Now I don’t, but I did it for quite a long time when I was still a PWS. But I must admit that I didn’t do it every day, because the day I played the recordings while sleeping, I must say that I didn’t rest as well, but I could sleep nonetheless. So I played the recordings at night intermitently: one day I did, the following one I didn’t, the next one I played them again, and so on.

I played the recordings at a low volume, enough to be barely heard, but loud enough to understand them. This recording must be done in a monotone voice, that’s important so that it doesn’t interrupt your sleep.

Exactly! Most of PWS and even PWSS treat ourselves too harshly. We will never be perfect, no one will ever be. So, as human being that we are, we shouldn’t punish ourselves for our mistakes. Instead, we should learn from those (“what could I’ve done to avoid it?”), try to improve (knowing that we will never be perfect) and keep on with our lives.
The Crutches, the mind training treatments should help you expand your comfort zones until you don’t feel anxiety when giving presentations to groups of people. I would also suggest you to try to attend to as many SAM meetings and start by making a comment or two, step by step, proving to yourself that you can do it, expanding your comfort zones, until you give a speech at the SAM meetings, or infront of your class. You can do it!

I totally agree with what you said, Tasneem.
Something like 2 years ago, or so, I had the worst sore throat of my life (I even had to go to the doctor, they prescribed me antibiotics), and it lasted around a month. I didn’t stutter during that time, as I had to whisper if I wanted to talk. Nobody thought I was fooling them. Even if I now wanted to pretend that I have a sore throat, and whisper, I doubt that anybody would think that I’m fooling them. People have their own lives, their own problems, they don’t have time to worry about us. I used to be sceptical about this statement before reading Lee’s book, but then I realised it was true, when meeting with good friends of mine that for one reason or another, I hadn’t seen in months. So when I met them again, I wasn’t a PWS anymore, I was a PWSS, and they didn’t even comment anything about my speech. And my stuttering was VERY evident. When speaking to people, they pay attention to the message you’re delivering, not the way to deliver it. And if they notice anything wrong about our speech, they will forget about it in 5 minutes.

I hated my stutter. I simply hated it. I only wish I had found Lee’s book before. At least I found it and I became a PWSS. Now my life is a lot better than before. Better than I would have ever imagined.
So I agree with you guys, I can’t understand those who accept it. It’s like they give up.
After having gone to speech therapy for more than 10 years, without little or any progress, I ended up giving up. I knew there was no solution to stuttering at that moment. I knew that one day there will be one, but that day hadn’t arrived yet, so there wasn’t much I could do, just wait. I had to try to live with it, although I was angry, and even depressed, most of the time. As I said, I hated it.
Finally a good friend of mine, also a PWS, told me about Lee’s book, and the day I began reading that book I knew my stuttering days were counted.
So now that there is a solution, a way to stop stuttering, and that there is more than enough proof of its efficacy, I can’t understand those who deny it and prefer to life stuttering. And as Clifton said, no coach can ever help someone who’s not willing to help themselves.

Hi Justin! Do you have to do these presentations online (via Zoom, Skype or similar), or not? It makes a big difference in my opinion.
For example, when I have to give a speech in the SAM meetings (every Saturday at 9am NYC time; if you have never attended to one of these meetings, you definitely should, they are really motivating!), what I do is that I minimize the Zoom window, so that the only things that my screen shows are a Word file with the bullet points of my presentation, and in the other half of the screen I have another Word document with the entire script of my presentation. So those are the only 2 things I see in my computer, so it is more or less like being alone.
In any case, I always try to focus on being expressive and passionate. I try to forget about my audience, and I really do. I just try to be as passionate as I can, while speaking slowly, articulating all of my syllables and words, and taking pauses every few words. Make these pauses last longer than normal. This will help you remain calm. And the audience will appreciate it, as you will be giving them time to process all the information that you’re saying.
As Lee said in his books and video courses available here, it is normal to “feel butterflies in your stomach” before giving a speech or presentation. Everyone has those. But something very different is to feel anxiety, we don’t want that, and we can get rid of that. Have you read the book “Speech Anxiety to Public Speaking” and watched the video lessons? These two can help you a great deal. You can also watch videos of coaching sessions, you can filter them by “presentations”. That should help you too.
I insist that you should attend to the SAM meetings, if you haven’t already, and try to slowly expand your comfort zones. You can start by making brief comments about the speeches of others. Something like, “hi, I really enjoyed your speech. Thank you”. Something as simple as that. But you will have proven to yourself that you can do it. Celebrate that small victory. The next week, do it again, and make a longer comment. Celebrate that victory. Keep on doing it. You will see that it gets easier and easier. And one day you could even become the speaker of that day, and give your a speech. The coaches will be happy to help you prepare it and give you advice, like we’ve done with others.
Hope this ha helped you. Feel free to ask me anything else 🙂

Hi Gábor. That is true, it works. It is actually part of Crutch 5. It works because of the same reason the other Crutches also work: we’re not focusing on our words. We’re focusing on playing a role, on being passionate, our voice tone, our gestures, etc.
The same happens when we speak with an accent.
You can use this Crutch, it’ll work great. Use it with humour, make the people laugh. You will all have a great time!

My suggestion to expand your comfort zones is that speak a bit more (let’s say 10% more) than what you normally would in those situations. So you have to push yourself a bit, and give a 10% more. The next time you will feel more comfortable speaking in that situation, so you will be able to speak a 10% more. So after a while, you will feel as comfortable speaking in the SAM meetings (or elsewhere) as if you were speaking to your family, friends, or with whoever you feel really comfortable speaking to.
But of course, don’t push yourself too much; the last thing we want is to have a bad incident. We have to be a speech cop and be in control of our minds and speech at all times.