Good morning Dilan! Tanks for your kind words. You can also do it! Many people have done it already, and they are no different from you, so there’s no reason to believe that you can’t.
Start working on the 1-2-3 punch (read aloud massively, do multiple mind training treatments daily and use the Crutches as much as possible, even when not needed), and you’ll see how your speech improves every week.
I look forward to seeing you today at the SAM meeting!

Hi Dilan,
first of all, welcome to WSSA! My name is Javier, I live in Madrid (Spain) and I’m one of the Certified Speech Coaches here. My bachelors is in Economics, but I have a lot of students who are engineers (and a lot of them in computer science, actually). We also have a bunch of medical doctors and people with PhDs.
I don’t know if you’ve been able to watch my before-after video, shown in the homepage of this website (if you scroll down a bit, until you see 6 videos; I appear in the 3rd one). If you watch it, you’ll also see that I used to be a very severe PWS. And I fully agree with what Lee says in his book: don’t disclose your stutter.
My personal opinion is that the rest of the world doesn’t know anything about stuttering, they don’t understand it. And, wether we like it or not, when we stutter, we make the listeners feel awkward and uncomfortable too. You’ve seen their faces, and how they look away, pretending nothing’s happening, everytime we get stuck on a word. It’s unpleasant for us, sure, but they also feel our suffering. So, if an employer sees your resume and sees that you’re someone who stutters, most likely they will reject your resume, unless you have some extraordinary background. Whereas, if you don’t say it, well you’ll have more chances of getting that interview. And when you’re in that interview, let your speech talk by itself. I think that the chances of getting hired are higher this way….

But let me tell you something (although I’m sure you know it already): you can stop stuttering. I have never talked to you, so I don’t know how you sound like, I can’t give you any specific advice for you, but a lot of people have become PWSS, and some of them have been very severe cases (I include myself in this group, although there have been worse cases than mine too).
I don’t know how long it will take you. That depends on you, on your work ethics, your diligence. Some severe PWs have been able to stop stuttering faster than milder cases, because they’re more desperate to stop stuttering, and will work harder than the milder cases!

Have you started the video courses of the Stuttering book and Crutch Mastery Series? (https://worldstopstuttering.org/courses/)

Are you attending to Crutch Practice sessions (https://worldstopstuttering.org/crutch-practice-group/) and SAM meetings (https://worldstopstuttering.org/speech-club/)? In these meetings you can practice our methods, see how others do it and learn from them. WSSA is also a support group, and we like to help each other achieve fluency and learn to love to speak!

Are you watching videos of our coaching sessions? (https://worldstopstuttering.org/videos) There are several search filters that will help you the most appropriate videos for you. The advice the coach gives in those coaching sessions will surely help you too. When I was a PWS, I used to watch one of these sessions almost every day.

Are you receiving coaching? Obviously, this would accelerate the process.

Are you reading aloud and doing mind training treatments every day? And using the Crutches as much as possible.

If you’re a Free Trial Member, you can get a free Q&A session with one of us and ask us anything regarding your speech and the program. And if you’re a Stuttering member, you have 3 free coaching sessions that will surely help you a great deal.

I hope to see you in one of my Crutch Practice Sessions (if your time allows, of course) and on Saturdays at 10am NY time at SAM!!

Have a great day, and let me know if you have any questions or comments!!

Hi Rajmohan! I’ve just emailed you another link. Try that one and let me know.

Hi Gábor,
sorry for my late reply. Lee sent us an email last night saying that he has just uploaded his new book on Amazon, which means that it 3-5 days it should be available there.

Hi Ocean! Welcome to WSSA!!
My name is Javier and I’m one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA. I began stuttering at around age 6, and eventually my stutter became very severe (blocks on most words in ALL situations, face grimaces, etc). Finally, at the age of 29, I became a PWSS. Your case seems milder than mine, so that’s good.
In my previous job (I worked there for around 6 years) I had to do a lot of phone calls, meet clients, travel, etc. I loved that job, besides the multiple bad incidents I had every day. Everytime I got stuck on a word, it has devastating.
The thing is, you can work on your speech while doing the rest of the things you do everyday. Here are some examples:
– You can do your Auto-Suggestion Treatments while driving/going to work (or elsewhere). I still do that.
– You can read aloud everything that you read, such as emails, reports, messages, news articles, etc. If you are at work, and you don’t want to disturb others, do it in a whisper. Since I guess that you’ll have to wear a facemask at work, feel free to read aloud whispering, most people won’t notice it.
– Use the Crutches every time you speak.

Have you gone to any of our Crutch Practice Sessions? We have multiple every day. Check them here: https://worldstopstuttering.org/crutch-practice-group/
These sessions are in groups of not more than 5 people. The host is either a Coach or a PWSS, so they know the Crutches. The idea is that the attendees have the chance to learn, practice and master the Crutches in a safe and supportive environment, where everybody there has the same goal as you: master the Crutches. So nobody is going to judge you; on the contrary, they’ll try to help you as best as they can. So, try to go to as many of these sessions as you can. A lot of my students go there and they are improving a lot faster.

Another thing that you should do is to watch the video courses of “Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures” and “Crutch Mastery series”. The former is not a substitute of the book. It is a complement to the book, to help you understand it more easily. Here’s the link to these courses: https://worldstopstuttering.org/courses/
Since you are a busy person, in most of these video lessons you can simply listen to them, without watching, so that you can do other things at the same time. I used to listen to them while cooking, for example.

If you have a free Saturday, please do come to the SAM meetings (Saturdays at 10am NY time). You will be able to listen to the speech journey of other PWSS, learn from them, ask them questions, etc. It’s really motivational. Here’s the link: https://worldstopstuttering.org/speech-club/

And of course, coaching will help you considerably too 🙂

Feel free to ask us any questions here, and keep us posted with your progress!

Have a wonderful day!

Javier

Hi Jack! Welcome to WSSA! My name is Javier, I live in Spain and I’m a PWSS and one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA. I’m glad you just signed up as a Stuttering member. Until you receive the hard copy of Lee’s book, you can start reading it from here. As a Stuttering member, you have free access to electronic copies of all of his books here.

To make the most of WSSA’s contents, I’d suggest you the following things:
– Of course, read Lee’s Stuttering & Anxiety Self-Cures. While you read its chapters, watch the corresponding video lesson of those chapters of the video course of this book: https://worldstopstuttering.org/courses/stuttering-and-speech-anxiety-self-cures/.

– Once you get to the part of the Crutches, start with this video course too: https://worldstopstuttering.org/courses/crutch-mastery-series/.

– Read the book aloud, in a passionate way.

– Once you’ve read the part of the book about the Crutches, start attending to as many Crutch Practice Group sessions as you can: https://worldstopstuttering.org/crutch-practice-group/. These sessions will help you immensely. You will be able to practice the Crutches in small groups (not more than 5 people) and learn from the rest of the attendees.

– Come to the SAM meetings, as you said. The are extremely motivating, and of course, you will learn a lot from other people’s experiences. I might not be able to be there this next Saturday, unfortunately. But I hope to see you any other week!

– Watch videos of other coaching sessions in the “Video” Section of this website: https://worldstopstuttering.org/videos. There are more than 1000 videos of coaching sessions. You will see that you have multiple filters to find the most suitable videos for you. The advice that we, coaches, give in those videos will surely be helpful for you too!

– Read the Blogs that we have written and that are meant to complement the book. https://worldstopstuttering.org/blog/

– Ask us any questions you might have, and share your progress with us too here, in the Forums.

– And finally, as a Stuttering member of WSSA, you have 3 free coaching sessions. These sessions will surely help you become a PWSS faster, but I’d recommend you first to finish reading the book, so as to avoid “wasting” time explaining you the things that are already explained in the book, and so that we can make the most of this precious time.

Work on this program as much as you can, on a daily basis, and you’ll become a PWSS. It will just be a matter of time. I’ve had students who did this in 5 weeks, others have taken months. This depends on the severity of your stutter, on how long you’ve been stuttering, and how diligently you work on it.

Feel free to ask us anything!

We’ll be looking forward to seeing you there, Tracey!

By the way, I am asking all the people I coach to watch the video of the last SAM meeting (the speaker is actually somebody from Scotland too), because, appart from the fact that the way he spoke was fantastic, the content is even better. He spoke about how he works on his speech and his daily regime. It’s really worth watching:

SpeechAnxietyMasters Meeting: June 26, 2021

Adam, it’s not so much about explaining it, it’s about finding a solution to it. I firmly belive, and so do all the people that I’ve coached, that we stutter when we plan-fear-hesitate-force a word. But in any case, let’s suppose you don’t fear words, and you have a block with a word. As soon as you see that you’re beginning to force a word, STOP IT! Immediately, stop forcing it. Take a 1-count, or a 2-count, or even a 3-count, and start again, but using a Crutch this time. But make sure you are 100% focused on using that Crutch, and nothing else.