There is a conversation that repeats itself with striking frequency among real estate directors. Someone describes a colleague's situation: the team is not producing, the director does everything, there is no prospecting system. And the rest of the group sees it with crystal clarity. The diagnosis appears within minutes. Then someone asks: "And in your own business, do you have the same problems?" Silence.
The Paradox That Has Gone Unsolved for Centuries
King Solomon is probably the historical figure most associated with wisdom. Monarchs from all over the ancient world traveled great distances to seek his counsel. His political decisions unified a kingdom and generated unprecedented prosperity. And yet his personal life was a documented disaster. Private decisions that directly contradicted the values he preached in public. It was not hypocrisy. It was something more structural and universal.
What Science Says
Psychologist Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo has spent years studying how and when humans make wise decisions. In one of his most well-known studies, he asked participants to analyze a situation of infidelity. Some imagined it was their own partner who had been unfaithful. Others imagined it was a friend's partner. The results were striking: people reasoned significantly more wisely when the problem belonged to a friend than when it was their own. Grossmann called this the Solomon's Paradox.
The explanation involves psychological distance. When the problem belongs to someone else, we analyze it from the outside — with perspective, calmly. When the problem is ours, we are inside it. And that clouds exactly the analytical capacity we most need.
How It Manifests in a Real Estate Agency
The director who has been in the industry for years has the experience and patterns to diagnose in minutes what would take someone else months to see. That same director, looking at their own business, has blind spots that have gone unresolved for years: the agent who does not produce but stays because of a personal relationship, the acquisition system that needs redesigning but never becomes a priority, the meeting that needs a different structure but always happens the same way because changing it requires an uncomfortable conversation.
If another director described that exact situation, they would know what to do in five minutes. But because it is their business, their team, their discomfort — the distance needed to see clearly is simply not available.
The Trick That Creates Artificial Distance
Psychologists call this "self-distancing" and it has a documented effect on decision quality. The question is simple: "What advice would you give a colleague in exactly your situation?" The shift in perspective appears minimal. The effect is enormous. Because by reformulating the problem as someone else's, your brain shifts from reactive mode to analytical mode: detached, rational, solution-oriented.
Why This Explains the Value of Coaching
Solomon's Paradox is the most honest explanation for why directors who grow consistently do not do so alone. Not because they are less capable, but because nobody — absolutely nobody — can maintain the psychological distance necessary to see themselves with the same clarity with which they see others. A good coaching process provides the perspective the director cannot generate for themselves. The mirror that shows what the naked eye cannot see because it is too close.
Want to work with someone who gives you the perspective you cannot give yourself? Let's talk.
