What's my name?

Every time I host a panel discussion on stage at an event, my brain goes into overdrive. It's not worrying about the regular things most people do when they're in front of an audience. My fear is forgetting the names of the people on the panel. As a host my job is to direct the flow of conversation, to bring in the right person at the right time. If you forget someone's name it's hard to ask them a question. I tend to go over and over and over in my head the names of panel members for a good ten minutes before I go on stage, because me and names are not friends. To call us frenemies would be an understatement.

But I'm not alone in that. Studies out there suggest that some people with ADHD, like me, may experience difficulties with 'verbal working memory' and 'verbal delayed recall' - both crucial aspects of remembering names and other important information.

In my current role at an Accelerator programme in Belfast I've interviewed somewhere in the region of 2,000 entrepreneurs and worked with countless mentors, investors, advisors and supporters. Prior to that I spent 15 years in media talking to thousands of different people from chefs and internationally renowned singers to business owners and regular punters on the street (shout out to media people who've had to do Vox Pops, you deserve a medal!).

In that time, names have been something I've struggled with constantly. Picture me as a Belfast version of Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character Selena Meyer in Veep, where she needs the hilarious Tony Hale to come behind her and whisper people's names into her ear alongside information on that person.

It's embarrassing because sometimes it can be someone I've met 15 or 20 times whose name I don't remember. There's colleagues I've worked with for years now that I sometimes have to search Outlook to remember their names, putting in random information about something we've done together or would have discussed via email.

It's like there's frosted glass in my brain between me and a person's name. I can make out that there's letters on the other side of the glass, just not what the letters are. During the Covid years, having meetings primarily on Zoom and Teams was a revelation. Instantly knowing everyone's name made life a lot better. A lot less stressful. It felt free and liberating.

Post covid it's not so easy, so I've had to revert back to some of the coping mechanisms below that I've developed over the years to be able to deal with this.

1. The Veep: At events with my wife, she knows the drill. If I introduce her to someone and don't bother mentioning what the other person is called, that's code for "I can't remember their name". She'll jokingly say something like "he's so rude, he didn't tell me your name", so that it helps me out.
2. The random fact: The contact list on my phone is littered with notes ranging from when and where I met someone like "met at X conference in August 2022" to random bites of information about them like this genuine note from my contacts: "Australian Doctor, met at the Fat Duck. Spent half a night in a hot tub out the back of Tom Kerridge’s restaurant". Would I ever remember Glen's name if I needed to get in touch? Not a chance. But I'd definitely remember drinking in a hot tub out the back of a Michelin star pub!
3. The Board Game: At the office, my colleagues are well used to playing a cross between Guess Who? and Cluedo with me. I'll shout out random facts about a person. It might be what they look like. It could be a type of business they run. It could be an event they were at. They'll eventually tell me the name I'm searching for. Though I'd guess if I knew someone called Colonel Mustard in real life, he'd be easy to remember.

The problem with these coping mechanisms is they only work in some situations. If you struggle with names too, I'd love to hear your ways of remembering so I can add to my own list!