I stuttered severely. I needed an hour to say what a non-stutterer
could say in five minutes. I could block on a word for five minutes.
My speech wasn’t just slow. I jerked my head, rolled my eyes,
and my body shook in spasms. Some listeners asked if I needed
medical attention. More often they laughed at me.
Worst, my speech was incomprehensible. Listeners guessed
what I was trying to say, usually wrong. Or they ignored me and
walked away.
I’m now forty-four. People ask me to speak at events. I perform
acting and stand-up comedy. In stressful conversations I sound
confident and relaxed. And I still stutter.
Wait a minute! How can I stutter and have listeners say that it’s
a pleasure to hear me speak? Let me tell you about some other
stutterers.
Demosthenes stuttered, and became the greatest orator of ancient
Greece. Winston Churchill and Aneurin Bevan were the best
orators in the British Parliament in the 1930s and 1940s. Both men
stuttered.
James Earl Jones, John Stossel, Bruce Willis, Nicholas Brendan,
Mel Tillis, Carly Simon, and hundreds of other actors, singers,
politicians, and business leaders have stuttered.
Not many paraplegics win marathons. Few blind persons become
famous painters. Not a lot of deaf persons are great
musicians.
But stuttering is a different kind of disability. Treating stuttering
trains you to improve your speech. You’ll learn to handle stressful
situations calmly. You’ll learn to relax your breathing and your
voice. Years after reading this book, you’ll look back over many
life successes and say that stuttering was a gift.