How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person and fostering deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain
As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”
And yet all around are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing essential questions: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?
Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.
The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them and, in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.
As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”
And yet all around are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing essential questions: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?
Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.
The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them and, in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.
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Community Reviews
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What’s it about?
David Brooks has written this book to help us see others more fully. He highlights many aspects of relationships (including the importance of empathy- and the lack of it these days). He gives concrete examples of behavior that will uplift your life.
What did it make me think about?
I heard years ago, “If you are formulating your response while the person across from you is still speaking- then you are not actually listening.” That statement stays with me (and hopefully makes me a better listener- some of the time) and ideas from this book will also stay with me.
Should I read it?
So who doesn’t want to become a better listener, friend, partner? This book challenges you to become a finer version of yourself. I think what struck me is how differently we each perceive the world. “A person is a point of view. Every person you meet is a creative artist who takes the events of life and, over time, creates a very personal way of seeing the world. Like an artist, each person takes the experiences of a lifetime and integrates them into a complex representation of the world. That representation, the subjective consciousness that makes you you, integrates your memories, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, traumas, loves, fears, desires, and goals into your own distinct way of seeing. That representation helps you interpret all the ambiguous data your senses pick up, helps you predict what’s going to happen, helps you discern what really matters in a situation, helps you decide how to feel about any situation, helps shape what you want, who you love, what you admire, who you are, and what you should be doing at any given moment. Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness, excitement , tedium, friends, and enemies, and you live within this construction, People don’t see the world with their eyes; they see it with their entire life.”
Like many of us I have SO many rough edges to work on. This book certainly helped clarify some ways I can grow. It was also interesting to look back and see how your early life influences the person you become. Now, I just need to take all this information and incorporate it into my relationships.
Quote-
“Being open-hearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind, and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills. We talk about the importance of ‘relationships’, ‘community’, ‘friendship’, ‘social connection’, but these words are too abstract. The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”
What’s it about?
David Brooks has written this book to help us see others more fully. He highlights many aspects of relationships (including the importance of empathy- and the lack of it these days). He gives concrete examples of behavior that will uplift your life.
What did it make me think about?
I heard years ago, “If you are formulating your response while the person across from you is still speaking- then you are not actually listening.” That statement stays with me (and hopefully makes me a better listener- some of the time) and ideas from this book will also stay with me.
Should I read it?
So who doesn’t want to become a better listener, friend, partner? This book challenges you to become a finer version of yourself. I think what struck me is how differently we each perceive the world. “A person is a point of view. Every person you meet is a creative artist who takes the events of life and, over time, creates a very personal way of seeing the world. Like an artist, each person takes the experiences of a lifetime and integrates them into a complex representation of the world. That representation, the subjective consciousness that makes you you, integrates your memories, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, traumas, loves, fears, desires, and goals into your own distinct way of seeing. That representation helps you interpret all the ambiguous data your senses pick up, helps you predict what’s going to happen, helps you discern what really matters in a situation, helps you decide how to feel about any situation, helps shape what you want, who you love, what you admire, who you are, and what you should be doing at any given moment. Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness, excitement , tedium, friends, and enemies, and you live within this construction, People don’t see the world with their eyes; they see it with their entire life.”
Like many of us I have SO many rough edges to work on. This book certainly helped clarify some ways I can grow. It was also interesting to look back and see how your early life influences the person you become. Now, I just need to take all this information and incorporate it into my relationships.
Quote-
“Being open-hearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind, and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills. We talk about the importance of ‘relationships’, ‘community’, ‘friendship’, ‘social connection’, but these words are too abstract. The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”
David Brooks beautifully weaves together various stories, which caused an unexpected emotional response in me. I was drawn to this book because I'm consistently trying to improve my relationships and my approach to effective communication. He does a great job fleshing out what lies beneath, what really shapes a person, and brings to light the best type of questioning to broach to know a person and all their complexities. The content was intriguing, but the constant quotes and references left me feeling like I was reading an article or a combination of great work. Reading this book in its entirety, this being my second attempt, I couldn't help but be distracted by the numerous interjections. It's so frequent that it pulled me out and mixed me up.
Brooks addresses a poignant and relevant topic; however, his perspective often comes across as pretentious and laden with exclusive language. While his lived experiences and journey toward self-actualization and empathy are commendable, the guidance he offers to readers feels cursory and performative.
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