I USED TO STUTTER

How I Beat My Stutter and How I Remain Fluent

And you can too!

Fluency is saying what you want, when you want, to who you want.

Craig Coffee

usedtostutter.com



HERE'S WHAT'S IN IT

PART 1. I'VE WALKED IN YOUR SHOES

1. MY PARENTS' DRIVEWAY. I Actually Got Tough Love in the Worst Moment of My Life When All I Wanted Was a Hug

p. 7

2. STUTTERING HELL. It's as much about the fluency help as it is about the loneliness.

p. 8

3. ME AND YOU. I can shortcut the information, but there's no shortcuts in the amount of work required

p. 12

PART 2. FINDING MY WAY OUT

4. THE STUTTERING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. I spent 9 years in speech therapy

p. 16

5. SPAIN. I had a good breakthrough temporarily.

p. 20

6. THE JUNGLE. I tested the results in the real world.

p. 22

7. WHAT I NOTICED ABOUT MY SPEECH. The thoughts and feelings I learned to work with

p. 24

8. I HAD TO KEEP HOPE. I had to have hope in my life

p. 29

9. MORE THAN MY STUTTER. I'm a person who's working on my fluency

p. 33

PART 3. THE TOOLS I STILL USE

10. IT'S TOO EARLY IN THE DAY TO HATE YOURSELF. I created a crutch out of total desperation!

p. 37



11. THERE AIN'T NO SCRIPT. Do I have ideas of what I'm going to talk about? Yes.

p. 42

12. THE INTENTIONAL DREAM. When you create this dream, you set the feeling

p. 44

13. COME IN TALLER. Confidence? It's Manufactured. It Can Be Changed. Taught.

p. 49

14. ENTHUSIASM IS CONTAGIOUS. I bring enthusiasm on purpose. It's for fluency.

p. 53

15. ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE? Open-ended questions instead

p. 55

16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN. Watch their mouth. Hear the words. Hear their tonality.

p. 59

17. NEVER PUSH THROUGH A BLOCK. It's critical to avoid unnecessary hard stuttering blocks.

p. 62

18. HEAL QUICK. You got to find a way to move on

p. 65

PART 4. THE REAL WORLD IS UNSCRIPTED

19. THE ONCE-A-DAY CHALLENGE. You practice with people who are gentle

p. 69

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

p. 73

21. I WILL GO FIRST. In that moment, in that very second, I was brave.

p. 76



22. I SHOULD HAVE LEFT. Because this is not a work thing, we can just leave.

p. 82

23. JOIN THE CALLS BEFORE YOUR BOSS. The goal is to get the confidence going by speaking soon.

p. 85

24. THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU. I think it's okay to share with the people closest to you

p. 88

25. SAY YOUR NAME. Saying my name was the last thing I beat with my stutter

p. 90

PART 5. I BRING IT EACH DAY

26. FLUENCY IS WON. I'm fluent, but I still work on myself.

p. 93

27. RAW. I've Cried Myself to Sleep a Lot of Times

p. 96

28. MY NAME IS CRAIG. Can I get a name for the order?

p. 97



NO BULLSH*T. JUST RAW AND REAL TALK.

This book is me and you right here talking. There's no need for you and me to bullsh*t each other. I respect you too much to do that.

I am firm in concrete opinions of what it takes to become a man who used to stutter. Become the man who used to stutter. I'm one person. All of this stuff and these stories in my book worked for me. I have no idea if these tips, techniques, tips and tricks will work for you and your stutter. Stuttering is deeply personal, and everyone has different experiences, so what works for me might not work for you.

Nothing would make me happier than if you can live life as fluently as you want. To do whatever you want and not feel held back by your stutter and to be a happier person. That is my goal.

My book, I Used to Stutter, is free because it is the fulfillment of the promise I made when I was 14 years old in my parents' driveway. You'll read this story at the start of Chapter 1.



SOUND FAMILIAR?

I know what you experience because I lived through it too. Sound familiar?

1. Are you sick and tired of feeling like you are not being heard? Are

you sick and tired of having people talk over you?

2. Do you hate when people finish your sentences?

3. Do you get tired of non-stutterers thinking getting rid of a stutter is

easy to do?

4. Would you do nearly anything to avoid talking on the phone?

5. Do you think one of the worst feelings in the world is when you

stutter or block on your name, and people laugh at you? People asking you if you forgot your name?

6. Have people made fun of your stutter? Maybe while you were

younger, in school, or as an adult.

7. Have you ever judged your day by how good or bad your speech was

that day?

8. Do you feel really frustrated when you say something 100%

perfectly, then someone asks you to repeat yourself?

9. Have you ever stuttered so much you decided to shut up?

10. Have you ever been at a restaurant and ordered food that you could

say, not what you actually wanted to eat?

11. Have you pretended like you did not know something, or pretended

you forgot, to avoid stuttering?

12. Can you relate to making a phone call and silently hoping they don't

answer?

13. Have you ever stuttered so much at a drive-through restaurant that

you just drove off without your food?



PART 1. I'VE WALKED IN YOUR SHOES

Chapter 1. MY PARENTS' DRIVEWAY

I Actually Got Tough Love in the Worst Moment of My Life When All I Wanted Was a Hug

I came home from a new speech therapist when I was about 14. I had a hard session. This new speech therapist was not as nice, and I was stuttering badly. She had me making phone calls that day, but this was my first session with a new therapist. I'd done it before, but it just did not go well. This session was really hard, and I felt her pushing me more than I wanted to. My first therapist had been kind, not very effective at helping my speech, but at least she was nice.

The thing was that my mom picked me up in her car after the appointment, and as we drove home, I'm explaining how it was so bad. I'm crying my eyes out and just feeling so bad. It's one of those moments where you just absolutely hate your stutter. This was the moment I was having.

When we get home, I'm standing in my parents' driveway, tears streaming down my face. My mom is standing there saying I was going to have my stutter for the rest of my life. Then she said my sister had her own things to work on, and stuttering was mine. I actually got tough love in the worst moment of my life when all I wanted was a hug. To be told it would be okay. My own mom did not give me the love that I needed at the lowest point of my life. I remember the exact spot in the driveway where I was standing.

Where I was standing, I started crying out to God for help, saying, why, God, why me? Why do I have to stutter? Why can't I just be normal? At this point, tears are pouring down my face, and I don't know what made me say this at the time. I promised God that if God would help me stop stuttering, I would dedicate the rest of my life to helping people who stutter become fluent.

This was a defining moment in my life. I remember this day as the turning point in my fluency journey.



Chapter 2. STUTTERING HELL

When You Stutter, Like You Do and I Did

This book is expressly for the person who stutters, and has been embarrassed, humiliated and cried themselves to sleep on many nights. I'm you, and this is our book.

When you stutter, like you do and I did, you make all of your life decisions based on stuttering. Are you going to be sociable? Are you going to go out on a date? Do you want a girlfriend? How do you ask anyone out? Where do you take her on a date? All of that sh*t. It's hurt by your stutter. When you go out to a restaurant, you order what you can say, not what you can eat.

Easier to say a number than describe what I really wanted

We did have a Wendy's on campus. This was located at the Reitz Union student rec center. Wendy's was always packed, with a long line.

I remember the very first week of school when I ordered Wendy's for the first time. I knew I wanted the fried chicken sandwich, and I was going to ask for the number of the combination I wanted. Easier to say a number than describe what I really wanted. This may sound familiar. It's my turn and I suddenly froze up. That number just wouldn't come out. At Wendy's the spicy chicken sandwich was combo 7. I could say 7.

Years of ordering a combo 7 at Wendy's led me to finally like spicy food.

Work? You take jobs that don't require a lot of speaking, mostly. When you take those jobs, you probably feel like you're passed up on promotions because of your stutter. I felt that way too. Making new friends. You know, how are you going to be sociable? Do you go out or do you stay in? All of those things are impacted by this.

When you're afraid to talk, when you're worried, when your head is filled with all of your own thoughts, when you don't really go out much to speak, when you're living in your own head, when you're afraid to



make that phone call, when your heart drops, when your boss says, "Hey Craig, take us through this next example on a work call," or when you hear your name and you're going to have to speak out loud, there's a thousand circumstances, but your heart drops, you feel afraid.

There's a lot of time where we just literally live in our own heads by ourselves with our own thoughts. That can be dangerous in a sense that when you do that, like I did that for so long, you beat yourself up, you become accustomed to not speaking much, you live with a lot of fear, and you basically are not living life like you want at all.

It was the worst stuttering blocking I had publicly in my life

In the fall of 6th grade at a new middle school, I'm at a brand new school. It's, I think, like October now. So, the teacher knew by then that I had stuttered, because she heard me. She felt very insistent to call the whole class out loud to read a paragraph out loud. So, she called on me.

It was the worst thing in the world, man. I wanted to die. I had a paragraph. I couldn't make a sentence. You know what that's like. It was the worst stuttering blocking I had publicly in my life, and I felt totally humiliated, and I wanted to hide below my desk. But just like you know, right, I can't hide. So I had to live with that feeling. I felt sh*tty. I was humiliated so much that I just had this burning passion to find a way through.

I got plenty of humiliation, like a thousand. Laughed at, stuttering on my name, that's not your name, did you forget your name. All of the stuff. I cried myself to sleep. I had a really hard time. I was laughed at, humiliated. First days of school were the worst. My teachers called on me despite the fact that I had a stutter. All of this.

It defines who you are. Stuttering sucks. I should know. So that was Stuttering Craig. That was my life.

It crushes dreams

Stuttering is hell, plain and simple. That's why I call it Stuttering Hell. Because once you're in it, it's the absolute worst feeling in the world. The feeling of a 3-second block that feels like the world's coming to an end. Judging your days good or bad depending on if you had good



speech that day. The fear and feeling your heart drop when your phone rings suddenly, and you immediately panic about your speech.

But a lot of mine was things I did not do, risks I did not take, or chances I let slip through my hands. That's what stuttering causes. It crushes dreams.

People judged me. They thought it meant I was slow.

Let me tell you a sad story. So I had this friend who was this real pretty girl who did not live in my town, but we were friends, and we went to prom as friends, right? I found out years later, years, like post college, that she and her friends thought I was slow mentally because of my stutter. Well, that one broke me, dude. That one hurt so bad. Because like, I was fine to be friends with the pretty girl, but like I thought she thought I was, you know, smart. The point is like there's so much judging.

The worst part, man, was when I realized and I saw in my life that people judged me. They thought it meant I was slow and not smart. That was the most pain.

You are a true hero

You are a brave person who faces so much hardship. You do it with grace. You go through your day facing adversity, fear, pain, humiliation and self-doubt. C'mon, you can admit it. It's just you and me here. After all, what you go through, the pain, the frustration, the humiliation, day after day after day. What do you do the next day? You get up and do it all over again. You're a hero if you ask me. Am I biased? Sure I am.

You, a person who stutters, is a true hero in my opinion. Why? Because you go through the day. We start the day, you pump yourself up, you say, I'm going to get through my day and today's going to be an okay day, right? Then you go through the day and a lot of the times it's like ramming our head against the wall, or at least for me it was, where you encounter tough choices and tough things and things that are hard to deal with. It's failure. You face a lot of it.



Pain that my mom and dad never knew

The thing about stuttering for me was I lived with so much pain. I'm gonna talk for a second, okay. It was pain that my mom and dad never knew. My sister never knew that pain. The pain, the feeling in my stomach when I got humiliated for the third time that day in school, or when I had tears in my eyes when I was going to bed. It was just like a lonely life too, because no one got my pain. No one got the things I went through. No one helped me to unpack this stuff in my head.

I remember standing in friend groups where my friends were talking and I was silently suffering, because I wanted to say so much, because I wanted to make the same joke that someone said 30 seconds later, but I couldn't, or I wouldn't dare.

It's one thing to stutter and feel humiliated, but like, no offense, but like you and I are pros at that. I mean, we've done it more than most people could ever dream of. I mean, it's not something to really brag about, because it's painful. But I think what's more painful is how lonely the life becomes of living with this daily pain. I think for me that was the hardest part, was the loneliness. I would have loved a big brother who had gone through this. It's as much about the fluency help as it is about the loneliness.

It's more than suffering in silence, because it's daily, for years and years and years. It's a silent life struggle, I guess I would say. Would you agree?

What are my qualifications? My life.

But Craig, what is your qualification for it? You know what? I'm unqualified from the sense that I never went to college to beat stuttering. F*ck that. I was born, and then when I was a few years old, maybe 7 years old, I started to stutter.

What are my qualifications? My life. I used to stutter. I walked the walk. I know what you experience because I lived through it too. I lived through the negative impact stuttering had on my social life, and my dating life, and my academic life, and my professional life. I cried myself to sleep. I asked God, why me. All the same stuff that you've done, that we all do. I've walked in your shoes, my friend.



Chapter 3. ME AND YOU

This is the kind of stuff that never existed when I was on my journey. There was no one who had gone through it, who had spent all that time, and who was willing to share. There was no path, and there was no one who showed me how to do it. All the long, slow, dumb way.

I was handed a golden key the whole semester

I'm a freshman in high school, and it's a very big high school to me. We're all required to take a language, and I take Spanish. The funny thing happens when you're in a new class: wherever you sit on the first day is where people sit for the rest of the year. It's just how it is. Try it.

I sat next to this sophomore, who's this big, tall guy who played basketball. His name was Erik. We got to be friendly, and he was funny, and he liked me despite my stutter.

In the second week, we start talking about this science teacher who I have, who's this old guy who had been around for a long time. This one teacher never changed the quizzes or their tests. My new friend Erik saved his entire complete notebook, containing all of his quizzes and tests from that same teacher last year!

I was handed the keys to the whole semester. All the quizzes, all the tests. I didn't have to study the material. I could study the tests. I had the answer key, and the answer key never changed. Question 2, if the answer was C last year, on this year's quiz, the answer was C as well. That was true for all the questions on all the quizzes and all of the tests.

I was handed a golden key the whole semester. All of the work was done for me. All of the hours of study and prep in figuring out what to learn were done. I was handed it. It was done for me. That's my story. That's my Erik story.

This is what I would have loved when I was stuttering badly, if someone showed me how it really works in the real world. If this isn't a shortcut, man, I don't know what is. I am telling you the raw f*cking truth.



I can shortcut the information, but there's no shortcuts in the amount of work required

So here's the truth, or what's behind the curtains. It doesn't take long to learn all the sh*t that I share, but it takes a while to practice it. To go do it in situations. Because that's what it takes, you actually doing it. You got to put in the time, as I've said, there's no shortcuts. I can shortcut the information, but there's no shortcuts in the amount of work required. I can't promise that you can beat your stutter because it takes work, but it's not hard to reduce it. There's no cure. I'm never going to be a natural 100%, the smoothest talker in the world. It won't go well at first, probably, because it's new. One thing you can do right now is learn how to talk to one stranger a day.

The point is, and this is key, there's no quick fix. When we talk solutions, the hardest part, really, is to rewire your brain with what we're going to discuss. I'm being transparent, and I'm pouring out my own soul here.

I Talked to One Stranger a Day Since I Was About 14

One of the things I discovered right around the same time, or shortly afterwards, was that my speech was slightly better if I started the conversation with someone, compared to if they started it with me. So if they asked me a question, I felt about 2 inches tall, and I felt very intimidated, and I had bad speech. But if I started the conversation myself, I felt I could control a little bit more, perhaps, but my speech was slightly better. I still stuttered badly, but it was slightly better. When you're in that kind of pain, you'll take something that's slightly better.

So shortly following the episode when I was crying in my parents' driveway, I started my once a day challenge. Now, of course, I did not call it that at the time. But what I challenged myself to do was talk to one new person per day. One new person per day. Wherever I was, if I was at the store with my mom and dad, I would ask a store employee. If I was at school, I talked to some teacher who I did not know, or a school employee. But it was important to do that.



I started to do one conversation a day with people. At first, it was not intentional, and then it became intentional. This was practice. This was what I was doing. But at first I did not know anything.

I'm telling you what I would have begged and pleaded someone to have told me. I can't go back in and share this with my old self, but I would have shared this same exact stuff. It's me and you talking here, man.



PART 2. FINDING MY WAY OUT

I tried the stuttering industrial complex. I spent 9 years in speech therapy. I tried the techniques I was taught. I still struggled to use them when I needed to speak in the real world.

In August 2026, an international panel of physicians, speech-language pathologists, and people who stutter published consensus guidelines in Psychiatric Times. Gerald Maguire reported that over 90 percent of the panel considered the current state of treatment poor. The panel also described stuttering as a heterogeneous brain-based disorder and included speech therapy in its treatment discussion. Its criticism concerns the limits of current care and evidence. It does not establish that no treatment helps anyone or that my approach has been clinically tested. What I can show you is what happened in my own life.

My frustration was the gap between learning a technique and being able to use it when I ordered lunch, answered a phone, or said my name. That is the experience behind what I call the stuttering industrial complex.



Chapter 4. THE STUTTERING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

I spent 9 years in speech therapy

My grandfather, he had a small stutter, but it was not very pronounced. No matter how our stutter started, we were stuttering, period.

None of that sh*t worked when I went out to lunch

Well, what I had to do was throw out everything I've been taught about how to beat stuttering. All the fluency shaping, stretching out words, breathing techniques. None of that sh*t worked when I went out to lunch, and nervously approached the counter to order my food. It never worked because the situation I found myself in, ordering food at a restaurant from a waiter who goes around the table, coming to me last. The pressure, anxiety, nervousness was never addressed!

Wait Craig, did you just say what I think you said? Yup. I needed help with the pressure, anxiety, and nervousness I carried into those situations. The methods I had been taught left me without a way to handle that part of my own experience. I had to keep looking for things I could actually use when it was my turn to speak.

Here's why I think those methods didn't get me where I wanted to go. Practicing an easy onset, H-h-h-h-h-h-o-o-o-r-s-e, did not give me the speech I needed at a restaurant counter. I needed help that carried into my real life. That's the standard I was trying to meet.

When you stutter for as long as people do, right? It's not just one thing that can make it better.

It was anything but moderate to me

Speech therapists officially classified my stutter as moderate. It was anything but moderate to me.



So I had to find my own direction through it.

One day I came home from second grade stuttering. My mom tells the story. She had no idea where to turn. She took me to the best professional she could, who worked at the University of Florida. He stuttered himself. I remember wanting to know how he had worked on his own speech. I did not get the clear explanation I was looking for. That tells you what I needed from the conversation; it cannot tell you the whole story of his speech or his ability to help someone else.

I had met 3 people along the way who told me they used to stutter, and my first question was, well, what happened? How'd you not stutter anymore? Because you sound great. They could not articulate how. They could not explain it. So I was like, well, if you can't explain it, like that provides me no help. It's like you made it through the jungle, but could you at least point me in the right direction? Right? They did not. So I had to find my own direction through it.

I wish to God someone had given me a clearer clue I could use. I kept looking for help that carried into the moments where I struggled.

Never worked once in my frat house, never worked once on campus

So I went to the University of Florida, go Gators, and as a sophomore I lived in a frat house, which I had pledged to freshman year. A frat house was f*cking a dream come true. The problem was it was intimidating as hell. Being around so many people, very chaotic, always talking, girls over, partying, nonstop, nonstop chaos, and it killed my speech. So I checked myself into speech therapy.

Guess who was assigned to help me? A graduate student who never stuttered in her life. But she was cute. She taught me from a textbook. The sh*t she taught me never worked once in my frat house, never worked once on campus, never worked once going out socially. Those were the situations where I wanted the help to make a difference. My speech was so difficult at the time that



they gave me a parking pass to park on campus. For the stutter.

Nothing improved my daily speech struggles.

I didn't go to school for this. I lived it. New therapists, techniques, money spent on supposed experts in Jacksonville: I kept trying, and my daily speech struggles were still there. That's the experience I'm writing from.

I spent 9 years in speech therapy. My first speech therapist was very nice and kind, and I liked her. I still left those years without the kind of fluency I wanted in daily life. I wanted to be able to order lunch and say my name when the pressure was on. A person's own stutter does not tell me whether they can help somebody else. My criticism comes from the help I received and the problems I still had afterward.

Because try doing the breathing when you're walking up. When there's a patient who just walks in. Hi, excuse me, ma'am or sir, but I need a minute to do some breathing. I say it to poke fun, knowing how stupid it sounds in real life.

I wanted help that made a difference in those actual moments. That is why I kept looking.

I couldn't do it in front of 15 people in my class

10th grade, I decided to take a speech class, public speaking, at my high school. Well, that was brave or foolish, because my speech sucked so bad. I remember standing up there feeling very intimidated. I couldn't do it in front of 15 people in my class. You know what kind of grade they gave me? A C. You know why? Because they didn't have the heart to fail me, because I tried. I wanted to talk, but I couldn't. So, that was Stuttering Craig. That was my life.



I had no one to guide me.

I wanted to hear from someone who had worked through the kinds of speaking moments I found painful. Saying a name. Ordering food. Speaking at work or school. I wanted the person to explain what they actually did and how they used it. That was the kind of guidance I was looking for.

In my opinion, a useful explanation needs more than a credential or a story that sounds good. I want to know what the person can explain, show, and support. Whether that person stutters is not enough to answer those questions. My own experience is one source of ideas; it does not make me the judge of everybody else's qualifications.

I wanted to see the work in actual conversations: a store, a social situation, or a call. That is why showing my own speaking matters to me. A demonstration can show what happened in that encounter. It cannot promise what will happen for every person who watches.

Well, look at my story. I depended on the experts, and spent tens of thousands of dollars, and just as important, wasted years of my life. The money is important. The years of my life wasted hit just as hard. D*mn.

I had no one to guide me. No road map. No Discord. No one I could pay. I would have paid up so much money just to know what's ahead and to have a map. I had no map. I had to create my way out of the jungle.

I do acknowledge there are multiple ways how to beat a stutter, and I can only speak about the way that helped me beat mine.



Chapter 5. SPAIN

I had a good breakthrough temporarily.

The next turning point, the real big one, was when I studied abroad in Spain. I went to Valencia, Spain. I lived on a college campus, and I roomed with a couple of friends who I met on this trip. The whole thing about why it ties into stuttering is very simple. My thought pattern used to be obsessively thinking about stuttering, right? All my bad memories would play. I would pre-plan, which means pre-failing, right? I would pre-plan all what I was going to say, and pre-scripted, and all of that sh*t.

The thing about Spain for me was, look, I've said I'm not a genius, right? I took Spanish one twice. That's how bad my Spanish was. For me, going into Spain, I had to work very hard to speak Spanish. So my brain was focusing full time on absorbing it, hearing it, translating it, trying to just go out with girls and speak Spanish, right? But when I would call my friends back home, my speech was flawless. It was impressively flawless. That was my first big sign that beating a stutter was in the mind.

A glimpse of absolute fluency

When I was 21 I came back from this trip, and I started to, like, I was like, what the hell happened there? Because the fluency that I gained there, it didn't translate long term. But I had a good breakthrough temporarily. So I was wondering why.

If you're anything like me, that pisses you off, makes you mad, you get frustrated, because you know you can do better. Because you've had moments or times in your life where you were fluent, because you've had confidence, or more confidence than you have now at some point, and then you just can't be consistent, right? Where you just can't, hey, I had good speech this morning, I need to have good speech again when I make this phone call. It's impossible to rely on.



It was like when I went to Spain. I caught glimpses, right? The moment I saw it, it was like, aha. Then things just click from there.

I had no idea how. I just caught a glimpse of absolute fluency, and I was totally obsessed with figuring out how to have it always. It took me 10 years from when I first caught a glimpse of what it would be like to beat stuttering, to when I learned how to.



Chapter 6. THE JUNGLE

You See Me Now, but When I Was Working on My Speech, I Was Not Here

I stuttered badly from ages 7 to 21, and then, at age 21, the 10 year journey started. 24 years of stuttering of some kind.

I swore to myself that one day I'd beat the sh*t and overcome the stuttering, no matter what it took.

I tested the results in the real world.

See, when I did not find help in the stuttering world, I went outside of it. What I did is I went into the self help world, and I started to read all I could. Then the biggest key was not just I read this book, right, and I applied it. I figured out how to apply it, but I tested the results in the real world.

Always practicing. Always.

I used to live in a condo for 5 years. Always practicing. Always. Because I learned how to have confidence, because I went out a thousand nights or days and talked to people. I'm not trying to pick up girls, I'm trying to practice fluency.

I had to work on mind and beliefs, and a bunch of things in that realm, including the way I thought of myself, identity. Once I went out into the field to do what someone might call exposure therapy, which I would not, I had a plan. A plan of how I would talk, of how to engage in conversation. I still sucked at first. You know, to work really, really hard for a long time to become great. These tools, by the way, are stuff that I borrowed from non-stutterers from a long time ago, or things that I've adapted. It's not breathing techniques. It's not easy onsets. It's more mindset. That, from my own experience, which is all I can say on my journey. The mindset type of tools, again, might sound simple, but they're not. They were more sustainable for good fluency in the real world. Because at work, at school, I was surprised, my boss said something, I had a call, I got nervous. All of these times, along the way,



I failed. When I say failed, my fluency wasn't good, or the tools weren't working. I had to learn from all of this experience. So the tools that I created, just for myself.

The first time I came out, I felt scared as sh*t practicing. The more you come out, the more you feel comfortable. We have to work up to this. Because before I got this good, I used to think just going out and talking to strangers was like one big world that I did not know. But when I was working on it, when I was practicing, when I was grinding away, it was a different story.

The real gold for me was found in the classics

So there's no judgment for me how long it takes you. It took me 10 years to go from where you are to where I am now. Of course, if I knew all the sh*t, I could have saved a lot of time, because I had to find it all. But no judgment for however long it takes, and there's no judgment if you choose to stay where you are, because it's all personal. I treated it like it was the most important thing to work on. Because it was to me. I filled my head with positivity daily. Social media posts, books, podcasts, blogs. I obsessively thought about how great my life would be when I finally stuttered less.

I took 10 years. 10 years of learning old self-help from the 20s and 1930s and 40s, up through the 50s, 60s and the current stuff. The modern stuff, it's okay. The real gold for me was found in the classics, from the 40s through the 60s, really. Then I spent the years applying it. Going out on dates, applying for jobs, doing it at work, standing up in front of colleagues, calling people at work. All of these nonstop chances to work on my speech, test it, figure out what works and what did not.

Because I had to be in front of people. I had to do sh*t. I flew across the country for job stuff. That 10 years includes work presentations, standing up in front of stuff, all this stuff. So it includes hard stuff.

You see me now, but when I was working on my speech, I was not here.



Chapter 7. WHAT I NOTICED ABOUT MY SPEECH

The thoughts and feelings I learned to work with

I started stuttering when I was in grade two. My mom told me I came home from school and started to stutter. I don't know why it began. This chapter describes the thoughts and feelings I later learned to work with. It does not establish the cause of my stutter or yours.

My beliefs were that I stutter. That I am a stutterer. It's hard to talk. I can't say my name.

Oh, I'm gonna stutter for the rest of my life.

I could spend a conversation thinking about my stutter and trying to avoid the next hard word. Those thoughts did not help me be present with the other person. That was a pattern I could notice and work on.

Here's the part I want to share: I worked on what I expected, how I felt, and where I put my attention. I kept testing ideas in actual conversations. Those parts of my experience gave me things to practice, even though I could not explain everything about why I stuttered.

For years, my mind was full of worry about speaking: what I had done, how sh*tty I felt, and what might happen next. I could go to bed replaying the worst parts of the day and worrying about tomorrow. That was one burden I wanted to change.

Do you worry when you lie down at night?

The expectations I carried into speaking

I found ideas about belief and expectation in a book that had nothing to do with stuttering. I used those ideas to think about



my own experience and what I might try. A useful idea from a self-help book still needed to be tested in my real conversations.

Belief became important in how I approached speaking. I had spent years expecting my name or the next conversation to be hard. I wanted to make room for the possibility that something could go better. That was one part of the work I chose to do. A person's stutter does not show that they failed to believe enough.

I'm a big believer of beliefs. That our beliefs will govern our lives. So if you're struggling with your stutter and you're thinking about stuttering all day long, pick up the book Magic of Believing and read it today. This is one of the most impactful books I've ever read, and I own 4 copies of it currently, and I pass out copies to people who I come across in my daily walk of life who I think can benefit. A side note, none of these people stutter.

My expectations changed as I practiced

I can tell you what I remember about my own expectations. Speaking became something I worried about. I thought ahead to difficult words and back to moments that hurt. I cannot reconstruct what happened in another person's brain or assume that our histories are the same.

As I practiced, I wanted more actual experiences to draw on. A slightly better conversation could give me something to remember before the next one. That did not make every attempt easy. It gave me



another part of my experience to pay attention to, alongside the difficult moments.

Replaying the same painful moments

I compare that replay to learning the words of a song. The more I went over a painful speaking moment, the more familiar it felt. That is an analogy for what I was doing in my own head. I wanted to give better moments some attention too.

I had spent years worrying about speech. Changing how I treated those thoughts took time and practice. I could start with something small that had actually gone a little better.

We feel about this big. Like about 2 inches tall.

When I felt scared and intimidated, I described myself as 2 inches tall. When I felt more confident, I called it 10 feet tall. Those images helped me talk about the feeling I wanted to bring into speaking. I worked with music, preparation, and practice to explore that feeling. A bigger feeling was something to try, without treating it as a guarantee of fluent speech.

The connection between my emotional state and my speech became crucial to me. I paid attention to what I expected, how intimidated I felt, and what happened when I spoke. Working on those things became a big part of my practice.

The expectations I brought into a conversation

The expectations I carried into a conversation mattered in my own experience. I had spent years expecting certain words and situations to hurt. Changing what I brought into a conversation took repeated practice. It took more than trying to think my way



into a better day. I worked on preparation, confidence, listening, and actual conversations. Over time, more of that work became familiar to me.

Why I paid attention to my good speech days

Some days my speech was on fire, and some days it was crap. That variation gave me a question worth working on: what was different about the situation and about how I felt when I spoke? It gave me a reason to pay attention. It could not, by itself, prove what causes stuttering.

I looked at what I had been thinking, feeling, and anticipating on those better days. Confidence and preparation became things I could work with. I am describing the pattern I noticed and the ideas I tried; another person's pattern may be different.

I sometimes use a million dollars as an imagined example. Suppose you believed something wonderful was about to happen. How might that change the feeling you brought into a conversation? That is the part of the example I want you to consider. Money and belief are not guarantees of fluency.

Positive enthusiasm without a reason for being positive is not going to work.



Imagining the race before running it

I liked the idea of an athlete imagining a race before running it. I used imagination to think about how I wanted to feel before speaking. The next real conversation would still bring things I could not predict. Imagining it could be part of my preparation; it did not make the imagined result a fact or a promise.



Chapter 8. I HAD TO KEEP HOPE

I was going to stutter and stay there, or I was going to stutter and try to get better

So the choice I made, my friend, was that the decision was that I was gonna stutter for a while. I did not know how long. So my thought was, I might as well try really hard to work on this thing, because the choice was I was going to stutter and stay there, or I was going to stutter and try to get better. So I made my own choice. It was a personal decision.

In my mind it was not a hard choice. The decision was that it was harder to live a life of stuttering with no real hope for me. So I gave myself hope by believing that it was possible. I knew there was no shortcut, in the sense of a quick fix, because I had lived the path. I wasn't looking for a quick fix. I was looking for something very sustainable.

I knew that I had a stutter, of course, but it was that I accepted that I was going to work on it. In my head I believed that I was going to stutter for a while, for a long while, and I figured that I might as well work on this thing for me while I was doing it. Because if I was going to stutter for 5 years or 3 years or whoever knows how long, then I figured I might as well just work on this thing, and that's what I did.

I had to have hope in my life

For me, the hardest thought was that nothing could change. I wanted to keep working on my speech, even when the progress was small. That was the hope I chose to act on.

I use the word acceptance strongly in this book, so I want to be clear about what I mean. The idea that felt poisonous to me was resignation: deciding that improvement was out of reach. I also knew that I stuttered and that I would keep struggling while I worked. Both were part of my



life. I wanted to face what was happening and still have hope. Someone else may use acceptance to mean being honest about their speech, treating themselves kindly, or taking part in life while they stutter. Those choices leave room to work on speech too.

"So then how did you gain that fluency without accepting your stutter? Because every time I talk to someone here, or you go to a speech therapist, they'll always say like you have to accept, you know, the way you stutter, you have to accept who you are." I heard that as being asked to believe my speech could never change. That was the idea I resisted. I needed hope, and I wanted to keep practicing.

I needed that hope. This had nothing to do with money, women, or fame. I wanted to be able to look ahead to my life and believe there was work worth doing. That was deeply personal to me. Someone else can accept the speech they have today and still want a different future.

I can be tough about the advice I received. I also want you to have room to choose help and goals that make sense for your life. Your choice of the word acceptance does not tell me what you are capable of.

I believed that giving up on improvement would keep me from doing the work I wanted to do. That belief kept me moving. I cannot make it a rule that everyone must think or describe themselves the same way to improve.

What if that 14-year-old version of me had given up on improvement?

Remember when I was crying in the driveway at 14 and promised myself I would find a way to beat my stutter? I kept coming back to that



promise. I cannot know exactly how my life would have gone otherwise. I know the hope in that promise mattered to the work I kept doing.

I was close to believing that the speech I hated would always dominate my life. I still remember how frightening that felt.

I wanted to start with choices I could make

I wanted other people to treat stuttering with more understanding. I also wanted something I could work on myself. Practicing my speech gave me a place to begin while the rest of life carried on around me.

The less you talk, the more you fear it

Taking a first step gave me a reason to keep going. I wanted encouragement because practicing after years of painful speaking moments was hard. I had to learn to treat myself differently while I tried. That is the work I can describe from my life; it does not prove why somebody else's stutter continues.

I learned to take responsibility for my fluency

Keep people around you who respect what you want to work on and who can encourage you without making every hard moment a failure. I wanted to keep taking action, even when it was a small step.

I took responsibility for the practice I chose and for how I responded afterward. That gave me something useful to work on. I could influence parts of a speaking situation without controlling every outcome. A difficult day did not mean I had failed as a person. The work



continued, and some days were much harder than others. I wanted room for effort, recovery, and the rest of my life.

I was tired of not having a voice

There's a guy who is just sick and tired of this. Tired of feeling humiliated. Tired of being embarrassed. Tired of not having the confidence that I wanted. Tired of pretending I forgot what I was gonna say. Tired of being talked over. I was tired of not having a voice. I was tired of not being heard. I was tired of not saying what was on my mind. I was tired of really living in my head way too much for way too long. Do you know the feeling?

I would have dreamed to get 50% better.

I think it's awesome for people to attain fluency, but maybe that's not the goal, but maybe the goal is like a little more fluency, like 10% more or 25% more or maybe 50% more. I mean, back in the day I would have dreamed to get 50% better. I would have loved that.

So do you want to work on improving your speech? Or do you not? You and I can be friends no matter which way you choose. It won't affect me, and I'm gonna have good speech if you work on yours or if you don't. But it will affect you. It has the power of changing how you feel about your whole life.

Do you want my help, or do you just want to talk? As tough as stuttering is, it's easier than living a limited life. One that you know you deserve better. That is a pain that never goes away.



Chapter 9. MORE THAN MY STUTTER

For years I labeled myself as a stutterer. But I was so much more.

For years I labeled myself as a stutterer. But I was so much more. I was a son and a brother. A boyscout and a runner. I was an A/B student. But nevertheless I defined myself by my obstacle. I thought of myself as no more than the challenge I was facing. You can bet what this did to my self-esteem.

I'm a person who's working on my fluency

Stuttering had become part of how I thought about myself and what I expected from my life. I wanted a description of myself that left room for the work I was doing. That is why I started thinking of myself as a person working on his fluency.

For purposes of self-confidence and self-belief, think about the statement this way: You are currently living with stuttering. But I don't think you deserve to limit your mind to always thinking you will live where stuttering dominates your life.

One of the first things that I figured out was I could not continue to call myself a stutterer. Someone who stutters. So I could not call myself that and then gain fluency. It did not seem possible. So I started to call myself, to myself, like this was something I kept internally, but I started to call myself someone who was working on my fluency. I think that was really big, because it was my identity. For 15 years of my life or so my identity was I stuttered, but I did not want that to be it. I wanted to be someone, for me, who was working on my fluency. I kept that with me, and I think that was really powerful.

You don't need to make a big announcement about this to your friends and your family. What I did was I kept this in my own head, and it made me feel 1% better. It made me feel just a little bit better that hope



was possible. It's the beginning blocks of what helped me beat my stutter. I hope it helps you beat yours, too.

Calling myself a person working on his fluency gave me hope. It helped me stop reducing my whole identity to the thing I struggled with. That was useful to me. The word stutterer means something different to different people, and using it does not decide whether a person can improve.

Try describing yourself in a way that makes room for what you want to do. For me, that was a person working on his fluency. Keep the words that fit you. You can speak openly about your stutter and still work toward your goals.

Think of your life as like a ruler

I want you to think of your life as like a ruler, like a timeline. You guys know what that is from when you were kids. Alright, so I know this is going to sound crazy, but think of it like it's a ruler, and it starts when you're born, at like a day old, right?

I want you to think to yourself at what age you started to stutter. I want you to think of the life from when you were that young into where you are now. I want you to think to yourself, that's how many years. You don't have to say it, but in my case it was a lot, right? So maybe it's 10, maybe it's 15, but think about that number.

Now we're gonna put like a balloon. So like the balloons that you see when you're kids, like the balloon animal guy who can blow stuff, right? So let's put a long balloon around, for when you started to stutter, until where you are now, and let's tie it off. Our beliefs changed, and it's not our fault.

Say to yourself, in that balloon, my beliefs were that I stutter. That I am a stutterer. All sorts of stuff. It's the beliefs, in this balloon, that it's hard to talk. That I get humiliated when I speak. When I get called on, I get intimidated. I can't say my name. All of those negative self-talk beliefs. All of the bad memories that you replay in your head, especially before



you go to sleep. All the cringiest moments as you're falling asleep. That was my favorite.

In that imagined exercise, I picture letting the old judgment drift away and describing myself as a person working on his fluency. That was the identity I wanted to grow into. You can choose words that fit your own experience; the purpose is to leave room for your life and your goals.

Do you think it's possible for you?

I kind of feel like you're full of excuses or something, and that's okay. But let me see, just one question. Do you think that you can get better fluency long term? Do you think it's possible for you? I just want to know what you believe.

You can have doubts and still try something that matters to you. I believe in the possibility of change, and I want to encourage you. The ideas I share need to be useful in your life; belief alone does not guarantee an outcome.

But you should believe that you can have confidence. Because what I'm saying specifically is, if you don't believe in yourself enough, know that I believe in you. I believe in you. I believe that you can have confidence.



PART 3. THE TOOLS I STILL USE

So I'm gonna give you what it really took me to beat my stutter, the 360 degree view. What the f*ck does that mean? That means I'm going beyond fluency shaping. I'm going beyond the basics. I'm telling you what it takes up here. 360 view.

So what does work, Craig? Help us. Well, let me give you a big hint. All up here. Mindset, belief, subconscious mind, learning about how the emotional state impacts your fluency. All of the sh*t that I had to figure out in the real world.

Let me tell you what it was. 50% was in my mind. Now that does not mean it was simple at all, my friend. Hard. The other 50% was practicing. But like practicing specific things in a specific way. So that was the combination. None of it was technique based. There's no breathing exercises. It was none of that.



Chapter 10. IT'S TOO EARLY IN THE DAY TO HATE YOURSELF

I used to beat myself up all day and all night.

How was your self talk? Do you talk well to yourself, or do you do what I did, which is talk down to yourself, especially if you're stuttering? Yep. I used to talk bad to myself. Oh, Craig, you're, you fail again. You can't talk. Oh, you bombed this one. Oh, no one's going to like you. All of those thoughts is what I literally had in my head for far too many years.

If you're like me, and working on your speech, or considering working on it, you probably have that kind of a self talk too. But it doesn't mean it always has to be that way. But it is important to acknowledge, hey, I realize I'm talking to myself in a crummy way. Yep, so when we're struggling and stuttering, we tend to beat ourselves up. That's what this negative self talk is. It's beating ourselves up.

I used to beat myself up all day and all night. I used to replay in my own head the worst stuttering moments of my life. They would just play without me even thinking.

I created a crutch out of total desperation!

But eventually I learned, and I was thinking about this, that I don't remember exactly how I was exposed to positive self talk, or how I made the shift, but I remember what the first shift was. My first shift was moving from I hate myself, and all of those self talk feelings that people who stutter have, and being very hard on ourselves, into a neutral-ish statement. My statement was, I would move from the bad self talk into, it's too early in the day to hate yourself.

You can't beat your stutter and talk sh*t to yourself. It's NOT POSSIBLE. While I was figuring this sh*t out, I created a crutch out of total desperation! Here it is. It's too early in the day to hate yourself. There's so much emotional baggage tied in there. For me, that was a personal f*cking struggle. Right. I've literally lived that life.



Of course, it didn't matter what time it was, it was always too early to hate myself. You need to create your own crutch to stop your negative self-talk. I suggest you start with using my crutch, then figure out the crutch that works best for you.

I'm not suggesting that was the best way, but for me, I had to break the self talk pattern, and that's how I broke it.

These are the things on how not to live that life. No one shared it, and that's why I'm very happy to put it out there. This is what I wish I would have had. The real truth again is, no matter what time of day it was, it's too early. I'm real, and there are stutters at times. So that was my crutch.

I bet you say that word a lot. You hate yourself. Cause I've said that a lot.

When I committed to working on my speech, I got happier.

So you do have to like yourself and what I hope will help you like yourself more is what worked for me was when I committed to working on my speech, I got happier.

That doesn't mean I had good speech yet, but it means I committed to doing the work. I committed to putting the time in. That gave me something to build, to build momentum for and to be excited about. I committed and it's a promise. It's a promise you make to yourself, right?

The compare game's a bad game

The compare game is one that I used to play, and it destroyed me. The compare game's a bad game.

"When I'm on a call and I hear my team talk, I start to compare my speech to them and be like, oh f*ck, they said a word that I probably couldn't say." It's a great point that you make. So I used to compare myself to, I wouldn't do it directly on calls, but I've done it. What I always found is when I compared myself to someone else, I always would beat myself up and have bad self-talk. So the comparison does not help us. It's not going to give us confidence. It tears it away. The fact that you did it while you're on the call means you're beating



yourself up while you've got to talk, which is really hard. It's not your fault, because there's no one who taught you how. No one taught me how, except me now.

Daily positivity is required

Next is daily positivity is required. Why? Because stuttering is f*cking brutal, just like you know. When I went to beat my stutter, I had to fill my head with daily positivity to be optimistic. You can get that from all sources.

So find something small you can be excited for

So in order to have good self talk, think about one of the times where you are more fluent than you expected. What would you have said to yourself when that was done? Yeah, you probably said, gosh, why can't I do that all the time? But what else did you say? Because maybe you said quietly something like, man, I nailed that.

Then think about how did you talk to yourself when that was done. If you can find something in that self talk that was positive, that's something you can now consciously and very intentionally bring about.

One thing I would do is at the start of your day, I would sprinkle in whatever those positive comments are that you've said to yourself when your speech has been good. Intentionally sprinkle them in to start your day.

You got to love who you see

One of the last, but important things that really took to beat my stutter in the real world, the 360 degree view, the full picture, was feeling good about you when you looked at yourself in the mirror. Why is that important, Craig? That's bullsh*t. It's not bullsh*t. Because you got to love who you see. It doesn't mean you got to love yourself yet. We'll talk about that.

But you got to be happy with who you look at. For me, I had to take a brutal view that I had to lose weight, for myself to feel good about who I saw. I improved my style. Whether it's a haircut, a necklace, a style, it's important. Because when you beat your stutter, it takes all of this. If



it took less, if it was so easy, you would have already done it by now. But it's not.

Those of us who grew up stuttering don't look in the mirror the same way as a person who has never stuttered. What the hell does that mean, Craig? Well, you might look at yourself in the mirror, but you never look in your eyes deeply. No, you look at your hair, or face, or what you look like, or what you've got on, but you never look in your eyes. You never look really at yourself, truly. It's because, in my opinion, of all the shame and humiliation and embarrassment, and all the beating up of oneself we have done. It's the total opposite of loving yourself. It's beating yourself up. It's the pain. Learning to love ourselves is one of the foundational philosophies.

You deserve the love that you should give yourself

Stop negative self-talk by speaking to yourself with the kindness you'd show a good friend. So be nice to yourself, love yourself, be kind, and next time that you make a mistake, along with positive self talk, just treat yourself well. What normal human beings can do, it takes us practice and work, and sometimes we fail and struggle at it. So you got to learn how to be nice to yourself, right? I've talked to a lot of people who have stuttered or who do stutter. This refrain is very common, that they are so hard on themselves. I'm here to say, stop that.

I learned to forgive my old self.

Another foundational philosophy is learning to forgive yourself. Now, what the hell does that mean, forgive yourself? Well, in order for me to sustainably beat my stutter and remain fluent for such a long time, I had to be kind and forgive myself. Forgive yourself for all the mistakes you've made in the past. That was hard for me. It was very hard. I learned to forgive my old self. You could write it down on a piece of paper that says, I, Craig Coffee, forgive myself.

But I'm sharing what worked for me, and I'm also sharing what I would have loved to have heard years before I discovered this on my own. So forgive yourself for the mistakes you make because you want to be smooth. You want to talk well. You want to have a good life. You want



to reduce the stress. You want to accomplish your goals and dreams and be happy. But it's hard, in my opinion, to do all those unless you forgive yourself.

Fluency came before the scars healed

I carried mine on my shoulders for a long time. Fluency came before the scars healed.

We are not defined by our failures or by our successes. We are defined by how we treat others. Be gentle and kind, and we will be defined as such. Whatever past mistakes you feel you have made, these do not define who you are.



Chapter 11. THERE AIN'T NO SCRIPT

Alright, let's be real. Let's face the facts. When you stutter, like you do, and I did, we want to control it, to where we're always thinking, what are they going to say? What can I say next? What words can I not say? What do I have to avoid?

Prethinking equals pre-planning. Learning to stop prethinking your words and start speaking spontaneously. No, that does not mean that you have no idea what you're going to say. But what it does mean is you don't ahead of time think about the actual words you're going to say. Okay, I'm going to talk to Tom at 2 o'clock. Here's what I'm going to say. He's going to ask me this question. Here's how I'm going to respond. I can't say that word. What are all of those head games? You got to learn how to stop.

"90 percent of my social interactions I have to pre-plan. I would be thinking about 3 or 4 things that I can rehearse in my head quickly, and the entire time while I'm rehearsing, I don't really listen to what they're saying. Rehearsing in my head does not lead to speaking more fluidly. It just causes me to waste up space in my head." Then, "I still go back to rehearsing thinking that it'll be different the next time." I agree. I agree so much, my friend.

Do I have ideas of what I'm going to talk about? Yes.

Let me tell you, I wish I learned this years ago before I figured it out. Because that spontaneous speech, that's where the gold is. The spontaneous talking, that's where the flow is. What you hear from me is all freestyle. Do I have ideas of what I'm going to talk about? Yes. Do I write a few things down? Yeah. But a few words. I don't write this whole script down, right? There ain't no script. I mean, like I said, right? I'm smart enough, but I'm no genius.

That control factor is something that I learned to let go slowly.

But there's a fear factor that we got to discuss, and this is real. That is, it takes courage, or balls, or guts, to stand in there and not pre-plan your



sh*t when you stutter. Because you got to trust that you'll be able to find the words spontaneously. It's like taking a jump and believing you will catch yourself. That control factor is something that I learned to let go slowly. You're going to need to face the choice to let that go as well. Just ride with the flow.

I got to be straight, right, and say I failed a lot of times. There's a ton of times when I was practicing this, when I would be in spontaneous talks and someone would say something and I wasn't quick enough, or I blocked. So there is a lot of practicing to figure out how this works for you. But in my opinion, this is one of the most sustainable ways of how to beat your stutter, and how to talk without pre-scripting your words.

"I've tried the spontaneous thing that you've been telling me in the past few days, and it's helped me a lot, man, I can't lie. It was a big change for me."

What you're doing now, all of the pre-planning, all of the pre-scripting, all of the fear, that sh*t isn't working for you now. It didn't work for me too, so I dropped it. Because what's not working can't help us, so we got to change that. It'll take time to undo the years of bad practice habits that you've been doing.



Chapter 12. THE INTENTIONAL DREAM

I Would Picture How I Wanted to Feel When It Was Done

For me, when I used to stutter real bad, I pictured these scenes of constant struggle and failure. I bet you do the same. You ain't playing highlights of your best smooth talking moments, right? Nah. But the thing I learned, it took me a long time, it's that we can make a decision to change our self-image.

I learned that you can practice in your mind. What does that mean? I mean, you have to practice in real life, of course, and that's important. But a lot of times, or all the times before I do some big speech, I practice a lot in my mind. I'll see it going the best possible that it can go.

Intentional Dream is one of my favorite ways to reprogram our subconscious mind. To reprogram our beliefs. It's where you're seeing yourself basically perform like at your best, mixing with this dream a sensation of true happiness.

Introducing myself to people who had authority inside a big hotel ballroom

So for example, instead of constantly thinking about stuttering, my dream looked like this, right? It looked like me being totally confident in introducing myself to people who had authority inside a big hotel ballroom. Because for me that would be a real big challenge, first of all to introduce myself, and second of all to people who have authority in a huge room where you get nervous. So that was my dream.

When you create this dream, you set the feeling

Here's the key. The key is, when you create this dream, it's like how you feel in the dream. That's the whole thing. Because most of the time, like when you're, for me, like to talk to a doctor, or to introduce myself, like I feel like total f*cking panic. Then I'd freeze up, and it'd be embarrassing, and you want to die, and then you fight through it.



What I've learned is when you're dreaming it, when you create this dream, you set the feeling. So for me, I was shaking the doctor's hand. What I used is I remembered a feeling, a really happy moment, when I met a sports star. I used that feeling in this dream. So when I was shaking the person's hand, I felt like when I met one of my sports heroes. So I felt incredible. That's such a key part of the dream.

5 minutes before I went to bed, and 5 minutes when I woke up

So what I did was I literally created this little 5 minute intentional daydream in my head where I saw myself speaking perfectly, which was crazy, because in the real world I was speaking badly. But there's magic there. That's a unique way how I programmed my subconscious mind.

It's how I cope, and I just pictured going perfectly. So for 5 minutes before I went to bed, and for 5 minutes when I woke up, but I was in bed before I touched my phone, right? I just lay in bed and I would see it in my mind, like it going perfectly, which like never in my life had I ever done that.

Let's set this one scene in a courtroom

Craig: What's the self doubt coming from?

Jovanni: It's mostly with my future in a way. Right now I'm studying for my LSAT.

Craig: Do you want to be a lawyer?

Jovanni: I do. I really do.

Craig: So if I may suggest, let's set this one scene in a courtroom with you, like you talking in commanding presence, right? Like you kicking ass.

Jovanni: That's what I picture too.

Craig: So I want to learn from you, if I may, what a really good memory is. So we can attach how you feel there to this perfect dream. It's important. So it can be anything. It can be one of the most fun times of your life or a great memory.



Jovanni: There was one time I went on vacation with my family and that was really nice. Went to Jamaica and we had a really good bonding time. That was probably one of the best times I remember with my family. We've had so many fun times at home, but I think it was just the whole adventure of it all.

Craig: So I want you to think about that. You can close your eyes if you want to, to take yourself back there. You're in Jamaica. Wherever you guys had your meals or were having your fun on the beach or a hotel or just hanging out. How you love that time. Right now, with your eyes still closed, I want you to think you are in the courtroom, the same courtroom maybe that you've been to in Broward. Picture yourself walking in front of the judge. Talking to the jury. Being a badass motherf*cker who is smooth and knows your sh*t, and you're seeing yourself perform at your best.

Craig: You got to unplug, you gotta put your phone down and then shift into the dream state that we created of you walking in a courtroom and presenting with total confidence. Do it for five minutes. Just five minutes and then you go to bed. When you wake up before you grab your phone, do the same thing. Before your feet leave the bed. Do the same thing for just five minutes.

Jovanni: I appreciate this. I think I'm definitely gonna try to implement it, and I think it would work cause I'm already feeling more at ease just thinking about that dream place. More confident just thinking about it too. I never thought to do that.

Replay the experience of your speech being killer, and how it felt

Right before bed's a magical time to reprogram the subconscious mind. So our beliefs are changeable. Before bed, I want you to replay not the cringiest stuttering moments, which humans naturally do, especially when we're alone in bed very late, can't fall asleep. What I'm teaching you, my friend, is I want you to share one great fluency moment right now with me. What I'm going to teach you is think about that before bed every night for the rest of your life. This is the first time in your life, and it's another key step, that you're intentionally thinking about your fluency, in times when you succeeded, when you did great, when



you were the hero, when you were the star, when your speech was amazing. This is intentional. This is a skill. This is on purpose.

When you wake up, the same thing. First thought, play the memory. Don't leave bed. 5 minutes. Stay your ass in bed. Set your alarm 5 minutes early if you have to. The point is, the first 5 minutes, 2 minutes minimum, but ideally 5, is replay that moment. Replay the experience of your speech being killer, and how it felt. One of the most important things is how it feels when your speech is great. Magic, my friend.

You're attracting the feeling you want to have when the call is done

So for 30 minutes beforehand, I'm working on how I feel. I'm working on laying down on a floor or a couch or in a chair and really picturing not the call, but I would picture how I wanted to feel when it was done. I hang up, and how do I feel? Well, I want to see myself feeling f*cking excited, and I'm going to go get a cup of coffee, because you just slayed a dragon. This is the mindset that took me from being scared on calls to being able to present with extreme confidence.

"So is that like manifesting and putting it out there?" It's in the world of that, but you're not manifesting what you want to see. I want to be very clear. You're attracting the feeling you want to have when the call is done. This is the goal. It's all about how you feel. I swear to God. It's not about what picture you see in your head. It's with how you feel, and I didn't create this, but I did apply it to speech. So jump up, high five yourself, go out and buy a cup, do something to celebrate. It doesn't matter what it is, but it matters that you have something to be excited for when you're done because you did well. That's the magic.

Then once I got better, I would only do it for a few minutes, or once I got really good, I wouldn't do it until it was a huge call. But it was part of the routine, and that's important. The routine for good speech. The routine to feel confident.

Here's where the magic happens. It's by before that moment knowing it's gonna come, knowing you're going to kill it, not worrying about the words you're gonna say. You can train your mind to beat that. It's all trainable, man.



Create this intentional dream, and do it for the job interview

The thing I now know that I did not know when I was going through it is to use what helped me beat my stutter. Create this intentional dream, and do it for the job interview. So like, what you're essentially doing is you're pre-imagining it. So to me, it's the number one thing. Like this is the sh*t I literally would have craved. Because let me tell you what people who stutter do when they have a job interview coming up. Because I've been there. It's full of f*cking fear. You're imagining the worst, and you're picturing blocks, and you're wondering what are you going to do if you can't say your first name.

The way how to have a better one, and like, this is the sh*t I would have told myself if I could have gone back in time, it's that crucial. It's to throw that away. The way you do it is you create a daydream. You create an intentional daydream scenario of you doing this job interview. What does it look like if it goes perfect? The thing about where you are now, and where I was, and where we all are until we fix it, it's we worry about and picture the absolute worst. What I know now is that it will guarantee that it'll go horrible, right? There's no tip I can share to try to say your name smoother. If you're doing those thoughts, it's a guaranteed bad time.

The thing that I'm saying is learn how to create an intentional imagination where you're sitting talking to someone, and it wraps up, and they shake your hand, and they tell you like how impressed they are by you, and how they're so excited. Right? Like you can make it up.

The dreams that you go to bed with are going to help shape the tomorrow. You don't want to go to bed with the bad dreams anymore, with the bad thoughts.



Chapter 13. COME IN TALLER

Confidence? It's Manufactured. It Can Be Changed. Taught.

Do you play music when you work out? You know how you play the music before you're gonna do a bench press or something? You play a song, you play your favorite song, and then you go do something hard. Am I correct? The reason why we play music at the gym is to pump ourselves up. Am I correct?

The point is, there's a connection, my friends, between our bodies and our emotional state, and between our fluency and our emotional state. So for example, in the midst of your pump-up song, you just hit the bench, you did something hard, you feel great. If a girl walked up beside you, your speech might be great. You might say hi, because you feel 10 feet tall. Am I correct? You feel massive. You're king of the world. Alright, the thing is, that feeling is manufactured. You made it. What I'm calling attention to, my friends, is this feeling can be played with and f*cked with. By that I mean you can manipulate it for your fluency gain.

I first understood this concept based on music we play at the gym. That music, that intensity that we play to change how we feel at the gym, it can be applied to stuttering too, in speech. When I was working on my speech, and really going out daily to practice, talk to strangers, and girls, of course, there was a lot of feeling nervous going out by myself, because a lot of the work I did was alone.

Well, I learned that playing music that makes me feel alive, that I would run to or work out to, had a direct impact on my fluency. Now, it did not fix my stutter alone. It did not make me have perfect speech, but it gave me the best chance to have good speech, because I was no longer feeling intimidated and small.

Here's the secret I learned. Confidence? It's manufactured. It can be changed. Taught. I taught myself confidence, and I'm going to show you all how.



Read out loud until you find what sounds like confidence for you

The first is, what I did was I would read out loud to find confidence in my voice. It doesn't mean you have to have confidence when you read out loud.

You want to practice speaking. That's what you're doing. When you read stuff, don't read boring sh*t. No. Read things that you like. Read a material that you can get passionate about, and really lean into it, and get excited. That enthusiasm is important.

What you're trying to accomplish specifically is finding a little confidence in your voice. Read out loud until you feel good. Read stuff that makes you happy. Read something that you have a passion about. It can be anything. Sport or music, it doesn't matter. But read something that you can get into. It's that you're finding your groove in life. You're finding your groove in your voice. You find your voice, you find your flow.

One guy started to practice where he would go somewhere by himself and just talk for 30 minutes. "The beginning was extremely tough, but towards the middle and end everything felt so smooth, like I've been talking for years."

You want to recall how it felt to have that good speech

So the second thing that I would do is, I would start to think about the times, recently and in the past, when my speech was a little bit better, when my speech was improved. Not perfect speech, but you want to recall some of the good times, not just the bad, which our brains naturally do.

As we're driving, we're not thinking about all the worst memories and the hardships. No, instead we are thinking about the times when we spoke better, when we had more fluent speech. It might be, it can be small. But the small victories, the small times that you've had good speech, think about those. You want to recall those. You want to recall how it felt to have that good speech, because that sh*t's important. That's important.

The third thing, which is always important, is to increase your emotional state. Remember, we talked about how you would read out loud and get into it. That's part of it. But another big part, of course, is



when you would play music. So play music in the car, or as you walk here, because all of that is really important.

I want to be in a state where I feel great before I do a bunch of speaking.

Let's pretend that you have to do something scary, like walk up and talk to a person, or call someone. Here's the 2 scenarios. The first is you make a phone call, and you worry about it, and you just call. The second is you play the favorite song 5 or 10 times, and you're jumping up and down, and you're super happy, and then you call. What's the difference in your fluency?

For me, there's a mood to have when I'm gonna do a bunch of speaking. When I'm going out in public to meet people, or go out with friends and we're going to go chat up a bunch of people, there's a mood I'm going to be in. What I now know, it's like, when you feel good about yourself, you tend to have better fluency. Yes, I play my favorite songs. Yes, I pump or hype myself up. I want to be in a state where I feel great before I do a bunch of speaking.

I always hype my mood before talking to strangers or groups. It's so important that I work on it before I go out in public. When I'm out, I work on it before I go approach a group of people. Before, like, you want to see super confidence? Well, I'm gonna work on my freaking mood. It's critically important for me. I think it is for, like, all of us.

Playing songs doesn't directly reduce stuttering

Playing songs doesn't directly reduce stuttering. But being in a great mood before speaking helps big time. If you hype yourself up dancing to music for 10 minutes, you'd be smoother. It's the mood. Pump it up before speaking. As you drive there by yourself in the car, you're playing your pump up music or your gym songs, the music that makes you feel great and that you want to work out to. You play it for the whole ride.

The thing is, what I've learned to do is to come into a conversation with the most confidence possible, to feel the best I can feel, to give my speech the best chance.

The way how to do it is to learn to feel less intimidated. I don't say not intimidated, but feel less.



The only way I know how to live fluently is to come in as the king of the jungle. By that I mean like I have the confidence, and I'm gonna walk in with it. It's a conscious thing. I'm bringing this confidence with me on purpose, because I'm going into the jungle, and I don't know what I'm gonna see. If I need to bring it, I will bring it. If I need super confident, I will. If I can be laid back, I will. But like, it's in my bag. I know now how to increase my emotional state at will. It can be learned.

All of these things I'm sharing, about the practice, about talking out loud, about the music, about recalling the positive experiences when you spoke well. All of that matters. That matters.

The caution I would say is don't just try it once, man, because when we stutter, we have years and years and years of stuttering mind f*ckery in our own heads. I had it too, don't feel bad.

Before calls, I would want to burn off a little of the anxiety.

When you feel tired, you can't have great speech. Of course, for all people, including people who don't stutter, it's hard. I don't work out each day, but I work out my speech each day.

Before calls, I would want to burn off a little of the anxiety. This has worked for me. I'm not suggesting this exact thing because it's unusual. But I do what's called grounding. This has nothing to do with speech, but I do it. It's just basically going onto the grass and putting your feet on the grass without shoes, without any socks. I would literally do it for 5 minutes before big calls when I was working on making sure I had killer confidence. That would help me burn off a little anxiety. Grounding is a real thing.

A way I would use breathing to feel a little taller

In for 4, hold for 2, exhale for 6. Here's how I would have used this when I was stuttering, and here's what you can do tomorrow. It's not how to fix your stutter, but it's how to, again, feel taller. So do this like 20 times in a row before you start your day, 10 times at least. Or you do it before the first time in the day you're going to have to talk. Here's where I would do it. I'd go into a bathroom stall, and I'd just breathe, and I'd walk out of there. It's a way how to feel bigger. Now, it might not be a lot bigger, or it might not be enough, but it's bigger, and bigger means better speech.



Chapter 14. ENTHUSIASM IS CONTAGIOUS

I bring enthusiasm on purpose. It's for fluency.

When I'm in conversations, I f*ck with my own emotional state. I bring enthusiasm on purpose. It's for fluency. Enthusiasm is contagious. You can be enthusiastic on a call, and I think it helps with our speech, because being enthusiastic helps with confidence.

Enthusiasm was a big thing to help me start to play with some confidence, because I found that when I was enthusiastic, and it was real, that I was naturally like 5 percent more confident. It was not like super confident, but like I was a little bit more. It wasn't with drinking. There's no drinks. It was just like being enthusiastic. So I really played with that, and I think there's something there. To this day I crank up my enthusiasm. So enthusiasm is not shouting. It's not like to yell.

Say it with enthusiasm.

Craig talking to Don. Craig: So, Don, speak enthusiastically about something, about your girlfriend. Tell me what you like about her. Say it with enthusiasm. Don: Ooh, this is like some theater. She is very mature for her age. Craig: I can't hear the enthusiasm, sir. Don: My girlfriend is very mature for her age. She is very, very kind to others, very sweet, selfless young lady. Craig: How kind. How kind. I want to hear your voice. Don: Some say the kindest in the game. Wow. Some say the kindest. Craig: The way you said "the kindest" the first time, Don, was perfect. Because what I heard was a loud voice, but not an angry voice. A loud, confident voice. It's just the way he said it. I could tell that would have been a hard word for him, but he said it with enthusiasm.

The point I want to make is, if you were teaching the most boring part of your job to a new person, you could deliver the same enthusiasm as if you're talking about what you love about your girlfriend. It can be manufactured. Because what you're doing is changing your emotional state while you speak. Because what you're doing is controlled excitement.



"It's always the safe, passive bet, but it never feels good at the end of the day doing it. It's just cowering out early." That was how the other speaker described his experience. I used 2 inches tall and 10 feet tall to explain the difference in how I could feel. Enthusiasm helped me explore more energy in my voice. A quiet voice can also be comfortable and appropriate; volume alone does not tell me how somebody feels.

You said something that stuck with me once, which was that when you have 2 drinks, you're good. I joked once that you can't go through life, you just have to drink before a client call. That wouldn't be good. "Excuse me, boss, I need these 2 shots real quick." But enthusiasm can help deliver the same feeling.

Learning to be heard in a noisy place

"The one place I still struggle with is a loud restaurant or a loud bar." I understand why that can be hard. Being heard in noise was something I had to work on. I wanted a voice the other person could hear while keeping the conversation comfortable.

For me, speaking up was a skill I had to practice. Sometimes people still said they couldn't hear me. I was learning what enough volume felt like. A noisy room can also be a reason to move closer, find a quieter spot, or take a break.

There were loud places where I raised my voice and people simply talked back. That helped me question how small I thought my voice had to be. There is still such a thing as too loud. Avoid shouting over the noise or pushing through vocal strain. Pain, hoarseness, or effort are reasons to rest your voice; persistent problems deserve professional attention.

When I am out socially, I want the other person to hear me comfortably. That can mean speaking up, moving closer, or choosing a quieter place. The volume should fit the conversation.



Chapter 15. ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE?

The Best Way How to Start a Conversation With a Stranger Is With a Question

Alright, let's be real. Let's face the facts. Conversation scares the sh*t out of us. But why? One, because we want to control the environment. This whole idea about conversation makes us nervous. It should make you nervous, because you haven't done it. Really, no matter what I do for the first time, or when I learn something, I am nervous. The first major call out is, feel nervous, that's fine. But you still have to do it, right? So you still have to practice speaking, practice being in a convo.

Let's say, and to be blunt, you probably suck at conversation, period. I'm gonna be blunt. You don't know how to have a conversation. I did not either. I know how to say a word, or talk. That's different than being in a conversation for 5 minutes, or 10, or 20 minutes. You don't know it yet, because you haven't had a lot of experience. There is an art of having a conversation, which I never learned. Yeah, it's like how to start one, and like how to be in a conversation.

Because of your stutter, you probably don't talk much to people. Am I right? "A thousand percent correct."

You don't know how, and you've never had a lot of good experience, and you don't know what the flow is like, and you don't know how to extend it or keep a conversation alive or to cut it off. You don't know because when we stutter, we do not have meaningful conversations with many people unless they were close to us, family, friends. What I found from thousands of conversations is when people are talking, or when people are answering questions, they generally like to talk more.

Open-ended questions instead

I call it my once-a-day challenge, where once a day I would approach a stranger with a question. But not a question that can be responded to by a simple yes or a no. Open-ended questions instead. Let me blow your mind. Are you ready?



The best way how to start a conversation with a stranger is with a question. Right? When they respond back, if you say something next, you're in a conversation. It's easy to slip into conversation that way. At first, it'll seem hard. At first, it'll seem hard and forced and tough. I get it.

You walk up to an employee inside of Target and ask for where a certain product in the store is. They describe it as, it's back here in the back corner of the store. Then you can say something back, so you could say thanks and walk off, or you could say something funny like this. Wow, I don't know how you all do it. You have to walk all over the whole store in one shift. I bet you walk like 2 miles here. You can have a small laugh. Then what happens, I would guess, is the person would laugh back and say, yeah, it feels like we walk forever here. Then you're in a conversation, and you can stop it and go get the product, or you can keep on.

One of my favorite ways how to get someone to start talking. It's to say, you know, where are you from? Or my favorite is, are you from around here? "Are you from around here?" when done right, will get someone to start telling you their life story. Oh, no, I grew up in there. Alright, well, how do you come here? Or how'd you find your way to wherever you live? Which is a great follow-up. Because it seems casual. Because it is casual, and it's by design. This is very intentional, the words that I use. It's because I've tried a bunch of stuff. You don't have to use the exact phrase, but that's something that I use.

I always comment about what I see

The thing I'm telling you, though, the secret, in my opinion, is that it's mentioning, discussing something that you see in the environment that no one could pre-script or plan. Why? Because this grandma picked up a bag of red grapes. You could not have prescripted it, because no one knew she was going to do that until she did, and you saw it, and then you say the first thing that pops in your mind. That's how it's done, my friend. I swear that's how I learned the stuff that I'm sharing.



So I saw my friend today. He stopped by wherever I work and I went downstairs to see him because I wasn't sure if I was going to go up back to wherever I work or go out.

There were these two girls, these two ladies, probably 23, on the stairs. They had cookies and some fruit. I'm walking down, and again, I didn't know they were going to be there.

I said something like, oh, where's the free cookies and fruit?

They have a quick laugh.

It doesn't matter what was said, but it's the practice, the practice, and this is what I do all the days of my life. It's the practice, it's the One Stranger Day, it's the speaking spontaneously.

It doesn't really matter what is said to start the conversation. I should know. I've started thousands of conversations with thousands of strangers. It doesn't f*cking matter. Because once you're in a conversation, no one remembers how you started it, right? No one remembers what you asked them. Always start it with a comment or a question. I never talk about me. I always comment about what I see, and what's going on, and what we have in common, or something that just happened. A spontaneous spark starts that conversation, and this is a learned skill.

I never scripted those questions. Spontaneous questions. No scripting, my friend. Because I think scripting speech, when you pre-script your speech, you pre-plan it. You're pre-planning to stutter, in my opinion.

I don't start a conversation by introducing myself. I don't ever do that. It's not that I don't want to introduce myself at the start. It's just that that sh*t never worked for me, and I tried it all.

Be very curious about whoever you're speaking to

The best way, in my humble opinion, that I've verified by reading a Larry King book, he was some old guy who used to talk to people on TV for like 30 years or more, but the point is I was doing it, and then I read the book when I was fluent. But the concept is that when you're in a conversation, the best way how to do it, from my point and his, is just to be very curious about whoever you're speaking to.



The art of conversation, really, according to me, as well as a famous old person who did this on CNN and mainstream TV, was to make it about the other person. Right? So in my follow-ups, in my question about, like, where are you from? Or, are you from around here? Then, like, if they're not, then you can always say, like, well, how did you find your way here? There's many times, my friend, where I'll have a 30 or 40 minute conversation with a stranger who I just meet. It's all about them. The conversation, the questions, are all about them. That's okay, because people want to talk about themselves.

I'm under no obligation to fill in the silence

Sometimes when you're talking to someone, they'll be silent in a conversation. So you'll be standing there, and the other person will be silent. What I used to do is fill in the gaps and just keep talking, because I was very insecure, which was natural. But what I've learned is I'm under no obligation to fill in the silence. They can if they want to. If not, I'm happy just to stay silent. Right? This is not silent from a stuttering block. It's just a natural pause in a conversation.

Some of it you're going to have to figure out on your own, trial and error, and figure out what questions keep a conversation going.



Chapter 16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN

Watch their mouth. Hear the words. Hear their tonality.

While in a conversation with someone, if you could even call it a conversation, it usually felt like a one way monologue with my occasional few words thrown in there, I was never focused on what they were saying. What you need to do is shut the f*ck up and listen to what they say, and focus on their words, and think about what they're saying.

You gotta do whatever it takes. So I'm gonna give you some gold here, my friend. To not think about your speech, good or bad. Because if you have good speech, and if you're fluent, I promise you, I've done this a thousand times, but like the moment you think about your good speech, it's all f*cking over. It's done.

You're future panicking, or stressed, or filled with doubt and fear in the conversation, and when it's time for you to speak, you don't know what to say. That's what I think it is.

When you're talking to a person, as a stranger, the first thing is, don't think about what you're going to say while they talk. When you stutter, that's all you think about. You start to think immediately about what you're going to say next. How you can say it, what words you can say, and what words you cannot say. Am I right? At least for me, I was barely being present. Which means I wasn't really thinking about what they were saying and just enjoying the convo. I was always figuring out what's next, or what am I gonna have to say next.

It gave my mind something to think about while the other person talks.

So my best tip there is, it's going to sound weird. It's not a sexual thing, but it's a fluency thing. Stare at their mouth. Whoever you're talking to, guy, girl, stare at their mouth. Again, not sexual. For fluency. Now why? It's giving your mind something to do. Because when I started to talk to strangers and gain fluency, I had to figure out the same thing. I



stared at their mouth, and it helped me to not obsessively think about what I was going to say next, and kind of break the cycle that we just spoke about.

Staring at their mouth, it was a great crutch while I learned things. Then I learned how to look them in the eyes and talk. But the first thing I did was the mouth, because it got me away from thinking. It was breaking the stuttering mental thought cycle. I mean, the stutter was still there, but it started to at least give me a better shot at better conversation, at a chance at fluency in that convo. I probably did that for like a year and a half while I was trying to figure out stuff.

Watch their mouth. Hear the words. Hear their tonality. Watch their mouth, stay present. Learning how to stay present just means, like, to concentrate on, like, what they say. To fight the pattern that you've done, which is habitually tune out, to essentially not listen to them, and start immediately pre-planning what we will say next based on what words we think we can say.

Staring at people's mouths reduces stuttering and improves your speech, Craig?

No, no, no. It does not reduce stuttering. Okay? I did not say that. What I said was it gave my mind something to think about while the other person talks. Because right now, if you talk to a stranger, when the stranger talks, the stutterer's mind starts thinking about what they're going to say next. What words they can say, what words they can't say. That's what happens in their head while the stranger talks. I had to earn that right. For me, there's no one who granted it. I just had to figure it out. First their mouth. Sure, you could use looking at their eyes. But like, that was what I could do. That's where my confidence was. That's where my level was.

Learning how to stand in the pocket

What you can do is look at their mouth move while they talk. That's a way how to focus your brain. Away from thinking your sh*tty future thoughts about stuttering, which is natural, right? Because I did that. You'll try to focus on their words, which means listen. Don't pre-think what you're going to say.



"I always try to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Most of the time I'm planning my exit." What you're doing, my friend, is learning how to have a conversation, and how to stand in the pocket, in the sense of like a quarterback, where there's like an opponent who's rushing to tackle him, and he stands there and throws, with these big guys, 300 pound guys, trying to tackle him. It's that sense of learning how to stand there. In the pocket. Where it's been nervous before, and just stand there. All of these tricks are things that I did when I did not know what else to do, to not think about this. They helped me.

In the real world, there's nothing to control, because it's all unpredictable. That's the magic. But you can ride this wave of being present, this wave of not planning. It's scary, but that's where the real special work happens.



Chapter 17. NEVER PUSH THROUGH A BLOCK

It's critical to avoid unnecessary hard stuttering blocks.

My preference is to avoid forcing a word through a hard block when I have another way to communicate the thought. I knew how sh*tty I could feel afterward and how long I could keep replaying it. That experience shaped my rule. In an emergency, with a doctor, or whenever an exact name or detail matters, getting the correct information across takes priority. Speaking with a block is still communication.

What the f*ck am I talking about, Craig? I'm talking about the struggle I added when I tried to force a word out and then punished myself for it. I wanted to give myself a better chance in the next conversation. A hard block does not decide how the rest of your day has to go.

Why do you push?

When I anticipated a block, I could be thinking about what I was going to say and which word might be hard. That attention could pull me away from the person in front of me. It was one part of my experience that I worked on.

When I wanted to say a particular word or my name, I could start forcing it. I wanted the moment over. I could feel scared and intimidated, what I call 2 inches tall. Those are the feelings I remember; they do not tell me why every other person blocks.



After forcing a block, I could feel like sh*t. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Then I would replay it and beat myself up. Sometimes that stayed with me for the rest of the day. I am describing how it could go for me. The next conversation was still ahead of me, and learning to stop punishing myself mattered too.

People have told me they wanted to prove they could say their name or order the food they wanted. I understand that wish. Those words matter to us. My concern was how much struggle I added to the moment and how I treated myself afterward. Getting a word out through a block still counts as getting it out. I wanted more ways to communicate and recover.

For me, replaying a block could reinforce the feeling that I was 2 inches tall. I could turn one difficult moment into a judgment about my whole ability to speak. That was a pattern I wanted to change.

I would rather word substitute and say a different word

It's critical to avoid unnecessary hard stuttering blocks. Pushing out your real name through a hard stuttering block just to prove you can say it made me feel like sh*t.

One of the major philosophies that I have is fluency above all else. Fluency at any cost. For me, I want to be fluent. For me, I had to be fluent. I'm gonna talk about what some people never discuss, or they're ashamed to. Word substitution. Well, Craig, what does word substitution have anything to do with pushing through blocks? Stay on topic, man. Well, this is on topic. See, when you're thinking strategically about it, the word substitution is huge.



If you pay close attention to me when I talk, you'll see I've done it too. I would rather choose another word that expresses the same thought than force a word through a hard block. That is one choice I use. The meaning still has to be accurate, and some information needs its exact wording.

So when someone says word swapping is always bad, I don't agree. It has been useful to me when another word carries what I want to say. Another person may prefer to keep the original word, and I have heard why that matters to them.

A difficult block can hurt. It does not close the rest of the day. Give yourself room to recover and speak again.

Unless you have to say it, like for a doctor

Use the choice that lets you communicate what matters in that situation.

So here's what I say, is just drop it. So I would not even start it again, unless you have to say it, like for a doctor or something.



Chapter 18. HEAL QUICK

I'll share what I did to start healing the pain: learning to forgive myself.

To survive the battle of stuttering I had to stop caring what people think. It took time, but was worth it. Fluency came before the scars healed. So no one could tell me. It was a lonely battle. It took me 10 years to go from the idea to how to do a bunch of sh*t. I'm laying the path. I'll share what I did to start healing the pain: learning to forgive myself.

Okay, sometimes we all back down, including me.

Just know that I know it's hard, my friend, and I had a lot of bad days. But it's all possible, and it's scary too, all at the same time. So here's the thing. To live this life of battle, I stopped caring what people think of me. It's taken a long time, and I still work on it. I mean, it's mostly gone, but it took a while, but it was a worthwhile thing, to just learn to not care. So this is me being real, right? I'd be like, f*ck that person. Now, they might be nice, they might, but like, I couldn't feel sh*ttier, because they could judge me too, because I already felt real bad. It's one of the things that I did, to learn to help not care when I was going to embarrass myself.

You got to find a way to move on

Because you can't talk to strangers each day and still feel sh*tty all night long because it did not go well. You got to find a way to move on. The stuff I'm sharing is not textbook. It's not taught. It's what I've done, and worked for me. Maybe it'll work for you too. But f*ck that person. Or my favorite line is that I don't care. Or I'd say, like, I don't give a f*ck. Because when you're doing battle, you gotta learn how to heal quick.

If you bomb, it's f*cking Jacksonville. So like, you're never going to see these people again. What I said to myself was that they're gonna forget about me in 3 days.



"The thing that helped me was just telling myself, and keeping this in mind, that I am not that important to be in people's mind." So I love you, but I would reframe this. I would never say, at the time I might, but now, the idea to say that you're not important, but I get what you're doing. What I said to myself was in the same circle. But now, did I honestly cry myself to bed that night? There was a good chance. But I also said that, look, it's hard work. I've done the work. I've lived a life. But I lived it with no one to tell me. On my journey, no one told me if I was right or wrong. It was by my freaking self. I was doing battle alone. I told my parents, who couldn't get it, who were nice, but they couldn't get it. My sister couldn't understand too. Again, they're nice, but they don't understand.

Confidence is so important. It's what drives what you see now. Like, these are the weird things that literally unlock whatever you see right now. If you've stuttered, like we have, you know that it feels like a battle out there. I don't think that's crazy to say. So when I set the mood, when I set my mood right, I'm getting ready for battle. I'm gonna go and talk to whoever the f*ck I want. It's kind of like battle, where you're going to put some time in, because you're going to go fight a fight. I mean, it's not fighting for me, because I love it. But it's like, you're going in to do a lot of talking, so get f*cking ready.

Date yourself

Here's a 5 star tip I'm gonna share. It sounds weird, maybe embarrassing, but it's cool. That is date yourself. What I mean by that is, if you've had a hard day, or a hard time, or a hard week, or a hard life, start to do some things for yourself. Take yourself out. Go get ice cream. Go out to an event. Do something fun that makes you smile. Do it. Date yourself. Like, make a time for you to have fun. The whole purpose about this is most people who stutter think all day long about their speech, right?



Heal quick from negative emotions

When you're in battle for your fluency, you gotta heal quick from negative emotions. F*ck what other people think. So this is what I do in my life.

1. When another word carries the same meaning, I may choose it rather

than force a block. Exact information still matters, and a difficult moment does not decide the rest of my day.

2. F*ck that person. Or, I don't care. Or, I don't give a f*ck. When

you're doing battle, you gotta learn how to heal quick.

3. No matter what time of day it was, it's too early in the day to hate

yourself. So that was my crutch.

4. What I'm teaching you, my friend, is I want you to share one great

fluency moment right now with me. What I'm going to teach you is think about that before bed every night for the rest of your life.

5. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you make because you want to be

smooth. You want to talk well. You want to have a good life. You're trying hard.

6. They're gonna forget about me in 3 days.

7. Date yourself. Go get ice cream. Do something fun that makes you

smile.

8. If I missed a day, if there was some reason why I did not talk to a

person for a day, I would make it up and do 2 the next day.

Fluency is won. Each day you win it again the next f*cking day.



PART 4. THE REAL WORLD IS UNSCRIPTED

In the real world, nothing is predictable, right? The real world is whatever you want to do outside of your house. Make a phone call, go out with friends, work, school, go out, be social. It doesn't matter. That's the real world. It's the non-safe space world.



Chapter 19. THE ONCE-A-DAY CHALLENGE

One thing you can do right now is learn how to talk to one stranger a day. Why? Why would I do that, Craig? Because the more you fear talking, the less you talk. The less you fear speaking and talking, the more you talk. The only way how to beat your fear of talking is to go out and do it. What I advise, what I suggest, what worked for me in my life, was speaking to one stranger a day. Someone who worked in a store or something. I would go up and engage them with a question.

You practice with people who are gentle

The thing about practicing is, who do you practice with first? You practice with people who are gentle, like grandparents, who are not going to be dicks, who are not going to be jerks, who are going to be patient if you stutter at first, or while you work on your stuff. Nice, gentle people. The way I think about it too is, when you practice, it's like ski slopes. You want to choose something that's not hard at first, or that's less hard.

Why an old person? Because they seem more harmless than a young person. Now imagine you're walking in a grocery store. I mean a big one. I don't mean a Whole Foods, but like a Publix, or some normal kind of grocery store. You walk around and you do a lap of the store. Let's say you're walking through the produce aisle, where there's fruit and stuff. Say an old man, or a woman, or whoever, but like someone who feels harmless. They hold up something. How are the grapes? Oh wow, those are big, aren't they? You can say all sorts of things like this, just to start a convo.

You can approach strangers without flirting, to ask real questions and work on some confidence and some fluency. But you can't be like, you look great. It's more like, how much is this? She'll tell you, 'cause she works there, but you still gotta speak to her.



How I used to practice talking to one stranger a day

So, we're going to walk into a Publix (grocery store) and show you exactly how I used to practice talking to one stranger a day.

In this case, he was looking at the cookies.

Craig: If that's on sale, then I'm in trouble. I used to weigh a little bit more. I used to eat a lot of the junk food, and sometimes you just see it. Calls to you, man. How about you?

Other person: I'm diabetic, I can't touch it.

Craig: But you still look at it. Smart.

Alright, so there, boom, practice is over! First person I saw, it happened. It flows like that. What you're looking for is a natural way to start a conversation based on something that we all have in common or that we saw.

Why I practiced with a stranger

Why a stranger instead of someone that you see at school or work? Because when we talk to someone who we know, if we've stuttered in front of them a lot in the past, then we are feeling that judgment, that they're judging us, that they expect us to stutter. It all happens very subconsciously in our minds. When you're talking to someone who you don't know, it's kind of like a fresh start. They see you for the first time. So they haven't heard you stutter. You get to start fresh. Those fresh starts, when you practice speaking in the real world, are critically important. There's a reason why I practice talking to a stranger, not someone who I knew, or someone who had a lot of authority.

I stuttered more on the word vanilla

I was on campus at the University of Florida, and it was summer B. This meant fewer students on campus, and for me, a chance to feel more comfortable, knowing that most girls were walking around with smaller groups of friends between classes. Or in this case, the girl I liked was walking alone. I never saw her before that day. My confidence was pretty high. So I approached her. I managed to put together a fluent question of asking if she wanted to get some ice cream with me at the Ben and Jerry's right across from campus.



I struggled to say the basic details that normal people discuss. I stuttered while saying my hometown, my major, and the fraternity I was part of. I also ate chocolate ice cream that day, because I stuttered more on the word vanilla. Which is what I really wanted. This was a step in my process, where I was gaining confidence, but not fully understanding how to maintain fluency, how emotional state comes into play, how to speak spontaneously.

I'm going out to learn how to be fluent, to practice fluency.

You probably have not met a guy like me, but my question is, what kind of things have you tried for yourself? Have you tried therapy? "Strangers, yeah. I haven't tried therapy." Well, speaking to strangers without a plan, I mean, I'm glad you're doing something, but I think it requires a plan of how to do it, because it takes a lot of practice.

A kid just steps outside on a freezing-cold day, and he doesn't have a jacket. Learn anything? It's not exposure. It's practice. But it's practice with a skill, an idea, if all the stuff goes together.

I think exposure therapy is a good intention, but in my opinion, it's not good. My mom shared this phrase with me when I was a kid. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The point was that just because something is well-intentioned doesn't mean it's good. Going out with no plan, just to go out there to desensitize while stuttering, in my opinion, just me, is more humiliation.

I suffered too much of that. I had a plan. A plan of how I would talk, of how to engage in conversation.

"Going out with a plan and going out without, aren't both forms of exposure therapy? The point is to put yourself in a situation that's stressful." Well, right. So both would qualify in my mind as exposure therapy. I'd say that's the fundamental philosophy. I'm going out to learn how to be fluent, to practice fluency. It's not to just live uncomfortably. I have a whole goal that is not part of exposure therapy. I'm working on fluency, and I'm gonna go approach a person, but I'm gonna engage in a convo. I'm gonna work on these tools that I've been practicing. So let's call it exposure therapy, but with the goal of fluency. Practicing fluency skills and tools. It is, but it's with a different goal and tools and way.



I keep the tools sharp. I practice all the time.

I've always thought about this as practice. I swear. It's always practice, right? I keep the tools sharp. I practice all the time. I think of it like it's a game. I'm always talking to people and I'm always working on it. I've done it for, it's now very much habitual. I'm talking to all the clerks. There's a clerk plus a bag boy. I talk to them both. If it's like travel, I talk to a lot of people. I might talk to 10, 12 strangers in a day, and hold conversations, and hold good ones. I talk to 10 people a day.

You gotta learn to talk a lot. Because when you stutter for 10, 20 years, all you've done is, you've not practiced talking for that long, because you've shied away from it. Which is natural. It's not our fault. Because when it's hard, and when we feel embarrassed, we don't want to do it. I get it. That was my life. A lot of humiliation. So to get out there, it's this concept of learning to love this.

I think what really healed me was beyond the fluency. It was learning how to talk to people more. I think loneliness comes from not talking to people on a regular basis. It can be strangers that you have little conversations with. It can be some clerk at a grocery store. But it would be better to be friends with them and have coffee outside. It's the relationship. You can build relationships and friends when you go back to the same places again and again.

You gotta push through the fear

You gotta push through the fear. Just pessimistic f*cking pikers and losers give in to their fear. It's okay to be scared, in my opinion. It's not okay not to take action. Feel afraid, but still do it. Push yourself. If you want to beat your stutter like me, you gotta do that.

We always look for an excuse of some kind. We say, well, you know what? It's not right. I don't feel good. I'm tired. I record content once a day. This is my new once a day challenge for myself. Has nothing to do with my stutter. Has everything to do with helping you. So I applaud that you push. I'm proud of you for trying, for doing, for committing to this practice. This deep work is the sh*t that makes a difference. This is exactly how I practiced.

If I missed a day, if there was some reason why I did not talk to a person for a day, I would make it up and do 2 the next day.



Chapter 20. STEVE

An easier order name was one choice I used

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 wanted more than one good moment. I wanted to carry a little confidence from one conversation into the next. That is what I mean by fluency momentum. A hard block could knock that feeling for me, especially when I kept replaying it. It did not make the next conversation a foregone conclusion.

Choosing another way to say something was one way I tried to keep moving. I was learning to communicate in the real world, including when things felt scary. The choice had to fit the situation and keep the meaning accurate.

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?

I am comfortable with an easier order name when it is only a label for collecting the order. That was one choice I used while working on my speech. I also want room for a person who would rather use their own name. The choice belongs to the person speaking.

For an ordinary coffee order, the name can simply help staff match a drink to the customer. That is the situation I mean. When somebody needs your actual identity, give accurate information.

So an easier name is an option for an order label. You do not need to judge your progress by which option you choose. I want you to have a way to communicate and room to try again after a hard moment.

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



When someone told me he would rather stutter on his real name, I heard how much that choice mattered to him. I preferred an easier name when its only job was to get a coffee order called out. My embarrassment about using Steve describes how I felt. It does not make the same practical choice a failure for someone else. An order label can be flexible; a real name needed by a doctor or authority must be accurate.

I was trying to carry confidence into the next conversation. Using an easier name for an optional order was one way I approached that. It was a choice, not a test you had to pass. A person who prefers to say their own name through a block can make that choice too.

I thought about carrying a little confidence into the next exchange. That is the purpose behind the choice I am describing. It is one option to use when it fits, and it does not guarantee how the rest of the day will go.



Chapter 21. I WILL GO FIRST

In that moment, in that very second, I was brave.

So here's the story about one of the most intimidating environments I've been in, with a girl I liked a lot. I was taking a yoga class that a girl I liked invited me to. We were friends at this point, not anything else, but I liked her a lot. There were 30 people in this class. They were all 20s, like the late 20s. All the guys were jacked, all the girls were hot.

The teacher made everyone at the start of the class get into a circle, and she said, this is where my heart dropped, we're going to go around the circle and introduce ourselves. What was she doing to me, man? I know, I know. We've all had the thought run. Use the bathroom, make up an excuse, do something. But the problem is, I was sitting next to a girl I liked. So I was not going to be a pussy. I had already beaten a lot of my stutter, but not fully. I was very nervous. What was I going to do?

Well, we all have a moment where we can either sh*t our pants or we can be 10 feet tall and brave. In that moment, in that very second, I was brave. I raised my hand in front of the whole group and said, I will go first. Oh yeah, what we're going to have to do? Not just introduce ourselves by saying our name. That's hard enough, right? But we had to tell, I swear, an embarrassing story about ourselves.

What I realized is that this was a group of people who had a lot of confidence. What I decided to do was, of course, go first and tell an embarrassing story so we could all laugh together with me. It was a story about how I was on an inner tube going down a Florida spring with a group of people in their 20s and 30s, and there was this girl who I liked. She was on the trip. People were jumping off from land onto a rope swing and into the spring, and a bunch of people did it. When it was my turn, I grabbed the rope, went back, and as I swung, the rope broke. I fell in, and it was very funny. We all had a good laugh at my expense.



So I did it. I killed it, because I relied on spontaneous speaking, which really helps.

But I was still scared. But I would rather go first, always. Volunteer and go first. Than sit there like a piker, like we all have done, where you count down how many people until it's your turn. Four more people, or 12 more. There's no way how to have good speech right there. There's no way how to beat your stutter and be counting down, dreading it.

So in that moment of being afraid, I raised my hand and I chose to be big and brave and 10 feet tall, instead of feeling 2 inches tall and intimidated. That moment exists for all of us. That moment exists for you in your speech life. I know it does. I've talked to hundreds of people who stutter. We all feel it. There's a moment where your heart drops. In that moment, you can train yourself, teach yourself to be bold and brave. You can teach yourself to be courageous. You can do it.

Whose birthday are we celebrating?

So I'm walking in. I used to go out a lot to practice. When I say a lot, like 3 times a week I would go out at night. I walk in to meet my friend upstairs on the third floor of this bar restaurant. You know by now I have my confidence in my bag. It's massive. But like I'm not planning to use it. I'm planning to go upstairs. But I'm walking in with confidence and swagger. I walk into a table of 16 girls.

16, celebrating someone's birthday. The thing that I do is in stride. So like I don't stop and wait around. I just walk up, and I'm like, whose birthday are we celebrating? They laughed, and I said something else about how pretty they all looked, and I'm going upstairs to see a friend. It was not about the flirting. It was about the day. It worked because it was unexpected. It worked because of spontaneous speech. How could anyone have expected that?

When I walked into the bar restaurant to scope it out, I felt 10 feet tall. In my mind, the bigger we feel, the better our speech.



That exact moment when you're about to speak

In speaking situations, in all of them, you have a moment to either be brave or to be a pussy. Seriously. Especially when you stutter, there's always a moment. I'm going to talk about that, because no one does, and it's critically important when you want to beat your stutter in the real world.

There's a moment before it starts where we all feel it. This is half a second, where your heart starts to race. I'll say that we stutterers proverbially sh*t our pants, but allow me to explain. We get nervous, we feel intimidated, and we shrink to be 2 inches tall, is how I describe it. Where we feel timid. What I learned is how to become a world-class professional at handling that moment. Instead of being 2 inches tall, I now live my life 10 feet tall at that moment.

It's a learned skill. I learned it. I figured it out. I created it. At that moment, where your heart races, and they turn and see you, and your heart drops, there's a moment where you can be 10 feet tall. I know you know that moment, because you probably, like me, for so many years, I sh*t my pants in a proverbial way. I became tiny and really nervous and scared. All you want to do is just kind of find an exit out of the situation as quickly as possible.

It just happens when meeting strangers, or just being out somewhere that you're not comfortable with. Which is called living life.

There's a split second moment where you see that word coming up, or you see a block, or you feel trouble. In a split second you literally have a choice to be big and brave and bold and with balls and guts and confidence, or you feel intimidated and you feel 2 inches tall and small and weak and scared. There's a moment. There's a literal moment in all conversations where we have a choice. The moment you walk into a bar and you walk up to a bartender, the moment she looks at you and says hi, is the moment you have that thought.

That's when it happens. That exact moment when you're about to speak, or when you feel the pressure on, or when your boss says, hey Don, walk us through. It's that moment where it's the sh*t-your-pants or feel confident.



Feel the fear and do it anyway

You learn just to block stuff out, where there's a moment where you can panic or not, and you just choose not.

You'll feel the butterflies in your stomach, and they won't go away totally. I used to worry about that, like, a lot. Then I read a quote from Tom Brady, the quarterback in the NFL who won 7 Super Bowls, the most of all time, period. He said that he still got the butterfly feeling walking onto the field each game. Here's someone who had played for more than 20 years, and was the most successful football player of all time. I thought, if he still felt some nerves before playing, then it's okay for me to feel nerves before starting a conversation. So I want you to know that I've learned to feel the fear and the nerves and do it anyway. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

When Tom Brady's nervous, in his mind, is he expecting failure or success? You tell me. Tom Brady expects to succeed, always. They all visualize success. When they wake up in the morning, they are nervous, yes, but what's in their head is they're crossing the finish line first.

The biggest balls under pressure

So the story's about balls. This guy rented space for his work company. He has a few employees, and the person who had the whole floor sold the whole rental space to this huge company. But my friend's like, I have a lease here. They can sell their contract, but they can't sell his. They tried to basically pressure him for about a month with real bad tactics. But the thing I wanted to share is important. He has the most balls I've seen. Now, I have balls with stuff, right? But he has balls when people are bearing down pressure.

He has the biggest balls under pressure. So he's talking to an attorney, and he's basically playing hardball. He played hardball to an attorney when most people would cave. Now they're going to buy him out for cash money. He's probably going to get 10,000 just to leave. He's 5 foot 9, and he did this to a guy who was 6 foot 2 and 300 pounds. He stood right up, man. For me, he was like standing up for the rest of us who get pushed around.



When you're a shooter, you gotta shoot

So let me share a story that happened on Sunday. I'm running this local AI group. I had a meeting, Sunday from one to 3, and I had 4 guys show up. We're in this coffee shop. I've never done this next part. This lady walks in, and she is drop-dead gorgeous. I've never done this, but she's back at the table with her food, and I say to the guys, excuse me, I'll be right back. I walk over, and I walk up to her. But like, when you're a shooter, you gotta shoot. You gotta take the shot. As I look at what she's looking at, it says a church's name on a piece of paper.

I said, I just came over to tell you you're beautiful, but then I looked down and saw this church's name, so I felt bad about it. We started to talk about religion. So I sat down for 20 minutes, cold, with my group waiting. It was a lot of the tools we spoke about, but it's all subconsciously, right? It was a spontaneous approach. As soon as she sat down and I had a moment, I didn't wait 20 minutes and wonder what I was going to say. I did not pre-plan. The way I think about it is, the worst thing that will happen is she will say she has a boyfriend.

I won't hesitate more than 3 seconds from when I see a person

There's a 3 second rule. The 3 second rule is, I learned to, I won't hesitate more than 3 seconds from when I see a person. Because what I found from years of practice is that it never went well, right? The more I would hesitate, the more I would wait, the worse my fluency was. So I will now just skip the person if I ever was in that spot. So it's this concept that it worked because it was unexpected. It worked because of spontaneous speech.

You know the feeling when you see someone and you want to say something

You know the feeling when you see someone and you want to say something, but you doubt yourself, and then it's been a while, and you're like, oh, it's been too long. Well, I can't now. Where you wait and then you lose momentum. I'm gonna show you how I do it and how you can do it, where you do it the moment you think about it, and you walk up, and you're scared, but there's no hesitation. That is super,



super powerful, man. It won't go well at first, probably, because it's new. But it's unbelievable.

Put yourself in the best position possible

I want to talk about when I beat my stutter, about how I learned to put myself in the best positions possible for good speech. See, there is a flow, in a pattern, that until I learned that, I was always a little intimidated. Putting yourself in the position, it's being strategic, always. I'm not just walking out to talk. I'm doing something for my mind. I'm doing something to practice speaking.

I'm doing something always before I go out. It's being intentionally strategic. It's kind of like how we make, how we go from an unplanned world to here's a strategy. So how do we put ourselves in the best position possible? Well, I'm going to get some ice cream, and we're going to talk about it. I would love a vanilla with cookie dough mixed in.

This is the real world, unscripted convo. You can do it wherever you are. These rules apply. If there's like a rule that I've learned along the way, it's no hesitation. So he who hesitates is lost.



Chapter 22. I SHOULD HAVE LEFT

I did not know that I could just say no or walk away.

I went into an embroidery store to have a custom patch made. I was in my 20s. I went to help a friend of mine who created a clothing company, and he wanted to make a patch, like a patch to go on to this hat. He designs clothing for surfers and skaters. I introduced myself to the guy in charge, and predictably stuttered badly over my name. He smirked, jerk, and called over a buddy of his who worked there. I knew something bad was going to happen. I should have left the store. But I didn't. The guy in charge asked me to tell his buddy my name. What a jerk! He literally just heard me struggle to say it. Oh, tell him while you're here again.

Like I'm the person to entertain them. I foolishly stood my ground and struggled to say my name. I re-said the same story with worse stuttering, because A, I had to repeat, and B, there's more pressure, and it was more humiliating. Then they said no, we can't help you with the thing. The punch line of the story was that the embroidery company couldn't even help me. I left there, and I felt like a piece of crap.

Instead of having the courage just to walk out, I did not have my own internal compass yet. I did not know how to stand up for myself. I did not know that I could just say no or walk away. I felt very intimidated. I did not know how to fix that yet. The point is, my gut was right when I could have left. My gut was right, when I did not know that staying was going to be real bad.

I felt that feeling, and I ignored it, and that was my mistake. But we all learn. I knew in my gut it wasn't smart to stick around while he got his friend and they humiliated me further. The point is showing what happens when not trusting your gut. I would have just walked out of the store. Who cares? I came in to buy something. I'd have just walked away and never gone back. There were more embroidery stores in town.



By the way, you're in no obligation to stand there and finish it. So if stuff doesn't go well you can just walk away.

So listen to your gut and just walk away if you think that it's not gonna get any better basically.

That voice, that gut, is important to learn how to pay attention to

The head is full of fear. Your head is full of all the bad sh*t that's replayed in your head a million times. In your heart, you know you can be free. In your heart, you know, or your gut, you know you can do it. Beating stuttering takes guts. This sh*t ain't for the faint. The pain stuttering caused in my life made me willing to do anything to overcome it. You gotta want fluency bad to accomplish it.

Gut feeling, Craig, what is my gut feeling of anything to do with beating your stutter? That's bullsh*t. The gut feeling is so important. It's part of what's never talked about, but it's critically important to having killer good speech in the real world. Sometimes we feel this little voice inside of us that says, don't speak. Or it kind of predicts a cringy, embarrassing speech moment that's about to happen. But we ignore it. That voice is real. I want to give it credibility. That voice, that gut, is important to learn how to pay attention to. It'll help steer away from bad speaking situations and into good ones, but only when you know how.

Sometimes you'll be in a conversation and you'll get a gut feeling that maybe your fluency is not going great. Sometimes you'll get a gut feeling like, like that, like maybe you should leave, or just like walk away, or that like more humiliation will occur. What I now know is, like, just walk away. The gut feeling is so important, because it tells us right from wrong in terms of this kind of stuff. It can see around the corner. Because the gut feeling saw this, but I couldn't see it, and I should have walked away.

The ability to take over the conversation and redirect

When there's a situation where you feel intimidated because, again, you're playing without a net. Because you're out in public. So it's just f*cking raw. But a tool that I created, it's the ability to take over the



conversation and redirect. It was born because I was scared, not because I was confident. So there's ways how to redirect where when you feel intimidated in the real world because you're in some conversation, or some person joins. Because this is not a work thing, we can just leave.

Because this is not a work thing, we can just leave.

You have permission to get up and leave if a conversation's not going well. You have permission to hang up the phone if you've stuttered and did not enter the conversation with as much confidence as you have wanted, right? You have permission to play music while you walk up to someone to talk, right? You have permission to basically break all the social norms and do whatever works for you for fluency. That's a huge part of it, right? It's breaking the norms with intention, with strategy, and with a purpose.

You're in no obligation to stand there and finish it. So if stuff doesn't go well, you can just walk away. It might be weird. I know that there's a social pressure sometimes, because I've had some bad experiences where I should have walked away, but instead I stood in a store and I got more humiliated. But it's that concept that you can walk away. You can just walk from a conversation. That's okay. I know you can do it on the phone, and I'm sure you've done it a lot, because I used to do that.

I started to realize it was about how I felt, the vibes I brought, not what the environment was. I wasn't just going to accept it. No, you can change it. It's about never accepting what is forced on you. It's about we have the power to change. You've got permission to do whatever it takes to be confident. A lot of the time, it's reframing the environment. It's saying, I'm not going to accept what you give me. I'm going to take it. It's a lot of finding courage to be different. Finding courage to say this works for me, the normal does not. It's about fighting intimidation in a creative way.



Chapter 23. JOIN THE CALLS BEFORE YOUR BOSS

The goal is to get the confidence going by speaking soon.

Hey, so what's the hardest thing in your work that challenges your stutter, or that challenges your speaking because it's just a hard thing? "Probably client meetings trip me up. I'm still newer to the client meetings, the client-facing, and I have my boss there, so he talks for 95 percent of the meeting, but I still get a little shaken up." So here's my best advice, alright? Don, here's my best advice that I've never told you, because this is a new challenge.

You gotta start the call. You gotta start your talking with the client before you sit down. The way that I know now is, I can't bring my confidence 50 minutes into the meeting, or 10 minutes in. I gotta start. When we walk in the room, I gotta say something. Here's what I learned from someone wise. No one gets mad if you throw them a question.

So instead of a statement, if you have a question, it could be something super casual, spontaneous. A great thing is you can play off what they say. But the point is, before we sit down and start, I want to try to say something always. I want to joke. I want to use my voice. I'm building momentum for me. It really has nothing to do with speech. Speech becomes a byproduct.

"Whenever I don't start off the meeting hot, with just a few words or a sentence or 2, and the meeting goes by, I just kind of shut down and get tired." Tell the truth. You're probably living in your head. That's my guess. So that means, as the meeting goes on, would you walk me through what's in your head? "Mainly, I haven't said anything yet. How am I going to... what am I going to say? Well, they're all virtual meetings. They're all through Teams."

So here's my tip. Join the calls before your boss. Let me give you a trick of all tricks, my friend. It's not pretty, but it works. So the powerful person, the client, joins the call. I join 6 minutes early, 5 minutes early. Then when they join, you can start talking right as they



first join, before they're ready. It's not super professional, but what it can do is take the pressure away from you.

You want them to talk. You want to take the pressure away from you.

So for example, as the guy gets settled, he's going to move his camera. You can be like, hey, you know, saw the rainstorm in Texas. If you know where they are, look up the weather and just say, man, it looks beautiful. It's just something to break the ice and get things flowing. But it's really a disguised question. You want them to talk. You want to take the pressure away from you. "No, I know. I mean, the question really doesn't have to matter. It's just to literally say words." Yeah, exactly. It's to get you talking, to get the confidence, to get you feeling great.

My notes are about the guys personally.

So here's what I'm doing, and I'm doing this for my speech. For all the calls I'm taking, my notes are about the guys personally. He went out west to a ranch. Great, I'm writing that down. Next time I talk to him, I'm going to bring that up. It gives you personalized things to ask about the next time, so you can start the call strong. Because the moment you talk to the client and it goes well, your confidence is high.

Write down the kids' names. Next time you get a moment, maybe say, oh, you know, last time you mentioned your daughter. Your boss does it subconsciously. Look up all of your clients before the call. Look up for something newsworthy about them, and if you feel comfortable, bring it up in a nice way. Congratulations on the sale of your business. Again, it's all small talk. The goal is to get the confidence going by speaking soon.

It was 7 town halls over 2 days. Same panel.

Of course, I felt that before I had to do work calls with people around. I had already been good at speech, but now I'm like, f*ck, there's 7 people around in a small office, this f*cking sucks.



There's no one who told me to play music to feel better. This is just what worked for me, because I was going across the country. I was scared. I was very nervous to have to talk to new colleagues. Flying across the country from Florida, and going to a big thing with a lot of people. Well, I had to feel better, because it was a lot.

Let me give you a small example from my own life, back in the day. I was doing a panel at work. I worked for a company, we won't say who, and I was doing this process improvement. Then one day the COO says, hey, you 3 are gonna be presenting at the Town Hall next Thursday. So we had 4 days. But here was the sh*tter, my friends. It was not one. It was 7 town halls over 2 days. Same panel. Had to speak at them all, 7, and f*cking recorded, which I never knew. F*cking recorded. So long story short, of course I did well, but I was very nervous.

I worked really hard in all my prep, because it was one thing to do it once, but to do it again? Here's where the emotional state comes in. Here's what I did. When the panel is done, there's 5 minutes between town halls. So I went to the bathroom most of the time, and I played my pump-up song. I did it in the midst of chaos. I did it for me. No one knew. So the point of that is that I took time for myself in my own big moments. To play with my emotional state.



Chapter 24. THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU

I Was Just Glad I Didn't Block!

I met this girl Tara through a friend, and she gave me her phone number on a piece of paper. I was just turning 16. One afternoon I remember calling the number she gave me, and a deep voice answered, hello. This must have been Tara's dad, and I was scared. You know the feeling of panic that sets in when you just know you are about to stutter badly. I wanted to say, may I please speak with Tara, but all that came out was T-t-t-t-t-t ara please. Instead of asking, is Tara there? Or, hi, it's Craig, is Tara there please? My sister overheard me and thought I was rude. I was just glad I didn't block!

At my job, I never told people, hey, I used to stutter.

Do not preamble. Never worked. What it did for me is, it reduced how I felt. I didn't feel big and powerful and strong. I felt tiny and meek.

At my job, I never told people, hey, I used to stutter.

I think it's okay to share with the people closest to you

After all, if you can't be open and honest with someone going through what you've gone through, who can you be honest with? I'm proud of you for what you've done, because you've endured a sh*t ton more than your family has, right? More than most people who are not stutterers. It's not fair, but you've done a nice job of surviving it.

Do you talk to your girlfriend about speech? Has it ever come up at all or not? "Yeah. We probably touched on it like 3 times, 4 times, 5 times." Dude, that's good. I actually think that's healthy. This is what I know, and you're a nice guy. Around the ones you're really close with, I think it's also okay to share when stuff goes well or if it doesn't.

It's sharing your life with someone who cares enough to sit down with you. You get to say, oh my gosh, and how was that thing from last time you told me about? I think there's such joy in that, and the cost is free, and it really helps. I think helping to do that for me at least was the



fluency. Friendships, relationships, and really talking about the things that really matter.

The enthusiasm can carry the pressure

The thing is, what I want you to know as my friend is, man, I'll help you through the scariest speaking parts. So you're going to call her dad. I will help you. "The dad, I was definitely anxious the first time. I mean, he was a big motherf*cker, big Texan boy. Like a hunter. Literally like 6 foot 3, 300 pounds, and owns like 5 different companies." Of course. Big and powerful. Because it's not just the size. If the dad was 5 foot 4, 120, you'd still be slightly nervous at first. So the way, Don, that I would do it, just me and you speaking, the day you drive out there by yourself, he's going to know.

But that's fine, right? Remember how we talked about when you're on a client call, where you get them talking about themselves? So you can start off with something that gets him talking first. Then come with enthusiasm about how much you love his daughter. That's how I would do it. I would write it down, but I wouldn't read from it. I'd just have an idea of like 10 things, and maybe you say 5 or 6 or more. Then you just want to ask, I would love to get your permission to marry her. But the point is, the enthusiasm can carry the pressure. The enthusiasm can carry the worry and stress of, how's this going to go?



Chapter 25. SAY YOUR NAME

Saying my name was the last thing I beat with my stutter

Saying your name at Starbucks, or whenever you purchase food and they ask for a name. Can I have a name, please? Or, what's the name for this order? Or, what name can I put this under? Let's talk about this, because this is big. Saying our own names when we stutter is the number one hardest thing. It's also, for me, the last piece of my speech I got good. That means I got my speech fluent, and saying my name was the last thing I worked on. It was the last thing I worked on because it was the hardest.

So for you, reading these words, this idea that your speech can handle saying your name at a Starbucks before you've mastered the techniques of beating your stutter, it's foolish.

For me, saying my name was the last thing I beat with my stutter, because it's the one that we have so much emotional deep attachment to.

You shouldn't feel like you're having a heart attack just to say your own d*mn name. Been laughed at right to your face because you couldn't say your own name? Well, it can be soul crushing hard. Especially when people see you crumble. The worst question in the world for US is, what's your name? Or, can I get a name for the order?

I used to wish my name was different

I used to wish my name was different. Easier to say. Even gave serious consideration to going through a formal name change down at the courthouse. But I didn't. I did not chicken out. I f*cking beat my stutter.

I feel more comfortable when I bring up my own name

I could tell you about my day. Like how I went to a 200 person fishing banquet last night. First time I was nervous? When I realized I would have to say my name at the front door. Luckily, there was only one lady working the table. I'm more nervous when there is a crowd. I feel more comfortable when I bring up my own name, versus when I'm asked my name.



To see myself saying my name, Craig Coffee, fluidly

What I practiced with this intentional dream was to see myself saying my name, Craig Coffee, fluidly, to physicians, to doctors. Why? Because that was part of my job. People who have authority.

I used to feel intimidated by people with authority

I used to feel very intimidated in front of people who had a lot, who had a tremendous amount of authority and power and wealth.

So the thing about someone who has authority, it's like, it goes to how big you feel. When you talk to someone who has authority, you think of yourself as being tiny. I'm gonna guess, right?

When you figure out how to beat your stutter, just like I did, when you figure out how to find your voice, your flow, your confidence, you're going to be able to own any room, just like this, just like me.

I introduced myself, and I looked him right in his eyes, and I felt calm.

I went from stuttering over my own name, cowering in class when I was called on to read aloud, to later in life introducing myself to a multi-billionaire, Shad Khan, owner of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars! You can too! I used to feel very intimidated in front of people who had a tremendous amount of authority and power and wealth.

I was dressed up, I was at a ballroom event, and I saw him, I walked right up, I introduced myself, and I looked him right in his eyes, and I felt calm. That's how you know that you've beaten your stutter, when you can do this with extreme confidence.

It's not about the money, but it's about the power of the person. The money is just to help us set the table, because in our society, what do people say? Money is power, right?



PART 5. I BRING IT EACH DAY



Chapter 26. FLUENCY IS WON

I'm fluent, but I still work on myself.

Cure is a bullsh*t word, right? Because I beat my stutter, right? I'm fluent, but I still work on myself. Not for stuttering stuff, right? But I work to have high confidence in my speech. Like, I want to kick ass, right? Like I want to be very smooth, right? There's sometimes when I'm super smooth, and sometimes when I'm human, and it's just an okay day, right? But I sure have a lot of good days. In public, they're all good days. In public I have all good days now. It's my f*cking playground, and it can be yours too. You got to put in the time, and you got to learn to talk to people.

What I'm teaching you is not magic. It may seem like it, but it's the real world way of how I beat my stutter and how I remain fluent. Because there's no cure. So what you see is what you get. I bring it each day. That's why I also record content out in public. Because this level of extreme fluency can't be faked.

Showing what's possible

So I recorded the first one tonight inside of my Publix, which is a grocery store chain in Florida. It was a short one. So when I was inside there, 2 people gave me like a little quick glance, cause I just walked in, recorded it in front of people, and I just left. But what I want to do is show you real stuff. I went back into Starbucks and I recorded something new. It was about 3 minutes, and it was one take, and I bought coffee, and the same cashier was there, so she was the one who took my Starbucks order again.

I can talk for 30 minutes in public with a camera on me. I can walk by a hundred people. I can do anything. These are the secrets that I'm sharing. I'm not here to brag, but I am here to prove, and I'm here to rub your face some in my success. In hopes that you will be driven again. But the Starbucks went well. I see why no one does this. I see why no one's recording long form in public, I mean, they who teach the stuttering stuff.



I just grabbed my phone. I just held it in front of me, and it recorded on both cameras, so I'm walking around holding it in front of me. I did it in a way where I tried to not look like I was doing what I was doing. So I can blend in. It's the entire time, right? There's no script. So it's just walking around talking about stuttering in front of people. But for me, it's the showing what's possible. It's all unscripted, obviously. That used to be the hardest part. I recorded 3 times in one day, Don. 3 times.

Am I 100% perfect? Nope, I don't pretend I am.

Am I 100% perfect? Nope, I don't pretend I am. I'm like 99 fluent. If perfect speech is a 1 and the worst stutter is a 10, I lived in the 6 to 8 range for most of my life. I live in the zone of a 1 now. My system for overcoming stuttering works for me every f*cking day, in every f*cking way.

Airplanes, football games, bars, parties, approaching women, grocery stores, getting lunch, gym and workout classes, at school classes or work meetings. Literally, every f*cking where. It works every day in all places. That's how you know stutters can be beaten. At my best, my speech is great, but I'm never going to be a natural 100%, the smoothest talker in the world. Now, I have a great style. I love my style, and I've worked on it.

It's one conversation at a time.

That's the thing, man. There's no perfect. But I think that's the magic in the sh*t that I'm going to share with the world. It's that it's consistent. It delivers consistency. It's consistency when you don't know what's going to happen the next moment.

Fluency is won. Each day you win it again the next f*cking day. 'Cause it's a battle. It's one conversation at a time. What's a fluent day, right? It's bullsh*t that when you have one day, you'll have a bunch. F*ck that. It's the real world, man. That's where I deal. It's a new conversation with a new person on a new day. You got to be fluent then and there. You got to produce like on the spot. Which is why I say that you got to fight each day. You got to win it each day. Is it easy? Are you f*cking kidding me? No. Am I doing it? Yes. Are you doing it? Are we all doing it?



The fluency that you bring, or that someone brings, on a Tuesday, they still have to bring it again on a Thursday, if they want to have great speech. There's no cure. So the fluency that I bring, the fluency that we bring, must be brought again.

Most of the time it's subconscious, because I've done it for so many years

Fluency really is a lifestyle. It's working on beliefs. It's working on practicing. It's working on how to have a conversation. None of the stuff that I tell you I just made up and don't use. No, it literally helped me be fluent, and I still do this stuff. Most of the time it's subconscious, because I've done it for so many years. But I still do it.

There is no greater feeling in the world than talking smoothly

The thing about speech and stuttering is, there is no greater feeling in the world than talking smoothly. Than talking without effort. I love this daily. In fact, I love talking to people! I used to not be this way. In fact, I used to hate talking to people.

But you can kill it where it's not a problem. It's more than it does not hold you back, right? It's the killing of your stutter that makes you into a superhuman, because it takes slaying this big fear. In doing so, you become brave as f*ck. It's just part of it. Once you beat your stutter, you can play in the big leagues, like me. But to do that, you got to fight, you got to battle. It's kind of a game.

Some of my friends who know me now, they say, oh, Craig talks a lot. The reason is, is because, why? It's because for 20 something years I couldn't. It was 24 of real stuttering. But like, imagine that you could talk like this, which I believe you can. Wouldn't you talk a lot, my friend?

I woke up this morning feeling very grateful, feeling like today could be the best day of my life. I'm not going on an exciting trip. I'm not flying first class, but I get to go about my day with my earned fluency, and therefore it becomes an adventure. It becomes an exciting day because I make it so.



Chapter 27. RAW

I've Cried Myself to Sleep a Lot of Times

How many times has someone said in front of you, relax? I used to hear it from my dad. Which only made my speech worse. C'mon dad. Be more accepting of me and what I was going through. I truly feel he was doing what he felt was right. But at the peril of ignoring how I felt deep down inside. I used to stutter worse around my dad than around my mom. My dad wasn't connecting with me emotionally. I wonder if he even thought of me as being different. I felt like saying to my dad: Don't hold back your love for me just because of a stutter. Maybe I'm overexaggerating. Maybe he didn't hate me for stuttering. Maybe I'm all wrong. I certainly pray that he loves me for who I am. Some parents might love their kids even more because of their stutter. Maybe your family members love you even more because of this. I usually felt I was the least favored child out of me and my sister. Second place out of 2 people. Yes, it hurt. Yes, it felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. Yes, it drives me to want to be more understanding of other people. To be more patient with others. To be more helpful to others. To be a better human being, because I've seen how others used to write me off. We are deserving of our parents' or other family members' love. We are wonderful people!

This is how you know that I'm raw

That's my raw truth, boys and girls, and I don't know if you like it, but that's 100 percent me. I've failed, been laughed at, cried myself to sleep. I've lived 2 inches tall. I've been laughed at. I've been humiliated. I've been embarrassed. I've cried myself to sleep a lot of times. There was a time when I had a gun in my hand once. I didn't do anything. If we're being totally honest, see, this is how you know that I'm raw. Because I'm sharing it. The point is, I've had sh*tty days. I've hated my life. You deserve the love that you should give yourself, my friend. You deserve to be happy. I'm here for you.



Chapter 28. MY NAME IS CRAIG

There is no such thing as being normal

What I've learned from years of stuttering and years of increased fluency: there is no such thing as being normal. To have my thoughts dominated by what normal people think about. To live life worried about normal people's thoughts. To not constantly worry about what word I was going to say next. To just get the pressure that constantly lived in my chest, get that feeling out of my body. Please God, I used to repeat, just let me be normal.

I bet you are a good person who just wants to be normal. That described me exactly.

You're a kid, you have a birthday party, 6, 7, 8, 9, right, and 10, and people are gathered around, and happy birthday, whoever. Craig. I just remember everyone was happy, and in this moment, the world felt like it's slowed down. As I closed my eyes, I thought, again, for the same wish on yet another birthday, I just wanted to be normal. By that, you know what I mean. I meant my speech. That was the only thing I wanted. In fact, when I used to cry myself to sleep I kept repeating I just wanted to be normal. I threw in a few why God, why me, but that came with the territory. The territory of suffering with stuttering. Of living with a situation that everyone heard and most people did not understand. I never told my mom what my birthday wish was.

There is no such thing as being normal. As I said before, I just wanted to be normal. The wish to speak fluently is different than the wish to be normal. There is no such thing as normalcy. People think about all kinds of different things. People worry about all kinds of different things too. I would have wished for increased fluency if I was to be wishing on this topic again. Just let me have increased fluency. That would have been my prayer.



Just like Jonah in the whale

I'm sitting in my favorite hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. It's early on a Friday morning, and the world is just waking up. I hope the stuttering world is waking up to what it actually took me to overcome stuttering once and for all.

Why am I doing this? What is my angle, Craig? Well, let me tell you. I never wanted to. I tried to run away from teaching how to stop stuttering, how I beat my stutter, for a lot of years. Why? Well, because it's not fun. It's not fun to talk about stuttering once you've beaten yours. It's not fun to be back in this stuttering world, in my opinion. No, I left it for good. But just like Jonah in the whale, the famous Bible story, and I'm not a religious guy, but it's a good story.

He tried to run away from his promise, or a responsibility, and he could not outrun it. Well, guess what? I tried to outrun mine. Look, I was 14. I did not know much, but I knew I would find a way to beat my stutter. It took a long time, from 14 into when I figured out how to beat it. But that was the promise I made myself. This, what you're seeing now, is the fulfillment of that.

I left a corporate career in order to fulfill the promise I made to God. I never wanted to work with stutterers. No offense to you, you're probably cool. But once I overcame stuttering, I wanted just to live free. Who can blame me? After all, I stuttered badly from ages 7 to 21, and now I learned to love going out! You might too, if you could say what you wanted, when you wanted, to who you wanted.

What if you can make your speech 10 percent better?

Paradigm shift. What does that even mean, man? It means looking at where you are, and looking at where I am, and how to bridge that gap. What if you can make your speech 10 percent better? Or what if you can make it 25% better? Or what if you can make it 50%, but you still stutter, but it's half as bad? Well, how would your life change? You get to say what you want, when you want, to whom you want.

I really want you to beat your stutter, or to have improvement in your life that makes you happy, because I care about you. Because when I was stuttering, no one was there for me. It was painful. I cried myself to



sleep, and I asked God, why me? But you don't have to do it forever, because I'm showing you how. Look, I can't go back in time and fix my own stutter when I was struggling badly, right? The next best thing I can do is to help you on your journey to stutter less.

I used to stutter, and I don't

I used to stutter, which is like a speech impediment, and I don't. I just like to tell people, like, encourage them, like, they can beat their stutter too. See, guys, it's very possible.

If I can do it, you can do it

This whole idea of what scares you, you can flip it right on your f*cking head. The idea of what you think your life can be like, you can turn it upside down. There is room for optimism in the stuttering world. There's room for positivity. There's room for change. If I can do it, you can do it. I can't promise the results, but I can say, I'm no genius. I was just very determined. Now I can shortcut it for you.

It's ballsy as hell. I know you can do it, because I've done it. I made it up and created this. If I can do it, you can do it. When you go out, all things are possible. When you go out, you can make friends. When you go out, you can find people to date. You can do anything. I believe in you. You've got this.

It's not your fault. Not my fault. It's not our fault.

I'm trying to prove that we can change lives with one conversation.

Can I get a name for the order?

I used to look at the names of things, like the flavor of the coffee, and figure out what I would, what I could say, and I would get that. But now I can say anything. Hey, what's up, man? How you doing? Can I get a pour over coffee? For here, please. My name is Craig. Thank you very much. See, it goes like that.



THE BACK

FIND THE CHAPTER

1. Are you sick and tired of feeling like you are not being heard? Are you sick and tired of having people talk over you? → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 15. ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE? · 16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN · 24. THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU

pages: 2. p. 8 · 15. p. 55 · 16. p. 59 · 24. p. 88

2. Do you hate when people finish your sentences? → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 15. ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE? · 16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN · 24. THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU

pages: 2. p. 8 · 15. p. 55 · 16. p. 59 · 24. p. 88

3. Do you get tired of non-stutterers thinking getting rid of a stutter is easy to do? → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 3. ME AND YOU · 6. THE JUNGLE

pages: 2. p. 8 · 3. p. 12 · 6. p. 22

4. Would you do nearly anything to avoid talking on the phone? → 12. THE INTENTIONAL DREAM · 13. COME IN TALLER · 24. THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU

pages: 12. p. 44 · 13. p. 49 · 24. p. 88

5. Do you think one of the worst feelings in the world is when you stutter or block on your name, and people laugh at you? People asking you if you forgot your name? → 20. STEVE · 25. SAY YOUR NAME · 28. MY NAME IS CRAIG

pages: 20. p. 73 · 25. p. 90 · 28. p. 97

6. Have people made fun of your stutter? Maybe while you were younger, in school, or as an adult. → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 18. HEAL QUICK · 22. I SHOULD HAVE LEFT · 27. RAW

pages: 2. p. 8 · 18. p. 65 · 22. p. 82 · 27. p. 96



7. Have you ever judged your day by how good or bad your speech was that day? → 10. IT'S TOO EARLY IN THE DAY TO HATE YOURSELF · 17. NEVER PUSH THROUGH A BLOCK · 18. HEAL QUICK · 26. FLUENCY IS WON

pages: 10. p. 37 · 17. p. 62 · 18. p. 65 · 26. p. 93

8. Do you feel really frustrated when you say something 100% perfectly, then someone asks you to repeat yourself? → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN · 18. HEAL QUICK

pages: 2. p. 8 · 16. p. 59 · 18. p. 65

9. Have you ever stuttered so much you decided to shut up? → 15. ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE? · 16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN · 19. THE ONCE-A-DAY CHALLENGE

pages: 15. p. 55 · 16. p. 59 · 19. p. 69

10. Have you ever been at a restaurant and ordered food that you could say, not what you actually wanted to eat? → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 19. THE ONCE-A-DAY CHALLENGE · 20. STEVE

pages: 2. p. 8 · 19. p. 69 · 20. p. 73

11. Have you pretended like you did not know something, or pretended you forgot, to avoid stuttering? → 7. WHAT I NOTICED ABOUT MY SPEECH · 11. THERE AIN'T NO SCRIPT · 16. SHUT UP AND LISTEN

pages: 7. p. 24 · 11. p. 42 · 16. p. 59

12. Can you relate to making a phone call and silently hoping they don't answer? → 12. THE INTENTIONAL DREAM · 13. COME IN TALLER · 24. THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU

pages: 12. p. 44 · 13. p. 49 · 24. p. 88

13. Have you ever stuttered so much at a drive-through restaurant that you just drove off without your food? → 2. STUTTERING HELL · 19. THE ONCE-A-DAY CHALLENGE · 20. STEVE

pages: 2. p. 8 · 19. p. 69 · 20. p. 73



THE WORDS I USE

Stuttering Hell. Once you're in it, it's the absolute worst feeling in the world.

2 inches tall. The size of an ant. When we're afraid, and when we're very timid, and when we're scared, really scared, we feel about this big.

10 feet tall. You feel massive. You're king of the world. That feeling is manufactured. You made it.

The stuttering mental thought cycle. When the stranger talks, the stutterer's mind starts thinking about what they're going to say next. What words they can say, what words they can't say.

The real world. Whatever you want to do outside of your house. It's the non-safe space world.

Pre-planning. I would pre-plan, which means pre-failing. When you pre-script your speech, you pre-plan it. You're pre-planning to stutter.

The intentional dream. One of my favorite ways to reprogram our subconscious mind. It's where you're seeing yourself basically perform like at your best, mixing with this dream a sensation of true happiness.

The once-a-day challenge. Talk to one new person per day. One new person per day.

Momentum. It's made. You build it with music, you build it with practice, you build it with the stories we tell ourselves.

Steve. I chose a name that was easier for me to say than my own.

The 3 second rule. I won't hesitate more than 3 seconds from when I see a person.

Heal quick. When you're doing battle, you gotta learn how to heal quick.

The crutch. It's too early in the day to hate yourself. No matter what time of day.

Fluency is won. Each day you win it again the next f*cking day. 'Cause it's a battle.



SPONTANEOUS QUESTIONS, NO SCRIPTING

You don't have to use the exact phrase, but that's something that I use.

Are you from around here? How did you find your way here?

How are the grapes? Oh wow, those are big, aren't they?

Wow, I don't know how you all do it. You have to walk all over the whole store in one shift.

Whose birthday are we celebrating?

I just came over to tell you you're beautiful.

Hey, what's up, man? How you doing? Can I get a pour over coffee? For here, please. My name is Craig. Thank you very much.



TALK TO ONE STRANGER A DAY

One stranger a day. If I missed a day, I would make it up and do 2 the next day.

☐ 1   ☐ 2   ☐ 3   ☐ 4   ☐ 5   ☐ 6   ☐ 7   ☐ 8   ☐ 9   ☐ 10

☐ 11   ☐ 12   ☐ 13   ☐ 14   ☐ 15   ☐ 16   ☐ 17   ☐ 18   ☐ 19   ☐ 20

☐ 21   ☐ 22   ☐ 23   ☐ 24   ☐ 25   ☐ 26   ☐ 27   ☐ 28   ☐ 29   ☐ 30



How I chose a cell phone number I could say

What I've done successfully, and it's been more than a few years, was when I went to change my cell phone number because I moved. I went into a store in person, and I asked the head person in that store if I could choose or have a choice in my cell phone numbers because I stuttered. They said, we normally do not allow this, but I do understand. They allowed me to go behind the counter. I looked at a page of about 12 or 15 different choices, and I found the one of those that it was the best for me to say. So that's my tip. That if you're struggling, you can choose your own cell phone number. If that method does not work, you could always get a second cell phone number through an online VoIP service. But there are choices.



THE PHILOSOPHIES

I try to avoid forcing a hard block when another way of communicating works. Exact information takes priority, and one block does not decide the rest of the day.

Do not preamble. Never worked. What it did for me is, it reduced how I felt. I didn't feel big and powerful and strong. I felt tiny and meek.

I've learned to never pre-script what I'm going to say. I'll have an idea of what I want to get across, but I never think about the words, the actual words to say.

I used to call myself a stutterer. But I was so much more.

I want advice that can be explained, shown, and supported. A person's own stutter does not settle whether they can help someone else.

I work on fluency while protecting my voice, the accuracy of my message, and my respect for myself.

That spontaneous speech, that's where the gold is.

I always hype my mood before talking to strangers or groups.

I would talk to one stranger a day. Even with my stutter. Because I stuttered.

It's too early in the day to hate yourself.

Forgive yourself for the mistakes you make because you want to be smooth. You want to talk well. You're trying hard.

That voice is real. I want to give it credibility.

Fluency is won. Each day you win it again the next f*cking day. 'Cause it's a battle. It's one conversation at a time.

Confidence is learned. I taught myself how to be confident. By recording these, I'm teaching you what I've done.



I want to hear from you

Let me guide you because I've done it. I've been where you are and I'm on this side of it.

usedtostutter.com

I record content once a day. Watch my live content. Watch my long form content.

You get to say what you want, when you want, to whom you want.

Daily positivity is required. Why? Because stuttering is f*cking brutal, just like you know. You can get that from all sources. If you want to get it from me, that's great too. I'm here for you. usedtostutter.com.

It's speech. It's your life. It's your dreams. It's not perfect, but it's everything. Instead of talking just to people on a server one-on-one, I want to talk to a lot of people. I want to put it out there, because this is the kind of material that I would have wanted.

A place where people who stutter are understood, and are normal. Where you will always be supported. Where people who stutter are celebrated! You're a hero for facing the challenges you live through and experience every day. In short, I created the home I always wanted for myself.

You are a whole person with things to say. One practice I have shared is talking to one stranger a day. I believe in you. It's a journey, and I look forward to walking with you on yours. I'm so excited. I'm your boy Craig Coffee. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.