Can Your Name Change Your Destiny?
Lessons from George Carlin, Dick Chopp, and Hurricane Katrina
If you have a strange name, then introductions are root canal painful. Usually, you experience one of the following scenarios.
Scenario 1:
The person nods and decides in that split second they are not going to bother to remember your name because it is just weird. And our lizard brains don’t like weird (at first). Humans like the familiar. I am like poisoned berries — bright and shiny but suspicious.
Scenario 2:
The person is a curious soul and actually wants to know and remember your name. So they ask you to repeat it. At that moment, they are forming visual or verbal associations.
Every memory expert will tell you the same — recalling someone’s name is easy if you make connections, known as a mnemonic device — any memory device that aids information retention.
For example, Ezra’s eyes are the color of my favorite bourbon, Ezra Brooks, and his voice is as smooth as it tastes. Bam. His name is now forever tied into the knots of my memory.
Now, if you are feeling magnanimous, you will throw the stranger a bone and give them a mnemonic device for your bizarre name.
