I am thirty-six years of age and live in Birmingham, England. From the age of four I unfortunately had a speech impediment known as stuttering. This impediment basically ruined my life for eighteen years before I finally managed to overcome the stutter. This article is all about stuttering or as some people call it stammering.

Stammering or stuttering can have a dramatic effect on somebodys confidence and it certainly seemed to my crush mine. It made me accept second best in life and stopped me living my life as I wanted to.

It is extremely difficult for a fluent person to comprehend how hard it is to live your life with a speech impediment or stutter.

I now run stop stuttering courses from my home town of Birmingham. A couple of years ago one of my clients told me about a situation he had been involved in. He and his friends went to a bar one Saturday afternoon to have a few drinks. After a couple of pints he went up to the bar to order himself a drink. Unfortunately he could not speak all of the words fluently and the barman accused him of being drunk and refused to serve him. He stated to the bar worker that he was not intoxicated and that he actually had a speech impediment – the bar man just thought he was lying though.

When he got back to the table, his mates enquired as to where his pint was. He told them what had happened, this itself was very embarressing.

Steve runs The How to Stop Stuttering Centre in the UK where he offers a one-to-one intensive therapy course helping people to achieve fluency. There are also a range of self-help products available such as the powerful seventy minute stuttering therapy DVD.

There were a range of things which impacted upon my overall self-confidence and self-esteem levels as I grew from being a young child to a man. These included:

A small patch on my scalp which was bald

A speech impediment known as a stutter

A weight problem, I was basically too fat

I am quite short at five foot four

Certain people I met would be quite nasty and would try to make fun of me. I tried really hard to ensure that these nasty people did not affect me however I must admit that there were many a time when I would shed a tear. Life at times was quite tough especially where I worked at the company offering a Medical negligence claims service.

Aged 22 I decided to do something about this pathetic way of living – I needed to become a real man – I needed to become strong and far more care-free. I decided I needed a big change in attitude and started to read books about life and about positive thinking etc.

These were the things I had to take on board:

Who cares what other people think about you? As long as you like and have respect yourself nothing else really matters

It is time to start respecting and liking yourself

There are various things about your person, you do not like but which you can not change. You therefore have to start accepting these things and realising that maybe there are other people in life who are more unfortunate than you.

You need to have respect for yourself

Do not accept second best in life

Be happy

I tried hard to implement this advice and even though it was not easy to change, I knew I had to. I basically live life to the full now and try not to worry about anything trivial. I have also managed to eradicate the stuttering problem.

I have now become a successful external doors salesman and my life is now much happier overall.

I hope this article will be of benefit to the people who read it.

One day when I was around my early to mid twenties, I went to the hairdressers for my monthly trim. This woman enquired about whether I had heard about the tragic car crash that had recently occured. I hadn’t and she then went on to describe what had happened.

Three young men who were all aged twenty-two, were on the way for an evening in the local public house. One of them decided he would drive and on the way there, partly due to the fact that he was driving too quickly, he lost control of the car. His vehicle had then careered straight into a large tree, all three of the people in the car had died at the scene.

She continued that one of the men which had died, had worked in the butchers, which was only two doors away from her shop. She described the man in question, which turned out to be a person that I knew, just to say hello to. I actually saw him on most mornings and we often smiled at each other, and would say something like, hi there.

Later on when I was at home, I started to think even more about this particular person. Even though he was friendly, he always looked quite stressed and did not seem that happy. If he had known what was about to happen to him, I am sure he would have made the most of the time he had left.

It should not have taken this kind of tragedy to bring me to my senses, but it did. Morbid as it is I pondered on the thought that we all have to die at some stage and that none us know when that day will come. I am sorry if that is a bit morbid, but it is true. Not all of us will live until retirement age and our lives could end tomorrow.

I have always been a bit of a worrier; mainly about my speech I suppose as I had a stuttering speech impediment. I did eventually manage to gain fluency via an intensive one-to-one stuttering therapy course but even then I started to worry about business; I work for a composite door company and for a business cost reduction specialist on a part time basis.

I now have learnt to stop stressing so much – life, I have now learnt, is just too short.

We all face problems or hurdles as we travel along the road of life, this article gives my viewpoint on how to deal with these issues. I have personally taken inspiration from my favourite football team, Birmingham City. They have a famous song which their supporters regularly sing, it is called, keep right on to the end of the road.

I have often been amazed by the passion and the buzz that I get when going to watch them, and also the passion of the rest of the crowd. On particular afternoon these fans were to teach me a very valuable lesson in life. The season in question had been a very poor one for Birmingham and it resulted in the team being relegated to the then second division (the leagues have been reformed since then and this division is now known as the first division). This was the lowest point the club had ever reached.

There was only one more match of the season remaining which would be at home and our team had already been consigned to relegation. At most clubs the fans would no doubt give the players some stick and would make it an uncomfortable afternoon for them. Not so at Birmingham, the fans were as passionate as ever and continued to support and cheer them on. A pamphlet had been mass produced which distributed to the Birmingham City fans. It stated on this leaflet that despite the club reaching its lowest point, that they wanted as many fans as possible to travel to the last match of the season, which would be in London. This was to show the team that we still supported them and that we would be back the next season. I went to that match as did around six thousand other Birmingham fans. One song was sang throughout the whole match, keep right on to the end of the road. It was an amazing experience for me and one that I will never forget. As many pundits predicted Birmingham ended up losing the match but the supporters did not really care~As many pundits predicted Birmingham ended up losing the match but the supporters did not really care}~As many pundits predicted Birmingham ended up losing the match but the supporters did not really care}.

Later I thought about what had happened. I realised that when I felt a bit depressed, I needed to think of that day and to quickly pick myself up. I was a very negative thinker and realised I needed to think in a far more positive way. I am not trying to suggest that this is easy however I do try my best to do it~I am not trying to suggest that this is easy however I do try my best to do it}. I had a negative attitude in part due to the fact that I had a speech impediment. With this new found attitude I eventually found a way of stopping stuttering and I have now been fluent for the last fourteen years.

I have also gained success in my business life selling voucher codes for a local composite door company. It is amazing what a good approach can have on the sales of these affordable front doors. I also work with a group of experts who advise on jobs in foster care.

My belief is that positive people have positive and happy lives. This is what I want and the above example has helped me to get back onto my feet many times.

Up until a few years ago many of my friends and family used to call me “a stress head”. Why you may well be thinking? Well quite simply because I seemingly stressed about anything and everything.

So what was the cause of all of this stress? I suppose if I am truthful the majority of my problems at the time came about due to the fact that I had a stutter. This speech impediment had developed when I was at the age of four. As you may well imagine it is something that destroyed my overall confidence levels. Therapy for stammering, at the time, was less than impressive which did not exactly help the situation.

My low self-esteem had a bad affect on many areas of my life, not just my speech. I would worry about what other people thought of me, I would stress about my height and my weight. I was so desperate, for whatever reason, for people to like me. I have to say that this now seems so bizarre however at the time I was being plagued by an army of demons that had taken over my brain. It even affected my career which is within the cheap mobile calls and cheap holidays industries.

As I entered into my twenties I decided that enough was enough. I could no longer live in this way – there surely had to be more to life than this.

There was only one person who was going to get me out of the mess that I was in and that person was me.

I started to work very hard at learning how to increase self-esteem for example. I watched the way in which great fluent talkers spoke and tried to compare it with the way that I spoke. I hoped this would result in me finding the solution to my stuttering problem.

Progress was far from quick however after around a year of battling against my demons I did manage to overcome the stutter and I did manage to discover ways to stop me stressing – it is all about attitude and the way we approach life – think positive and believe in yourself!

It goes without saying that we all make errors in life however the most successful people do not let it get them down and try to treat these mistakes as a learning curve.

My parents taught me a lot of things about life and I clearly remember my father sitting me down when I was around fourteen years of age and speaking to me about this subject. He stated that he thought I was a decent person who knew right from wrong, he was however aware that I would make some mistakes. I was a person that had a speech imediment, commonly known as stuttering. I became street wise and mature at a far earlier stage than the majority of kids my age – this was no doubt in part due to having the stutter.

He continued that he would not ask me to come home by a certain point at night and that he would let me make my own choices. If I had made some sort of crazy error or decision; or perhaps I had acted in a wrong way he would just sit me down and say: OK now I am not particularly impressed with what you have done there son; he would then ask whether I also believed that what I had done was wrong etc. I would, of course, agree with my father as I want the whole episode to be forgotten as quickly as possible. After agreeing in this way I would be fine unless I somehow made the same error again in the future. He would then in his words, come down on me like a ton of bricks.

I agreed that this seemed fair and carried on living my life. I wondered what he had meant by the ton of bricks statement. I did make many mistakes and we had to have our chat on many occasions, I am happy to say that I did learn from my errors and never had to find out what he had meant.

I am somebody who loves playing sport. I am very competitive and do not like losing. There will be those occasions where I am not triumphant; I reluctantly accept this fact. I do however not like losing and I therefore start to analyze what went wrong; how can I ensure that I win next time around? What could I do differently next time I play to ensure the result is a positive one?

It is the same in business where I sell composite doors and also a business cost cutting service; I am always eager to try and reach that next level up.

I certainly learned a lot from the many lessons in life that my parents gave me and I aim to share these lessons with my own children.