I stutter.

And that has been the biggest insecurity yet the greatest gift I’ve had in my life.

This picture to the right is me at around the age I began to stutter. Almost immediately, I became obsessed with my speech.

I obsessively thought about how I sounded, how I looked and how others felt as I struggled to get each and every word out. I was constantly concerned that I was slowing the conversation down and making others uncomfortable when I stuttered. And in retrospect, though most of my friends and classmates were quite good listeners, I felt that the way I spoke made me an ineffective communicator.

So I stopped talking.

I stopped saying my opinion and telling jokes, and I steered clear of topics that made me feel anxious - all as a way to avoid stuttering.

As I grew up and hit milestones - high school graduation, college, the job search and the “real world” - I hoped that I’d be better able to deal with stuttering as I gained the maturity and strength that came with age. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a handle on my speech, so I continued to sit on the sideline as those around me achieved success after success: first jobs, dream jobs, grad school, and even marriage and children. Stuttering had completely crippled me, and I knew it was time to make a change.

Changing my story

The reason why I am doing what I do now is because of a speech therapist. I went to her when I knew that I needed to “fix” my stuttering so I could live a better life. I wanted a solution, to learn the techniques I needed to in order to stop stuttering - or at least minimize it - all together. After a few sessions of practicing those techniques, she finally said to me the thing that truly changed my life: “the only way these fluency strategies will ever work for you is if you are first okay with stuttering.”

Being okay with stuttering was truly a foreign concept. How could anyone be okay with an insecurity? Why would anyone want to be okay with something that makes them different? And how will I ever come to a place of acceptance? It turns out, all of those things are possible.

I started in speaking in 2014, not because I felt that I had a great message but because I wanted to overcome my fear of talking. Eventually after giving several talks, my goal shifted and I began to speak about empathy exclusively. I now give dozens of talks annually at conferences and internal company events on improving the way audiences approach work with empathy.

For more information on my consulting practice, head over to Communilogue’s about page.