Make It Personal
Connecting with people can help others, and it can also help us
By André van Heerden, Communications Director
One of my superpowers is the ability to remember kids’ names very quickly. If I’m having a soccer tryout with 40 players trying out, I will know all of their names within half an hour. The key seems to be that I match their name to a particular soccer skill or position or character trait, and it sticks.
The unfortunate thing is that my superpower doesn’t extend to the names of the players’ parents! I remember whose child is whose, but that’s usually as far as it goes. Embarrassingly, by the end of a full season with parents coming to every game, I still struggle to remember some names.
It turns out that my superpower isn’t so super and it’s really just a good way to help memorize things. A University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences blog about how to improve memory gives the tip of making associations to help remember names.
According to experts, “creating associations by drawing on existing knowledge is another helpful way to memorize information. You can create mental images and connect with sounds, smells, and tastes to help encode memories.”
What I think is significant about this tip is that it also comes with an extra bonus of creating a deeper relationship with those whose names you’re trying to remember. One of my former bosses—who excelled at public speaking and connecting with people—had a gift for not only recalling names, but also knowing exactly what each person would most want to talk about. If the person’s favourite topic was their children, he would share what he remembered about them and ask how they’re doing. If it was about fishing, he knew to ask about what the latest catch was. If it was about a certain struggle they were going through, he knew to ask about that.
Famous artist Vincent Van Gogh wrote that “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” And one of the ways we can show love is to remember details about others.
Author, theologian, musician, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer noted that “in everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” Truly connecting with people can help others, and it can also help us.
Social commentator Bill Maher observes that “curious people are interesting people; I wonder why that is.” I believe that it’s because we all like people who are curious about facts and our world—but we especially like people who are curious about us!
An article from Cross Knowledge, a business upskilling platform, notes that “recent research suggests that a sense of curiosity can be just as important to achievement as intelligence or ambition.” And that “curious people tend to be more open-minded and report more positive social interactions with colleagues. It’s clear that for individuals in large organizations, this can be a career booster.”
Turns out that improving our memory by being curious about others is a triple win. A win for the person who feels valued and remembered by a meaningful connection. A win for the person who draws others in by being sincerely curious about others. And a win for what can be achieved through a stronger, deeper relationship.