Hello, speech friends! My name is Amauris, and I am a 29-year-old from New Jersey who works in corporate finance. I am here with immeasurable pride and joy to share that I have officially gained control over my speech to stop my stutter! Thanks to the teachings of the legendary Lee Lovett, the endless inspiration I have drawn from my WSSA coaches/peers, and the dedication I put into improving my speech, I can whole-heartedly exclaim the fact that stuttering can be stopped. Coach Lee’s neuroscience method is truly the most effective manual for anyone to rid themselves of the burdens of stuttering.
I started stuttering when I was 4 years old, and vividly recall my speech insecurities beginning as early as 1st grade in elementary school. Despite being an obedient, athletic, and studious child, who thankfully never faced bullying, I severely struggled with self-degradation and an inferiority complex. I routinely thought to myself “I know that I am smart, but I speak like I am dumb.” The frustration from holding myself back in social and academic settings to avoid negative speech incidents made me a prisoner of my own thoughts for 25 years. Nonetheless, I will skip sharing 25 years worth of stuttering sob stories since I am replacing them from my mental memory image bank with fluency memories now. I’m here to share what worked for me, how blessed I am to be a part of the WSSA family, and how it feels to have been knighted by coach Lee Lovett himself as a PWSS.
The WSSA community is all about helping one another, with love and support, to unlock our full potential and live more fulfilled lives. What can be more of a blessing than being a part of something like that? That blessing came through each of us enduring the anguish of a stutter. Pain is often where purpose can be found, and WSSA is where many of us have been able to convert the pain of stuttering into a blessing. I’ll never forget my consultation call with coach Danny: where within 30 minutes, he shed the light of WSSA on me, and had me shedding tears of joy. “Huh? Stuttering is only a bad habit? I can overcome this through disciplined work? There’s even an opportunity to become a certified speech specialist who helps rid the world of stuttering?” I asked Danny each of these questions while simultaneously envisioning the miracles I would experience on my speech journey within this community. If anyone reading this needed a glimpse of how utterly incredible a journey like this can be, there it is.
As many of us know, coach Lee’s 1-2-3 punch includes reading aloud, mind training treatment, and the use of the speech crutches. It took me months to determine what speech plan worked best for me. My favorite crutches have always been voice modulation, extreme pronunciation, and word-linkage since I was historically a fast talking, choppy-speech, middle word blocker. It was around June 2025 when coach Danny began complimenting my use of word linkage as “poetry in motion”. That’s all it took for me to go full throttle on making short-link-stop my preferred speech plan. This speech plan ensures me of holding my tone to smooth out the choppiness in my speech, and inserting pauses to keep my rate of speech and breathing quite relaxed.
When it came to reading aloud, I stuck with poetry. I found it easiest to exaggerate the use of the crutches when reading poems. I always read them slowly, because it feels like a crime to rush through poetry (this effectively built up my habit of speaking slower). In this process, I also learned to treat my words the way I treated poetry. As in, I have important things to say, so I shall act accordingly by slowing down and saying everything like I mean them, the way a poet does and as coach Lee advises.
My favorite punch is mind training treatment. As a habitually stressed out corporate finance employee, I cranked up the use of self-hypnosis and deep breathing to several hours per day when possible. I would literally listen to self-hypnosis recordings more than I would listen to my regular music. I became obsessed with the relaxation I would feel, especially since it helped me maximize the effectiveness of my speech plan. Visualizing inner peace and full control over my speech has gotten easier and easier throughout my speech journey. Reinforcing my progress with positive affirmations such as “I sound my best when I use short-link-stop”, and “every day, in every way, my speech gets better”, have only assisted me with growing my confidence and speech progress.
On September 14, 2025, I had my most memorable speech practice session with coach Steve and coach Lee. It was my 10th practice session with coach Steve, and my first with coach Lee. I entered this session with supreme confidence in my ever-improving speech, and with so much excitement to finally have a conversation with an idol of mine. Within minutes, coach Lee assumed Steve and I were playing a prank on him because of how fluent I was. Lee did not believe I was a stutterer! This was the ultimate speech victory for me. I was living out a life-long dream at this moment. I haven’t had a humiliating stuttering incident in months, and Coach Lee and Steve then agreed that I was ready to receive the esteemed title of Person Who Stopped Stuttering. This only motivated me further to challenge myself, become even more involved in the WSSA community, and to reach out to other stutterers who have not heard of the promised land yet that is WSSA.
Amauris, New Jersey, October 2025