Photo by Kayla Harris on Unsplash
I’ve had a stutter since I was around 5 years old. I’m told the “emotional trauma” of moving to a new country caused my speech problems.
When I was younger I spent many sessions with therapists working through my speech problems. Although I was never fully cured, my speech improved a lot and I developed coping techniques to work around the problem.
I’ve tried not to let my stuttering affect my life, personally or professionally. However, stuttering your own name makes it difficult in many situations you find yourself in day in day out. Always in the back of my mind the thought that I’d stutter and stumble lives on.
Despite these fears I’ve been a guest on podcasts, made presentations in front of audiences small and large. Yes I’ve had problems making it thru these (who doesn’t?), but that just adds to challenge and great feeling making to thru successfully to the end.
I think I’m a better Maker because of my stuttering.
So much of making is breaking thru mental obstacles as much as technical or business ones.
The thick skin I developed from being teased a child, helps dealing with the “feedback” you get on places like HackerNews and online in general.
Trying to do the things, that others find so easy and straightforward, again and again before feeling comfortable, showed me that I can find my own path, and not worry about following other peoples.
I learned despite the obstacles that lives presents you, you are the single biggest factor in being successful or not. I could have chosen to let the stuttering define who I am, but I have not and will not.
Everyone who stutters has their own way to dealing with their stuttering.
I like to challenge my problems head on. In 2019 I want to take on my stuttering, so I’ll be doing more with audio. I hope you’ll come and hear me talk about the things I do with side projects and indie businesses, not just read about them in blog posts like this one.
I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet, a formal podcast or more impromptu recordings and live streams to exercise my vocal muscles. Everything will be published here on Medium or on my new project Indie saas. I’m also toying with the idea of doing book readings, as a way to getting more comfortable with speaking out loud and getting comfortable hearing my own voice. If you have any ideas I’d love to hear them!
