25 Things I Wish I Had Known About Stuttering When I was 20

By Laurent Lagarde

Laurent Lagarde, who translated the books Advice to Those Who Stutter and Sometimes I Just Stutter into French, now shares “25 things I wish I had known about stuttering when I was 20 years old.”

He wrote them for his French blog and has now translated them into English.

1. I wish I had known that stuttering is not a fault and is not my fault.

2. I wish I had known that stuttering is just one part of my person.

3. I wish I had known that to accept doesn’t mean to abdicate.

4. I wish I had known that stuttering is not the explanation for all the things I don’t like in me or in my life.

5. I wish I had known it’s possible to overcome stuttering.

6. I wish I had known that a common point among PWS who have overcome stuttering is that they knew it was possible.

7. I wish I had known that stuttering is not a failure and fluency is not a success.

8. I wish I had known that you have to dare to be yourself with your virtues and defects.

9. I wish I had known that speaking openly about my stuttering could be such a relief.

10. I wish I had known that others will react to my stuttering the way I react to it myself.

11. I wish I had known that speaking about stuttering is opening the door to a world of wonderful discoveries and encounters.

12. I wish I had known you must never let stuttering prevent you from moving forward.

13. I wish I had known that every avoidance is a waste of time.

14. I wish I had known that every journey starts with a first step.

15. I wish I had known that you don’t have to be good to start but you have to start to be good.

16. I wish I had known that the smallest action is better than the noblest intention.

17. I wish I had known that “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

18. I wish I had known that being positive and changing my thoughts could really change my life.

19. I wish I had known that the word “failure” doesn’t exist. There are only results which are learnings and step stones to success.

20. I wish I had known that there are no difficulties, only opportunities.

21. I wish I had known that effective communication is not a matter of fluency.

22. I wish I had known that PWS can compete with the best speakers and win speech contests.

23. I wish I had known that stuttering responds positively to humour.

24. I wish I had known that you must look for pleasure not for performance.

25. I wish I had known that I‘d write these lines one day. And I wish I would have known that I will speak one day with Jane Fraser and translate and publish two Stuttering Foundation books :-).

Laurent Lagarde’s blog is at www.goodbye-begaiement.fr and he is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoodbyeBegaiement

From the 2013 Winter Newsletter

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Ken Venturi

As much of the nation watches the U.S. Open Golf Championship, it is impossible not to think about our late friend Ken Venturi. Ken overcame many challenges to win the Open at Congressional in 1964 and go on to become the voice of golf for more than three decades.

However, Ken faced no bigger obstacle than stuttering. Ken Venturi was a champion to those who stutter, going out of his way to share his personal experience when consulted by a colleague, friend, or child who stutters.

King George

In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences were presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor has been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter for many years, but probably few people know all of the unique accomplishments of this former hockey great who was born on December 4, 1955, in Levack, Ontario.