#30 The Paradox with Reuben Schuff
“The biggest shift on my journey was from chasing fluency to striving to be an effective communicator”
BIO
Reuben Schuff, MS, PE is an aerospace engineer, Person who stutters (PWS), space enthusiast, juggler, Toastmaster, and author. His contributions include being a formal family chapter leader with the National Stuttering Association (NSA), FRIENDS workshop leader, Camp SAY West Coast volunteer, Stuttertalk guest, host and author of Fluency: My Untrustworthy Friend (cross-posted to Indian Stuttering Association) published in the StutterTalk book and many articles for the annual ISAD online conference. Reuben serves on the NSA research council and is the consumer representative on the American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders.
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
0:00 - 8:40 Intro
8:40 - 17:31 The Gift of Stuttering
17:31 - 1:08:37 Paradox of Stuttering
1:08:37 - 1:13:50 Final Thoughts
RESOURCE LIST
Becoming Your Own SLP, ISAD Article by Reuben Schuff
Stuttertalk Episodes with Reuben Schuff
American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders
National Stuttering Association
Stuttering Is Cool, by Daniele Rossi
MORE QUOTES
“Good communicators are the people who are willing to take the risk to go out there and stutter. I think they are game-changers because the way that we make progress is not by staying home until we feel like everything's okay. There's a risk. There's a risk to everything with which we do. And I think it's more about what are we willing to risk what's really important” - Reuben Schuff
“I spent so many years just trying to stop stuttering because I couldn't see any further than that. It makes a lot of sense to want to stop stuttering, but I think we need to make it simple to understand that talking is supposed to be fun. Communication is supposed to be joyful.” - Reuben Schuff
TRANSCRIPTION:
uri: go live and we are alive. This is wow. To be in the presence of this guy takes a lot of scheduling. but it is always a treat and he does not disappoint. It is an honor and a privilege. My name is Ori Schneider speech. And with us today is my good friend Rubin chef to many, the man needs no introduction.
uri: but I kid you, not that my children, when they see me be impressed by somebody. They start to make a joke and they start saying, I know what you're going to say. I have a, he's like the smartest person, like almost as smart as Ruben chef, the regard I have for Ruben, his insights, his perspective are not just as a, as a professional engineer, but as a thinker, I didn't have the privilege to meet Galileo or Leonardo da Vinci or others, but.
uri: I think in our day, I'm not sure if Ruben's at that level, but I hold them in that regard. If I have questions about earth and space and history and time and energy, this is the guy I go to. And often what comes back is not only informing informative mindblowing, but he comes with another question of such simplicity that I hadn't thought of.
uri: That leaves me thinking for a couple of weeks till we. Pick up our emails. And, so the emails sometimes go very slowly, don't they? But, but here we are
reuben: good morning or it's such a treat to get to be here with you. And, that was probably the most embarrassing introduction that I've ever had. And I. I appreciate it. there's some truth in that there's some, there's definitely some exe saturation as well, but it's great to, it's great to get to talk with you again, and we've certainly had some great discussions over the years and I hope, I hope I trust that can.
reuben: 10 years. And I really love, the work that you're doing. I think that the conver sessions that you've kicked off, I don't know if you're calling it a podcast or broadcast. I don't know if it has a name yet, but it really seems to have taken off. And, I applaud you for, Working with the situation we have in the world right now, and grit, really making the best out of it.
uri: Thank you. Appreciate it means a lot. It really does. I'll just go back to the reason I was so complimentary was, first of all, there were zero, zero platitudes. The man is like rocket man, not only because he's a rocket engineer, but also just to give you an anecdote, at the NSA in Chicago, I was hanging out at, Katie Gore's house with her husband and myself and my father and another one of our colleagues were there, Ryan milker.
uri: And, and Katie said, we'll, Rubin's of unexpected at any moment, he's coming to the conference. He came from home and traveled to another continent to squeeze in a little vacation, I think. And then he's going to be flying, in from his vacation into O'Hare and lo and behold, he walked in the door and the man, like the man doesn't need much, he's got like a backpack and he's ready to go and ready to sit down and connect.
uri: It was just. So smooth and so awesome and so fluid. And that's what I mean, the man is a real master of being present and going with the flow and I've learned a lot and always do so it's sincere.
reuben: Thank you.
reuben: that was a particularly good gear. I was able to do everything that. That I'd hoped for and I'm making it to the NSA conferences and the friends, conferences has become one of the, Truly important parts of my year. And I do really make it a point to try to dissipate in those as much as I possibly can.
reuben: Those are healthy.
uri: And one more personal vignette, thanks to you, making those things happen. without revealing too much, we had an amazing opportunity to close to you in our home. And my mother-in-law was there and we were talking about, different initiatives of, of exploration and how satellites and rockets for developing and the costs of those developments.
uri: And my mother-in-law asked the common question, which I hadn't thought of asking, which is like, For all the money spent developing all these different initiatives to take things out of orbit or to reach the moon or to reach Mars. All that money could do so much good. It could help so many people who are starving or who need this and need that medicine, health, and welfare, isn't it a waste of money.
uri: And I'll never forget how you explained, although I'll never do it justice, but it opened my mind to the idea that once we. Get off of our planet instead of living as competing communities, competing nation States, competing continents, we start to look at, okay, there's a planet and we're all in this together.
uri: It just changes your perspective to a much wider lens. I think that's such a timely message. So I just wanted to tell you that message is still with me. And by the time you've finished explaining yourself, my mother-in-law was ready to contribute. Her own funding to all those initiatives, because she realized the importance and the value that in addition to all the science and advancement that comes out of all these initiatives, which are directly beneficial to those of us still here on earth, the idea of of reaching higher altitudes, not looking at things at zero feet, 10,000 feet, 30,000 feet, but really getting out there, you stand up there and all the pictures of anyone who's been into space, the picture of earth.
uri: As a sensitive, delicate, fragile planet suddenly comes into frame. And I think that's something that some of us that are not involved in aerospace could really benefit from drinking that in a little bit. So that's a lesson that, yeah.
reuben: Yeah. And I think that's really the Mo motivation be behind the exploration.
reuben: World is that change of perspective and the growing of our community as, humans and when w when we're on Mars. And I say, when I don't say if, when we're on Mars and we look back, we're going to call earth home. And that's going to be a game changer, and I think it's going to be a healthy game changer.
reuben: and we do have a lot of needs on our own earth that we should also, that we can also, work on day and night. Never seems like there's enough to get everything done. Yeah. I think we should always continue to try and reach him reaching as many people as we can.
uri: We've got a lot of people watching and listening.
uri: So I want to jump right in, but because you mentioned that reaching higher, I want to quote a little message from a shared friend, Mo moronic prison who stutters. Wrote an awesome book called the gift of stuttering and Moe is an incredible motivational speaker and he opens up with this line. He says, everybody in the audience, and I'm asking everybody watching, raise your hand.
uri: So you raise your hand and he says, raise it a little higher and everybody can raise a little higher. And that's the idea. We all think we're raising, but we can all raise a little higher. So whether it's giving a little bit more, whether it's calling or checking in on our neighbors or. Family or friends who might be more isolated in these times.
uri: So it needs to do reach a little higher and get off of our home, right? Whether it's planet earth or if it's just the walls of our apartment, get out a little bit, reach out a little bit physically, or reach out with telephone, email, snail, mail, whatever. But with that, let's jump into your story. w where did you grow up and what was it like growing up for you?
uri: What do you think were some important. Formative experiences in your childhood and kind of bring you to the Rubin today, take it where you will.
reuben: There. There's actually a, there's actually a lot that was important. And I feel like my journey with. Just stuttering is something of a slow winding, sometimes upside down, sometimes moving forward type of a journey.
reuben: and as I've as I sit now, the types of things that I'm super interested in are like the lifespan. Journeys of, or five years, 10 years, 20 years. there's so many experiences that make up the journey. I can re remember, certain times in school that were, very difficult and devastating and in, Certain ways with stuttering.
reuben: my sixth grade teacher thought, that I didn't know how to read, which makes sense because when I was called on to read, I did not read. So you would assume child does not know how to read. and. Moving through that. And fi finally, really get getting some help for speech therapy. It, when I was in college at Purdue, I'm originally from Indianapolis in Deanna.
reuben: did my undergrad and graduate work in aeronautical engineering at Purdue universe at a, I credit the speech pathology program there. and specifically bill Murphy for re really helping me to see stuttering in a new way for the first time. Although I was not ready to, I was still.
reuben: Very much fighting against stuttering with all my heart and all my effort and seeing myself as a person whose daughters and starting to think of communication instead of women see. VAT was, that was a brand new concept that was brand new, and that was super hard. And that took me a long time, to digest and to understand that we're talking about, can.
reuben: New indication most of the time. Now, when I'm talking about stuttering, I actually try and try not to use the word stutter. I try not to use the word Lynsey because there's, they're almost like third rail supercharged terms that unless we talk about them a lot. I think the biggest thing and my journey that's been a shift is chasing is shifting, chasing full fluency to striving, to be an effective communicator.
reuben: while being a person who stutters, I think joining the conversation that you had in the last hour with her. There three young men I think was really great. and the work that's better talk to us, I think is really great because it's showing people who are stuttering can communicating Ian in a real way.
reuben: And. It's that middle part of the journey where it may be hard to show up. It may be hard to put
reuben: yourself out there. And it's the putting yourself out there that you need to do too. To get to the next step of being the communicator that you want to be, that you can be. I think that's been the most important part of my journey and that's a never ending journey. I used to have this kind of magical idea that there would be a point where you get to, what is it, wonder land the end of the rainbow, that place, where everything is great. Ah, thank you. Bright. I'm still working on that and I think it's, I think it's a different mindset of how.
reuben: How can I be a good communicator versus how can I not stutter? that's the biggest change that I can say. I've had,
uri: boom, there we go. Oz. I never thought of us this way and we could go deep, but we don't have time for this proven. We'll have to revisit this, but I think Oz represents the different characters in Daniel Rossi's book.
uri: just to call out again, stuttering is cool, this amazing illustrated book, the idea that some look like the lion, the Braveheart, but really they're scaredy cats with other things. Meaning some people project, a courage that they could do anything they're fearless, but inside of him is also a tender place that they do have some.
uri: Feeling of not so secure, not so confident that the tin can, man, I'm thinking of the tin can man is the person who's so rigid with their strategies, so they don't stutter, but they turn into this very, dystonic kind of movement thing. I don't know. It just struck me that everyone's on this road, this yellow brick road.
uri: And as we know, happiness is not the road to happiness, but happiness is on the road. So on the way so much we can learn from each other, all of us have our strengths or weaknesses and some tenders, subtle mixing of getting uncomfortable, accepting growing. I think that's an interesting thing to really highlight what you were saying.
uri: Everybody's on a road and, at different times, looking at different things.
reuben: Also really understanding the paradox of stuttering, I think has been really important, after I was working for a period of time, I started getting involved in toast masters, which is, public speaking and communications non-profit.
reuben: That's gone intern national, very, successful, positive nonprofit. and I had a couple year. Season where I was. I was training. I was like in communication, go mode. And the more I would, the more I would speak publicly. And the more that I was acknowledging that I'm a person who. Gutters. And the more I talked about stuttering, the less I would be when I would talk and the more, but then I got to this point where I'm like, okay, so let's try not to stutter because if we're honest, stuttering's not really that fun.
reuben: I would rather. I would rather not stutter than stutter if I just had those two options, but I don't actually have those two options. That's not a real thing. so when I would try to not stutter, I would stutter more. Of course. And this is just such a classic thing. and the. The positive core Alation is true and the reverse core Alation is also true.
reuben: I remember I was talking on a, an adult panel of people who stutter for four. friends workshop and, I'm there because I started we're getting together because I stutter everyone on the panel is a person who stutters, this is all about a stuttery day. And, going up to talk on the panel and Lee kinda nudges me leave from friends.
reuben: And she says, remember to stutter. I'm like, Like when we're so comfortable being a person who stutters we Ted, or I tend to not stutter at all. And it's this reverse paradox of things. And I think understanding that, And incorporating that into the way that we're willing to communicate, is a game changing thing.
uri: Can you formulate that? I think for those of us with slower brains, the old reverse paradox, you were portraying it in one direction, then it also reverbs back. Can you just unpack that for the lesser, inclined.
reuben: I think I just rambled. That was a nice way to tell me I rambled. Thank you.
reuben: So when I'm trying not to stutter, I struggle more when I'm very comfortable being a person who jotters, I struggle so much less almost to the point that stuttering. Disappears from really from my consciousness. So it's not a trick though. Like you can't not think about the elephant it's it's this idea that I can't quite hold, but I'm still.
reuben: Working towards it.
uri: Am I formulated? And it would be helpful to be informed by the good work of hope Gurlack and now we Rogers and the stages of change. But, at the beginning, I think often people are so invested and so vigilant to control the stutter. The more vigilant they are, the more vigilance, the stronger, the stutter.
uri: Shows up and you don't want to get less vigilant because they're trained that if they're any less, they could get caught and they don't want to get caught. They don't want to get stuck. It's not a pleasant experience for them. And so loosening up the reigns, loosening up the vigilance is this paradox because you don't want to do it because you don't want to get that surprise.
uri: but on the other hand, or you discover that if you can. Relaxed to some degree, often the degree to the vigilance goes down. Sometimes the stuttering Toms down a bit as well, but it's not, it's easier said than done. Is that a fair way of putting it?
reuben: Yeah. Also it's different for each person.
reuben: I thought it was, I thought it was a truly an . Hi for that one, one of the young men that you had on last hour, when you were talking about their interactions with Joe Biden, one, one of the young men mentioned, I think that you can hear Biden changing his word as he talks. People who stutter we can hear by the changing his words as he talks, maybe other people can't.
reuben: But, I think it's interesting to hear people who stutter say that they hear that. And I think. Different people manage, navigate handle, choose the word that resonates with you personally, live with their stuttering differently. And I don't think I can say what's right. And what's wrong.
reuben: I can. I can try to make the conscious choices for my life. and the way that I can communicate, you're gonna know that I'm a person who stutters. I'm not, I didn't use to stutter. I started to dance and that's the way that I find it most effective to come. Can Munich skate.
reuben: I think it's an, I think it's a truly. mazing day that we have today and, being able to hold up or point to Joe Biden as a person who stutters, who at least in some ways publicly knowledges that and. Publicly is resonating with the younger generation and publicly trying to be helpful to people who, whose stutter and projected message of confidence and opportune nitty.
reuben: That's a really great thing for, me to be able to talk about. And I think for the stuttering community and people who stutter, whether you're an adult or a child, to be able to say that stuttering does not define you. I
uri: think quoted procurement tells speech. If any of us recognize the brilliance of Beethoven, but decided that we needed to invest in years of oral rehab.
uri: So he could hear better before he could go on to create the music he could create, or that Ray Charles needed to somehow be rehabilitated to be able to see, rather than letting him do it his way. Recognizing, I think it goes back to your paradox. I think for a lot of people, Ruben, for a lot of people that is paradoxical, and maybe you could just maybe just refund that for a moment.
uri: A lot of people would think that it's more effortful. It's more challenging to communicate this way, which you said is the way you choose to show up, which is more at ease for you. Rather than employing a bunch of strategies that maybe, someone would mechanically show, you could smooth things out and make it sound more similar to others.
uri: That's a big paradox for parents and for speech therapists. Could you share on that, is that something that you deliberately choose not to do and there's reason for that, or no strategy helps, I think shedding light on that can be interesting,
reuben: right? I think it's important to understand what we call content negativity.
reuben: there's a couple of our friends in the field doing research where they're correlating. with the spontaneity of speech rather than the traditional, personal yeah.
reuben: Shuttered and part of, part of communication is the spontaneity con communication is
reuben: it's a dance. And there's a spontaneous part of that dance. So overall, what I'm hopeful for is, and effortless, spontaneous flow of communication and transfer, of ideas like that. The simplest way I can. Say it is talking. It's supposed to be fun. It took me 25 years to ever realize that's why people do it so much.
reuben: They like it. So what I'm hopefully doing is. In the service of making, talking fun. There's times when having some understanding of how my body and my emotions and my stress level and my muscles and where tension is and how this complex apparatus works. Some knowledge of that's helpful. Being able to make a conscious choice when I'm really struggling about what to do with my body.
reuben: It's if you're swimming in the ocean and you get pulled down, With a current, you might not want to just,
reuben: well around uncontrollably, you might just have to relax and go with where that current is taking you at that period of time. So it's not. It's not always about what to do sometimes it's about not doing anything, but knowing how to make some choices and choose, choose some different ways to talk.
reuben: I. I find that helpful, but it's also not the primary goal. The primary goal is spontaneous unification.
uri: Even pull that back. Another frame, perhaps, the purpose of that spontaneous communication and spontaneous, authentic connection with others often. Do you agree?
reuben: Yeah. And as I travel and I meet people who stutter, I think we all want the same thing.
reuben: We all want to be able to connect with the world and to
reuben: Be ourselves. that's it turns out it's not so hard.
uri: It's simple conceptually. And I think we over, we make it overly sophisticated. So the goal, as you said, it needs to shift from counting beans and counting fluent moments in disfluent moments. To counting the things that are really the simple things that every person wants to have that spontaneity.
reuben: Yeah. And, the samples we have of, people like braid Braden, Harrington, who are willing to stand up and stutter and speak and Parker mans, how I was. I was at the end essay conference the year that he gave his keynote there. So good communicator, the people who are. Willing to take the risk to go out there.
reuben: And stutter, I think are really, game-changers because the way that we, the way that we make progress, it's not by staying home until we feel like everything's okay. There's a risk. There's a risk to everything with which we do. And I think it's more about what are we willing to risk what's really important.
reuben: and then what are we going to do about it? So on the long term, We've been able to contribute what we were meant to contribute. my story is, career-wise, I've known since I was five years old, what I wanted to do. I'm one of those people who are, Lee Reeves, I. Resonate with, we read stories since he was five,
uri: he is with us as are many of our friends around the world.
uri: So if you're here drop a little comment on like share, we'll be happy to look at those later. Rubin is definitely not looking at them at the moment, but I just want to let him know that Lee you're here. And so many others are here. And just so you know, we're not speaking in an echo chamber.
reuben: Yeah.
reuben: Awesome. Awesome. I'm so happy to know that Lee. These out there. I have not mastered the skill of being able to live chat, comment and talk.
uri: I'm just going to tell you something Lee said so that you don't have to master that skill loaded to me. He said, there's a terrific statement. Rubin talking is supposed to be fun.
uri: That's why we do it so much.
reuben: Yeah.
uri: now just for those of you that were unsure, didn't know who Rubin is, and we're a little bit taken aback by my Bastic promises. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. it's those one liners that you can chew on for a couple of months for entire career.
uri: If you're a person who stutters you could create a little mantra from the wisdom shared by Ruben and by others. And when you get it down to the simple stuff, it becomes a calculus for decision-making. I'm just gonna riff for one second. Ruben said, the question is, what are you ready to risk?
uri: Or I might even say, what are you ready to compromise? Because if you go all in on this, you may sell out on this, or you may compromise this entirely. So you go for control and physical fluency. So yeah, you score points on that metric of someone else's yard stick. But if you sell out compromise, give up spontaneity, what have you gotten?
uri: What's your game. But if all along the way, you have very clear idea of what you wanted. You want, if it serves that then great. And if it doesn't there's no any, or it was nice trying that it's an experiment. And I encourage people to experiment for a week or two and see if it serves you well. And there are things we do with discover ourselves, serve as well.
uri: There are things we do ourselves that are maladaptive, but don't serve us well. but that line room is a very powerful line. Talking is supposed to be fun. If every person remember that if every speech, therapist and parent remember that a lot of decisions would be easier to give therapy, not give therapy, this therapy, that therapy, the question is will this therapy and keep talking fun?
uri: this therapy may talking more fun with this experience or this way of dealing with whatever's going on. Make it more enjoyable for this person to communicate? If so, it's worth exploring if there's a risk, you need to calculate that risk minus two sentence.
reuben: Yeah. And I think
uri: it's really
reuben: important that when we're trying to help, that we're able to.
reuben: Ask those type of questions of, so
reuben: where are we trying to get to go here? what you feel like you're not able to do in life right now that you want to be able to do? I think it's more of that mind and it's. it's so much more of the counseling mindset they on than a speech control mindset has been my, experience of change.
reuben: And I think we, the universal community of people who said, or this is the big picture we. We need to do a better job of communicating the goals and helping people who stutter, helping parents, helping speech pathologists, who are helpers, broaden their understanding of what.
reuben: What can communicate. Action is so much of the time. And I spent so many years just trying to stop stuttering because I couldn't see, I couldn't see any more or I couldn't see any further than that. It's not a crazy idea. Okay. Like it makes a lot of sense to want to stop. Shattering, but I think we need to make it simple to understand.
reuben: Talking is supposed to be fun. Communication is supposed to be joyful. Maybe that's a little too rosy of a picture because there's also arguments to have. And. Debates to have, and there's situations where I'm under pressure and I need to communicate important things. And it's not always fun.
uri: Yeah. So fun. You want to change fun, but Ruben, even in those situations, do you switch to a different standard? what's your standard that would apply equally across the board, even in those. Frustrating situations.
reuben: I think what I would say there is, confidence, integrity, the purpose. yeah.
reuben: It's not always fun to have integrity. A lot of times that gets you into.
reuben: A lot of trouble actually, but it's worth it. So I think joy for confident
reuben: communication with integrity, without fear. if we can do that, I think we're okay. We're contributing all that we can contribute to the world, which we live in
uri: another good takeaway right there. I would just add, and I know that you want to also have not in a rush. We have time and we can say that all over.
uri: I don't want to make the mistake of having another marathon. I kept on with a couple of fantastic people, including the Reeves, but I'm game. I could sit here all day, listening to you the most delightful thing. There was a girl, we have these kind of this group therapy thing. So one of the therapists shared that one of the girls said she started thinking, and this goes back to what you were saying.
uri: And I think for therapists, I'll roll it all the way back. There's a paradox, even in what you said, Ruben, because if we want to change the way, the profession shows up to be supportive and helpful to those who want it. If we want to shift the way people who stutter, look for what they're looking for, they're not looking to stop stuttering.
uri: They're looking to have what you said, the ability to speak with integrity and with, what was the other way you couched
reuben: it?
uri: confidence, integrity.
reuben: Enjoy.
uri: Enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say if we could frame it as simple as you like to make things simple, just it can't be something that only works in the laboratory.
uri: It can't be something that stays in a clinic. It has to be functional. It has to be your life. So if the person. Is not fighting back or arguing with the teacher or with a loved one or at the workplace, because they're fearful of opening their mouth. They need help. Or they deserve some way to get that out.
uri: That there shouldn't be that hesitation or that weight of feeling, they can't say what they want to say and certainly on the fun stuff, but the intimate stuff. So this girl in the group, she's fun. Tania's at the asked. we talk about a framework of a high press situation and a low press situation because often people don't understand why do I stutter more here instead of less there?
uri: And it's so enigma, attic. So we try to help people figure out well, it's different situations with different people. Some people on the phone after we got off the Facebook live, one of the people on that call said, I said, what was the best part? What was the highlight? The highlight was, I didn't need to see anybody if I had to see everybody would have been much more.
uri: burdensome for me, I think so for him that was helpful for others. It could have been the opposite for some of the phone is easier on the phone is harder figuring out for each person what's a high press plus low press. And what are the presses? So this girl said, do you think for Joe Biden, like at this point, like public prepared speeches are high press or low press as compared to a live spontaneous debate.
uri: I think thinking that way to me is a step in the right direction because it's stepping into the light of the person where they're communicating and where things are going, just the way they, They feel that delight, that fun and ease between the thought and the word and in the places where they feel, a lot of resistance, whether it's physical resistance or their own hesitation.
uri: you could reflect more on that, but that might be a good segue Rubin into the. Current state of the profession and you're super involved and invested in helping the profession really serve the needs of the contemporary community that exists. If you want to reflect on that and then maybe take us into the future also what's needed or do we need to go in the next, five, 10 years.
reuben: Wow. Okay. I'll start with. Saying that I wish I was able to contribute more to the community than I am. I never feel like I'm, able to be as involved as I would like to be. that said to two of the things that I do, I'm the consumer swimmer. Representative for the American board of, fluency disorders, which is a mouthful.
reuben: That's the board that reviews and gives SLPs there. They're board certified pastoral tea in full fluency. Disorders, which is intended to show, great expertise in stuttering and allow can consumers a way to really differentiate who in the professional field truly understands stuttering. I'm an advocate in that way.
reuben: And I'm also part of the national stuttering ssociation research council. And we reviewed the research studies that come into the board. I also try to do as much as I can, at conferences. I think the thing I'm most passionate about. Right now are the local, events that we're able to do that we used to be able to do.
reuben: I think we're still figuring out in truth how to navigate the reality of the world yet bringing a small community together and doing a one day, Family day or one day training for speech, language pathologists to work in the schools, I think is a really effective way of using resources and helping people in the communities, which we're in sometimes having big national things.
reuben: Is great. And it's very helpful. And having a national strategy, I also think is really important. And at the same time, different people in their communities doing support and training, I think is a very important part of how we can change. We can change the perception of stuttering, both for people who stutter and for SLPs.
reuben: So my hope is that if you're a person whose daughters you're going to meet other people who stutter when you're Brayden's age, Not when you're my age, if you haven't met anybody and you're my age, I'd love for you to meet some people. My point though, is I think we can push being helpful earlier in the process by building a community where.
reuben: Stuttering is not something that's to be avoided that's to be shied away from, but something that is just out there. and I think we need to do the generational work of. Training the SLPs to really be helpful with a long term way of change in the way they try to help the SLPs. out of their training programs and graduate school, just not equipped to really be helpful with most people whose gender.
reuben: And I think it's incumbent upon. The community of people who stuttered to help impact that in a positive way, and to try to help chain, to try to help, bring a community where SLPs, who have the passion to really understand soldering, to give them the opportunity to really understand. Gatorade.
uri: I vividly remember our last walk.
uri: if you do, it was supposed to be like 20 minutes til my wife wouldn't be circling back. And I think we went like on a 15 kilometer hike. I'd like to think I contributed to your ascent on a moon, half dome over there, but,
uri: but probably not, but you took me for a good walk and me. Stir it up. And we talked about this.
uri: So I don't know if I said before, but the paradox that's interesting exists for people who stutter on the journey exists for professionals on the journey, which is often this realization, which we think of as, I don't know, like a more wholesome truth is when we get to later on in the journey. So like you meet people that come on day one at age 20, looking for some way to deal with this.
uri: This fluency thing, what does it in the self-help community or whether they're coming to professional, they often don't have this whole, some perspective that you have of this paradox and of learning, not to flail as much in the water. They've got a very binary kind of thinking in that early stage.
uri: And similarly, the therapists are much more the need to much more concrete ways to measure things much more formulated ways to do the work. It's fascinating. I know there are people listening who know what I'm talking about. Certain people are selling programs and worksheets and workbooks like hotcakes, but it's that's what the market is eating up because people are very kind of one dimensional and very, behaviorally oriented.
uri: I think, you know what? We talked about, the idea that I pitched and floated, and we also talked about in one of the round tables with the specialty group. I think creating a fellowship where you would identify clinicians in mastering, in graduate school and early on, who would apply and also be selected and nominated by their program as having the interest and the aptitude and cultivating them from that early stage to become more skilled, more knowledgeable with a more, as you said, a more, counseling informed approach, a more dynamic type of approach rather than something that's so formulated, it can.
uri: And behavioral and over time, I think the hope would be we could accelerate their professional capacity, abilities, competence. And I think we could also scale how many people could get there because currently there's only a handful of people around the country. Really? What are your thoughts? I know that this is something that Reeves has been whacking away at for a long time and you're deeply invested.
uri: What do you see as the, another two steps forward that we could take in this step? The way you see it?
reuben: Yeah. I'm really starting to take the mindset of this being a generational work. I think it's hard. It's hard for me to form a generational strategy. I'm good at a 10 week project. I can do 10 week projects, but I haven't gotten to like the level of capability of the generational change yet.
reuben: I think it's important to start taking that mindset and I'll give credit to two people that have been fired me in that respect recently. Nina Reeves gave, a talk at the last. Roundtable that, that this specialty boards at about, improvements in the services that gas Hopi is give in the schools and really is talking them out that in a generational mindset and.
reuben: One of the other, encouraging voices I have in my life is, very yeoman. he has, he's a freelance journalist. Who's recently written some interesting things. You may agree. Westbury
uri: Barry is a great mind and I look forward to our conversation. We'll be talking in just a few weeks.
reuben: Oh great. One thing I remember that he told me is I wake up every morning and I just assume that it's generational work.
reuben: And I was like, wow. Okay. I should. I should start to do that too. So I think there's definitely steps that we can take. And I think graduate training programs, identifying people that have a special interest cultivating that interest cult cultivating that passion early on.
reuben: That's a great idea. We should definitely do that. And, a lot of other things as well. I think it's important
reuben: that we don't get, we don't get discouraged and we don't try to. Expect that we can do everything ourselves in our own world. I think it, each of us has a role to play in effective ad that you see whether it's within Ashoka. whether it's within an essay or friends or the other stuttering support groups, which are out there, whether it's on other boards to be consistently marching towards the drum, beat of training knowledge, effective help for.
reuben: People on the lifespan, not seven steps to quickly fix daughtering anytime I hear that, I feel like we need to be able to call out the difference between what we know is probably a helpful thing. And what we know is probably not a helpful thing. And I think. We need to in a kind way, start identifying and differentiating, Hey, a type of proven approach that leads to what did we come up with today?
reuben: Confident, joy for communication. Within tech gritty. that's probably a good thing and we should probably teach that and I'll go out on my limb and preach that and take the criticism that comes while at the same time, not being, just struct too. Parts of the community that think about stuttering in a different way,
uri: that was profound.
uri: And I think that very yeoman and you Rubin, certainly I learned a lot of patients. So when you were saying that Barry, inspired you or shook you up to think, wake up every day and just think the change I'm working through, it's generational. That's that gives me pause. And I think that people who start, or one of the things I admire is it helps me exercise my patient's muscle.
uri: So I think on that level, there's something there. But I would just say, I think when I would love almost more than anything, I think even if you look at generational shifts, like the civil rights movement, you identified certain points of tension. that were palpable and that the times were ready to move the yard stick and it was important to choose the right things and to make it small wins along the way.
uri: So I think there's, as you said, you could do it at 12 big projects, but you can't do. And then you jumped to the generational. I think there's something in the middle, perhaps. I think I would love to see, we do this in private work, create a bill of rights, create a mission statement. Each person will give you a little different, but what if we could create something that was, as you said, something we could March together with, and it could be like a co-created bill of rights, mission statement that, this community of, people who stutter and those who seek to support them as allies and seek to support them.
uri: We could all rally around that and then there'd be certain parts of that would differ person to person. But your statement, for example, confidence, authentic, fun communication. Nobody could argue with that. And if we had that as a bumper sticker and a few others, I think that could be a jumpstart.
uri: I think I feel there's a lot of flailing and I think the paradigm shift that I feel is important. I was discussing with Lee and I discussed with Scott yet. Or it's them saying here? I don't think every. College master's students. I read graduate school student is cut out to be a great clinician or have that lifespan perspective to make that shift.
uri: And I think that's okay. I think we need to, the paradigm shift that I'm suggesting is this the same way? No, two people who stutter created the same, we're all created equal value, but no two people are the same. Exactly the same identical to one another. The same thing is true for professionals and some just don't.
uri: Have that ability to go there. Some automatically naturally do have that tendency. Some can be given opportunities to cultivate that and others better that they not go there. And I think recognizing that and really investing in those that have the aptitude right off the bat and those that showed the interest, I think we could, move that yardstick forward, whether it's generational or whether it's, I don't know what generational means is that 30, 40, 50 years or.
uri: 15 years. I think it's going to take time, but I think that shift is important. What do you say?
reuben: Yeah. When w when I say generational, I think of it in the context of the work that we're doing now is standing on the shoulders of the people that came before us, whether, Whether that was last year or whether that was 10 or 20 years ago.
reuben: And also just as important, the new leaders that we're raising up and the. The people who we don't even yet know who we're going to be, the contributors to change and the time to come. So generational more in can. Connecting the work that comes before to the work that we're able to do to the work that continues on after we're not around because we moved on to other things or because we're not around,
uri: we hope that the Brayden's and the Jonathan Castellos have their experiences earlier on, not when we're as old as us, but let's not, we're not over the Hill yet, buddy.
reuben: That's a good point. So I think like that the hope and the excitement I have and the encouragement I have is, for all of, for all the contributors, Lee Reeves has done and continues to do so much as well as others. And that generation is an inspiration to mine. And the generation of the Brayden Harrington's I think is so much farther ahead.
reuben: Because of everything that's been done yet, we're not even close to being where we need to go yet. So I think I feel hopeful and I feel encouraged and I want people who see each other to feel, empowered, to feel. Valued to feel calm, confident that they can do what they're meant to do with their life.
reuben: Whether that's being a veterinarian, being an aeronautical engineer. Being a welder, a teacher, a speech language pathologist, or president of the United States of America.
uri: Amen. I think that's a beautiful point of juncture. We could go on. I just want to read a comment from Lee and then I'll kick it to you for final thoughts.
uri: I just want to thank everybody who is here, who is watching it afterwards, your comments, or likes your shares mean a lot. And they get this important conversation to more people. I think that as I wrote in the intro, I really deeply value. I value Rubin's perspective. I treasure the opportunity to pick his brain and listen to him each time.
uri: he writes his notes and I review mine. I do. And, And just the openness and the depth of the conversation and the hope that's there. And we come from very different places. East coast, West coast, I'm a speech pathologist, speech language, but I don't stutter. And Ruben is not a speech language pathologist.
uri: And he does quite well. And he travels in the same circles and he spends his time trying to make the world a better place by creating bridges. And I think that our relationship is a bridge and I think the more bridges we create, the more ground we're going to cover. so Lee wrote you and orientate, you and Ruben taken walks.
uri: I hope that becomes a tradition for you. Both reminds me of another similar and projected friendship. Now, if that's not generational work, I don't know what it is. So my father and Lee are known and are known as take long walks and talks. And any kind of connection, there is one that I very proud for really to suggest.
uri: It's been an honor. we do go on and Ken go on, we do want to respect other people's time. do you have any final thoughts, maybe? the most shining thing that you've seen in the past, I don't know, 12 months, 18 months for yourself and for the whole project that we're on, which is to bring more opportunity for people who stutter to find their way and speak with courage and freedom and joy.
uri: was a shining light. we talked a lot about the work that needs to be done, but what's something we could really express gratitude and say, wow, that was something, I didn't know what happened, five years ago.
reuben: Yeah. I think the way that I've seen the stuttering can community adapt to the current. Reality that we're going through with COVID now, is a point of courage moment. we've used our tech analogy tools to really try to broaden the unity the, and while we're not able to have, excuse me, have the.
reuben: The large gatherings, which we love we're continuing to adapt and rise to the challenge. six months or a year ago, doing video calls all the time, I w I would have said is out outside of the. Yeah. Outside of the comfort zone of a lot of people, especially people who charter and we're figuring out how to adapt and address those challenges.
reuben: And I think my most encouraging thing is to see, the re zillions of the company. Community and also to see so many, fresh faces of sorts people that I haven't had the chance to meet yet coming, into the public eye with stuttering and making a positive impact.
uri: Yeah, it's been, the challenge.
uri: There's the opportunity. I think following Rubin's lead, recognizing that we all have the capacity to adapt as individuals and as a community and what once seemed outside of our comfort zone, what a great analogy. doesn't have to stay that way. Our comfort zone is made of a permeable. A permeable barrier or one that is flexible and can be stretched further.
uri: And if you stretch it enough, it becomes to have its own new radius and encompasses new things. We could talk about orbit another time, but the concept of expanding your comfort zone individually as a community. And transgenerationally, and just thinking, going back to the president elect Joe Biden has.
uri: Has made stuttering a touchable topic, a topic that can be discussed, a topic that is more known and more familiar and maybe more normalized. And for that's a shining moment and there's still more work to be done, but that's a big step, one small, one small step forward, one small word forward for one man.
uri: But, for the whole world, that's been a big step forward for understanding what stuttering is and what it's not. And as Ruben said, The hope and dream that we all share in the workforce, that every person should have the ability to pursue that, which is their calling in the world. And that, which is their contribution to the world.
uri: And certainly other topics as well. But in this space, we're talking about stuttering should not be a feature or a characteristic that should hinder someone from
reuben: pursuing that. And,
uri: That's our hope and that's what we work for and appreciate you hanging in Ruben. Thank you so much for carving out the time.
uri: I literally am getting chills from the pleasure that I have sitting here with you and I thirst for more, but I want to, exercise some, reason reasonable, common sense to cut it short here, but thank you so much. Thank you everybody.
reuben: Thank you so much for that. That. Opportunity to have the converse.
reuben: Hey soon. And I look forward to many more.
uri: Absolutely. And you asked about the name, just call the conversation. I couldn't think of anything better because anything better would be like less fun. Tineas and that's what I wanted. I wanted courageous, confident, comfortable, free flowing and funding. It has been.
uri: So
reuben: thank you so much.