One of the things that I enjoy about Facebook are the posts that come to me, especially the funny jokes that I can sometimes use as anecdotes. I particularly like reading the posts that a school friend of mine by the name of Joachim Pacheco sends very often. Yesterday he put on his page, a joke that I thought that I could use this morning to put in context what I have to say to you. It goes like this:
A Chinese walked into a room in America late one night and he saw Steven Spielberg. As he was a great fan of his movies, he rushes over to him and asks for his autograph. Instead Spielberg gives him a slap and says, "You Chinese people bombed our Pearl Harbour. Get out of here." The astonished Chinese man replied, "It was not the Chinese who bombed your Pearl Harbour; it was the Japanese." "Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese – you're all the same," replied Spielberg. In return, the Chinese gives Spielberg a slap and says, "You sank the Titanic. My forefathers were on that ship." Shocked, Spielberg replies, "It was the iceberg that sank the ship; not me." The Chinese replied, "Iceberg, Spielberg, Carlsberg – you're all the same."
We may laugh at that one, it may bring a smile to our faces, but it brings up a very important question: What's in a name? Shakespeare penned those lines in his famous tragedy 'Romeo and Juliet' when he wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." But as Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet found, there is something in a name. The name Montague really meant something and it caused quite a bit of upheaval for them.
But I was reminded that it takes a lot to remember names. How often have I stood in front of a person and thought, "I need to know this person's name." I know this person but for the life of me, I can't remember his name. I then end up being in an embarrassing situation when another person comes up and I have to introduce the person. I introduce only one side and the other person, whose name I've forgotten, knows very clearly that I don't remember his name. It's embarrassing all the way round. For the person whose name I don't remember, it's almost a slight and there's a bit of the relationship too, that goes with it.
What can we do to remember names? It is important. It's the one thing that we've been given as a gift at our birth and nobody can take that away from us. As Dale Carnegie once remarked, "A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language." So, why is it important? Why must we take time to remember people's names? The most important connection to our own identity and individuality is our name. We respond so graciously and well to somebody who walks up to us and remembers what our name is. Learning another person's name is the first and most basic step in showing respect and building a meaningful relationship.
So, how do we remember names? One particular author said, "You can use mnemonics to remember names. Two ways this could be done: to look at it from an Observational system or from an association system." They went on to say, "When you look at observational systems or association systems, the face is the easiest thing to tag a name to. The brain remembers faces. He points to a study done by scientists Goldstein and Chance way back in 1971, in which they showed subjects a number of photographs of women's faces, magnified snowflakes and ink blots. 14 from each were shown for 3 seconds at a time and following an interval of 48 hours, the subjects were asked to recall the test. It was found that faces were the most easily recalled. Then came the inkblots and finally the snowflakes. So facial recognition is a key part of human perception. In fact, there's a part of our brain that actually remembers faces. When we lose the ability to recognize faces, it's a condition called prosopagnosia, from the Greek meaning 'failure to recognize faces.' So, there is a component in our brain that allows us to remember faces.
So the writer says, "Try and put the name to the person's face – take the name, break it up. If there's a beard or a moustache, use that to connect so that there's some kind of association that you can place that could help you to remember.
Darlene Price puts this well. She says there are three keys, which unlock your potential and prepare you for successfully remembering names.
1. Make a commitment. Make a deliberate conscious decision to remember names. I have often met people who are very particular. When I am introduced, they will repeat, "So, you are Cecil Clements!" and over the period of the conversation, they will try and repeat the name 3 or 4 times. You know immediately that they are people who are trying to remember the name. Make a commitment – say, "I'm going to remember this person's name."
2. Change your attitude. We often have this way of excusing ourselves saying, "I'm horrible at remembering names." Change that attitude; change your self-talk. Don't ever again say, "I'm horrible at remembering." Instead say, "I'm getting belter and better at remembering names."
3. Practice. It's an acquired skill much more so than a natural talent. It requires work. Yet, the benefits are huge. You know, when people refer to you by your name, how much it means to you. It's the same way with people.
I think as we look at people around us, we tend to lump people together. Most South Indians will lump North Indians together and North Indians lump South Indians together as Madrasis. We stand up and say, "That's not the way it is. We're from different parts." It's the same with names. We don't want to be generalized. We want to be specific. We want there to be a specificity to the things that happen to us. And our name is one of the most important things that we've been given that gives us identity and individuality.
I was challenged as I read this joke about Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Spielberg, Iceberg, Carlsberg. I thought – do I do what it takes to remember names? Do I need to start thinking again? I keep forgetting names. Maybe this year might be a good time to say that I'm going to make a conscious attempt to remember names. Use it 2 or 3 times in the context of the conversation. See what a difference it makes. For one, it makes the other person feel better. When people feel better, then relationships are much better. That's my hope and my prayer for you and me on this Tuesday.
May I pray with you? Almighty God, thank you for giving us a name. Thank you for the identity that we have. We pray that you would help us to remember our names, the names that are an association with us. Help us as we meet people, to be able to keep their names in our memory. Give us the ability to do so. Help us as we make a commitment to do so. We ask this in Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
• Joachim Pacheco, joke about Steven Spielberg & Chinese man. https://www.facebook.com/joaquimp?fref=ts
• "What's in a name?" http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/what-s-name-that-which-we-call-rose
• "How to remember Names & Faces." http://www.buildyourmemory.com/faces.php
• Dale Carnegie quote: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/career-coach-the-power-of-using-a-name/2014/01/10/8ca03da0-787e-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html
• Jacqueline Smith, quoting Darlene Price: "Well Said! Presentations & Conversations that get results." http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/04/05/6-easy-ways-to-remember-someones-name/
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