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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 Success Social Psychology & Interactions
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What listeners say about How to Know a Person

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Rich with concise knowledge & insights

I need to listen to this again, and again - as it spoke to me on so many levels and I want to absorb more of the richness this well researched book so articulately delivers.
Thank you for your assimilation and sharing of knowledge.
It’s helped me comprehend a deep shadow in my life and shined various lights in that darkness.

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‘My access to me’

David Brooks is the North Star in the firmament of humanity.
This book will speak to your essence and nurture your individual greatness.
Narrated exquisitely by the author.

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Fascinating deep-dive into how to relate deeply and compassionately with others. A tour de force.

Beautifully narrating through vivid stories and examples, Brooks imparts wisdom by means of nectar. He is a great illuminator.

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Thought provoking introspection.

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.

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Brooks brings a very uplifting curiosity and enthusiasm to relating and understanding people

I feel like I want to read it over after listening, there's so much in it to be mulled over and considered. A useful, amusing, emotive and heart centered book.

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1 person found this helpful

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Just wonderful

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

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A beautiful pleading for the human conection

It is a very good book with deep insights into human life and human connection in this era of people growing apart and living lonely or through technology. The only thing I didn't like was the author's style of reading. Quite monotonous and tiring.

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Timely, wise & counter-culture

This writer says the hard things that we need to hear - both as individuals and as a culture - in ways that I could hear and internalise. There is both reason and passion here. I will read/listen again and I’ve bought the book in hard-copy. I wish that I could make it assigned reading for every adult in my world: it really is that important.

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Great knowledge I gained

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

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Really Absorbing

Well read with very relatable and interesting examples. I found myself noticing things in every day conversation that referred directly to what I’d just heard. Thoroughly recommend.

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2 people found this helpful