How to Know a Person cover art

How to Know a Person

The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

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How to Know a Person

By: David Brooks
Narrated by: David Brooks
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives - from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

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 listeners become more understanding and considerate towards others; it helps listeners 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 a profoundly creative act: 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, seeking to understand and yearning to be understood.

©2023 David Brooks (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Communication & Social Skills Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Psychology & Interactions

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All stars
Most relevant
Great reading with many examples to fit the story. Really enjoyed. Great insight to empathy and how one can create it themselves.

Great knowledge I gained

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Great listening. Almost feels like a podcast. A lot of insightful information and candid stories.

Insights about research

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It made me reflect on and think deeply about my relationships and social interactions. It was helpful in a practical sense to see how I might improve my interactions and understand others better. It also made me understand better why I get irritated with some relationships and whether I’m prepared to invest in them, or not! I’ve referred to and recommended this book a lot.

Insightful and thought provoking

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I will need to listen to this book again and again as I’m sure I shall illuminate more and more of myself each time.

Thought provoking introspection.

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I couldn't fault it. Some great advice and a superb presentation. Well done, David, you really covered this subject well.

Just wonderful

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