The Gift of Stuttering

After the class was over, this little girl whom I had never noticed came up to me and handed me a folded up note. I smiled and thanked her for it, but I continued to talk with the teacher. The girl left the room and after a few minutes the teacher asked me what was in the note. So I opened it and here is what it said:

I have that note in a frame on the wall in my office to this day. It is one of my most prized possessions.

When a Division Governor comes to a club meeting, it's general protocol to give him or her an opportunity to speak. I always directed my remarks to the new Toastmasters in the club and encouraged them "go for it" and overcome their fear of public speaking. I got pretty good at delivering that message, and told my story of when ** I ** started out in Toastmasters and how terribly frightened I was. I ended up with words like "for goodness sakes, if ** I ** can do it, so can you!" There was always lots of nice laughter and nods of agreement, yes indeed, that's GOT to be true.

Then came that awful day.... For some stupid reason I was late leaving the house and got tangled up in the awful Dallas rush hour traffic. I finally got to the restaurant where the meeting was and had terrible time finding a place to park. Jeez.... not one of my better days! Anyway, I finally stumbled into meeting and didn't know a soul. Complete strangers. I hate it when that happens! Anyway I walked into the meeting about 10 minutes late to the words of "Here he is now, fellow Toastmasters! Please help me welcome our Division Governor, Russ Hicks!" Clap, clap, clap... I stumbled up to the lectern and smiled and launched into my standard spiel of when I started out in Toastmasters and how scared I was, yada, yada, yada, and "if I can do it, so can you!" ...

Dead silence... no smiles... you could hear a pin drop! I was aghast! What in the world had happened?

My mind raced at supersonic speed desperately trying to figure out what was going on and suddenly like a lightning bolt out of the blue it hit me! I had been fluent! All during that "wonderful" speech, I hadn't stuttered a single time! It was one of those wildly erratic fluency times for me! God, what makes that happen? And why did it have to happen NOW, of all times? The fact that I did NOT stutter made me exactly like everyone else there. I had ZERO credibility with my fear of public speaking! What was I talking about? What was my message? At that point there was NONE, and my speech had fallen flat as a pancake! Having people KNOW I stutter and SHOWING them what it was like WAS my message. But to them, I was just another guy flapping his lips.!

Anyway once I realized what the problem was, I threw in a TON of voluntary stuttering, and made at least a partially successful attempt to redeem myself. Once they SAW and HEARD me stutter, my credibility slowly returned and I was able to pick up most of the pieces of my message. To say that I learned a BUNCH that day is the understatement of my life! My stuttering IS my message to the world, and my victory overcoming that difficulty is what they needed to hear. Not becoming fluent for cryin' out loud! But stuttering and "feeling the fear and doing it anyway." That's a universal message and people respond to it! My WORDS were really nonsense. My ACTIONS in speaking to them was the real message.

Those are just three of many stories I have about how my stuttering has actually HELPED me in life. I was able to reach the little Mexican girl BECAUSE I stuttered. I was able to reach the new Toastmasters BECAUSE I stuttered. I was able to touch that guy's life BECAUSE I stuttered. If I had been fluent, I couldn't have done those things.