Trust Me, I’m a Liar
A few years ago, I was at a critical junction in my career, and I didn’t know what to do next.
I remember I was in a bar, in Gwangju, South Korea, having a drink with my friend, Dan, who was visiting me from Canada. He was a foreign talent recruiter who helped expats land cool jobs around the world. “You need to reinvent yourself,” Dan said. “What do you mean?” my eyes widened. “Create a fake identity,” he raised his glass, “and move to China, that’s where the money is.”
He told me that all the successful expats he recruited, especially the ones that got high salaries were the ones that reinvented themselves by creating a fake persona. “Every expat needs to reinvent himself, to stay relevant, fresh, and one-of-a-kind,” Dan said, “it’s like you’re an actor.” He told me that I wouldn’t be the only one, there were thousands of artists, musicians, and celebrities who reinvented themselves, especially at the critical junctions in their career.
Like successful brands, they were good at getting lucky, however, there were thousands of ‘starving artists’ who struggled, despite their extraordinary talents, because the identities they gave out failed to represent who they were and what they had to offer. Stage names, nom de plumes, and alter-egos are not just names, they are words with superpowers that can either make or break an artist.
“What should I call myself?” I looked at Dan. “I like the name you created in Toronto,” Dan reminded me about a social experiment I did a decade ago, where I changed my name on my resume, and surprisingly received calls from many employers that had initially rejected me when I used my real name.
Before I came up with a new name for myself, I did some research. I learned that words evoked images, names created personas and sounds made them memorable. George W. Bush produced a stronger image for a president, Al Gore didn’t. Carmen Electra could not have pulled off her electrifying persona with her birth name Tara Leigh Patrick. Coca Cola was memorable and so is its new name Coke, they were lucky that both their names were unique and easily rolled on the tongue. Not everyone gets that lucky.
Would you agree with me if I said that words like Wiggle Jiggle, Gobbledygook and Flapdoodle evoke funny images? A word like Felicity creates a feeling of happiness and words like Puke, Cockroach or Jersey Shore make you cringe, okay the last one is debatable but you get the point. Words can do that because they have power.
Masaru Emoto, a Japanese author, did several experiments on water by exposing them to words, music, prayers, and other things, he then photographed their frozen states on a microscopic level, what he discovered was mind-boggling. The particles of water from mountain streams or the ones exposed to positive words like Love, Peace and Thank You showed beautifully shaped geometric designs, whereas, the water from polluted sources or the ones exposed to negative words like Evil, Kill and You Disgust Me produced randomly formed distorted images.
Now that makes you wonder what can it do to a fan and what she feels when she hears or reads the name of her favorite artist, because her brain in composed of 70% water. Our human body itself has 60% water. If a word pasted on a water bottle can change the shape of its water molecules, imagine what it could do to a person. That is why global brands like to connect to their audiences using emotional messages, because they know words evoke images.
Could Aubrey Graham have become the rapper he is today, had he not dropped his first and last name to become Drake? Does the birth name Eric Bishop give the same cool persona of Jamie Foxx? Of course not. Would Lizzie Grant, a struggling singer whose first album sank without a trace, have gotten the big break that came with her new sizzling image of Lana Del Rey? The entertainment world is flooded with such examples.
There is nothing wrong with changing your name. It is not about being or not being proud of one’s heritage, it is about creating a damn good persona. Look at the iconic Farrokh Bulsara, you might know him as Freddie Mercury. He was born in Zanzibar to Parsi parents and spent his childhood in Bombay. He became Freddie during his school days in India and later added ‘Mercury’ from a lyric in his self-penned Queen song My Fairy.
I can have a star name too, I thought, but I needed one that was memorable, rolled on the tongue easily and communicated what made me me. “Okay, I’ll go with Alex Ashman,” I told Dan. “That’s just the first step,” Dan said, “now you need to create an online presence.”
So I started a blog called Alex in Lotusland, which went viral, and got nominated for the 2018 Webby Award. After a few years, I started writing for Thrive Global (founded by Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post,) which made Alex Ashman very real.
The world I work in prefers “white people,” because that’s what the customers want. Every day, I see ads here in China that says “looking for American/European educator,” what they really mean is someone who is not colored. Many places prefer to hire unqualified white people from Eastern European countries than qualified people of color. The truth is sad, but it’s the truth, it will take a really long time before crazy rich Asians realize that being a great educator has nothing to do with the color of someone’s skin.
To this day, majority of the people I work with have no idea about my real name. They believe in the fake Alex Ashman persona. Though the other day, something really funny happened at work. We had to get tested for COVID, so we lined up, and pulled our QR codes on the phone. A few colleagues volunteered to help scan the personal codes, so when my turn came, this girl scanned my phone, looked at my name, and raised her eyebrows: “umm…is this correct?”
“Yes,” I smiled.
“So who is Alex Ashman?”
“That’s a great question,” I said, walked up to the nurse, and opened my mouth wide open.
