1: Consider the following two questions:
“Where did you get married?” vs. “How did you decide on the wedding venue?”
At first glance, the questions seem similar. But if our goal is to start a meaningful conversation, they are worlds apart.
“Where did you get married?” is an example of a “stop sign” question, Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design … continue reading
1: “John was your classic self-absorbed, narcissistic jerk,” David Brooks quotes therapist Lori Gottlieb in her book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.
“By day he worked as a writer on fabulously successful TV shows, winning Emmy after Emmy,” David writes in How to Know a Person. “But he was a monster to everyone around him, cruel, inattentive, impatient, demeaning.”
John sought out a therapist because he wasn’t … continue reading
1: Something significant occurred 350 years ago.
When the English arrived in America, they settled in “clumps,” the historian David Hackett Fischer writes in Albion’s Seed, as referenced by David Brooks in his book How to Know a Person.
“People from eastern England tended to settle in New England,” David writes, “people from southern England went to Virginia, people from the English Midlands went to Pennsylvania, and the … continue reading
1: Would you prefer a job where individual initiative is encouraged or one where no individual is singled out for honor, but everybody works together as a team? That was the question asked of 15,000 people worldwide, David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
“More than 90 percent of American, British, Dutch, and Swedish respondents … continue reading
1: The research is clear.
“Social connection is the number one source of happiness, success, good health, and much of the sweetness of life,” David Brooks writes in How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
Yesterday, we looked at how David has consciously decided to strike up conversations with strangers. We studied the different types of questions he asks.
During these … continue reading
Nicholas Epley looked around the commuter train he was riding to his office at the University of Chicago.
“It was just headphones and screens,” Nicolas reflects in David Brooks’s book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
A thought occurred to Nicolas. “As a behavioral psychologist, he was well aware that social connection is the number one source of happiness, success, … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
This week we’ve been exploring David Brooks‘s insights on grief as outlined in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being … continue reading
Rabbi Harold Kushner‘s son, Aaron, died when he was fourteen of a rare aging disease.
Harold has “spent the years since reflecting on how the tragedy has shaped him, and studying how other people are remade by their sufferings. “David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
“I am a more sensitive person, a … continue reading
1: “The writer David Lodge once noted that 90 percent of what we call writing is actually reading,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
Because we read back over our work. Continuously. To make it better.
Dealing with trauma is similar, David believes. He calls this process “excavation.”
“It’s going back and back over … continue reading
1: “To know a person well,” David Brooks writes in his book How to Know a Person, we “have to know who they were before they suffered their losses and how they remade their whole outlook after them. . .
“To know someone who has grieved, we have to know how they have processed their loss—did they emerge wiser, kinder, and stronger, or broken, stuck, and scared?”
Knowing how … continue reading
