What’s in the Name?
This is my story of how I got connected to my name and set high standards to live.
The morning of a Sunday in July 2020 an incident happened which changed many things for me (from within). I wanted to write about it hoping it would help at least one person to unlock their “inbuilt power”. However, I felt it might be too dramatical and wouldn’t make sense to others. So I left it there.
A few months later, during an IPL match Sanju Samson, the young cricketer from Kerala playing for the Rajasthan Royals did this after he scored a fast half-century — a match-winning performance.
In the presentation, he said something similar to what I felt. And then, I decided to write this post.
A little flashback…
My full first name is Anjaneyulu. Anjaneyulu is the other name of Lord Hanuman. My late grandfather named me as he built a temple in our native town, and I was the first child to be born in the family after building it. I didn’t like my name. It was common for my friends and teachers to make fun of it, especially because I was mischievous and Hanuman being the monkey god. My mom didn’t seem to like it too then. We decided to change it when I was in 4th standard. My Dad did visit the MRO office in our native town to get it changed. But, he came back without changing!
At BITS, the problem was different. People from north India weren’t able to get my full name and easy to forget. It became more important after starting up for people to remember the full name (I thought so). Like for marketing copies, I tried A/B testing and finally settled with Anji Beeravalli — used it as my full name apart from legal documents.
July 2020…
That morning I said something like “I don’t think I can achieve it” and my partner Swathi said you spoke just like Hanuman. That wasn’t the first time she said that to me nor the first time I heard — a few friends and co-worker as I used to underestimate myself and in public. But, this time I took it seriously. I wanted to know everything about Hanuman and the complete story about his underestimation. I bought a couple of books and watched almost every video available about Hanuman on Youtube.
And that changed everything for me — I understood the power of my name!
During that month, I was reading this book “Awaken the Giant Within” by Tony Robbins. The first thing he says is to set very high standards for yourself, commit to it, and everything else will fall in place. He stresses this point multiple times through different stories. The qualities of Hanuman automatically became the standards I need to set for myself. I learnt entire Hanuman Chalisa and started practising it almost every day — not for religious purpose but more like a self-commitment. What better high standards than the meaning of your name itself? Plus it’s natural and easy to commit to those standards, after all, it came from your name, i.e. you!
The high standards that I’ve set for myself are: being fearless, being calm even during tough situations, humble, honest, presence of mind, physical + mental strength, and wishing only best for others. I started building habits to achieve these standards: writing a gratitude journal, learning/reflection journal, meditation, practising stoicism. I’m confident of achieving and living by those standards in the months to come.
I hope this post inspires you to set high standards for yourself, and hopefully starting with what your name means — the easiest place to start. If you are named like me after someone, then try to pick the high qualities of that person.
So what did Sanju Samson say? “My name is Samson and Samson is a mighty man in the world. It means I can be powerful and hit big sixes.”
