Book Review – How to Know a Person by David Brooks
This is my first read of my 24 books in my 2025 list. I’ll be totally transparent – I didn’t love it BUT I’m okay with that because 1) that means I have other books to look forward to that WILL blow my mind, and 2) I found some nuggets in the book anyway, and that’s what I want to share with you!
One of the things I did love about the book was the author’s message that “some of the most important skills a human being can possess … we don’t teach them in school.” Skills like being a good listener, how to disagree with someone without ruining the relationship, how to gracefully end a conversation and how to be vulnerable without oversharing were mentioned – there are others on the list too. As a mom and a coach, this struck me and stuck with me. How do we teach these “human skills” in a way that resonates, is accessible and feels natural to both teach and receive?
Brooks also talks about AI and how it will replace humans at many tasks – but its limitation will always be creating person-to-person connections. In his words, “If you want to thrive in the age of AI, you better become exceptionally good at connecting with others.” Valid point! As a recent ChatGPT user, I am astounded at and grateful for the time saving capacity of AI. That said, I do feel like I am doing less critical thinking when it comes to certain areas of my business where I use AI, and I fully recognize that AI will never be able to understand, emote, connect or touch the level of impact that interpersonal connection creates.
One of my absolute favorite parts of the book was the section where Brooks distinguishes between Illuminators and Diminishers. “Illuminators have a persistent curiosity about other people. Diminishers make people feel small and unseen.” In those two sentences I instantly identified people in my life in each category, and also realized that I have been both to people at any given point in time. It sparked a desire in me to be more of an Illuminator and to reduce any Diminisher tendencies I may have. This was the best takeaway for me!
While this book contained a little about a lot, I think the biggest drawback, in my opinion, was that it focused a lot on the WHAT and less on the HOW – meaning, it shared what to look for when learning How to Know a Person but didn’t dig much deeper into the how to implement it with practical tips and advice. There were many stories to exemplify Brooks’ insights which were helpful in understanding the concepts, and I wish he would have taken it a step further to create easy to implement exercises to help the reader with implementation instead of just understanding.
If you decide to read this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on it! Drop me an email at hi@hellocoaching.info with your book review!
