I will never be able to thank Lee Lovett enough, for everything. I can’t explain how important his book was for me. My life can be segmented into “BL” (Before Lee) and “AL” (After Lee), and After Lee is a much, MUCH happier chapter and life. By the way, my name is Adrian, I’m 34, and I live in Chicago, where I manage a software consulting company.
I began stuttering at age 4 and nagged me throughout my school years. The only way I could avoid complete disasters was to rephrase my thoughts, and this was often clumsy and sometimes made me unintelligible. It drove me crazy. I had some therapies over the years, but they didn’t make much difference. I was riddled with anxiety. I hated it.
I found Lee’s book in late 2018, and I consumed it. First, it gave me hope. Second, it showed me ways to avoid appearing to have a speech disability. To put the icing on the cake, he coached me (for free) a few times. It’s been a couple of years now, and I still don’t appear speech-disabled anymore to anybody ever.
Lee says that I should teach myself to love to speak in all situations, but it takes some time and practice. Lee started a SpeechMasters Club for people with speech anxiety, and I hope to join that soon. When I’m comfortable there, I plan to give Toastmasters a shot.
Here’s my message to stutterers: Lee’s methods work. You can stop stuttering. Once you do, like he says, the fears die slowly, sometimes very slowly, but they DO die. So, get his book and get to work. Like Lee says, let’s push stuttering off the planet.
Adrian, Chicago, May 2020
