Your Name Is Who You Are
“What’s in a name?”
“Make a name for yourself.”
“Don’t ruin your good name.”
“Name-dropping”
Your name is so much more than just a label smacked on you so people know what to call you when they see you. How much time do parents spend picking out the perfect name for their children? What’s the origin, ethnicity, and meaning of the name? How old or new is the name? How does it sound when you yell it? My high school history teacher taught me that one—because you’re likely to have to yell for them or at them at some point in their life. Better like the sound of it at max volume.
When my wife and I were naming our children, we gave each other veto power particularly if the name reminded us of “that person” who was anywhere in the category of unsavory. You don’t want to have flashbacks to the bully in gym class when you’re tucking your precious angel in bed.
We inherently know that a name becomes the representation of the person. And, it’s terribly hard to shake what your name means to someone once they’ve experienced who you are. So bad sometimes that people relocate or change their name.
What’s the point?
Personally
Just a reminder that what others experience of us matters. The “Live your best life now” movement has morphed for some into eliminating all people, events, and things detracting from their own enjoyment, fulfillment, etc. To that I say, “Get your own island.”
As I understand the real idea of it, it’s about being mindful in all of the moments of our lives, finding something to be grateful for in them (even the difficult ones that may need to be reframed) knowing they are there to either improve us or those we encounter while moving toward the things we’re passionate about and find fulfillment in which mutually benefit ourselves and others. That feels like a life journey worth traveling.
Who we are in the best and worst moments of our lives that get strung together creates our name. How people experience us personally evokes good or bad juju. As best I can tell, it’s just a universal law so I guess we just make peace with reality.
Professionally
Beyond the interpersonal relationship banks we either make deposits into or withdrawals from, this will also affect our literal bank account$.
Story time. Many years ago I reached out to a local woman who had initially been diagnosed by area doctors with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (a rare and most often fatal brain condition leading to dementia and other issues). She later went to Mayo where they couldn’t diagnose anything specific other than finding a “spot” on her brain. They sent her home waiting to die. She could hardly walk, would get nauseous with food, and looking at a computer or other screen and sometimes bright lights or sunshine would give her a spinning migraine and nausea/vomiting that medications wouldn’t touch and was steadily digressing.
Because she was unsure of how Chiropractic could help, I, in an act of both mercy and (selfishly) hopes for renown and social proof, offered to take care of her for free… at least until she got better.
How did it go? She not only got better, she fully recovered. She got her life back and I got the social proof I was seeking. She even agreed to let me tell her story in a Killer Ad with a picture of me dipping her like Astaire & Kelly. But, I was vague about the financial arrangement after that point which drifted into weekly care for zero pesos and I was getting more frustrated with each passing week.
“What’s wrong with her?” I thought. “How could she be so cheap when she was given something so valuable?” I said.
On her next visit, she phrased a question to ask if she should be paying something. But, what I heard was, “Can I keep getting care for free?” I can still see her face when (former, less mature me) told her, in a somewhat snarky tone and punctuating nonverbals, “Whatever you feel comfortable with.”
She never came back.
I humiliated her. “Please forgive me” doesn’t erase the stain my name made on her.
Moments like these have huge price tags.
HISHE (How It Should Have Ended)? I should have graciously told her how excited I was for her restored health and what a privilege it had been to have played a part in her life story. I should have told her that she would always be welcome in my office. That she owed me nothing for prior care and if she felt there was value in continued care we could talk about what that would look like.
I would likely have had a lifelong relationship of Chiropractically caring for her and welcoming the new faces of those she would have told her story to. Cue the music.
Instead, I changed my Name. Not literally of course, but who I was that my Name represented. Not for her, but for the many people I have encountered and will encounter since.
This is branding.