Why We Give Friends Better Advice
Your best friend is sitting across from you, sipping a coffee. They’re stuck. They have a difficult decision to make, and don’t know what to do.
So they ask you for advice.
What do you do?
Most likely, you’ve been waiting for them to ask. You’ve got all kinds of opinions to share. You’ve probably already started scripting a response in the back of your head!
Now flip it around:
Imagine yourself facing a difficult leadership decision. Maybe it’s whether to let a long-tenured but underperforming team member go. Or whether to push back on a direction coming from above that you think is wrong.
You don’t make an instant judgment.
Instead, you circle it for weeks. Waiting, weighing options, going back and forth..
Why is it so much harder?
Emotional Stakes: The Often-Overlooked Decision Factor
When it comes to our friends, we’re happy to share, “Well this is what I would do…”
But when it’s our own decision, we tend to drown in it. The emotional stakes become personal. Fear of being wrong, concern about how others will judge us, loyalty, ego—they all create noise that drowns out our own judgment.
Ironically, the more we care about getting it right, the worse our thinking can get.
Igor Grossmann, a psychologist at the Wisdom and Culture Lab at the University of Waterloo, has spent years studying what he calls wise reasoning—the ability to think with perspective, humility, and an awareness of complexity.
In a landmark 2014 study with co-author Ethan Kross, Grossmann demonstrated a universal truth: We are consistently better at reasoning clearly about other people’s problems than our own. We give friends better advice than we give ourselves.
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s a well-documented feature of human cognition.
Solomon’s Paradox: Understanding the Proximity Bias
So why do we show greater wisdom when thinking about other peoples’ dilemmas?
When the problem isn’t about us, we have a greater emotional distance from the problem.
This emotional distance isn’t a weakness—it’s what allows clearer thinking. Grossman and Kross named this Solomon’s Paradox, after the biblical king renowned for his wisdom in judging others’ disputes while making famously poor decisions in his own life.
Emotional proximity can cloud your judgment regardless of age or experience. In fact, the study found no difference in wise reasoning between adults aged 20-40 and those aged 60-80.
Seniority doesn’t grant immunity from this bias. The judgment you’ve accumulated over a career doesn’t automatically kick in when the stakes are personal.
Everyone is affected by the proximity bias.
Putting It Into Practice: The Advisor Reframe
The implication of Grossman and Koss’s study is significant: The wisdom you’re looking for isn’t missing. It’s just being blocked by proximity.
One of the best ways to recognize this bias is through a simple self-distancing technique.
When you’re stuck on a decision, pause and reframe the question:
“What would I tell a trusted friend or colleague to do if they came to me with this exact situation?”
Then actually answer that question as if advising someone else. Speak it out loud or write it down. Externalization matters. Notice what advice comes naturally when you remove yourself as the subject.
Ask yourself:
- What feels obvious when it’s “their” problem that felt impossible when it was yours?
- What values or principles came through clearly in your advice?
- Where did the emotional static go?
For deeper decisions, some leaders find it useful to name the “friend” and imagine a specific peer or former mentor as the person seeking advice. This makes the reframe more concrete and the advice more specific.
This technique helps you emotionally distance from the problem. But it also helps us sidestep several of the biases we discussed in part 2 of this series, making it doubly effective.
Good judgment isn’t always about gathering more information or thinking harder. Sometimes it’s about changing your vantage point and proximity. The Advisor Reframe is a way to access wisdom you already have—by getting out of your own way long enough to hear it.
P.S. This post is Part 3 in a series on decision-making. If you’re new to the series, click here to read Part 1.