How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

We see ourselves as others see us, and when we feel invisible, well, we have a tendency to fall to pieces.

“They always talk. Why? Because no one has ever listened to them before in all their lives. Perhaps they’ve not ever even listened to themselves.”

People are longing to be asked questions about who they are. “The human need to self-present is powerful,” notes the psychologist Ethan Kross. A 2012 study by Harvard neuroscientists found that people often took more pleasure from sharing information about themselves than from receiving money.

“Tell me about a time you adapted to change.” “What’s working really well in your life?” “What are you most self-confident about?” “Which of your five senses is strongest?” “Have you ever been solitary without feeling lonely?” or “What has become clearer to you as you have aged?”

Big questions interrupt the daily routines people fall into and prompt them to step back and see their life from a distance.

Humble questions are open-ended. They’re encouraging the other person to take control and take the conversation where they want it to go. These are questions that begin with phrases like “How did you…,” “What’s it like…,” “Tell me about…,” and “In what ways…”

Closed questions are also bad questions. Instead of surrendering power, the questioner is imposing a limit on how the question can be answered. For example, 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/distant frame. It’s better to ask, “How is your mo

As the psychologist Nicholas Epley observes, perspective taking is untrustworthy, but perspective receiving works quite well. If I’m going to get to know you, it’s not because I have the magical ability to peer into your soul; it’s because I have the skill of asking the sorts of questions that will give you a chance to tell me about who you are.

I just asked her the same question over and over again: And then what happened?