What's In a Name?
My full name is Morvarid. In Farsi, Morvarid means pearl. It may be obvious from my change to the name Mory, that growing up I had a hard time with this name. Mostly because I didn’t grow up in Iran, the country my parents were born and raised in before immigrating to the US. I grew up here in the US where that name came out of my teachers, friends and strangers’ mouths like a pile of nails. As a child of immigrants all I wanted to do was assimilate – to fit in. To stop the strange looks and teasing that came with a glance at that mouthful of a name.
As I’ve grown, I’ve learned to adore my strong, warm, passionate, storied Persian heritage and to love NOT fitting in even more. But I still had a hard time with hearing others say my name.
Lately, though, I’ve had a change of heart about my name. That’s because I’ve really spent some time with the meaning. Pearl. Yes, a pearl is beautiful and yes, it is strong and rare and precious. My ego loves all those things. What’s really resonated with me, though, is how its formed.
“Natural Pearls form when an irritant - usually a parasite and not the proverbial grain of sand - works its way into an oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, a fluid is used to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating, called 'nacre', is deposited until a lustrous pearl is formed.” – Pearls.com
Opportunity from chaos.
Which turned on a light bulb for me. What I’m working to do in the world is change the dialogue in business and focus on things like self-awareness, empathy, purpose and values – to create organizations, brands and leaders that rise to the occasion and become the heroes this world so desperately needs. In doing that work I’ve found that for organizations to do this, they must first look at and deal with their own noise. I began to see inherent in our methodology has always been fixing the internal before helping to build the external. To manage the crisis or dysfunction, then to clear the noise and finally to find the opportunity. BUT we’ve struggled with a streamlined way to say what it is we do.
It turns out the answer has been in my name all along. What I do, what 822 Group is here to do is this: Address the inherent chaos in running a business by helping its leaders face their truths; good, bad or ugly to find the boundless opportunity on the other side.
There’s a pearl buried in the center of every company, we’re just here to help find, polish and hold it up for the world to see. Boundless opportunity from chaos.
This new positioning is reflected on our site today. We welcome all our readers to browse and let us know what you think.
The hope is that organizations in need of clarity, connection, a different, more meaningful and effective way of doing things see us for the beacon of change, truth and opportunity we have grown into - for the antidote to chaos we truly are.
All that’s left to say here is: Mom, thanks for the name and sorry for the grief I gave you over it all these years.