This is because people follow a leader only when they see something that will turn anxiety about the future into confidence. Your mastery is, to other people, confidence-inducing. It shows them something specific and tangible about you, something vivid, not vague. It shows them that you are both an expert in who you are—and therefore who you will be no matter what situations you all encounter—and an expert in your chosen craft—and therefore are more likely to see around corners and be ready for whatever the future might hold for them. Both of these inspire confidence.

How to Know a Person Part 1: I SEE YOU

ONE: The Power of Being Seen

“Wise people don’t just possess information; they possess a compassionate

understanding of other people. They know about life.” (Brooks, “How to Know a Person”,

p.7)

“Being open-hearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind, and wise human being. But it is

not enough. People need social skills.

Being an Illuminator, seeing other people in all their fullness, doesn’t just happen. It’s a craft, a set of skills, a way of life. Other cultures have words for this way of being. The Koreans call it nunchi, the ability to be sensitive to other people’s moods and thoughts. The Germans (of course) have a word for it: herzensbildung, training one’s heart to see the

full humanity in another. What exactly are these skills? Let’s explore them, step by step.

THREE: Illumination

“That gaze, that first sight, represents a posture toward the world. A person who is looking for beauty is likely to find wonders, while a person looking for threats will find danger. A person who beams warmth brings out the glowing sides of the people she meets, while a person who conveys formality can meet the same people and find them stiff and detached. “Attention,” the psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist writes, “is a moral act: it creates, brings

aspects of things into being.

I will not reduce you to a type or restrict you to a label, like many of those human-typology systems do—Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, the zodiac, and so on. Instead, I want to receive you as an active creator. I want to understand how you construct your point of view. I want to ask you how you see things. I want you to teach me about the enduring energies of old events that shape how you see the world today. I’m going to engage with you. Looking at a person is different from looking at a thing because a person is looking back at you. I’m going to get to know you at the same time you’re going to get to know me. Quality conversation is the essence of this approach. If we’re going to become Illuminators, we need to first ask questions and engage with answers. We need to ask:

How does this look to you? Do you see the same situation I see?