HowToKnowAPerson
How to Know an Person (David Brooks)
- Fast read. Good in places. Some of it questionable.
- The purpose of this book is to help us to become more skilled at the art of seeing others and making them feel seen, heard, and understood.
- Trying to deeply know and understand others is not just about mastering some set of techniques; its a way of life.
- I'm hoping this book will help you adopt a different posture toward other people, a different way of being present with people, a different way of having bigger conversations.
- "Attention is a moral act: it creates, brings aspects of things into being" - Iain McGilchrist
- Awareness of the infinite dignity of each person you mean is a a precondition for seeing people well. IF you consider that each person has a soul, you will be aware that each person has some transcendent spark inside them and at the deepest levels we are all equals.
- Respect is a gift you offer with your eyes.
- The way we attend to others determines the kind of person we will become. A modern answer to an ancient problem: How do I become a better person?
- A person is a point of view.
- We should explicitly teach people, from a young age, how to be good conversationalists.
- To get a conversation rolling, find the thing the other person is most attached to.
- Closed questions are bad questions. Instead of surrendering power, the questioner is imposing a limit on how the question can be answered. eg: IF you mention your mother and I ask, "Were you close?," then I've limited your description of your relationship with your mother to the close/distance frame. Its better to ask, "How is your mother?" This gives the answerer the freedom to go as deep or as shallow as he wants.
- Good ideas for Big questions: "What crossroads are you at?" "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" "IF you died tonight, what would you regret not doing? "IF we meet a year from now, what will we be celebrating?" "If the next five years is a chapter in your life, what is that chapter about?" "Can you be yourself where you are and still fit in?"
- People are too shy about asking questions, not too aggressive. People are a lot more eager to have deep conversations that you think.
- Conversations take place on two levels: the official conversation and the actual conversation. The official conversation is represented by the words we say. The actual conversation is the flow of underlying emotions that get transmitted as we talk.
- Understanding your own mind is more complicated than you think. Your mind hides most of your thinking so you can get on with life.
- "Human beings are under a moral obligation to seek the improvement of our moral character" – John Stuart Mill
Psychologists have cohered around a different way to map the human personality. This method has a ton of rigorous research behind it. It helps people measure five core personality traits: The Big Five. Extroversion / conscientiousness / neuroticism / agreeableness / openness
If you understand the essence of each trait, you'll be able to look at people with more educated eyes.
- The ability to craft an accurate and coherent life story is another vital skill we dont teach people in school.