Nobody Threw Tomatoes-Episode 154
Posted on: April 27, 2016
Episode 154 features Sharon Steed who hails from Chicago, Illinois, and presently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Sharon is a freelance business writer and also a professional speaker.
Sharon tells us that stuttering had such control over her life that she was terrified to speak to people. Sharon reached a point where she knew she needed to face her fear head on and she decided to tackle it by taking on public speaking.
Listen in as we discuss how Sharon has used speaking as a way to build business. She says “Being vulnerable and open helps you a lot more than it hurts you.” This applies to both business and stuttering. We also talk about active listening, effective communication, empathy and patience. In fact, those are some of the topics Sharon has spoken about in her business talks.
Sharon wants others who stutter to know, “I struggle with it too. I’m not any more courageous than anyone else. I’m just willing to try and fail.”
Music used in today’s episode is credited to ccMixter. Below is a video of one of Sharon’s talks.
3 Responses to "Nobody Threw Tomatoes-Episode 154"
April 30, 2016 at 8:29 AM
Congrats to Sharon Steed, first for giving an excellent talk; second, for having such a lovely voice with fine timber (that of a vocalist), and, third, for looking so good! I, too, have battled stuttering for some 25 years; I’m a guy (apologies, girls), but I love Pam’s website; so, forgive me for butting-in.
I was able to cure most of my stuttering; that is, no one has been able to detect me as a stutterer for decades – although I still fight the fear every day. The techniques that I used are not the traditional ones, as described in most stuttering books, and I’ve read scores of those. I recently wrote a book detailing the methods that worked for me, and I’m GIVING it away to stutterers; so, Sharon (or any reader here) who wants it, just email info@leeglovett.com, and I’ll go on Amazon and gift-you a Kindle version. (I can’t gift the hard copies, as they cost too much to print and mail.) Stuttering is my charity. My goal is: Help another stutterer beat Satan Stuttering as I did.
Before I sign off here, I have a couple of suggestions for Sharon. I, too, had trouble with “w’s” , “r’s” and “m’s”. I beat them in several ways: Drop the first syllable. For example, “marketing” becomes “arketing”; “written word” becomes “itten urd”; “weakness” becomes “eakness”. When you say these words in context, even without the first syllable, people will still know the word that you shortened. Another method to bust through troublesome syllables is speak those letters in almost a whisper and then say the rest of the word naturally. Of course, the opposite technique works, too; that is, saying the troublesome syllable louder than the rest of the word. I prefer going soft. These are techniques, tricks if you will, not cures. The cure, of course, is in the mind – where all of our stuttering began, grew and exploded. The methods that I used to get control of my mind and continuously decrease the incidence of troublesome syllables (and, hence, stuttering) would take too long to discuss here. Anyway, brava Sharon. Keep talking. The way you’re going, you’ll ALWAYS be a hit! Lee
Make Room For The Stuttering 
April 28, 2016 at 8:18 AM
Um, Pittsburgh has an “h.” 🙂 (As a former resident of the Pittsburgh suburbs, it’s incumbent on me to point that out. I’ll lose my “yinzer” creds if I don’t.)
April 30, 2016 at 6:45 PM
Ah, thank you for pointing that out. I stand corrected and have corrected the text in question. Glad you have such an eagle eye!! 🙂