How to Know a Person

David Brooks is a human being. And just like all human beings, he wants to connect with people. To do that, he knows we must see others deeply and we must be deeply seen.

This is a book about the things Brooks has learned about how to see others deeply and how to be deeply seen.

Brooks tells a little about one thing he admires about his friend, Jimmy Dorrell: “When Jimmy sees a person, he comes in with the belief that this person is so important that Jesus was willing to die for their sake. As a result, Jimmy is going to greet people with respect and reverence.” He adds that we may be an atheist, an agnostic, a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or something else, but it is this “awareness of the infinite dignity of each person you meet” is a “precondition for seeing people well.”

Brooks encourages us to be Illuminators, someone who illuminates people with a gaze that is respectful, warm, and full of admiration. To do this, he suggests the gaze be tender, receptive, filled with active curiosity and affection, generous, and holistic.

Brooks lists ways to become a better conversationalist: (1) Apply what some experts call the SLANT method: sit up, lean forward, ask questions, nod your head, track the speaker. Pay attention 100%. (2) Listen so actively that “you're practically burning calories.” (3) Stick with the familiar. Find the thing the other person is most attached to. (4) Ask for stories about specific events or experiences and then go further. (5) Don't fear the pause. (5) Loop. Repeat what someone said in order to be sure you are understanding what they are saying. (6) Be a midwife; be there to make the person feel safe, but also prod. (7) Keep the gem statement, the truth underneath the disagreement, at the center. (8) Find the disagreement under the disagreement. (9) Don't be a topper.

In addition, Brooks suggests we ask big questions.

One of Brooks' friends is David Bradley, and he does this neat trick with index cards. When a person presents a problem to Bradley, he asks questions. He begins with three questions: What are your ultimate goals, your skills, and your schedule? Then he ranks the things a person really wants to do on one card and the things the person is actually doing on the other. On a third card, he writes out a strategy for how a person can get Card B to look more like Card A.

If a conversation starts to go south, Brooks knows a way to redeem it. “First, you step back from the conflict, and you try to figure out together what's gone wrong. You break the momentum by asking the other person, ‘How did we get to this tense place?' Then you do something the experts call ‘splitting.' Splitting is when you clarify your own motives by first saying what they are not and then saying what they are. Then you try to reidentify the mutual purpose of the conversation.”

Instead of using the traditional Myers-Briggs test to define one's personality, a better choice is to look at the Big Five traits: extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness.

Finally, he sums everything up with this lovely paragraph: “She who only looks inward will find only chaos, and she who looks outward with the eyes of critical judgment will find only flaws. But she who looks with the eyes of compassion and understanding will see complex souls, suffering and soaring, navigating life as best they can.”

For a taste of David Brooks, take a look at his interview with Action for Happiness host Dr. Mark Williamson here.