What's in a name?
With all the awful name-calling during this political season, it got me thinking about the importance of name. T.S. Eliot’s beautiful poem “ The Naming of Cats ” is one of my favorite songs in the play “Cats.” It contemplates the importance of a name. The great self-improvement guru Dale Carnegie once said, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language” I couldn’t agree more. One little thing that matters to me greatly is for people to remember my name. Maybe it’s important because I’m just so bad at remembering people’s names. I try those tricks you learn in leadership development classes – find a feature of that person to remind you of his name. But if I look at someone named Ernest and try and remember his name by the fact his hair looks like a bird’s nest, I probably end up calling him something like Jay or Robin next time I see him. A name is everyone’s most personal possession. It’s your label, your identi...