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From: Reuben Schuff
Date: 14 Oct 2011
Time: 23:06:28 -0500
Remote Name: 75.177.152.127
Hi Andy, You ask what I did to keep up my confidence and stay positive. How might we see the glass and half full rather than half empty? Well…that’s not really how the story goes. The glass you see, was bone dry, shattered, and ground back in to sand. So let’s get out the torches and start melting some sand back in to glass and reforming the vessel. After 20 years of profound struggle and total inability to communicate, I didn’t really have a whole lot to be confident or positive about. You might say, I had nothing left to lose, or so it seemed. And when you have nothing left to fear, you become willing to relook at things in different ways. Honestly I don’t think I’d say I’m a positive thinker or search for positive self talk. But rather I try to find truth because I believe that holds power. “The truth is that life is hard and dangerous” (Joyce Cary). Stuttering is hard and hurts at times, that’s real, true and present, not positive. It’s also true that people who stutter are successful in every walk of life you can find. But don’t take my word for it, come to an NSA conference and met hundreds of us. That’s also real, true, present and powerful for me. I keep going to NSA, I’ve grown from a guest, to a member, to a leader, to a chapter founder. I stay close to my speech group. I joined Toastmasters. I don’t give up professionally until the job is done well or until I get fired…haven’t been fired yet and its Friday! I’ll keep fighting next week. I find amazement in looking back, the day to day doesn’t allow me to see real progress. But looking back on how situations are different now compared to the past gives me confidence, real confidence. I have a Toastmasters speech to give on Tuesday. I’m actually looking forward to the opportunity. It’s really just the first 6 months or year that are the hardest, of anything. Do something 50 times, and you start getting ok at it. As for stuttering on the career level, I’ll bring it up, I’ll try to put people at ease, I’ll make jokes about it, it’s on my performance review. I find most people in the professional world (and in general) don’t know how to bring it up. But if I take ownership of it, it puts people at ease and makes it not an issue. In other words, if I can show people that I’m ok with it, then they are likely to be ok with it. And the people who aren’t, weren’t going to be anyway. Thanks for your comments; I hope I was able to answer your questions. ~Reuben