I am Hussain, a 39 year old engineer who lives in California. I have been stammering for many years and I remember first noticing this as a child between grade 4 and 5. My stammer has been predominantly situational where I did not have an issue in cases such as reading to myself or singing. It affected one-third of so of my speech, and it drove me to think about my speech over half the time in every waking hour of the day.
While I have done well for myself academically and professionally, I did feel that I did not truly achieve my full potential. Situations such as interviews and presentations to strangers were pressure situations that I preferred to avoid.
I chanced upon Lee’s book and bought it on audible. The journey that Lee outlined of his own issues with stuttering resonated with what I had experienced and the steps he outlined made sense to me. I had undergone speech therapy in the past with focus on extreme pronunciation and though that helped, it was something that I was hesitant to apply in normal circumstances as it seemed odd. The suite of “Crutches” that Lee outlined seemed a lot more doable and blending these into normal conversation seemed to be much more practical.
I reached out to lee last October and requested to be included in his Skype sessions. I was very grateful to see the immediate reply from Lee and we started our Skype calls the next week.
I have benefited a lot from my interactions with Lee. He has been a teacher, inspiration and most importantly a motivator. His book and the methodologies outlined there remain the basis of my road to improvement but being able to have conversations with him serve as a sounding board on what works for me and what does not. Most importantly at times where I have had challenges with my speech, he talks me out of dropping off and gets me back on the path to practice and application of the crutches.
During the time I have had calls with Lee, I have felt my ability to avoid and get out of points where I stutter improve significantly. With Lee, I have focused on reading aloud, repeated application on the Crutches that I believe have worked best for me and autosuggestions that I have worked with Lee to customize to what works for me.
I am a firm believer that my challenges are in the mind. When I am more confident, my speech is better. The use of Crutches and other tools outlined above has improved my confidence significantly. I now no longer avoid situations that I earlier would avoid. I am more confident and speak better in situations I cannot avoid.
I have not had an obvious block or otherwise appeared speech-disabled for a five months now, I continue to use crutches to help me avoid stammer incidents or quickly get me out of a word that I feel I might block on. If you wish, you can see my latest video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcYr0_B5T0Y. I strongly recommend to my fellow PWS to stay with the steps outlined by Lee, constantly use the crutches and try to hear fluency from yourself as much as you can. These worked for Lee, for me and the host of others who have followed him and his methods.
Hussain, California, October 2018