the dice and same decision goes from brilliant to reckless.

This is the paradox: in a world run by chance, your process can be flawless, and your outcome still trash. Or you can make a garbage call... like driving drunk and get home safe. Luck bails you out. Skill deserts you. And your friends, your bosses, your brain? They’ll judge only the scoreboard.

Why? Because our brains were built for jungles, not stock markets. System 1 : the fast, intuitive autopilot... loves simple patterns. It hates uncertainty. System 2 : the slow, rational one... is like that one overworked intern who gets ignored at meetings. 

That’s why hindsight bias feels so sweet. “I knew this would happen.” No, you didn’t. But your brain can’t stand living in maybe, so it rewrites the past into "obvious".

The problem isn’t just inside us. Biases stack up like Jenga blocks:  

• Self-serving bias: when you win, it’s skill. When you lose, it’s bad luck.  

• Judgment bias: when they win, it’s luck. When they lose, it’s because they're.  

• Black-and-white bias: decisions must be 100% right or 100% wrong... no messy middle allowed.

Life isn’t chess. Chess is clean, visible, skill-heavy. Life is poker... messy, hidden, and unfair. A poker pro still loses 40% of the time despite being “better.” Imagine telling Virat Kohli he’s world-class while reminding him he’ll fail 4 out of 10 times by design. 

That’s how probability plays.

So what do you do? You shift the frame.  

Stop asking: “Did I get it right?”  

Start asking: “Was my process sound, given what I knew?”

That means speaking in probabilities.  

Not “I know this will work.”  

But “I’m 70% confident this works.”

That language alone protects you from the tyranny of outcomes. It builds what is known as "outcome-independence" the ability to judge yourself on process, not scorecards. It’s not detachment; it’s wisdom.

And here’s the magic part: it makes space for compassion. For yourself, when things crash despite your best thinking. And for others, when their “failure” hides thoughtful decisions buried under bad luck.

Because in the long game, it’s not about whether you win every hand. Nobody does. It’s about whether you’re playing hands in a way that tilts the odds... slowly, painfully, imperfectly... towards you.

Outcomes are noisy. Processes are teachable.  

And if you can separate the two, you stop being a puppet of chance and start becoming its choreographer.

Tell me... are you judging yourself by the outcome of one hand, or by the way you’re playing the whole game?