O · Dossier step: Outside view
Think about yourself in the third person
Most people give better advice to a friend than they give themselves. Owners can use that on purpose.
Why it works
When a problem is yours, your fear, pride and money are all in the room. Psychologists call the fix self-distancing: looking at your own situation as if it belonged to someone else. Research by Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross found that people reasoned more wisely about a friend's problem than their own, and that the gap shrank when people described their own problem in the third person.
You are not pretending to be someone else. You are moving your viewpoint far enough back that the full picture fits in frame.
Four ways to step outside
- Use your own name. Instead of "What should I do?", ask "What should Sebastian do?" Write it that way in your notes.
- The new owner test. In 1985 Intel's leaders, Andy Grove and Gordon Moore, asked what a new CEO would do if the board replaced them. The answer was to leave the memory chip business, and they did it. Ask: if someone bought my company tomorrow, what would they change first?
- The friend test. If a friend described this exact situation to you, what would you tell them? Say it out loud.
- The time test. How will this look in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years? Short-term discomfort often shrinks a lot from far away.
What it is not
Stepping outside does not mean ignoring your feelings. Your gut is evidence, so log it like any other clue. The point is that it becomes one clue on the board instead of the judge.
Where this fits in the Dossier
This is step O of the Dossier Method. It pairs third-person thinking with a base-rate check: how do decisions like yours usually turn out for other businesses? Your dossier records one sentence of each.
Take it further: be your own consultant
Third-person thinking works best as a regular habit. Be Your Own Consultant turns it into a monthly routine: advise your business in the third person, then decide and act on it in the first.
Go deeperCase file, step-by-step how-to, common mistakes and questions to work through
Case file: The partner who wasn't pulling his weight
A fictional example
Priya co-owns a bakery and café with her college friend Sam. For a year, Priya has opened at 5 a.m. six days a week while Sam comes in around ten, handles "marketing" and leaves early. Every time Priya thinks about raising it, she feels guilty. Sam put in half the money, he's going through a divorce, and they've been friends for fifteen years. So she says nothing, works harder and grows more resentful.
At a mentor's suggestion, she wrote the situation down in the third person:
"Priya and Sam each own 50% of the bakery. Priya works about 60 hours a week, including every opening shift. Sam works about 25. Both take the same pay. Priya has not told Sam how she feels. Sales have been flat for eight months, and Priya is exhausted."
Reading it back, the answer looked obvious in a way it hadn't from the inside. "If a friend told me this," she said, "I'd tell her to have the conversation this week and to bring numbers, not feelings."
She then ran the new owner test: "If an investor bought Sam's half tomorrow, what would they change?" The answer: they'd tie pay to hours or roles, and they'd want someone clearly responsible for sales growth, since that was supposed to be Sam's job.
Finally the time test. In ten minutes, the conversation would feel awful. In ten months, she'd be glad it happened, whatever the result. In ten years, she might not even have a bakery if she burned out.
Priya met Sam with a one-page summary: hours worked, pay, and three options. They could split pay by hours, Sam could take clear ownership of growing catering sales with a target, or one could buy out the other. Sam was quiet, then relieved. He'd known, and he'd been avoiding it too. They chose the second option with a 90-day review. What changed wasn't Priya's courage. It was her vantage point.
How to step outside yourself, step by step
- Write the situation in the third person, using your name. Stick to facts: who, what, how long, what it costs. Leave out adjectives like "unfair" or "lazy."
- Read it out loud. Hearing it is different from thinking it. Notice what jumps out.
- Answer three questions in writing: What would I tell a friend? What would a new owner do? How will this look in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years?
- Separate the feeling from the fact. Write your strongest feeling about the situation on its own line. It's real and it's evidence, but now you can see it instead of being inside it.
- Pick the action the outsider would take, and write the first step with a date.
Instead of "What should I do?", ask out loud: "What should [your name] do here, and what is [your name] avoiding?" It feels strange at first. That's the point.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Writing the third-person version full of your feelings and judgments | Rewrite it like a news reporter would: facts, numbers and dates only. |
| Using distance to avoid feeling anything at all | The goal is a clearer view, not a colder heart. Note the feeling, then decide. |
| Doing the exercise only in your head | Write it. Thoughts loop, but written words sit still long enough to examine. |
| Stopping at insight without taking action | End every session with one first step and a date. See Be Your Own Consultant. |
Questions to work through
- What problem in your business have you been "thinking about" for more than a month? Write it in the third person now.
- What advice have you given someone else recently that you haven't taken yourself?
- If you were replaced tomorrow, what would your replacement change first, and why haven't you?
- Which relationship at work is hardest to see clearly because you're too close to it?
- When is your gut usually right, and when has it misled you?