Stuttering into 2018 [RADvent Calendar Door 18]
--
Last year, my mum told me about my stutter.
A stutter I have no memory of. When I was three years old, I struggled to talk, according to mum and dad. I was a little late to start speaking at all, apparently, and when I did I had an intermittent stutter.
One day after a visit to see friends, during which I got so frustrated at not being able to get my words out I bawled my eyes out, mum and dad decided to fix me.
So they bundled me and my baby brother up into the car and took us to Twycross Zoo for the day. The whole day was all about keeping me totally occupied — they didn’t talk over me and they didn’t prevent me from talking, but they talked to me constantly, had me doing stuff constantly, looking at the animals, learning about the animals, and generally filling my senses so I didn’t have to time to either stutter or fret about it.
I never stuttered again.
Mum and dad didn’t know anything about speech problems (no Google in those old days); they just had an idea and decided to try it out, and it seemed to work a treat. And although I don’t remember at all, I’m so grateful for their epic parenting skills, because it must be so frustrating to not be able to get your words out.
In fact, my eyes are watering right now just thinking about the tremendous amount of love my childhood was filled with, and how very lucky I am.
My folks seem to have instilled this idea of “just give it a go and see what happens” into me. They’ve never been entrepreneurial (although mum had a childminding business when we were wee) but they’ve always encouraged us to try stuff and not worry about whether or not it’ll work. It’s always more about let’s see if it’ll work, and if it doesn’t, we’ll try something else.
If you run a business and you want to succeed, you have to take that attitude.
But so many of us don’t stick our necks out. If I had a pound for every time a business owner’s said, “Oh I don’t think that’ll work.” Or, “I don’t feel like that’s a good idea.” Or, “I haven’t got time to do that” I’d have enough for a very nice pair of shoes.
So it’s a delight when I meet someone whose attitude is, “Sod it, let’s give it a try!” Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, so you try something else… until you find something that works well for you.
In business and in life.
On Friday night, I was in London with a small selection of my Superheroes and we had a fabulous night. Among the chitter-chatter, it came out that Mike has always wanted to do a skydive but has been afraid to (understandable, after all you’re jumping out of a perfectly good plane). So we made a pact, then and there, that we will gather my Superheroes in spring 2018 and do a group skydive for charity.
Is that the kind of thing you fancy?
Do you thrive on leaping out of your comfort zone and getting more stuff done than most people can dream of?
That’s what’s behind RADvent Calendar Door Number 18 today: permission to just try stuff, even if it might not work. What are you going to just try today?
If you’re a “let’s give it a try!” person, you’ll love my book Business For Superheroes. Get 2018 off to a flying start and grab yourself a copy.
Perhaps you haven’t lost your words like I did as a child, but maybe you’ve lost a little motivation.
I’ll help you find it and work it:
About the Author
Vicky Fraser
Please do share any articles from this site in part or in full — as long as you leave all links intact, give credit to the author, and include a link to this website and the following bio. Vicky is a gin-quaffing, pole-dancing, trapeze-swinging copywriter who writes about the perils and joys of writing, velociraptor training, and running a small business. She writes this stuff on her websites vickyfraser.com and cookiesforbreakfast.co.uk. She’s the author of one book (with two more in utero) and teaches small business owners how to write copy that sells, and how to be more fecking interesting. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
