September 16, 2025 • 52 mins
Join Rob Woolley who uses a negative childhood label as a "stutterer" into being a positive label as a public speaker and teacher of others that struggle with stuttering, lack of confidence and the fear of public speaking.
Rob was identified as a stutterer after a speaking test at around age ten & refused public speaking until one day, when he realized that he was better than expected.
Rob founded Rob Woolley Training & Talk Business Networking in Christchurch.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Voices Unhindered.
I'm Crystal Jenkinson.
On this show, I give a uniqueperspective and listening ear to
voices that often go unheard.
I want everyone to know that youare not alone and that your
voice and story matters.
(00:23):
This week on Voices Unhindered,I'm joined by Rob Willey, who is
a former stutterer, now publicspeaker, founder of Talk
Business Network, and a formercoach for Overcoming Stuttering.
Rob Willey shares about hischildhood, adverse life
experiences, and we talk aboutthe fear of public speaking.
(00:47):
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hi Rob.
Could you please tell me aboutwhere you grew up and what were
your aspirations as a teenager?
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Oh, wow.
I grew up in the Hutt Valley.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
I did as well.
I noticed that.
Yeah, you went to Hutt ValleyHigh School.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Oh, no.
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
For a few years.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
Oh, no.
Well, we might have to can theinterview now because you were
like our arch enemy.
I went to Nainai College.
And for anybody who doesn'tknow, the main two colleges in
Hutt Valley were Hutt ValleyHigh and Nainai College.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
I remember being there.
I was Sorry to interrupt oneday.
It wasn't a good time.
Fire alarm went off and like allthe water came out.
I don't know.
It was just such a chaoticschool.
I just saw like they weren'treally learning.
Ballion in the class andteachers don't know what to do
and there's lack of disciplineand all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Hold on.
Is this Hart Valley High or NineEye College?
SPEAKER_00 (01:41):
Okay, it was both.
That was both, but I did seethat at Nine Eye as well.
But that's just my, you know,little snippet of what I saw
there.
I didn't actually, I wasactually wagging.
I didn't actually like highschool.
I
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
can't believe that.
What?
That you would wear class.
SPEAKER_00 (01:57):
It became a habit because I hated class.
I got like anxiety during classand I just had a lot of mental
health issues and other issues.
Well, I've
SPEAKER_01 (02:05):
still got them.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Yeah.
No, I wondered how you managedto graduate and get
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
through that school.
I wondered how you managed toget to this age having had such
a terrible upbringing in Nainai.
I used to call Nainai Collegethe ex-worldly homicidal maniac
capital of the world because fora while there, there were a lot
of people that went to NainaiCollege.
Around about the time that I wasthere who killed people or were
(02:35):
related to people who who'd beenmurdered and stuff.
It was quite bizarre there for awhile.
Yeah, there was a head found ina microwave in Nainai.
I don't know if you
SPEAKER_00 (02:46):
remember that.
No, not really.
That's interesting.
It was
SPEAKER_01 (02:49):
all done in good fun though at the time.
SPEAKER_00 (02:52):
And did you live in Nainai as a kid with your
parents?
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
I did, I did.
But I wasn't, was raised by mygrandparents.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Wow, I was too.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
Oh.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (03:02):
Are you sure you're not my long lost sister?
So I was raised by mygrandparents and my grandmother,
used to fall out with theneighbours.
So we used to move every 12months and people think that I'm
making this up, but I actuallymoved 14 times from the age of
maybe about three or fourthrough to about 18.
SPEAKER_00 (03:26):
There's definitely similarities between you and me.
Like I moved so much as a kid.
I don't know if it was 14, butit was a lot.
It's really interesting.
Like, what do you mean yourgrandma had to fall out with the
neighbours?
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
So So I can't ever remember an actual argument
between my grandmother and aneighbor.
Like, I can't remember one.
I'm not saying it didn't happen.
But I think that my grandmotherjust never really got along with
a lot of people.
And so after about 12 months,she'd had enough.
(03:57):
And so we all packed up and we'dmove.
So, yeah, so we were just here,there and everywhere.
My aspirations, coming back tothat original question, my
aspirations kind of totallychanged when I was nine.
So we used to have a person whoused to come around the school
and each person in the classwould walk down the corridor
(04:18):
into a room and you had to countto 10 and to say your ABC.
And each year I knew there wasan edge on it, but I couldn't
really work out what it was, butI used to get through, get
through, get through.
And when I about nine or ten Ididn't get through and the lady
called up my grandparents andsaid Rob has a speech impediment
(04:39):
and unfortunately the momentthey said that that was like me
being branded and I lived intothat so from that point on
anything to do with speaking waslike a major event
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
yeah and do you think that what they told you
affected your own beliefs aboutyourself if they hadn't have
told you that do you thinkthings would have been a bit
different regarding speaking andjust your feelings about how you
spoke, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
Yeah.
A lot of the times I don't thinkif anything like that happened,
you'd be able to answer it.
But for me, I could only becauseprior to that happening, I used
to arrive at class and I wasalways asking questions.
The moment that happened, Iasked no questions.
Wow.
(05:29):
In fact, it went completely theopposite too.
I used to turn up, When you gointo school, you go into a new
class each year, obviously.
So I used to write a note tohand to the teacher as if it was
signed by my grandmother to say,Rob has a speech impediment.
Please don't ask him anyquestions in class.
(05:50):
So the worst part of the yearwas introducing yourself,
standing up at the start of theyear and saying your name.
Because if you stutter, yourname is the hardest thing for
you to say.
SPEAKER_00 (06:04):
Yeah.
Did you get bullied at school?
Do you mind me asking that?
SPEAKER_01 (06:07):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
No.
Everybody else who stutters, andI've met hundreds of people who
stutter.
Well, I wouldn't say everybody,but a lot of people who
stuttered got bullied at school.
I never got bullied at school,and I think I avoided speaking
so much that I was only eversaying the things that I thought
I could say without stuttering.
(06:30):
The only comment that I canremember anybody saying, was a
guy called Thomas, I canremember his name, who said,
Rob, why do you speak so slow?
And it was so funny because noone had ever said that.
But when I was speaking toThomas and people that I
(06:51):
perceived like Thomas, i.e.
people that I thought I mightstutter in front of, I used to
speak really slow withexaggerated technique because
that was the only way I thoughtI I can get my words out.
SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
Do you mind me asking about your parents?
What led you to move to livewith your grandparents?
SPEAKER_01 (07:13):
Oh, how honest do you want me to be?
SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
Very honest.
SPEAKER_01 (07:17):
Very honest?
Okay, so I don't remember this.
So before anybody who watchesthis feels really guilty for me.
Yeah.
So my mother got pregnant withme when she was quite young.
And my dad and my mother weregoing to get married.
(07:39):
And believe it or not, mygrandmother had so many kids
that she got the ages mixed up.
Oh, yeah.
Got the birthdays mixed up.
And so when my mother and myfather went to get married that
was the first time that mymother realised that her
birthday wasn't her birthday andthat she wasn't actually legally
(08:02):
16 so she couldn't get marriedand my dad says that was the
best escape of his life so hevanished my mother raised me and
then she met a guy through mygrandfather and my grandfather
went to work one day my motherMum's boyfriend hadn't turned up
(08:22):
for work, so he got told, as faras I understand, to go round to
the house to...
find out where he was and hewasn't at the house and he went
around the back and I was hungon the clothesline and
apparently from memory I had
SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
you mean your mum's boyfriend hung you on the
clothesline is that what you'resaying
SPEAKER_01 (08:43):
yeah yeah
SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
and hung you mean like as in
SPEAKER_01 (08:45):
I don't know
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
how he means I
SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
don't know so that's how it was explained to me and
how old were you I must havebeen a toddler
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
oh wow
SPEAKER_01 (08:52):
yeah like I can't remember it but I was in
hospital phrases apparently so Ihad two broken legs a broken
arm, and some scars and stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (09:04):
Oh.
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (09:06):
perfectly fine now, as far as I know.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Yeah, no, that's crazy.
And then what did like childyouth, what are they called?
SIFs back in the day, did theycome around and hand you over to
your grandparents kind of?
SPEAKER_01 (09:21):
I think how it went is that my grandmother just
decided that she was going toraise me.
That was the whole discussion.
I don't think that my mother hadmuch of a choice at the time.
And so that's basically how thathappened.
(09:42):
I don't have any memory of anyof that at all.
And so when I was raised, Ilooked at my grandmother as my
mum.
And I used to see my mother onceevery week or two, I think, for
an afternoon or whatever.
And I think occasionally I usedto stay overnight, but that was
(10:04):
about it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:06):
Yeah.
Did you feel a lot more bondedwith your grandma than your mum?
Or did you?
You don't like to say
SPEAKER_01 (10:13):
that.
That's a tricky question.
SPEAKER_00 (10:15):
Because you said your grandma was like your mom.
I can totally relate to that.
SPEAKER_01 (10:18):
Yeah.
If I were to compare the two,yeah, that's an interesting one.
I thought of my grandmother asmy mother.
I didn't think of my grandfatheras my grandfather.
My dad, I never saw at all.
And I saw him for the first timewhen I was about 14.
(10:42):
And so I think I developed a...
I believe that my family areother people I know.
And that's how I used todescribe it.
You know, like when you said theword bond, I don't feel that
close to my family.
SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yeah.
I don't feel non-close, if youknow what I mean.
I just don't, you know, like Isee other people and they can
meet their family and, you know,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:11):
Yeah.
I've never been raised like thatwhere everybody's, you know,
like around a...
SPEAKER_00 (11:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:17):
A table and bloody blah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:19):
Yeah, I know what you mean.
You weren't like very attached.
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
I can see your brain working while you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Yeah.
That's real interesting.
Do you think, I don't want toask this, but some of the
SPEAKER_01 (11:33):
issues
SPEAKER_00 (11:35):
with your speaking that others might have not
recognized, but obviously youwere told that.
Do you think some of what theypicked up was related to the
trauma that happened to you whenyou were young that you can't
even remember?
SPEAKER_01 (11:47):
I've never associated the two, which is not
to say that it's not a fact, butmy mother says she stutters.
but I've never seen her stutter.
My grandmother said that shestuttered, but I never saw her
stutter.
And I do know with the work thatI've worked with, well, on
(12:12):
myself and with other people whostutter over the years, that
usually there's a parent whostutters.
If I meet someone, usually it'shereditary.
Or you could argue that there'sa possibility that it's a
learned behavior or whatever.
But all I know is that I went tospeech therapy before I even
(12:35):
started school, but that wasbecause I didn't pronounce words
correctly, apparently.
I can't remember that at all.
I can remember that very, veryvaguely.
But when I actually went toschool, up until the time that I
was told that I had a stutter,therefore I needed to be fixed,
(12:56):
Prior to that, I just spoke.
SPEAKER_00 (12:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
So had I been stuttering, I didn't know about
it.
I didn't have any knowledgeprior to that point that I
stuttered.
SPEAKER_00 (13:09):
I don't even remember doing tests like that
at school.
SPEAKER_01 (13:11):
I don't think they told you why they were doing
them.
We're talking a little bitbefore you went.
SPEAKER_00 (13:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
But yeah, you just walked in and you just got asked
to talk and that was it.
SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
Did you feel like, I don't know, like sad about it?
Like after they told you totally
SPEAKER_01 (13:27):
pissed no I'll rephrase that afterwards totally
pissed
SPEAKER_00 (13:32):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (13:33):
because I think had that not happened and I don't
really blame anybody obviouslythe speech therapist that's what
we used to call them back thenwas doing what they did and
identifying anybody who has anissue speaking and trying to
help them but of course there'sno real cure for stuttering and
(13:55):
back then the techniques that wedid in speech therapy which I
used to have to go to every weekso that was like a reminder
every week that I've got aproblem they did nothing like
there was one exercise calledtandem speaking where we would
sit next to each other and wewould read a book at the same
(14:17):
time and that meant that I couldread fluently once upon a time
there was a big bear who went upthe hill while the other person
is talking the same words at thesame time.
And that was to show that Icould be fluent with another
person in the room.
I'm not too sure.
(14:38):
But the moment that you went outof the room, you still got the
same problem that you hadbefore.
At the time that I gotdiagnosed, whatever it is.
Were you about nine?
As far as I can remember, I wasin standard three, which I think
was about nine or 10.
And Why I can remember this soclearly is I can remember the
(14:59):
teacher that I had in standardthree and him and I having
debates in the middle of theclass over maths questions.
And then that's stopping.
And the other thing is that Ihad a part in the play.
We had a school play called thePai Paipa and I was the town
(15:19):
clerk or the town crier,whatever it was.
And the moment that I heard thatI stuttered, I can remember
saying, I won't be able to dothat anymore.
I stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (15:29):
Oh, so you limited yourself kind of?
SPEAKER_01 (15:32):
Yeah.
I don't think that anybody else,I don't think I've really had a
situation where other peoplehave limited Do you think,
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
okay, do you believe stuttering is something that's
like, you've just talked aboutit, but like learned during
development years, a response totriggers or something that's
actually in the DNA?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:03):
I really don't know.
And had you asked me this atvarious times over my life, as I
say, I don't recall ever hearingmy mother stutter or my
grandmother stutter even thoughthey said they did.
So could I have learned it fromthem and not remembered that?
I don't think so.
Fast forward, I did the McGuireprogram in 2007.
(16:27):
I ran the McGuire program in2013.
And so I met a lot of people whostuttered here and overseas, and
apparently it is genetic.
As I was saying before, I've meta lot of people who stutter who
(16:50):
have another family member whostutters as well.
But just to throw a cat amongthe pigeons here is I went to a
barbecue once and somebody toldanother person who was at the
barbecue that that's the guy whoruns those courses for people
who stutter.
And so a mother came up to meand told me about how her son
(17:16):
stuttered.
And I asked how old the son was.
And I think the son was aboutthree or four.
The thing that I picked up on isthis mother spoke like a machine
gun.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
Oh, yeah.
And I mean,
SPEAKER_01 (17:31):
she spoke so fast that it was like my brain was
having all these words fall ontoa conveyor belt and my brain was
having to slowly catch up withthem in order to actually pick
up what she was saying.
And because I wanted to be ashonest and as helpful as I
could, I said, do you realizehow fast you talk?
(17:55):
And she got a little bitdefensive.
And I said, well, I'm not.
been critical or anything likethat but I'm just saying that
maybe if your son is developinghis speech and that's what your
role modelling speech is
SPEAKER_00 (18:14):
I
SPEAKER_01 (18:15):
said I physically wouldn't be able to keep up
SPEAKER_00 (18:17):
I
SPEAKER_01 (18:19):
wouldn't be able to compete and just related to that
years ago I did a professionalbusiness presentations paper and
Massey.
We had a contact course.
And so there were about 20 of usin this room.
We all got in this big circle.
And we had this exercise.
I've never been able to findthis exercise because I thought
(18:41):
it was really cool.
It was a warm-up speakingexercise.
And it went something like ha,ho, hum, he, ho, he, or
something like that.
And it was to warm up your vocalcords.
And you each had to say the sixsyllables and get faster and
faster and faster and faster.
Well, I dropped doubt about herelike I physically and I wasn't
(19:02):
stuttering I physically couldnot talk any faster than this
but the second slowest personwas about twice as quick as me
so in a room of about 20 fluentspeakers I was I could
physically only talk about halfas quick as the slowest fluent
speaker so I do wonder whetherthere's some genetic thing that
(19:26):
I can't speak quick but if youMm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
(19:47):
No idea whether there's anyproper basis to that or not.
SPEAKER_00 (19:52):
That's so interesting because my grandma,
she's passed now, but she toldme that her cousins, he had two
sisters that always interruptedhim and butted in whenever he'd
try and say something.
And that caused him to stuttergrowing up.
And I was like, that's so,that's sad.
I
SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
can totally relate to that because, yeah, if you're
already stuttering And I don'tknow if it's like pre-developing
stuttering or not, whether thatwould be like the precursor to
it.
But when you are stuttering andyou're trying to get a word out
and you know, knowing thatyou're in a situation where you
(20:31):
have to compete like withfriends or whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (20:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:34):
You know, like to get a punchline out or to get
the idea or an answer to aquestion, like a quiz is a
SPEAKER_00 (20:40):
classic.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:42):
Yeah.
You've got like four or sixpeople around the table.
Yeah.
And you want to be the one thatactually gets one question right
before someone else.
So there's a time pressurething.
And I know that time pressurecan be an issue.
And a question that I used toget asked all the time, if I
have like a friend, partner,child who stutters and they're
(21:05):
stuttering or they're strugglingon their speech, should I finish
their word or their sentence?
UNKNOWN (21:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:12):
That's one thing I get asked all the time.
So if I was trying to saycrystal,
SPEAKER_00 (21:18):
and
SPEAKER_01 (21:19):
you said it's crystal, would I get upset by
that?
I don't, but I think it's a50-50 thing.
So I just tell people, how aboutyou ask the person if it's okay?
Yeah.
And hopefully they'll be honesttelling you.
SPEAKER_00 (21:40):
Do you think the act of stuttering causes anxiety,
stress and humiliation or doesit come from like that, like
humiliation and that causes thestuttering?
SPEAKER_01 (21:50):
Yeah.
So what comes first?
SPEAKER_00 (21:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:53):
The chicken or the
SPEAKER_00 (21:53):
egg?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
Wow, that's a really adept question.
I could be here all dayanswering this.
But in short, I think people whostutter tend to fall into two
categories.
different camps some people juststutter so they just talk like
this and they're perfectly finethey don't second guess whether
(22:19):
they should talk they just talkand there's a friend of mine
over in Australia who calls ithis accent I have a stutter
accent and he's got a New Jerseyaccent as well but he tells his
kids that's just his accent whenhe has an elongation or a
(22:40):
repetition but for the otherhalf of us and I put myself in
that stuttering is reallyembarrassing like we find it
really embarrassing depending onthe situation of course there's
sometimes where I just feel Iwish I could have got that word
out there's other times whereyou're saying oh my god I wish
(23:03):
that had not happened so a lotof People ask, do you stutter
because you're nervous?
That's a really tricky question.
Apparently, nerves don't causestuttering.
SPEAKER_00 (23:16):
Yeah.
You don't look like you've everbeen shy, but you could have
been.
SPEAKER_01 (23:20):
Heaps of people get a weird opinion of me depending
on who meets me and when theymeet me.
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
Were you shy as a kid or nah?
SPEAKER_01 (23:27):
Not really.
Well, I went to Niner College.
SPEAKER_00 (23:29):
Yeah, you couldn't have been.
You can't be shy.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (23:33):
You get a shit beating.
Yeah.
But no, I think generallyspeaking, when I go back to the
North, island I think people areless shy in the north island
than they are down here
SPEAKER_00 (23:45):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (23:45):
it's a very general thing I think I think north
islanders have got morepersonality but
SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
yeah I've lived in both like I moved from
Christchurch with mygrandparents and up to
Wellington like I moved around alot um between schools and I
really found that I loved likethe culture growing like it's
different now everyone's mixedbut the culture was a lot more
mixed in like islanders and Ifelt I don't know I just felt
like I clicked better than therethen there were a lot more like
(24:13):
I don't want to say white peoplebut like the culture was a lot
more yeah I don't know theteachers were kind of like
they'd never I felt like theycared the school I went to was
like Petone um they cared aboutyou and there were some kids
without lunches there and thingslike that and whereas here
wouldn't like the teachers Imean this is stereotyping but it
(24:33):
was a richer school and thingslike that you know but yeah it
was like two extremes I wentyeah I
SPEAKER_01 (24:38):
think it's changed quite a bit when I came down
That's 31 years ago.
It was very difficult to runinto a Maori down here, which I
really noticed.
And I can remember actuallystarting a job and we had a
(24:59):
barbecue and there was a Maoricouple that were there.
And I think that's what justreminded me, oh, wow, it is very
white down here.
Yeah, you go back up to Nainaiand, you know, we had my my
(25:19):
uncle married a Tongan lady backin the 70s so and my stepfather
was Maori and so yeah but Yeah,and I don't know if that mix of
(25:39):
cultures just changes theculture, the personality.
Yeah, I don't know.
But yeah, when I came down here,it was very reserved, for lack
of a better word.
SPEAKER_00 (25:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:56):
I can't think of, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:58):
Yeah.
I was wondering, just back tothe stuttering, I was wondering,
just from my own personalexperience, when my body's gone
into fight or flight mode, whenyou sense a threat, I felt that
I couldn't speak for a day, andI was in shock.
And could that be related tostuttering?
(26:18):
I don't know.
UNKNOWN (26:19):
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (26:21):
And I only found this out, I'd say, in the last
five years or so, and I don'tthink I'd ever heard this
before.
Fight, flight, and this freeze.
And usually we only hear aboutthe fight and flight.
But for me, I freeze.
So when I was young and thephone used to ring, that was a
(26:43):
traumatic event.
And I'm not even making that up.
When the phone rang,particularly if there was no one
around to answer the damn thing.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
I think I got that as well when my grandmother's
phone rang.
Oh, no.
Or was it about me or something?
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
Yeah.
So I can remember picking thephone up and if there was
nothing like coming from me,they used to say, is it you,
Ralph?
and it's like it's like someonetook a chisel and put that into
my brain I can remember that allthe time and you used to even
(27:22):
like cough or something likejust to get something out but
yeah and fast forward to when Iwork with people who stutter and
they're going through somethingoh my god I wish I was like that
because I very seldom stutter Ijust block so I just just can't
(27:44):
get anything out.
Even before I came in here, Ithought, oh my God, podcasts.
Even though I've done heaps oflives on YouTube and stuff, the
first one actually freaked meout.
The first one came out all hotand sweaty.
SPEAKER_00 (27:58):
Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Yeah, because you're like, even though there's no one
watching it, but just in casethere was.
But then after that, you kind ofcalm down.
But in order to get me ready forthis, I I've been doing my
costal breathing and doing somespeech exercises and stuff just
(28:20):
so that I'm speaking from heredown
SPEAKER_00 (28:22):
and
SPEAKER_01 (28:22):
not here up, which you stutter in your articulators
up, you don't stutter in yourchest.
I don't.
And I've just probably ruinedyour sound by sneaking the mic.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
So do you get nervous?
You don't get nervous in frontof, you do public speaking,
don't you?
How do you, do you stillprepare?
Like each time you speak, do youget nervous?
I don't know, nervous isn't theword, eh?
It's like I don't know.
Because you said you don't looklike a nervous person.
I know.
SPEAKER_01 (28:54):
I get that a lot.
I'm wondering what I do looklike if I am nervous.
I might have to walk aroundtaking selfies all the time.
How was I feeling at thatmoment?
But my theory here, so havinggone around classes, handing all
the teachers the note, avoidingpublic speaking like the plague,
(29:17):
never taking part in a play oranything like that probably
trying to avoid speaking withauthority figures and definitely
trying to avoid getting into aconversation where I would get
trapped on a word and by trappedon a word I mean getting asked a
question where the answer isspecific so if anybody asked me
(29:43):
my name well it has to be RobWoolley it can't be Stephen
although I did call myselfAndrew once Just because it was
the only thing I thought I couldget out.
And that was quite funny becausethere was a house call at
Antiques.
And I turn up and I think Iintroduced myself.
Hi, I'm Rob from Academy.
(30:04):
And the lady said, oh, I thoughtAndrew was coming.
And I immediately rememberedthat I'd slipped off a rob.
And I said, oh, he couldn't makeit.
The point of it is I avoidedpublic speaking like the plague.
But at school, when someteacher, just because he was a
smartass, decided to ask me aquestion in class, it was fifth
(30:27):
form geography.
And it was Mr.
Cassidy.
I think he died last year.
And it wasn't me.
It wasn't me.
It was natural causes, I'm sure.
But he asked me.
He knew that he was embarrassingme.
But him and I didn'tparticularly like each other.
And he asked me, what's thecapital of New Zealand?
(30:49):
And I said, I don't know.
And he asked me again and allthe kids laughed.
He said, what's the capital ofNew Zealand, Rob?
I said, I don't know.
And he asked me for the thirdtime and I said, I don't effing
know.
But when you get asked aspecific thing like Wellington,
(31:10):
you just know, I will stuttersaying
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
that.
SPEAKER_01 (31:13):
And coming back to that anxiety thing, the thought
of stuttering always precedesthe stutter.
Well, 99 99% of the time, Ithink I'm going to stutter
before I stutter.
It doesn't like, hi, how areyou?
You know, it doesn't ambush you.
SPEAKER_00 (31:32):
Yeah, I see what you mean.
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:35):
Can it be like, you're anticipating, like, it's
like you're anticipating to failat saying a word.
Is that kind of what it
SPEAKER_01 (31:44):
is?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And it can be more so on others.
You know, like, for example, ifyou were to ask me a, I'll
probably get this wrong, aplosive sound, a question where
I have to start with a plosivesound, like a da-ga-pa.
Yeah.
That's more likely a stuttersituation.
(32:05):
I've got to really quite focusto get those out because I'm
really calm and relaxed here.
SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:11):
Yeah.
Everything's going to flow.
I think everything will flowout.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (32:15):
So there are definitely triggers like what I
mentioned about the fight andflight mode around some people.
You'll feel like you can, thatyour words will flow and things
like that.
And then there's other peopleyou'll just like close up on and
you'll be like, especially ifthere's like abuse or something,
you'll be like, I want to gonear that person or speak.
Can that be the case?
SPEAKER_01 (32:32):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
If left to my own devices, likethere's a guy that I know, he
used to be in my Toastmastersclub.
He probably doesn't know this.
Yeah.
But he was really calm, reallyintelligent, and really paid
attention when you spoke.
(32:53):
For some reason, that put me onedge.
SPEAKER_00 (32:56):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:57):
Yeah, I'm not too sure.
Sometimes it can be authorityfigures.
I don't know.
It's weird to quantify exactlywhat it is.
Yeah.
I know that.
If I walk into a situation and Isay something funny, if the
person laughs, I'm probablygoing to be speaking fine for
(33:20):
the rest of that conversation.
Yeah.
If I say something that Ithink's funny and they don't
laugh, you're like, oh, oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (33:28):
because you do have a sense of humor.
Have you always had that, likeeven during school and stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (33:34):
As far as I know.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
I
SPEAKER_01 (33:36):
actually think...
weird thing here.
If you put it on an accent, theperson who is putting on the
accent won't stutter.
I stutter on my voice.
I don't stutter on or put onaccent.
SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (33:55):
Yeah.
I haven't heard that from anyoneelse who stutters.
I've never actually asked them.
But if you put on a strangeaccent.
SPEAKER_00 (34:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:03):
Yeah, you never stutter a token like this.
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Yeah.
Do you think a lot of comediansstruggle with stuttering?
I know it's a weird question.
It's just.
SPEAKER_01 (34:12):
I actually think there was a comedian who did
stutter.
I'm wondering if it was RobinWilliams.
I don't think it was.
Oh.
But there's some.
SPEAKER_00 (34:20):
Yeah.
he did I don't know but he kindof spoke differently
SPEAKER_01 (34:24):
yeah yeah like he's he's flying through all those
accents
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
yes that's right yeah like the nanny what's it
called that movie
SPEAKER_01 (34:32):
yeah yeah like Mrs Doubtfire yeah that's the one
yeah he's flying yeah like youwatch him on those talk shows
and yeah like they used to saythat if you got Robin Williams
on a talk show you knew for 10minutes he was just going to go
for it
SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (34:49):
and that You didn't really have to say anything
because Robin Williams wouldjust take over.
But yeah, it is funny.
And just as an aside, when youlearn a technique to overcome or
manage a stutter, you doactually wonder, is that the
(35:11):
same mechanism as talking in anaccent?
Because if I'm in technique, Isound something like this.
So I'm more deep and breathy.
And you think, well, that's adifferent Rob.
Rob being himself is more likelya stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (35:28):
Oh, yeah.
I see.
That's interesting that yourbrain thinks like that.
Does it affect your identity?
Like, obviously, like, I'm goingback to, like, you said, that's
a different Rob.
Like, does it affect the way,like, obviously, it affects the
way you feel about who you areand how you, do you know what I
mean?
Perceive your identity.
SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
Yeah that's a fascinating one.
I used to run courses up inAuckland for people who stutter
And I used to try to get a guestspeaker in because the courses
were three and a half days long.
So three and a half dayslistening to people who stutter
(36:11):
or who are working on technique,particularly me, it's a long
time.
So I thought, can I get ineither a person who stutters,
who's done really well and isquite well known, Or can I get a
person in who's a fluent speakerwho has got some wisdom to share
that may help everybody in theroom?
(36:33):
So I got a guy called Colin Cox.
who I'd heard speak a couple orthree years before.
Brilliant speaker.
And he was a master trainer inneuro semantics.
But he said, I can come in and Ireckon I can provide you with
(36:54):
some value.
So he comes in and he gives aslideshow.
And I'd only met him once.
And he's talking about himselffor at least 20 minutes.
And I had no idea where this wasgoing.
And I thought, this is like atrain wreck.
And so he's got a slideshow.
And it's from memory, hischildhood, and then he's a
(37:18):
teenager.
And then he goes on and on andon and on.
And I'm thinking, oh, wow, thisis horrendous.
So he gets to the end.
He gets there.
And it was at least 20, 25minutes, and I'm recording it.
And he says, you've seen mylife.
(37:42):
Do you think you know me?
And everyone goes, oh, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he'd done so much.
He was New Zealand's strongestman.
I didn't even know that at onestage.
He's got photos.
He's pulling a train.
And he was also a coach offirst-class rugby or an
assistant coach.
(38:03):
He'd done a lot.
And so he asked the audience, doyou think you know me?
Everyone goes, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah.
And then he started reversing.
And he said, so if I hadn't beenNew Zealand's strongest man,
would you still know me?
And he got right back to thefirst slide and he said, so if I
took away all the things thatyou've seen that I'd done, would
(38:24):
you still know me?
SPEAKER_00 (38:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
And everyone's going, I'm not too sure.
And he says, I am not what I do.
SPEAKER_00 (38:31):
And
SPEAKER_01 (38:31):
he said, if you make a separation, so your identity
is not determined by the thingsyou do that you like or the
things that you do that youdon't like, he says, then you
can choose what you do and itdoesn't affect who you are.
You're you.
So his aim there was that if youtie your identity to the things
(38:57):
you do, you can't change thethings you do.
And He used to apply that topeople that were in prison, that
if your identity is tied tocrime,
SPEAKER_00 (39:08):
you're
SPEAKER_01 (39:10):
going to be a criminal when you came in, a
criminal when you went in, and acriminal when you walk out.
And he said, if you tie youridentity to how you speak, if
you stutter, then you're goingto keep on stuttering the whole
time.
But if you realize that, whatyou do is...
not necessarily who you are,then you can let it go.
(39:30):
And for a lot of people, theyfound that really moving.
There was one girl who was onthe course who was just crying
and she said, that's what I havebeen doing, that even when I've
wanted to stop stuttering, Ihaven't stopped stuttering
because her mother stutters, hergrandmother stutters.
And she didn't want to stopbecause it would mean that she
(39:55):
had become better than her mumor her grandmother.
And so she just stayed in thatbehavior.
That's how she put it
SPEAKER_00 (40:06):
anyway.
That's really interesting.
And that can be applied to notjust stuttering.
It can be applied to likefinancially, like you don't want
to get better than, you know,because they might look down on
you and your family or it couldbe anything.
Bye.
SPEAKER_01 (40:20):
There's a pro, there's a con, and for every
con, there's a pro.
So if you want to change, I hadno idea you were going to ask me
questions about my stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (40:29):
Oh, that was like the main thing I was going to
ask.
Is it?
Yeah.
That's the most interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (40:35):
I feel like I've been in a ruck and the whole
world's walked over me with mystutter.
But then I know that the vastmajority of that is not
necessarily my speech.
which is just how I've...
made choices based on the speechto avoid my speech or something.
SPEAKER_00 (40:59):
Do you recommend speech therapy?
Does it depend on who is doingit and what they do?
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
Massively controversial question in the
stutter world, right?
The speech therapy that I didwhen I was a kid, I would not
wish on my worst enemy.
That endured for years.
That went on, as far as I canremember, that went on weekly.
Traumatic.
That went on until my speechtherapist went on a holiday and
(41:31):
another speech therapist stoodin for her.
And I went in there.
And she worked with me.
I can't remember what we did.
I just can't remember that Iwent in there.
And I can remember the otherspeech therapist because she was
quite good looking.
And she said at the end of it,do you think this is working?
(41:53):
And I think she was having alook to see how long I'd been in
there.
And I said, no.
And she said, I don't thinkwe'll do it anymore.
You beauty.
That was it.
That was the easiest decision Ihave ever made in my life.
(42:14):
And if I could have undoneanything, I would have undone
not only all of that speechtherapy, but having been tested
everything.
And I, I honestly believe, and Iknow this may sound a bit weird
to people.
I would have had a completelydifferent life had I never, um,
(42:34):
been told I had a stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (42:40):
Were you diagnosed with anything else at the time?
Like, did they say you were ADHDor, you know, how they used
to...
SPEAKER_01 (42:47):
Alright, okay.
Back then, they didn't haveletters of the alphabet to
diagnose you with.
Um...
Um...
I don't think I'm on a spectrumor anything.
SPEAKER_00 (43:01):
Everyone is, eh?
SPEAKER_01 (43:03):
Would anyone say if they were?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (43:06):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (43:07):
Well, actually, no, it's quite cool now, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
I'm on a spectrum.
No, I'm not Elon Musk.
I was quite bright.
SPEAKER_00 (43:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:18):
So I can remember we had a mass test.
I'll just throw this out there.
Every school that I can rememberhad a mass test back in the day.
And you had to do 100 questions.
They weren't hard.
You had to do 100 questions asfast as you could go.
So I don't really know whetherthey're testing maths or
something else.
(43:39):
And I finished in five minutes.
I was three minutes faster thanany of the teachers and any of
the other kids.
So I can think...
and I am reasonably bright, andI do think, if anything, that
(43:59):
maybe if...
You get diagnosed with anythingor you get a label or maybe you
get any comment dropped on you.
If you're quite bright, youactually extrapolate it into
stuff that it's not.
And I do wonder if that wasmaybe a big problem for me.
Have I got ADHD or anything likethat?
(44:22):
I think I've got something.
SPEAKER_00 (44:25):
Were you always good at public speaking?
You said you avoided it, didn'tyou?
SPEAKER_01 (44:30):
So, avoided all public speaking like the plague.
So to me, the way I explain itto people, I had a blank canvas.
I had never had a bad experiencepublic speaking, even though I
stutter, because I didn't do it.
Yeah.
Speaking on the phone sucked.
Conversations sucked.
Speaking to authority figuressucked.
(44:51):
But public speaking, cleanwhiteboard, clean slate.
Until I went to the McGuireprogram in 2007 in Palmerston
North and just somethingclicked.
It was about the first time thatI received all judgment, because
I'm very judgmental, And I wentand I thought, this is going to
(45:11):
work.
And it did.
So I turned up.
I was firing after one hour.
I was the most fluent I'd everbeen.
And there was another guy on thecourse who was a new person as
well at the same time as me.
And we made it up.
(45:32):
As in, we were talking in thebreaks and all this kind of
stuff.
And so we challenged ourselvesto put ourselves in the hardest
speaking situations we could forthe rest of the course.
So if you thought it wasdifficult to go first, you went
first.
If you thought it was harder tospeak, if you went last, you
went last, so on and so forth.
Um, But the culmination of thatcourse is a public speech in the
(45:57):
Palmerston North Square,standing on a bench.
And there's a photo of mesomewhere standing on a bench,
bloody freezing in the middle ofwinter.
And we're talking to about acrowd of about 40.
That's my first public speech.
But I'd walked in there primed.
I'd had two and a half, threedays, whatever it was, of
(46:19):
training to get there.
So we were really lookingforward to it I wanted to be on
that bench seat I wanted toshare my voice my message and I
can even remember that I hadread Fridge Dad Poor Dad by
Robert Kiyosaki and the onlything I got out of that was
(46:42):
words become your reality and Isaid today the reality is I have
words and so after that I joinedToastmasters where you are doing
a speech and so all publicspeaking wouldn't say it's been
flawless but uh three timeswhere I've gone to give a public
(47:06):
speech and I've felt I couldstutter but the rest I can't and
SPEAKER_00 (47:11):
I've always hated public speaking especially at
school just I didn't get Iprobably
SPEAKER_01 (47:18):
didn't imagine your audience that you're talking to
how bad could that be
SPEAKER_00 (47:22):
yeah I don't think I did one there but yeah I was
real into writing and stuff butthe speaking part I think it was
just because I was soself-conscious at high school
about you are like you'renaturally worried about what
people think about you you'retrying to fit into these cliques
and like it's just such astressful time in high school I
found it was a lot of pressureto you know peer pressure to do
(47:45):
what others are doing and youmight not agree with it but you
know I found it like that I'vealways found like one-on-one
conversations really like goingdeep with people something I'm
naturally good at but then whenit comes to like a group of
people I pick up energies likeand I'm like oh my gosh that
person I just don't really vibewith that person and I don't
want them to hear what I'msaying to that person because I
(48:06):
don't really know who I'mtalking to and I'm like I don't
feel comfortable around certainenergies to be myself because
there's certain people I'm likeI'm comfortable being myself
speaking freely around thisperson.
I know that they like who Iactually am, but then there's
people that I'm like, well, Ifeel like I have to close myself
off from this person becausethey don't accept who I am.
So I'm going to just either pushthem away or just try and avoid
(48:28):
them.
Do you know what I mean?
So that's kind of why I probablystruggle with.
SPEAKER_01 (48:32):
Yeah, I do.
I think of two things.
If I walk into a fish and chipshop, and I say fish and chip
shops because that just likepops into my head, and you walk
out from the counter and thewhole people, Like standing
behind you or sitting down.
Yeah.
Oh, that is a nightmare.
Now, no one in that fish andchip shop will have any idea the
(48:54):
turmoil I am going through.
Because I'm thinking, if Istutter here, all these people
are going to hear it.
Because all of those shops areechoey, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera.
All right.
Now, I don't know whether theycare or not.
And if I were to think about it,most of them...
Mm-hmm.
(49:35):
isn't it because I have no ideawhat that audience who are
behind me are thinking so I onlysay that because I meet so many
people who have a fear of publicspeaking or they say, I'm no
good at public speaking orwhatever.
And I'm saying, have you evergiven a public speech?
(49:58):
Have you ever really had?
I've actually never seen anybodyhave a really bad public speech.
So I'm thinking, is any of thatthinking external to you?
So, you know, I'm no good atpublic speaking.
Has anyone told you that?
But I don't even know that itnecessarily matters either, does
(50:20):
it?
You know, like if anyone said,oh, no, Richard, you're a really
good public speaker.
If that person doesn't believethem, who gives a shit what they
say, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (50:30):
It's not, yeah, is that clear?
It's like those core beliefsthat you have that you struggle
with, or the little voices inyour head that are like, oh,
what are they going to think?
SPEAKER_01 (50:38):
Yeah, and it's not what other people think of us.
It's what we think of us.
SPEAKER_00 (50:43):
Yeah, that's so true.
SPEAKER_01 (50:45):
But the thing is that most people are pretty damn
good.
They just don't know that.
But they're not always going toknow it by us telling them
either.
They're going to know it bydoing it over and over and over
and going from good to very goodto maybe great.
And as their confidence goes up,their confidence is naturally
(51:07):
going to get up.
SPEAKER_00 (51:08):
So you're saying no one's a naturally good public
speaker?
SPEAKER_01 (51:11):
I'm saying a lot of people are a damn sight better
public speakers than they think.
And some of them aretremendously good.
And yet their confidence isreally low.
Their self-belief is really low.
And the only way, well, I won'tsay the only way, but our way
(51:32):
that they're going to get out ofthat is just going and doing it.
I appreciate you handing me thisopportunity.
SPEAKER_00 (51:38):
Thanks for coming on.
You're a funny guy.
Should have been a comedian.
UNKNOWN (51:45):
Music
SPEAKER_00 (52:01):
to never miss an episode
Hello and welcome to Voices Unhindered.
I'm Crystal Jenkinson.
On this show, I give a uniqueperspective and listening ear to
voices that often go unheard.
I want everyone to know that youare not alone and that your
voice and story matters.
(00:23):
This week on Voices Unhindered,I'm joined by Rob Willey, who is
a former stutterer, now publicspeaker, founder of Talk
Business Network, and a formercoach for Overcoming Stuttering.
Rob Willey shares about hischildhood, adverse life
experiences, and we talk aboutthe fear of public speaking.
(00:47):
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hi Rob.
Could you please tell me aboutwhere you grew up and what were
your aspirations as a teenager?
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Oh, wow.
I grew up in the Hutt Valley.
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
I did as well.
I noticed that.
Yeah, you went to Hutt ValleyHigh School.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Oh, no.
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
For a few years.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
Oh, no.
Well, we might have to can theinterview now because you were
like our arch enemy.
I went to Nainai College.
And for anybody who doesn'tknow, the main two colleges in
Hutt Valley were Hutt ValleyHigh and Nainai College.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
I remember being there.
I was Sorry to interrupt oneday.
It wasn't a good time.
Fire alarm went off and like allthe water came out.
I don't know.
It was just such a chaoticschool.
I just saw like they weren'treally learning.
Ballion in the class andteachers don't know what to do
and there's lack of disciplineand all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Hold on.
Is this Hart Valley High or NineEye College?
SPEAKER_00 (01:41):
Okay, it was both.
That was both, but I did seethat at Nine Eye as well.
But that's just my, you know,little snippet of what I saw
there.
I didn't actually, I wasactually wagging.
I didn't actually like highschool.
I
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
can't believe that.
What?
That you would wear class.
SPEAKER_00 (01:57):
It became a habit because I hated class.
I got like anxiety during classand I just had a lot of mental
health issues and other issues.
Well, I've
SPEAKER_01 (02:05):
still got them.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Yeah.
No, I wondered how you managedto graduate and get
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
through that school.
I wondered how you managed toget to this age having had such
a terrible upbringing in Nainai.
I used to call Nainai Collegethe ex-worldly homicidal maniac
capital of the world because fora while there, there were a lot
of people that went to NainaiCollege.
Around about the time that I wasthere who killed people or were
(02:35):
related to people who who'd beenmurdered and stuff.
It was quite bizarre there for awhile.
Yeah, there was a head found ina microwave in Nainai.
I don't know if you
SPEAKER_00 (02:46):
remember that.
No, not really.
That's interesting.
It was
SPEAKER_01 (02:49):
all done in good fun though at the time.
SPEAKER_00 (02:52):
And did you live in Nainai as a kid with your
parents?
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
I did, I did.
But I wasn't, was raised by mygrandparents.
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
Wow, I was too.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
Oh.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (03:02):
Are you sure you're not my long lost sister?
So I was raised by mygrandparents and my grandmother,
used to fall out with theneighbours.
So we used to move every 12months and people think that I'm
making this up, but I actuallymoved 14 times from the age of
maybe about three or fourthrough to about 18.
SPEAKER_00 (03:26):
There's definitely similarities between you and me.
Like I moved so much as a kid.
I don't know if it was 14, butit was a lot.
It's really interesting.
Like, what do you mean yourgrandma had to fall out with the
neighbours?
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
So So I can't ever remember an actual argument
between my grandmother and aneighbor.
Like, I can't remember one.
I'm not saying it didn't happen.
But I think that my grandmotherjust never really got along with
a lot of people.
And so after about 12 months,she'd had enough.
(03:57):
And so we all packed up and we'dmove.
So, yeah, so we were just here,there and everywhere.
My aspirations, coming back tothat original question, my
aspirations kind of totallychanged when I was nine.
So we used to have a person whoused to come around the school
and each person in the classwould walk down the corridor
(04:18):
into a room and you had to countto 10 and to say your ABC.
And each year I knew there wasan edge on it, but I couldn't
really work out what it was, butI used to get through, get
through, get through.
And when I about nine or ten Ididn't get through and the lady
called up my grandparents andsaid Rob has a speech impediment
(04:39):
and unfortunately the momentthey said that that was like me
being branded and I lived intothat so from that point on
anything to do with speaking waslike a major event
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
yeah and do you think that what they told you
affected your own beliefs aboutyourself if they hadn't have
told you that do you thinkthings would have been a bit
different regarding speaking andjust your feelings about how you
spoke, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
Yeah.
A lot of the times I don't thinkif anything like that happened,
you'd be able to answer it.
But for me, I could only becauseprior to that happening, I used
to arrive at class and I wasalways asking questions.
The moment that happened, Iasked no questions.
Wow.
(05:29):
In fact, it went completely theopposite too.
I used to turn up, When you gointo school, you go into a new
class each year, obviously.
So I used to write a note tohand to the teacher as if it was
signed by my grandmother to say,Rob has a speech impediment.
Please don't ask him anyquestions in class.
(05:50):
So the worst part of the yearwas introducing yourself,
standing up at the start of theyear and saying your name.
Because if you stutter, yourname is the hardest thing for
you to say.
SPEAKER_00 (06:04):
Yeah.
Did you get bullied at school?
Do you mind me asking that?
SPEAKER_01 (06:07):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
No.
Everybody else who stutters, andI've met hundreds of people who
stutter.
Well, I wouldn't say everybody,but a lot of people who
stuttered got bullied at school.
I never got bullied at school,and I think I avoided speaking
so much that I was only eversaying the things that I thought
I could say without stuttering.
(06:30):
The only comment that I canremember anybody saying, was a
guy called Thomas, I canremember his name, who said,
Rob, why do you speak so slow?
And it was so funny because noone had ever said that.
But when I was speaking toThomas and people that I
(06:51):
perceived like Thomas, i.e.
people that I thought I mightstutter in front of, I used to
speak really slow withexaggerated technique because
that was the only way I thoughtI I can get my words out.
SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
Do you mind me asking about your parents?
What led you to move to livewith your grandparents?
SPEAKER_01 (07:13):
Oh, how honest do you want me to be?
SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
Very honest.
SPEAKER_01 (07:17):
Very honest?
Okay, so I don't remember this.
So before anybody who watchesthis feels really guilty for me.
Yeah.
So my mother got pregnant withme when she was quite young.
And my dad and my mother weregoing to get married.
(07:39):
And believe it or not, mygrandmother had so many kids
that she got the ages mixed up.
Oh, yeah.
Got the birthdays mixed up.
And so when my mother and myfather went to get married that
was the first time that mymother realised that her
birthday wasn't her birthday andthat she wasn't actually legally
(08:02):
16 so she couldn't get marriedand my dad says that was the
best escape of his life so hevanished my mother raised me and
then she met a guy through mygrandfather and my grandfather
went to work one day my motherMum's boyfriend hadn't turned up
(08:22):
for work, so he got told, as faras I understand, to go round to
the house to...
find out where he was and hewasn't at the house and he went
around the back and I was hungon the clothesline and
apparently from memory I had
SPEAKER_00 (08:40):
you mean your mum's boyfriend hung you on the
clothesline is that what you'resaying
SPEAKER_01 (08:43):
yeah yeah
SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
and hung you mean like as in
SPEAKER_01 (08:45):
I don't know
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
how he means I
SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
don't know so that's how it was explained to me and
how old were you I must havebeen a toddler
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
oh wow
SPEAKER_01 (08:52):
yeah like I can't remember it but I was in
hospital phrases apparently so Ihad two broken legs a broken
arm, and some scars and stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (09:04):
Oh.
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (09:06):
perfectly fine now, as far as I know.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Yeah, no, that's crazy.
And then what did like childyouth, what are they called?
SIFs back in the day, did theycome around and hand you over to
your grandparents kind of?
SPEAKER_01 (09:21):
I think how it went is that my grandmother just
decided that she was going toraise me.
That was the whole discussion.
I don't think that my mother hadmuch of a choice at the time.
And so that's basically how thathappened.
(09:42):
I don't have any memory of anyof that at all.
And so when I was raised, Ilooked at my grandmother as my
mum.
And I used to see my mother onceevery week or two, I think, for
an afternoon or whatever.
And I think occasionally I usedto stay overnight, but that was
(10:04):
about it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:06):
Yeah.
Did you feel a lot more bondedwith your grandma than your mum?
Or did you?
You don't like to say
SPEAKER_01 (10:13):
that.
That's a tricky question.
SPEAKER_00 (10:15):
Because you said your grandma was like your mom.
I can totally relate to that.
SPEAKER_01 (10:18):
Yeah.
If I were to compare the two,yeah, that's an interesting one.
I thought of my grandmother asmy mother.
I didn't think of my grandfatheras my grandfather.
My dad, I never saw at all.
And I saw him for the first timewhen I was about 14.
(10:42):
And so I think I developed a...
I believe that my family areother people I know.
And that's how I used todescribe it.
You know, like when you said theword bond, I don't feel that
close to my family.
SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yeah.
I don't feel non-close, if youknow what I mean.
I just don't, you know, like Isee other people and they can
meet their family and, you know,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:11):
Yeah.
I've never been raised like thatwhere everybody's, you know,
like around a...
SPEAKER_00 (11:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:17):
A table and bloody blah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:19):
Yeah, I know what you mean.
You weren't like very attached.
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
I can see your brain working while you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Yeah.
That's real interesting.
Do you think, I don't want toask this, but some of the
SPEAKER_01 (11:33):
issues
SPEAKER_00 (11:35):
with your speaking that others might have not
recognized, but obviously youwere told that.
Do you think some of what theypicked up was related to the
trauma that happened to you whenyou were young that you can't
even remember?
SPEAKER_01 (11:47):
I've never associated the two, which is not
to say that it's not a fact, butmy mother says she stutters.
but I've never seen her stutter.
My grandmother said that shestuttered, but I never saw her
stutter.
And I do know with the work thatI've worked with, well, on
(12:12):
myself and with other people whostutter over the years, that
usually there's a parent whostutters.
If I meet someone, usually it'shereditary.
Or you could argue that there'sa possibility that it's a
learned behavior or whatever.
But all I know is that I went tospeech therapy before I even
(12:35):
started school, but that wasbecause I didn't pronounce words
correctly, apparently.
I can't remember that at all.
I can remember that very, veryvaguely.
But when I actually went toschool, up until the time that I
was told that I had a stutter,therefore I needed to be fixed,
(12:56):
Prior to that, I just spoke.
SPEAKER_00 (12:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
So had I been stuttering, I didn't know about
it.
I didn't have any knowledgeprior to that point that I
stuttered.
SPEAKER_00 (13:09):
I don't even remember doing tests like that
at school.
SPEAKER_01 (13:11):
I don't think they told you why they were doing
them.
We're talking a little bitbefore you went.
SPEAKER_00 (13:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
But yeah, you just walked in and you just got asked
to talk and that was it.
SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
Did you feel like, I don't know, like sad about it?
Like after they told you totally
SPEAKER_01 (13:27):
pissed no I'll rephrase that afterwards totally
pissed
SPEAKER_00 (13:32):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (13:33):
because I think had that not happened and I don't
really blame anybody obviouslythe speech therapist that's what
we used to call them back thenwas doing what they did and
identifying anybody who has anissue speaking and trying to
help them but of course there'sno real cure for stuttering and
(13:55):
back then the techniques that wedid in speech therapy which I
used to have to go to every weekso that was like a reminder
every week that I've got aproblem they did nothing like
there was one exercise calledtandem speaking where we would
sit next to each other and wewould read a book at the same
(14:17):
time and that meant that I couldread fluently once upon a time
there was a big bear who went upthe hill while the other person
is talking the same words at thesame time.
And that was to show that Icould be fluent with another
person in the room.
I'm not too sure.
(14:38):
But the moment that you went outof the room, you still got the
same problem that you hadbefore.
At the time that I gotdiagnosed, whatever it is.
Were you about nine?
As far as I can remember, I wasin standard three, which I think
was about nine or 10.
And Why I can remember this soclearly is I can remember the
(14:59):
teacher that I had in standardthree and him and I having
debates in the middle of theclass over maths questions.
And then that's stopping.
And the other thing is that Ihad a part in the play.
We had a school play called thePai Paipa and I was the town
(15:19):
clerk or the town crier,whatever it was.
And the moment that I heard thatI stuttered, I can remember
saying, I won't be able to dothat anymore.
I stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (15:29):
Oh, so you limited yourself kind of?
SPEAKER_01 (15:32):
Yeah.
I don't think that anybody else,I don't think I've really had a
situation where other peoplehave limited Do you think,
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
okay, do you believe stuttering is something that's
like, you've just talked aboutit, but like learned during
development years, a response totriggers or something that's
actually in the DNA?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:03):
I really don't know.
And had you asked me this atvarious times over my life, as I
say, I don't recall ever hearingmy mother stutter or my
grandmother stutter even thoughthey said they did.
So could I have learned it fromthem and not remembered that?
I don't think so.
Fast forward, I did the McGuireprogram in 2007.
(16:27):
I ran the McGuire program in2013.
And so I met a lot of people whostuttered here and overseas, and
apparently it is genetic.
As I was saying before, I've meta lot of people who stutter who
(16:50):
have another family member whostutters as well.
But just to throw a cat amongthe pigeons here is I went to a
barbecue once and somebody toldanother person who was at the
barbecue that that's the guy whoruns those courses for people
who stutter.
And so a mother came up to meand told me about how her son
(17:16):
stuttered.
And I asked how old the son was.
And I think the son was aboutthree or four.
The thing that I picked up on isthis mother spoke like a machine
gun.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
Oh, yeah.
And I mean,
SPEAKER_01 (17:31):
she spoke so fast that it was like my brain was
having all these words fall ontoa conveyor belt and my brain was
having to slowly catch up withthem in order to actually pick
up what she was saying.
And because I wanted to be ashonest and as helpful as I
could, I said, do you realizehow fast you talk?
(17:55):
And she got a little bitdefensive.
And I said, well, I'm not.
been critical or anything likethat but I'm just saying that
maybe if your son is developinghis speech and that's what your
role modelling speech is
SPEAKER_00 (18:14):
I
SPEAKER_01 (18:15):
said I physically wouldn't be able to keep up
SPEAKER_00 (18:17):
I
SPEAKER_01 (18:19):
wouldn't be able to compete and just related to that
years ago I did a professionalbusiness presentations paper and
Massey.
We had a contact course.
And so there were about 20 of usin this room.
We all got in this big circle.
And we had this exercise.
I've never been able to findthis exercise because I thought
(18:41):
it was really cool.
It was a warm-up speakingexercise.
And it went something like ha,ho, hum, he, ho, he, or
something like that.
And it was to warm up your vocalcords.
And you each had to say the sixsyllables and get faster and
faster and faster and faster.
Well, I dropped doubt about herelike I physically and I wasn't
(19:02):
stuttering I physically couldnot talk any faster than this
but the second slowest personwas about twice as quick as me
so in a room of about 20 fluentspeakers I was I could
physically only talk about halfas quick as the slowest fluent
speaker so I do wonder whetherthere's some genetic thing that
(19:26):
I can't speak quick but if youMm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
(19:47):
No idea whether there's anyproper basis to that or not.
SPEAKER_00 (19:52):
That's so interesting because my grandma,
she's passed now, but she toldme that her cousins, he had two
sisters that always interruptedhim and butted in whenever he'd
try and say something.
And that caused him to stuttergrowing up.
And I was like, that's so,that's sad.
I
SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
can totally relate to that because, yeah, if you're
already stuttering And I don'tknow if it's like pre-developing
stuttering or not, whether thatwould be like the precursor to
it.
But when you are stuttering andyou're trying to get a word out
and you know, knowing thatyou're in a situation where you
(20:31):
have to compete like withfriends or whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (20:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:34):
You know, like to get a punchline out or to get
the idea or an answer to aquestion, like a quiz is a
SPEAKER_00 (20:40):
classic.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:42):
Yeah.
You've got like four or sixpeople around the table.
Yeah.
And you want to be the one thatactually gets one question right
before someone else.
So there's a time pressurething.
And I know that time pressurecan be an issue.
And a question that I used toget asked all the time, if I
have like a friend, partner,child who stutters and they're
(21:05):
stuttering or they're strugglingon their speech, should I finish
their word or their sentence?
UNKNOWN (21:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:12):
That's one thing I get asked all the time.
So if I was trying to saycrystal,
SPEAKER_00 (21:18):
and
SPEAKER_01 (21:19):
you said it's crystal, would I get upset by
that?
I don't, but I think it's a50-50 thing.
So I just tell people, how aboutyou ask the person if it's okay?
Yeah.
And hopefully they'll be honesttelling you.
SPEAKER_00 (21:40):
Do you think the act of stuttering causes anxiety,
stress and humiliation or doesit come from like that, like
humiliation and that causes thestuttering?
SPEAKER_01 (21:50):
Yeah.
So what comes first?
SPEAKER_00 (21:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:53):
The chicken or the
SPEAKER_00 (21:53):
egg?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
Wow, that's a really adept question.
I could be here all dayanswering this.
But in short, I think people whostutter tend to fall into two
categories.
different camps some people juststutter so they just talk like
this and they're perfectly finethey don't second guess whether
(22:19):
they should talk they just talkand there's a friend of mine
over in Australia who calls ithis accent I have a stutter
accent and he's got a New Jerseyaccent as well but he tells his
kids that's just his accent whenhe has an elongation or a
(22:40):
repetition but for the otherhalf of us and I put myself in
that stuttering is reallyembarrassing like we find it
really embarrassing depending onthe situation of course there's
sometimes where I just feel Iwish I could have got that word
out there's other times whereyou're saying oh my god I wish
(23:03):
that had not happened so a lotof People ask, do you stutter
because you're nervous?
That's a really tricky question.
Apparently, nerves don't causestuttering.
SPEAKER_00 (23:16):
Yeah.
You don't look like you've everbeen shy, but you could have
been.
SPEAKER_01 (23:20):
Heaps of people get a weird opinion of me depending
on who meets me and when theymeet me.
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
Were you shy as a kid or nah?
SPEAKER_01 (23:27):
Not really.
Well, I went to Niner College.
SPEAKER_00 (23:29):
Yeah, you couldn't have been.
You can't be shy.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (23:33):
You get a shit beating.
Yeah.
But no, I think generallyspeaking, when I go back to the
North, island I think people areless shy in the north island
than they are down here
SPEAKER_00 (23:45):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (23:45):
it's a very general thing I think I think north
islanders have got morepersonality but
SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
yeah I've lived in both like I moved from
Christchurch with mygrandparents and up to
Wellington like I moved around alot um between schools and I
really found that I loved likethe culture growing like it's
different now everyone's mixedbut the culture was a lot more
mixed in like islanders and Ifelt I don't know I just felt
like I clicked better than therethen there were a lot more like
(24:13):
I don't want to say white peoplebut like the culture was a lot
more yeah I don't know theteachers were kind of like
they'd never I felt like theycared the school I went to was
like Petone um they cared aboutyou and there were some kids
without lunches there and thingslike that and whereas here
wouldn't like the teachers Imean this is stereotyping but it
(24:33):
was a richer school and thingslike that you know but yeah it
was like two extremes I wentyeah I
SPEAKER_01 (24:38):
think it's changed quite a bit when I came down
That's 31 years ago.
It was very difficult to runinto a Maori down here, which I
really noticed.
And I can remember actuallystarting a job and we had a
(24:59):
barbecue and there was a Maoricouple that were there.
And I think that's what justreminded me, oh, wow, it is very
white down here.
Yeah, you go back up to Nainaiand, you know, we had my my
(25:19):
uncle married a Tongan lady backin the 70s so and my stepfather
was Maori and so yeah but Yeah,and I don't know if that mix of
(25:39):
cultures just changes theculture, the personality.
Yeah, I don't know.
But yeah, when I came down here,it was very reserved, for lack
of a better word.
SPEAKER_00 (25:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:56):
I can't think of, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:58):
Yeah.
I was wondering, just back tothe stuttering, I was wondering,
just from my own personalexperience, when my body's gone
into fight or flight mode, whenyou sense a threat, I felt that
I couldn't speak for a day, andI was in shock.
And could that be related tostuttering?
(26:18):
I don't know.
UNKNOWN (26:19):
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (26:21):
And I only found this out, I'd say, in the last
five years or so, and I don'tthink I'd ever heard this
before.
Fight, flight, and this freeze.
And usually we only hear aboutthe fight and flight.
But for me, I freeze.
So when I was young and thephone used to ring, that was a
(26:43):
traumatic event.
And I'm not even making that up.
When the phone rang,particularly if there was no one
around to answer the damn thing.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
I think I got that as well when my grandmother's
phone rang.
Oh, no.
Or was it about me or something?
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
Yeah.
So I can remember picking thephone up and if there was
nothing like coming from me,they used to say, is it you,
Ralph?
and it's like it's like someonetook a chisel and put that into
my brain I can remember that allthe time and you used to even
(27:22):
like cough or something likejust to get something out but
yeah and fast forward to when Iwork with people who stutter and
they're going through somethingoh my god I wish I was like that
because I very seldom stutter Ijust block so I just just can't
(27:44):
get anything out.
Even before I came in here, Ithought, oh my God, podcasts.
Even though I've done heaps oflives on YouTube and stuff, the
first one actually freaked meout.
The first one came out all hotand sweaty.
SPEAKER_00 (27:58):
Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Yeah, because you're like, even though there's no one
watching it, but just in casethere was.
But then after that, you kind ofcalm down.
But in order to get me ready forthis, I I've been doing my
costal breathing and doing somespeech exercises and stuff just
(28:20):
so that I'm speaking from heredown
SPEAKER_00 (28:22):
and
SPEAKER_01 (28:22):
not here up, which you stutter in your articulators
up, you don't stutter in yourchest.
I don't.
And I've just probably ruinedyour sound by sneaking the mic.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
So do you get nervous?
You don't get nervous in frontof, you do public speaking,
don't you?
How do you, do you stillprepare?
Like each time you speak, do youget nervous?
I don't know, nervous isn't theword, eh?
It's like I don't know.
Because you said you don't looklike a nervous person.
I know.
SPEAKER_01 (28:54):
I get that a lot.
I'm wondering what I do looklike if I am nervous.
I might have to walk aroundtaking selfies all the time.
How was I feeling at thatmoment?
But my theory here, so havinggone around classes, handing all
the teachers the note, avoidingpublic speaking like the plague,
(29:17):
never taking part in a play oranything like that probably
trying to avoid speaking withauthority figures and definitely
trying to avoid getting into aconversation where I would get
trapped on a word and by trappedon a word I mean getting asked a
question where the answer isspecific so if anybody asked me
(29:43):
my name well it has to be RobWoolley it can't be Stephen
although I did call myselfAndrew once Just because it was
the only thing I thought I couldget out.
And that was quite funny becausethere was a house call at
Antiques.
And I turn up and I think Iintroduced myself.
Hi, I'm Rob from Academy.
(30:04):
And the lady said, oh, I thoughtAndrew was coming.
And I immediately rememberedthat I'd slipped off a rob.
And I said, oh, he couldn't makeit.
The point of it is I avoidedpublic speaking like the plague.
But at school, when someteacher, just because he was a
smartass, decided to ask me aquestion in class, it was fifth
(30:27):
form geography.
And it was Mr.
Cassidy.
I think he died last year.
And it wasn't me.
It wasn't me.
It was natural causes, I'm sure.
But he asked me.
He knew that he was embarrassingme.
But him and I didn'tparticularly like each other.
And he asked me, what's thecapital of New Zealand?
(30:49):
And I said, I don't know.
And he asked me again and allthe kids laughed.
He said, what's the capital ofNew Zealand, Rob?
I said, I don't know.
And he asked me for the thirdtime and I said, I don't effing
know.
But when you get asked aspecific thing like Wellington,
(31:10):
you just know, I will stuttersaying
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
that.
SPEAKER_01 (31:13):
And coming back to that anxiety thing, the thought
of stuttering always precedesthe stutter.
Well, 99 99% of the time, Ithink I'm going to stutter
before I stutter.
It doesn't like, hi, how areyou?
You know, it doesn't ambush you.
SPEAKER_00 (31:32):
Yeah, I see what you mean.
SPEAKER_01 (31:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:35):
Can it be like, you're anticipating, like, it's
like you're anticipating to failat saying a word.
Is that kind of what it
SPEAKER_01 (31:44):
is?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And it can be more so on others.
You know, like, for example, ifyou were to ask me a, I'll
probably get this wrong, aplosive sound, a question where
I have to start with a plosivesound, like a da-ga-pa.
Yeah.
That's more likely a stuttersituation.
(32:05):
I've got to really quite focusto get those out because I'm
really calm and relaxed here.
SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:11):
Yeah.
Everything's going to flow.
I think everything will flowout.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (32:15):
So there are definitely triggers like what I
mentioned about the fight andflight mode around some people.
You'll feel like you can, thatyour words will flow and things
like that.
And then there's other peopleyou'll just like close up on and
you'll be like, especially ifthere's like abuse or something,
you'll be like, I want to gonear that person or speak.
Can that be the case?
SPEAKER_01 (32:32):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
If left to my own devices, likethere's a guy that I know, he
used to be in my Toastmastersclub.
He probably doesn't know this.
Yeah.
But he was really calm, reallyintelligent, and really paid
attention when you spoke.
(32:53):
For some reason, that put me onedge.
SPEAKER_00 (32:56):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:57):
Yeah, I'm not too sure.
Sometimes it can be authorityfigures.
I don't know.
It's weird to quantify exactlywhat it is.
Yeah.
I know that.
If I walk into a situation and Isay something funny, if the
person laughs, I'm probablygoing to be speaking fine for
(33:20):
the rest of that conversation.
Yeah.
If I say something that Ithink's funny and they don't
laugh, you're like, oh, oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (33:28):
because you do have a sense of humor.
Have you always had that, likeeven during school and stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (33:34):
As far as I know.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
I
SPEAKER_01 (33:36):
actually think...
weird thing here.
If you put it on an accent, theperson who is putting on the
accent won't stutter.
I stutter on my voice.
I don't stutter on or put onaccent.
SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (33:55):
Yeah.
I haven't heard that from anyoneelse who stutters.
I've never actually asked them.
But if you put on a strangeaccent.
SPEAKER_00 (34:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:03):
Yeah, you never stutter a token like this.
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Yeah.
Do you think a lot of comediansstruggle with stuttering?
I know it's a weird question.
It's just.
SPEAKER_01 (34:12):
I actually think there was a comedian who did
stutter.
I'm wondering if it was RobinWilliams.
I don't think it was.
Oh.
But there's some.
SPEAKER_00 (34:20):
Yeah.
he did I don't know but he kindof spoke differently
SPEAKER_01 (34:24):
yeah yeah like he's he's flying through all those
accents
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
yes that's right yeah like the nanny what's it
called that movie
SPEAKER_01 (34:32):
yeah yeah like Mrs Doubtfire yeah that's the one
yeah he's flying yeah like youwatch him on those talk shows
and yeah like they used to saythat if you got Robin Williams
on a talk show you knew for 10minutes he was just going to go
for it
SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
yeah
SPEAKER_01 (34:49):
and that You didn't really have to say anything
because Robin Williams wouldjust take over.
But yeah, it is funny.
And just as an aside, when youlearn a technique to overcome or
manage a stutter, you doactually wonder, is that the
(35:11):
same mechanism as talking in anaccent?
Because if I'm in technique, Isound something like this.
So I'm more deep and breathy.
And you think, well, that's adifferent Rob.
Rob being himself is more likelya stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (35:28):
Oh, yeah.
I see.
That's interesting that yourbrain thinks like that.
Does it affect your identity?
Like, obviously, like, I'm goingback to, like, you said, that's
a different Rob.
Like, does it affect the way,like, obviously, it affects the
way you feel about who you areand how you, do you know what I
mean?
Perceive your identity.
SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
Yeah that's a fascinating one.
I used to run courses up inAuckland for people who stutter
And I used to try to get a guestspeaker in because the courses
were three and a half days long.
So three and a half dayslistening to people who stutter
(36:11):
or who are working on technique,particularly me, it's a long
time.
So I thought, can I get ineither a person who stutters,
who's done really well and isquite well known, Or can I get a
person in who's a fluent speakerwho has got some wisdom to share
that may help everybody in theroom?
(36:33):
So I got a guy called Colin Cox.
who I'd heard speak a couple orthree years before.
Brilliant speaker.
And he was a master trainer inneuro semantics.
But he said, I can come in and Ireckon I can provide you with
(36:54):
some value.
So he comes in and he gives aslideshow.
And I'd only met him once.
And he's talking about himselffor at least 20 minutes.
And I had no idea where this wasgoing.
And I thought, this is like atrain wreck.
And so he's got a slideshow.
And it's from memory, hischildhood, and then he's a
(37:18):
teenager.
And then he goes on and on andon and on.
And I'm thinking, oh, wow, thisis horrendous.
So he gets to the end.
He gets there.
And it was at least 20, 25minutes, and I'm recording it.
And he says, you've seen mylife.
(37:42):
Do you think you know me?
And everyone goes, oh, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he'd done so much.
He was New Zealand's strongestman.
I didn't even know that at onestage.
He's got photos.
He's pulling a train.
And he was also a coach offirst-class rugby or an
assistant coach.
(38:03):
He'd done a lot.
And so he asked the audience, doyou think you know me?
Everyone goes, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah.
And then he started reversing.
And he said, so if I hadn't beenNew Zealand's strongest man,
would you still know me?
And he got right back to thefirst slide and he said, so if I
took away all the things thatyou've seen that I'd done, would
(38:24):
you still know me?
SPEAKER_00 (38:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
And everyone's going, I'm not too sure.
And he says, I am not what I do.
SPEAKER_00 (38:31):
And
SPEAKER_01 (38:31):
he said, if you make a separation, so your identity
is not determined by the thingsyou do that you like or the
things that you do that youdon't like, he says, then you
can choose what you do and itdoesn't affect who you are.
You're you.
So his aim there was that if youtie your identity to the things
(38:57):
you do, you can't change thethings you do.
And He used to apply that topeople that were in prison, that
if your identity is tied tocrime,
SPEAKER_00 (39:08):
you're
SPEAKER_01 (39:10):
going to be a criminal when you came in, a
criminal when you went in, and acriminal when you walk out.
And he said, if you tie youridentity to how you speak, if
you stutter, then you're goingto keep on stuttering the whole
time.
But if you realize that, whatyou do is...
not necessarily who you are,then you can let it go.
(39:30):
And for a lot of people, theyfound that really moving.
There was one girl who was onthe course who was just crying
and she said, that's what I havebeen doing, that even when I've
wanted to stop stuttering, Ihaven't stopped stuttering
because her mother stutters, hergrandmother stutters.
And she didn't want to stopbecause it would mean that she
(39:55):
had become better than her mumor her grandmother.
And so she just stayed in thatbehavior.
That's how she put it
SPEAKER_00 (40:06):
anyway.
That's really interesting.
And that can be applied to notjust stuttering.
It can be applied to likefinancially, like you don't want
to get better than, you know,because they might look down on
you and your family or it couldbe anything.
Bye.
SPEAKER_01 (40:20):
There's a pro, there's a con, and for every
con, there's a pro.
So if you want to change, I hadno idea you were going to ask me
questions about my stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (40:29):
Oh, that was like the main thing I was going to
ask.
Is it?
Yeah.
That's the most interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (40:35):
I feel like I've been in a ruck and the whole
world's walked over me with mystutter.
But then I know that the vastmajority of that is not
necessarily my speech.
which is just how I've...
made choices based on the speechto avoid my speech or something.
SPEAKER_00 (40:59):
Do you recommend speech therapy?
Does it depend on who is doingit and what they do?
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
Massively controversial question in the
stutter world, right?
The speech therapy that I didwhen I was a kid, I would not
wish on my worst enemy.
That endured for years.
That went on, as far as I canremember, that went on weekly.
Traumatic.
That went on until my speechtherapist went on a holiday and
(41:31):
another speech therapist stoodin for her.
And I went in there.
And she worked with me.
I can't remember what we did.
I just can't remember that Iwent in there.
And I can remember the otherspeech therapist because she was
quite good looking.
And she said at the end of it,do you think this is working?
(41:53):
And I think she was having alook to see how long I'd been in
there.
And I said, no.
And she said, I don't thinkwe'll do it anymore.
You beauty.
That was it.
That was the easiest decision Ihave ever made in my life.
(42:14):
And if I could have undoneanything, I would have undone
not only all of that speechtherapy, but having been tested
everything.
And I, I honestly believe, and Iknow this may sound a bit weird
to people.
I would have had a completelydifferent life had I never, um,
(42:34):
been told I had a stutter.
SPEAKER_00 (42:40):
Were you diagnosed with anything else at the time?
Like, did they say you were ADHDor, you know, how they used
to...
SPEAKER_01 (42:47):
Alright, okay.
Back then, they didn't haveletters of the alphabet to
diagnose you with.
Um...
Um...
I don't think I'm on a spectrumor anything.
SPEAKER_00 (43:01):
Everyone is, eh?
SPEAKER_01 (43:03):
Would anyone say if they were?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (43:06):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (43:07):
Well, actually, no, it's quite cool now, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
I'm on a spectrum.
No, I'm not Elon Musk.
I was quite bright.
SPEAKER_00 (43:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:18):
So I can remember we had a mass test.
I'll just throw this out there.
Every school that I can rememberhad a mass test back in the day.
And you had to do 100 questions.
They weren't hard.
You had to do 100 questions asfast as you could go.
So I don't really know whetherthey're testing maths or
something else.
(43:39):
And I finished in five minutes.
I was three minutes faster thanany of the teachers and any of
the other kids.
So I can think...
and I am reasonably bright, andI do think, if anything, that
(43:59):
maybe if...
You get diagnosed with anythingor you get a label or maybe you
get any comment dropped on you.
If you're quite bright, youactually extrapolate it into
stuff that it's not.
And I do wonder if that wasmaybe a big problem for me.
Have I got ADHD or anything likethat?
(44:22):
I think I've got something.
SPEAKER_00 (44:25):
Were you always good at public speaking?
You said you avoided it, didn'tyou?
SPEAKER_01 (44:30):
So, avoided all public speaking like the plague.
So to me, the way I explain itto people, I had a blank canvas.
I had never had a bad experiencepublic speaking, even though I
stutter, because I didn't do it.
Yeah.
Speaking on the phone sucked.
Conversations sucked.
Speaking to authority figuressucked.
(44:51):
But public speaking, cleanwhiteboard, clean slate.
Until I went to the McGuireprogram in 2007 in Palmerston
North and just somethingclicked.
It was about the first time thatI received all judgment, because
I'm very judgmental, And I wentand I thought, this is going to
(45:11):
work.
And it did.
So I turned up.
I was firing after one hour.
I was the most fluent I'd everbeen.
And there was another guy on thecourse who was a new person as
well at the same time as me.
And we made it up.
(45:32):
As in, we were talking in thebreaks and all this kind of
stuff.
And so we challenged ourselvesto put ourselves in the hardest
speaking situations we could forthe rest of the course.
So if you thought it wasdifficult to go first, you went
first.
If you thought it was harder tospeak, if you went last, you
went last, so on and so forth.
Um, But the culmination of thatcourse is a public speech in the
(45:57):
Palmerston North Square,standing on a bench.
And there's a photo of mesomewhere standing on a bench,
bloody freezing in the middle ofwinter.
And we're talking to about acrowd of about 40.
That's my first public speech.
But I'd walked in there primed.
I'd had two and a half, threedays, whatever it was, of
(46:19):
training to get there.
So we were really lookingforward to it I wanted to be on
that bench seat I wanted toshare my voice my message and I
can even remember that I hadread Fridge Dad Poor Dad by
Robert Kiyosaki and the onlything I got out of that was
(46:42):
words become your reality and Isaid today the reality is I have
words and so after that I joinedToastmasters where you are doing
a speech and so all publicspeaking wouldn't say it's been
flawless but uh three timeswhere I've gone to give a public
(47:06):
speech and I've felt I couldstutter but the rest I can't and
SPEAKER_00 (47:11):
I've always hated public speaking especially at
school just I didn't get Iprobably
SPEAKER_01 (47:18):
didn't imagine your audience that you're talking to
how bad could that be
SPEAKER_00 (47:22):
yeah I don't think I did one there but yeah I was
real into writing and stuff butthe speaking part I think it was
just because I was soself-conscious at high school
about you are like you'renaturally worried about what
people think about you you'retrying to fit into these cliques
and like it's just such astressful time in high school I
found it was a lot of pressureto you know peer pressure to do
(47:45):
what others are doing and youmight not agree with it but you
know I found it like that I'vealways found like one-on-one
conversations really like goingdeep with people something I'm
naturally good at but then whenit comes to like a group of
people I pick up energies likeand I'm like oh my gosh that
person I just don't really vibewith that person and I don't
want them to hear what I'msaying to that person because I
(48:06):
don't really know who I'mtalking to and I'm like I don't
feel comfortable around certainenergies to be myself because
there's certain people I'm likeI'm comfortable being myself
speaking freely around thisperson.
I know that they like who Iactually am, but then there's
people that I'm like, well, Ifeel like I have to close myself
off from this person becausethey don't accept who I am.
So I'm going to just either pushthem away or just try and avoid
(48:28):
them.
Do you know what I mean?
So that's kind of why I probablystruggle with.
SPEAKER_01 (48:32):
Yeah, I do.
I think of two things.
If I walk into a fish and chipshop, and I say fish and chip
shops because that just likepops into my head, and you walk
out from the counter and thewhole people, Like standing
behind you or sitting down.
Yeah.
Oh, that is a nightmare.
Now, no one in that fish andchip shop will have any idea the
(48:54):
turmoil I am going through.
Because I'm thinking, if Istutter here, all these people
are going to hear it.
Because all of those shops areechoey, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera.
All right.
Now, I don't know whether theycare or not.
And if I were to think about it,most of them...
Mm-hmm.
(49:35):
isn't it because I have no ideawhat that audience who are
behind me are thinking so I onlysay that because I meet so many
people who have a fear of publicspeaking or they say, I'm no
good at public speaking orwhatever.
And I'm saying, have you evergiven a public speech?
(49:58):
Have you ever really had?
I've actually never seen anybodyhave a really bad public speech.
So I'm thinking, is any of thatthinking external to you?
So, you know, I'm no good atpublic speaking.
Has anyone told you that?
But I don't even know that itnecessarily matters either, does
(50:20):
it?
You know, like if anyone said,oh, no, Richard, you're a really
good public speaker.
If that person doesn't believethem, who gives a shit what they
say, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (50:30):
It's not, yeah, is that clear?
It's like those core beliefsthat you have that you struggle
with, or the little voices inyour head that are like, oh,
what are they going to think?
SPEAKER_01 (50:38):
Yeah, and it's not what other people think of us.
It's what we think of us.
SPEAKER_00 (50:43):
Yeah, that's so true.
SPEAKER_01 (50:45):
But the thing is that most people are pretty damn
good.
They just don't know that.
But they're not always going toknow it by us telling them
either.
They're going to know it bydoing it over and over and over
and going from good to very goodto maybe great.
And as their confidence goes up,their confidence is naturally
(51:07):
going to get up.
SPEAKER_00 (51:08):
So you're saying no one's a naturally good public
speaker?
SPEAKER_01 (51:11):
I'm saying a lot of people are a damn sight better
public speakers than they think.
And some of them aretremendously good.
And yet their confidence isreally low.
Their self-belief is really low.
And the only way, well, I won'tsay the only way, but our way
(51:32):
that they're going to get out ofthat is just going and doing it.
I appreciate you handing me thisopportunity.
SPEAKER_00 (51:38):
Thanks for coming on.
You're a funny guy.
Should have been a comedian.
UNKNOWN (51:45):
Music
SPEAKER_00 (52:01):
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