Why You Keep Forgetting Someone's Name (And Tricks That Actually Work)

To my surprise, I saw Pilot Andrew again.

Our first conversation, A Pilot's Guide to Everyday Connection was enthralling: an American and an Englishman, sipping coffee in a Canadian farm-town café, discussing the joys of making new friends.

He gave me the download of how to connect with people I meet.

I wasn't sure if I would cross paths with Andrew again. Was it just a one day friendship?

But, a few months later, there he was in front of me, grinning. I motioned for him to sit at my table, and he happily obliged.

I hoped I'd see you again! — We both said.

Josh, I've just come from a trip to Colorado. It was spectacular.

Oh yeah? Tell me about it!

Well, you know, I've been doing 'our thing' while traveling…

It was funny to me that he called it "our thing". Our 'thing' was our shared intention to connect with the world around us; the people we wait in line with, the people we pass on the street, the people that are marginalized, ignored, or stepped over.

I did something new after our last conversation… I've been thinking about it a lot. Each time I met someone and had some kind of interaction with them, I wrote it down on my phone…. I'm up to 30 entries of names, conversations, and details.

Wow no way, that is wild! 30!!! What did you observe? What did you learn?

Andrew brought me back to interaction after interaction. With an airline employee, a homeless man, a fur coat maker in the mountains, and more. Names, details, and impressions.

I marveled at the fact that he took the time to write each one down.

I thought, would I ever do that? And for what purpose?

Well, I am starting to now. Here's what pushed me over the line:

A few weeks ago I got click baited (with much gratitude) to watching videos of Oz Pearlman.

I'm sure most people binge everything they can find of him after watching one video.

He is a 'mentalist', famous for reading people's minds, and turning it into a magic trick. But beneath it, he is simply an expert in human behavior, and an expert in memory.

I eventually found an interview with him with Steven Bartlett with Diary of a CEO. It was pure gold.

Besides all of the wild and borderline impossible feats he does on the regular, I found his thoughts behind memory for people he meets to be very inspiring.

Everywhere he goes, after every interaction with someone, every event, Uber ride, and interview, he writes it all down. Names, locations, specific important things he learned about someone. That their favorite color was turquoise and their son-in-law Darren loves to fish. They love the Chicago Bulls, they just graduated law school, and they have a December birthday.

Oz described how powerful, 'almost like magic' it feels when someone remembers a detail about you and asks. Like someone you met 3 weeks ago that uses your name as soon as they see you again, or someone who asks how your _____ is doing or how the _____ went. It just means a lot.

He also talked about the embarrassing tendency we have to forget people's names immediately after meeting them. Short-term memory for names is something almost everyone struggles with — and most of us just quietly pretend we're fine.

I'm so guilty of that. For the last year, this horrible experience has happened enough times for me to say, I need help!

Has this happened to you? 

• Forgetting their name immediately after our first conversation
• Forgetting their name after I already asked them to remind me of their name. (worse)
• Forgetting their name and pretending that I for sure know their name, while they use mine the whole time, and it's way too late to ask again (crumbling pit of despair).

Here are Oz's recommendations:

• Ask their name and LISTEN. Don't be thinking about what to say next.

• Talk about their name. Relate it to something in your life, perhaps a friend with the same name, or ask them the meaning of it/history of it if it is interesting. With some names, you can ask how it is spelled. Sarah with an H at the end, or Sara without?

• Start using their name: So Sara, where did you grow up? When you say goodbye, It was so good to meet you Sara!

• Don't be afraid to tell them you forgot and ask again. It shows you are sincere, willing to be humble/show your flaws, and really do want to remember their name.

• Write it down afterwards, with anything you'd like to remember about them, or things you found noteworthy about what they were like/looked like. Curly hair, glasses, braces, wore an olive sweater. Loves peach cobbler.

Besides Oz's wild talent, the way he learned how to connect with others was so inspiring.

After my second conversation with Pilot Andrew and some inspiration from Oz, I decided I would get started on cluttering my phone notes. Now, everywhere I go, I pull out my phone after an interaction to record a few details. It is truly wonderful, and I have already benefitted from the extra memory several times.

Walking into my local pastry shop, I looked up Lesly's name before I made another order.

I always pass the same restaurant on my walk to the beach for a morning surf. But the guy who greets me every time, I keep getting his name wrong, or forget it. So I stopped saying hi. Now I know for sure he is Rafael Osuna and he loves John Denver. And I say hi each time with his name.

I was teaching in Guadalajara and wrote down names and descriptions of all the students. I had it all down just by the first evening!

Here's some longer entries for fun:

"Darryl Phyllips asked if he could sit with me at Panda Express at the Phoenix airport. It was a lovely conversation, he had an orange tweed jacket. We very slowly but gently got into conversation about his work — he worked at Walmart for 20 years in food distribution, which started with his dad having a trucking company in California. He told me that he had really regretted not learning Spanish, and that his senior year of high school his teacher had told him he should spend a summer in Mexico learning to lock it in.

He was drawn to what I was doing in Mexico, and at some point, I noticed he may have been close to tears. We were talking about the tension between gratitude of living in the United States, and also, seeing some of the issues that need to be spoken about and navigated. Something I loved was when he said that God has been working on him. He said he didn't use to have time for people, was always in a rush. He is now moving past that, and learning that relationships and listening are really important. He wanted to stay in touch, so I gave him my email, and he said he for sure knows that we were supposed to meet."

"I met Gabriel Castillo at E+'L's. My contacts weren't in so he was blurry. Dad from Nayarit, mom from Quebec. AG Missionary to Shi'An China."

"Lyndon and I visited Navy at the 24 hour donut shop in Huntington Beach. I asked her more about her story and she told me her dad was a general in Cambodia. Both mom and dad were gunned down during the genocide. She was 5 years old, jumped into the river and swam while they went to shoot her too, but the bullets missed her. A California church and a specific man's sponsorship helped her come to the USA. He passed away 7 years ago, but this man changed her life. She is putting all her kids through college in Berkeley with her work. She took her tip jar recently to pay for formula and baby products for a recent disaster relief in Central Asia. She is a legend." (Journal Entry, Friday, November 7th, 2025)

I'll leave you with something from a book I read on the plane yesterday:

"There are two types of books. The books you pull off the shelf, and the walking ones." — Dick Foth, Known

 

Happy friendship and connection!