Think about yourself in the third person

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.