How a Perceived Flaw Can Boost Your Confidence

Transcript

I am 52 years old, and I have stuttered my entire life. So that makes me somewhat of an expert on stuttering. I own it, and I want you to know that, according to the National Stuttering Association, only one percent of the population stutters. Additionally, four out of five people who stutter are guys.

There are two different types of stutterers. You have covert and overt. Covert means you try to hide it. For example: “How you doing? My name’s… Matthew McConaughey. All right, all right, all right.” That’s covert. You try to hide it. You cover it up. You mask it. You do anything you can. You avoid certain words and sounds, and sometimes you don’t even want to speak at all.

I’m the exact opposite. I’m an overt. That means you can’t shut me up. I talk a lot. But it means that you own it, and you’re not afraid. You’re unashamed. In other words, it’s all right.

And that’s how I try to go. Almost any time that I talk to somebody and I feel like I’m about to stutter, I will tell them that I stutter. And they’ll often say, “Well, it’s okay.” I say, “Well, I know it’s okay. I’m just letting you know.” So when you let them know — when they know — it can help put everybody at ease.

Do you actually know what stuttering is? Because a lot of people don’t know. They think they know, and it’s actually different for every person. Now, I’m about to read off a 3×5 card, which you usually don’t do at these kinds of talks, but I’m doing it to advertise that I don’t stutter when I read. It’s just one of the quirks of my particular stutter, but it’s not like that for everybody, because we’re all different.

So, according to the Stuttering Foundation, stuttering is a communication disorder in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions — li-li-like this — prolongations — llllike this — or abnormal stoppages of sounds and syllables. There may also be unusual facial and body movements associated with the effort to speak. Stuttering is also called stammering.

Now, I wasn’t always like this, meaning that I wasn’t always as confident as I am now. When I was a kid, my stutter was so much more present, and I couldn’t hide it. It was hard. I got picked on every single day. I couldn’t hide it. It was like trying to hide an elephant in a chicken coop. It just couldn’t be done.

I would do different things in addition to the obvious impaired speech. There would be the facial contortions. And also I would do some strange things — I would almost have to beat the word out of me to get the word out. Just imagine I have an invisible tambourine down here, trying to beat the word out. If I had to talk in class, I’m sitting at the desk, I would be beating underneath the desktop trying to get the word out. It was tough. But the hardest part is, if I was talking to somebody, I might start slapping them in the arm. No wonder people didn’t want to talk with me a whole lot.

But one day, that all changed almost instantly. What changed? I changed. I realized that if I didn’t accept myself, perceived flaws and all, then how can I expect for somebody else to? And just immediately things changed. Immediately this heavy burden was lifted off of my shoulders.

While stress and anxiety and nervousness might not cause stuttering, they can certainly amplify it. I wasn’t cured of stuttering — there is no cure for stuttering. But the burden was no more. There was no more stress. There was no more anxiety. There was no more nervousness. And from that point on, I don’t remember being picked on a whole lot — until years later, I joined the Army. And we just pick on each other. If it wasn’t the stuttering, it would be something else. Plus, they knew that it didn’t bother me, because I had great confidence. Great confidence can get you a long way, and acceptance is a key tool to getting you there.

Now, fast forward to today. I’m a certified leadership speaker. I’m a former Army officer. I’m a clean comedian, a motivational speaker, all this kind of stuff. And a few weeks ago I was performing comedy at a fundraiser in Opelika. After the show, this young lady came up to me and she was smiling ear to ear. Her name — let’s call her Jamie. And she said, “Hey, I stutter too.” And that’s always cool to hear.

But the thing that really hit me hard, though, was that Jamie was 27 years old, and she had never met another person who stutters. She told me how my humorous stories had touched her deeply, but they also showed her husband some of the daily challenges that she faced. And me being able to talk about it so freely — one, it put her at ease. Two, it showed her that she was not alone. And three, it showed her that it’s okay to stutter.

Now, my story is obviously about stuttering, but I believe that acceptance and advertising can really be applicable to any type of challenge that we face. Advertising boosts our confidence and our self-esteem, and it helps us immediately with communication and connection, and that helps us in a whole wide range of areas — including better relationships, more job opportunities, and just a better overall quality of life.

This might sound anecdotal to some. I get that. But this is based on a lifetime of stuttering and hundreds of encounters with people who stutter. Before we can even begin to take action to reach that full potential, we have to do two things. One, the aforementioned acceptance. And two, we have to reject any and all self-pity.

After that, I challenge you to immerse yourself in uncomfortable situations, where avoidance isn’t an option and where speaking is required. You can’t learn to swim till you get in the water. So things such as going through the drive-thru window — do that. You have to do these things out of your comfort zone. Drive-thru window, talk to a stranger, call up an old friend — anything that takes you out of that comfort zone. And when we do this on a daily basis, your confidence is bound to grow.

See, if we are uncomfortable, our audience will be uncomfortable. But if we advertise, then it puts everybody at ease. And as my friends, the professionals at the American Institute for Stuttering, say: speak freely and live fearlessly. Thank you.