Stuttering Help – Speaking to Authority Figures with Ease and Confidence

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Most of us PWS(people who stutter) who grew up with a speech impediment called stuttering have feared sounds, words and situations.

One of those feared situations for a lot of PWS is “speaking to authority figures”. Authority figures are but not limited to police officers, lawyers/judges, security guards, a tough looking stranger, even a family member or a professor at school who INTIMIDATES us.

For some reason, when it comes to COMMUNICATING with people who can be considered as “authority figures” we face speech difficulties.

In this article, I am going to address this specific situation and discuss what you need to do so you can manage your speech better and be able to speak to “authority figures” with EASE and CONFIDENCE.

As I always say, there are 2 main factors involved in this process. The inner and the outer game of stuttering.
Lets take a closer look at those 2 factors for this specific situation.

Inner game;
I bet there is a psychological factor behind this behavior of yours. Approval seeking, feeling less, feeling powerless, feeling judged, urge to be liked, respected and valued… the list can go on and on depending on your unique case. May be authority figures remind you a person from your past who had that tough look and used to JUDGE you cruelly because of your speech. Who knows may be a popular, tough classmate of yours who used to bully you at school still has some psychological effects on you when it comes to speaking to authority figures with a similar tough outlook.

It could be any of those or something totally different. However, if you can go ahead and speak to a 2-yrs old kid with no problem and then stutter severely when it comes to speaking to an authority figure, then I think it is obvious that there are some psychological factors involved in the process.

On the other hand, there are also outer game factors. Suppose you are using some effective physical and mental speaking tools and techniques. What is it that makes you NOT to use those successfully while speaking to an authority figure?

Below are 4 tips and advices which you can use when it comes to being able to use your speaking tools effectively and speak successfully in such situations.

Advice-1) Speak to him/her with a DEEP and STRONG voice tone. Make sure you don’t put yourself “less than” him. Act as if he is working for you. This is only for to get your psychology and mindset to a resourceful state though… so make sure you keep it cool and you don’t give them orders left and right 🙂

Advice-2) Use pauses to TAKE control of the conversation. You know that I am a huge fan of using PAUSES. In this case, using pauses (in fact extended pauses) with dignity will give you a psychological advantage as well. It’ll make you send subconscious signals that you are the one in control in the conversation. Do you think you can be in control if the other person is superior? Exactly! Of course not.

So being in control of the conversation will enable you NOT to position him as SUPERIOR and that will reflect positively to your speech. Pauses have both great PHYSICAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL benefits in those type of situations.

Advice-3) What do people do when they are being judged? They try to impress others and try to convince them to like them, right?

People will construct an idea about you and as a result respond you accordingly in the first 30 seconds of any conversation. If you send messages to him/her both physically and psychologically that he is not superior, that you are not seeking his/her approval, etc. you’d be positioning yourself for success. By the way, it’s not that the authority figures see you as a less and inadequate person. That’s only in your mind, it is a limiting belief. These tips are for you to challenge that limiting belief and BREAK that mindset of yours. So, let’s make sure we don’t start hating authority figures after reading this article 🙂

Advice-4) Smile slightly and don’t let their “poker face” or tough attitude scare you. Don’t match your mood to theirs’. Live in YOUR reality. Keep the conversation in your terms. Don’t try to speak faster if he is a fast speaker, don’t try to answer his questions immediately without taking your time. That would make you rush your speech… and not being able to resist TIME PRESSURE has very bad effects when it comes to your speech fluency.

Now, keep these points in mind and by the support of your outer game(which would be your specific physical and mental speaking tools and techniques) go put yourself in those situations to DISSOLVE your stuttering iceberg.

When it comes to speaking to intimidating authority figures, it’s normal to feel the time pressure and the uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty. The reason is they usually don’t give you much clues about their feelings and what they are thinking while you are speaking to them. To be honest it is not easy to handle those situations. You just don’t know what’s going in their mind and this creates uncertainty. However that being not easy does NOT mean it cannot be achieved. The more you do it the easier it’ll get… and the positive real life outcomes regarding to “speaking to authority figures” will follow!

I am positive that the tips and advices in this article will enable you to face and manage those situations in a lot better way. Speaking to authority figures with ease and confidence is not a dream, it is something you can achieve!

I hope you take what you learn in this article and put them IN ACTION to get positive real life results in your daily situations.

Until next time, take care, face those feared situations, challenge yourself and say hi to those
SWEET authority figures 😉

All the best,

Chazzler

P.S: Speaking to authority figures with ease and confidence is ONLY a piece of your stuttering iceberg. If you’d like to learn how you can dissolve your WHOLE stuttering iceberg and be able to speak with EASE and CONFIDENCE in every situation, you can find EVERYTHING you need in this COMPLETE MULTIMEDIA PACKAGE called Stuttering Dissolution Multimedia Program. It is not a package which will cure your stuttering overnight(there is no such thing, don’t let others mislead you with false promises) but it sure will provide you everything you need to know in order to remove the obstacle of stuttering out of your way to live the life you desire!