The Sunday Series (40), with Mark Brodinsky

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up

• Lyrics to Brave, by Sarah Bereilles

The Sunday Series (40): Speechless

Tomorrow is my 49th birthday. So in honor of the beginning of my 50th year, (after all our birthdays essentially mark the anniversary of the year we just lived, year 50 begins tomorrow), I wanted to share something which I hope will help others.  It’s the gift I want to give in honor of my own birthday.

The 4th grade – I still remember it like it was yesterday and I can still see the  vision playing out in my mind. Mrs. Cherry, my 4th grade teacher posed a question to the class – and as luck would have it she called on me. I knew the answer, it was the Declaration of Independence. But as I gripped my desk with both hands, curled my toes inside my shoes and tilted back my chair in a vain effort to force the words out, I couldn’t say them. They were stuck somewhere. Somewhere in between my brain and my heart-breaking effort to turn them into speech. The letter “D” was what really had me stuck, because I knew if I uttered that one letter out loud, I would repeat it over-and-over-and-over-and-over before I could complete the answer.  I just knew it would come out D-D-D-D-D-Declaration. I didn’t know why, but I would stutter and at 10-years-old, that was too much for me to bear. So I pretended I didn’t know the answer.

For me that memory was the beginning of the end of a lot of answers I knew but never said, a lot of information I wanted to share but was embarrassed and ashamed to do so, a lot of activities I didn’t participate in, a lot of people I never interacted with, girls I never asked out and some other choices I made in my life, some of which I might have done differently… and all of because of one reason.

I stutter.

Before I go any further I want anyone to know, whether young or old, from the bottom of my heart I want you to know, there is nothing wrong with you.  It’s  OK, it really is and if it isn’t now then I want you to do everything in your power to make it OK for you. You are no different. No two people are alike and everyone has things about them which challenge them, which they fight to overcome.  Stuttering is simply something you do. Don’t let it define who you are.

It wasn’t until Rich Polt posted ten questions recently in an article in which he profiled me on his TalkingGood website, (http://www.talkinggood.com/profiles/MarkBrodinsky), that I even went public with any of this information. I had to because I wanted to be honest and to show others you can overcome. The question was: Tell us something you rarely share in public?  So I did. After the story hit Huffington Post I was immediately contacted by Noah Cornman from (http://www.say.org/): the Stuttering Association for the Young. We spoke for awhile and he asked me to write a blog for them. I decided to take it one step further and share that blog with everyone.

Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
When they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins

For a long, long time I lived underneath the shadow of a speech impediment. As many times as I wanted to, I failed to share with my parents that I had trouble with my speech and I became so adept at avoidance techniques, including NOT saying the things I really wanted to say, that I don’t think anyone really knew. But I did and at times it was heartbreaking.

My word power increased because I tried to think of any synonym I could to use in place of the words I couldn’t seem to utter without a stutter. Words that started with a “d” or an “s” or a “th” or an “m” or an “r”, and probably more than I can remember which gave me trouble. I was ashamed, I was scared, and I felt helpless. I’ve since learned there is nothing to be ashamed of.

The 12th grade.  My English teacher, whose name escapes me right now, would do a vocabulary quiz each week where he would say a definition and you would have to give him the word. He would call out names in the class at random to give him the word for the definition and at least two times he called on me… and I actually pretended I didn’t know. But I did. The problem was I was a very good student, on my way to straight “A”‘s in multiple semesters my senior year, and this was killing me. I actually scheduled time with him after class, told him about my stuttering, one of the few people I had told up to that point, and asked him NOT to call on me, because of my situation. I told him what letters I had trouble with, we made some type of agreement and I thought it would all be OK. The next week, the first definition he gave he forgot and called on me first — it was one of those words with which I had trouble, but I paused, for what seemed like an eternity and somehow I got through it.

Then there was the high school senior play — I always wanted to act — loved to be “up front and center”. The senior class was going to perform Grease, one of my favorite shows. I wanted to give it a shot, wanted my shot, and so I went to the audition. The room was full and I watched as each person who auditioned had to sing a little bit – then read from the script – sight unseen. “I’m going to do this, I can do this,” I told myself.  But as it got closer to my turn, I started to panic. “What if I can’t read what’s in front of me,” I thought. I couldn’t fake it and change the words because others had the same script in their hands and they would all know I couldn’t say the words. With only two people to go before my turn, I quietly slipped out. I thought maybe I would just help with the sets or the lights, I never did any of those things. I never participated in the show at all.

I still remember and it still hurts.

Everybody’s been there,
Everybody’s been stared down by the enemy
Fallen for the fear
And done some disappearing,
Bow down to the mighty
Don’t run, just stop holding your tongue

In college I majored in Mass Communication, with a concentration in Journalism. I was a talented writer, and why wouldn’t I be, I possessed a tremendous vocabulary since I had a synonym for nearly every word in the English language. I needed to have the expansive vocabulary just so I could quickly think of a word to replace the one on which I feared I might stutter. There’s still a part of me which thinks I excelled at writing what it was I afraid to say out loud.

But I also got lucky – because in my senior year at Towson State University – I got an internship at a local TV station, WJZ. That one decision changed my life. From the moment I walked into the newsroom I knew it was where I wanted to be, I had visions of grandeur and thought someday I’m going to be on TV, stutter be damned. I became a writer first, in fact they hired me part-time while I was still an intern and in school — because I could write, boy could I write.  Then I became the Producer of the WJZ morning show, but I still had this dream of being in front of the camera, not just behind it and most people there knew it.

Eventually when the news show expanded from an hour to 90 minutes, I got a shot at a segment where from the producer’s seat in the control room. I would do an on-camera “tease” for what was coming up later in the show and banter back and forth with the anchors…on the fly, mostly unscripted. I wanted it so bad, I found a way around my stutter, though it wasn’t easy. I sometimes spoke too fast, or paused a long time before it was safe to say what I wanted. But when you want it bad enough, when your WHY is that strong, you find a way.

But I wonder what would happen if you
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out

That on-air segment gave me confidence to move forward.  It wasn’t long after that I started dating this girl.  This girl’s name was Debbie. A name that began with a “D”, it was like a nightmare come true. Here I was with this girl I really wanted to be with and there were times I felt I couldn’t say her name, especially when others asked me about her and I had to use her name in a sentence. But I was falling in love – and when your WHY is big enough, you find a way. I wasn’t going to walk away from this relationship just because I got scared to say her name! I had made too many other detours in my life when it came to speech that I wasn’t happy about. I finally broke down, truly broke down and told Debbie my whole story. Then I went for help. Speech therapy, which didn’t last long, because my therapist rarely heard me stutter. I was good at this “game” I invented for myself to avoid stuttering, but I did learn some exercises and techniques to confront it. While the sessions did not continue for long I did gain confidence and still use many of those techniques today.

Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

When I decided to leave the TV business, I became self-employed, offering health insurance and supplemental policies to the self-employed. Guess what the number one word is you must repeat over and over when you talk about health insurance? Deductible. The dreaded “d” word. Without being able to say that word, I figured no one would ever buy from me. It was critical. It was mandatory. I practiced it. I took my time I focused on elongating the vowels and before you knew it I had sold more than $6 million in policies in a 10-year-span. My family was depending on me to be successful, they needed me and failure was not an option. My WHY, my reason for doing it was bigger than my “challenge”.

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

There are plenty more examples of how I let stuttering affect my life in ways it never should, because I am bigger than that challenge and it took me a while to understand how to get there and to stand tall. I want to tell anyone, children or adults, don’t let this define who you are, or who you are trying to become. I have much to be proud of. I am an Emmy-Award winner for my ability to communicate my ideas, vision, and instructions as producer of a TV news broadcast.  I am an Author. I wrote a #1 Amazon Best-Seller and staged a month-long book tour talking to people all the time. I started this blog and I conduct live phone interviews for these stories am now booking speaking engagements to share my story and to help others to lead bigger lives, to find their WHY and to change the world. I am a successful financial services professional – I talk all day long to prospects, clients and co-workers. Ask anyone of them and they would be shocked to know that I stutter. But I do.

And I am not ashamed.

And since your history of silence
Won’t do you any good,
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?

I am telling you the truth. I am telling you because I care. And to the children of SAY, or to any child that stutters – keep your head up, keep learning, keep fighting, keep trying and be proud.  I have been where you are and I love you. Don’t avoid. Confront. Face it head on and overcome. You can. Say what’s in your heart, say what’s on your mind. Every voice matters. Find yours and if you need me, reach out. I’m here. I want to see you be BRAVE.

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Mark Brodinsky

markbrodinsky@gmail.com