Building on David Brooks' notion of people who are illuminators.

(I would describe this kind of person as a Radagast).

An illuminator believes in you, even if you don't believe in yourself.

They inspire you to grow into your potential: a potential you didn't dare dream because it felt self-aggrandizing or even dangerous ("what if I don't live up to that expectation?").

Illuminators believe that all people are intrinsically valuable, and have a valuable perspective on the world.

They are willing to embrace even weird ideas and connect the dots to synthesize big insights out of those weird components.

Their goal is to find the seed of greatness in every person they talk to (a seed the person might not even realize themselves) and help them see it and grow it.

When someone tells them what is hard in their context, an illuminator never assumes they are whining.

They assume the other person is competent and there is a legitimate constraint they are running into.

By embracing that perspective, they are able to learn from it, instead of dismissing it.

The result is illuminators can discover the thicket of real-world constraints... and sometimes identify ideas that don't look that special, but unlike all of the other ideas, actually fit within all of the constraints.