Hello from New Jersey

[Larry R]

Hello my name is Larry, I have been stuttering since the first grade but it has gotten better over time because I learned just to deal with it, slow down and avoid certain situations. My father and son stutter too. I found Lees book about three years ago and I have read most of it and it has helped me but my real issue is conference calls and sometimes on the phone and public speaking. I can sit in a room and read to myself and not stutter once or I could be in certain situations talking to family friends at work or at home and not stutter once but when I am on a conference call with 300 people and it’s my turn to speak, I might get stuck on certain words per se and my heart races and my speech can be choppy and I just feel nervous as hell in that situation and I’m wondering what I can do to stop that. thank you

[John Kerr]

Hi Larry,
I’m John from Scotland and a PWSS.
My advice is come to SAM meetings on Saturday where Lee and the other coaches will answer any of your questions. I host crutch practice sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays. Look at the site for details.
Buy Lee’s latest book that has an extra 200 plus pages of additional content.
Once you become a PWSS, you’ll be of the mindset that it doesn’t matter if you talk to 1 person or 300.

John

[Larry R]

Thanks John.

[Javier]

Hi Larry! I’m Javier, a PWSS from Spain, and one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA. First of all, welcome to this community of ex-stutterers and those fast-becoming ex-stutterers. I totally agree with what John said, and I would add: join our Crutch Practice groups (https://worldstopstuttering.org/crutch-practice-group/). These are meetings where we meet in small groups and pratice Crutches and speak, and expand comfort zones. I think you could benefit from these meetings too.

Keep us posted with your progress!

[Damian]

Hey Larry and Javier,
Im Damian and have dealt with speech issues most of my life. I purchased Lee’s book several months ago and have been working through it; reading aloud most days and doing mind training twice a day. Its been very helpful especially the use of crutches but they are still not automatic the way I would like. I need to work on them more and I still haven’t spoken in front large groups of people putting these crutches to work.

[Javier]

Hi Damian,
Thanks for sharing your progress with us. Making the Crutches automatic is a matter of time and practice. The more you use them, the easier and more automatic it gets.
The more feeling and passion you put in your speech, the less you’ll need the Crutches.
About speaking to large groups of people, I would recommend you to do it one step at a time. I mean, expand your comfort zones. You may now feel comfortable and relaxed speaking to groups of, let’s say, 3 people (more than that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable). Okay, to reach the goal of speaking comfortably to groups of 20+ people, we need to start working on smaller groups. Start speaking to groups of 4-5 people. Focus on the things you’ve learnt here. After speaking to groups of 4-5 people several times, you will feel as comfortable speaking to them as you do when speaking to 1 person. Now is the time to expand again your comfort zones to groups of 6-8 people, and repeat this process. Then do it again with groups of 9-12, and so on until you no longer feel pressure speaking to groups of people, no matter its size.
You can find a lot of useful tips about speech anxiety in Lee’s book, “Speech Anxiety to Public Speaking”, only available here, at WSSA.

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