You Should Use People’s Names When You Talk To Them
It’s not uncommon for one of my conversations to start like this:
“Hey Ben! I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing, Ben?”
As you can see, I enjoy using people’s first names excessively when I talk to them. I never really understood why I did it, just that it felt natural and polite. But, as I’ve been thinking more about it recently, but Dale Carnegie believed that a person’s name is the sweetest sound they can hear. Think about the last time someone said your name, and they were actually talking to someone else in the vicinity. Usually, you feel surprised. When our parents were very proud, or very angry at us, they used our names. When someone wants our individual attention, they say our names. When someone wants to make you feel special, they say your name.
It isn’t wrong to say that using someone’s name is a form of flattery. To some degree, it is. But to say that’s all it is underestimates its meaning and power.
Recently, I have been reading “The Kingkiller Chronicle,” a fantasy series by Patrick Rothfuss following an adventurer-musician named Kvothe. The first book of the series is called “The Name of the Wind,” in which names are incredibly powerful and important: there is an entire art called “naming” where people can control objects by saying secret names…
