Chapter 20. STEVE

For Me, Using a Fake Name Helps You Carry Momentum Through the Day

I love drinking coffee at Bold Bean in Jacksonville. My favorite is freshly roasted coffee made as a pour over. The problem was that when you order a pour over, the baristas ask you for your name. I admit, I was so nervous, but loved coffee so much, I would give a fake name. I chose a name that was easier for me to say than my own. Humiliating, yes, but it's what I did time and time again. The name I chose? Steve. Because words that start with the letter s caused me to not stutter as much.

Momentum is built by one step at a time

Let me talk about where you might be, which is stuck at home. Don't like to go out a lot. The thing is, there's momentum. It means you don't just pop up and have a ton of confidence. No, you build up to it. Well, how do I build momentum, Craig? Well, I've been showing you bits and pieces. The way you do momentum is by creating it. Which means you talk to your stranger a day. You take my once-a-day challenge and you do it. Then when you decide to go out at night, you decide to follow what I share, which is playing music that really gets you excited.

Momentum is built by one step at a time. By each time you go out, by each time you decide to talk, by each time you decide to push the boundaries of what's possible. Momentum is built. It's made. You build it with music, you build it with practice, you build it with the stories we tell ourselves and what we think about it, you build it by telling yourself that you got it. You can't just go from where you are on the couch to extreme confidence. No, there's steps involved.

This is not my first conversation for the day. While I walked here from wherever I parked, I chatted up a couple of strangers just to practice. Before you step up to something really hard, set yourself up for success.



I'm gonna explain a crazy concept. Are you ready? How to have a whole fluency day. How to be fluent for a whole day in the real world. No one talks about that. My belief is that most people don't know how to have a fluency day. They can have a moment, but they don't know how to string together fluency moments for a whole day. That's a key feature. So one hard block, and you know this, my friend, one big f*cking block where you push through your name, you know that your fluency is wrecked for the whole day. Gone.

Avoiding those d*mn stuttering blocks on unimportant sh*t keeps your fluency rolling all day. Because you're surfing fluency momentum in real time. In the real world without a safety net. Right? Which is scary.

A fake name while you work on your speech, when it doesn't matter

Ever gone to a coffee shop where they ask you your name for the order?

So do you think that I'm in favor of using a fake name or not? I'm gonna blow your mind when I explain it. I'm firm and concrete on using a fake name while working on your fluency. Because my only concern for you is that you have good speech. Because it's the hardest thing for us. When we have good speech, we feel amazing. So that's what I want. I just want you to have good speech. I want you to have the best speech possible, actually.

The barista doesn't give a sh*t if you tell her your legal name or you make up a name that you can say. Because while you're working on your speech, saying your name is the hardest.

So what I give you permission to do is to say a fake name when it doesn't matter, while you are working on your speech. So what does that mean? The barista at Starbucks doesn't give a sh*t what name you give her. It doesn't matter to her, but it matters to your speech, what name you give her. Do you get it? So if you give a fake name to a barista at Starbucks, or wherever they ask you for your name, just say whatever name you can say as easily as possible.

"So I would rather stutter than use a fake name. I feel like I've got too much pride for that."



The reason why you won't use a fake name, you'd rather stutter through your real name, is to prove to yourself that you can do it. Because that's what I did. When you use the real name and you stutter and you sound like sh*t, that ain't a win. You feel like sh*t afterwards. You beat yourself up over it. I would never intentionally stutter on my name if it did not f*cking matter. Because no one gives a sh*t about the name. But for me, avoiding a hard block in public, and stammering through, and getting worked up, and pushing out and pushing out, you f*cking lose, man. So you say feel like a fraud. I say choose good speech. Boom.

For me, using a fake name helps you carry momentum through the day. Momentum with speech. What that means is this. If you're having okay speech, it's not horrible, it's not the worst you've ever had, some in the middle, and you have a chance to say your real name or the fake name. Well, if you choose the real name, and if you stutter badly on it, then you're going to probably wreck the rest of your speech day. So that's a prime example where a fake name not just saves you in the moment, but it helps the rest of your day.

I'd say reframe it, to your choosing to carry momentum of good speech through the day. That's all I do. It's black and white. That's how to do it. That's how I did it. I think of it as a game. Like, how can I carry my speech as far as I can?