How To Know A Person
Summary from Goodreads
If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you have to be able to see them. If you are going to work closely with someone, you have to be able to make them feel recognized and valued. As David Brooks observes, "The older I get, the more I come to the certainty that there is one skill at the center of any healthy family, company, classroom, community or nation- the ability to see each other, to know other people, to make them feel valued, heard and understood."
And yet we humans don't do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us to do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us. 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, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and from the worlds of theatre, 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 towards others; it helps readers 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.
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Caddyshack Review
This is a beautiful book about human connection, drawing from philosophy, psychology, and personal anecdotes. David Brooks provides a compelling exploration of the intricacies of human character, offering practical wisdom for navigating the nuances of relationships and self-awareness.