I have a speech impediment. I stutter. Not just the occasional, nervous stutter, but fulltime always. You may not see it when you speak to me. But there are certain words and sounds in particular that I know to avoid. Because of that I'm probably world champion in using weird synonyms to work around those sounds and I'm pretty fast at adapting a sentence live as I speak it to avoid particular sounds.
Fun fact: The sound "æ / ae" as in the name of the company, Elby, which I co-founded and am the CEO/CTO of, happens to be the sound that I tend to stutter on 80% of the time 😂.
It used to be a huge problem for me. The very idea of speaking in front of 100s of people as I've now done countless times would cause me to run away screaming. People like me who stutters often suffer form low self-esteem and I truly did exactly that during school. Just in those years where you start to notice girls (or boys) it's just horrible. How the heck are you going to get in contact with anybody when just the simple act of saying "Hello" causes you a tremendous amount of fear?
The beer coefficient or how NOT to deal with it
I remember back then that me and one of my oldest friend's when we went out to on the town to meet girls that we experimented with the exact amounts of beer I needed to drink before my stuttering seem to subside (now of course I would have looked at it more in terms of rate of beer intake which is probably more precise and I probably also needed to take into account the number of bathroom visits too, now that I think of it): About 2-4 during an evening seem to do it with at least some statistical significance. Even though the Balmer coefficient may be real this is probably not the best way to avoid stuttering in the long run.
So what is?
It comes down to a single phrase, also a key theme in one of my favorite leadership books of all time Jocko Willinks "Extreme Ownership": Own it.
Around high school I realized that if I were to deal with making friends I would need to immediately segment people into those who would accept my stuttering and those who wouldn't. So I started just saying whenever I met somebody new, one of the first sentences I would say to them would be: "Oh and just so you know I tend to stutter". That put it out there and I could judge by their reaction whether I should just leave or continue speaking with them. I also realized that just putting it out there made me relax more and thus stutter less - yay.
I specifically remember meeting a girl (long before I met my to be girlfriend for 20 years) who told me straight to my face that it was really cool that I owned my stuttering the way I did after I said that line. "WHAT?! You think it's cool?!?!?!11" I remember my mind screaming at me.
To my surprise I instantly realized that, people don't care (and the few who do, fuck'em). If you're somebody who stutters and read this: Mark these words: People don't care. They just don't. What they care about is, your reaction to it. How you deal with it.
You need to own it. It's a part of you. It IS you. As long as you don't own you stuttering, it will own you.
It's the same with all "mistakes" you make in your life. Most mistakes you make aren't "permanent" as the "mistake" of stuttering is. But you need to have enough self-awareness to realize the mistake for what it is: A mistake. Whether at work or in your personal life. If you have enough self-awareness to realize that you made a mistake. You need to own it. If you try to hide it, pretend it's nothing or explain it away - that's a problem. Be honest. People will notice and now they will think you're weird or dishonest or a B player or something worse. But owning it, telling it like it is, say "sorry but I fucked up". And then for top points you can go on to explain what you did, why you thought it was the right thing to do at the time, how you realized it was a mistake and probably most importantly what you will do to prevent it from happening again. Now you own it and not only will people appreciate your honesty, but you will also grow and become better.
"The opposite side of succes, isn't failure, but growth".
Jim Collins (BE.20)
Update: Edited the quote and title as I misquoted Jim Collins from memory🙈. Yet another mistake I own 😅
Fun fact: The sound "æ / ae" as in the name of the company, Elby, which I co-founded and am the CEO/CTO of, happens to be the sound that I tend to stutter on 80% of the time 😂.
It used to be a huge problem for me. The very idea of speaking in front of 100s of people as I've now done countless times would cause me to run away screaming. People like me who stutters often suffer form low self-esteem and I truly did exactly that during school. Just in those years where you start to notice girls (or boys) it's just horrible. How the heck are you going to get in contact with anybody when just the simple act of saying "Hello" causes you a tremendous amount of fear?
The beer coefficient or how NOT to deal with it
I remember back then that me and one of my oldest friend's when we went out to on the town to meet girls that we experimented with the exact amounts of beer I needed to drink before my stuttering seem to subside (now of course I would have looked at it more in terms of rate of beer intake which is probably more precise and I probably also needed to take into account the number of bathroom visits too, now that I think of it): About 2-4 during an evening seem to do it with at least some statistical significance. Even though the Balmer coefficient may be real this is probably not the best way to avoid stuttering in the long run.
So what is?
It comes down to a single phrase, also a key theme in one of my favorite leadership books of all time Jocko Willinks "Extreme Ownership": Own it.
Around high school I realized that if I were to deal with making friends I would need to immediately segment people into those who would accept my stuttering and those who wouldn't. So I started just saying whenever I met somebody new, one of the first sentences I would say to them would be: "Oh and just so you know I tend to stutter". That put it out there and I could judge by their reaction whether I should just leave or continue speaking with them. I also realized that just putting it out there made me relax more and thus stutter less - yay.
I specifically remember meeting a girl (long before I met my to be girlfriend for 20 years) who told me straight to my face that it was really cool that I owned my stuttering the way I did after I said that line. "WHAT?! You think it's cool?!?!?!11" I remember my mind screaming at me.
To my surprise I instantly realized that, people don't care (and the few who do, fuck'em). If you're somebody who stutters and read this: Mark these words: People don't care. They just don't. What they care about is, your reaction to it. How you deal with it.
You need to own it. It's a part of you. It IS you. As long as you don't own you stuttering, it will own you.
It's the same with all "mistakes" you make in your life. Most mistakes you make aren't "permanent" as the "mistake" of stuttering is. But you need to have enough self-awareness to realize the mistake for what it is: A mistake. Whether at work or in your personal life. If you have enough self-awareness to realize that you made a mistake. You need to own it. If you try to hide it, pretend it's nothing or explain it away - that's a problem. Be honest. People will notice and now they will think you're weird or dishonest or a B player or something worse. But owning it, telling it like it is, say "sorry but I fucked up". And then for top points you can go on to explain what you did, why you thought it was the right thing to do at the time, how you realized it was a mistake and probably most importantly what you will do to prevent it from happening again. Now you own it and not only will people appreciate your honesty, but you will also grow and become better.
"The opposite side of succes, isn't failure, but growth".
Jim Collins (BE.20)
Update: Edited the quote and title as I misquoted Jim Collins from memory🙈. Yet another mistake I own 😅