All my SAM Talks echo things that I have written in my books and/or said in earlier SAM Talks, but our audience does change, as our listeners do get control of their stuttering and generally leave us shortly thereafter.

I only wish that more of them stayed with us longer—long enough not only to stop stuttering, but long enough to learn to LOVE TO SPEAK IN ALL SITUATIONS.

My talk today is entitled "Four Steps to Stop Stuttering in Record Time," and it will hopefully further that goal.

Step 1: Refuse to FORCE Any Word

How? Stop and insert a sound or any other word and link it to the blocked word.

This is THE most important step in stopping stuttering.

Until the PWS does this, nothing will work for long, and stuttering will continue to death.

Step 2: Speak Softly

Speak SOFTLY, as close to a whisper as you can and still be heard.

Step 3: Speak in Short Increments

Speak in SHORT increments of words—1 to 3–5 words—followed by one or two second STOPS.

Step 4: Force Air Through All Words

Force AIR through ALL words.

This guarantees linking.

Master Step One First

All focus should be on Step One until it is mastered.

Forcing words is like tearing open a tear in one's skin. The wound will NEVER heal until ALL word forcing stops.

Forcing guarantees endless stuttering.

People Who Stutter (PWS) force words in many different ways:

• Grimacing

• Blinking

• Head bobbing

• Body contortions

All forcing methods must stop before other methods are learned.

Again...

STOPPING FORCING WORDS IS THE CONDITION PRECEDENT TO STOPPING STUTTERING.

To avoid forcing any word, STOP talking and INSERT any other word or sound, then link/push air through all words to the next stop.

The Four-Step Formula

The way to beat stuttering fast is:

• NO FORCING WORDS (No means zero.)

• SOFT VOICE (Almost a whisper.)

• SHORT INCREMENTS (1–3 or 5 words.)

• PUSH AIR THROUGH ALL WORDS

Learn it.

Drill each element until mastered, then move to the next element, and your PWS will stop stuttering in record time!

This is a MAJOR step forward for us, for our program, and, most of all, for all PWS.

Let's do this—and crush stuttering!

A Poem That Has Stayed With Me

Let me leave you today with a divine poem that I have loved all my life, since it was first read to me by the late James Cox, who later became an English professor at Dartmouth for many decades.

Jim left us some years ago, but I can still hear his voice and see his freckled face and sparkling blue eyes as he read (or largely quoted) the magnificent poem Gunga Din.

Let me share it with you now.

Gunga Din

By Rudyard Kipling

"Gunga Din" is a ballad by Rudyard Kipling. It celebrates Kipling's long military service in India and is renowned for its narrative of courage, sacrifice, and loyalty, ending with the famous line:

"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"

It is a sentiment that many servants deserve but never hear.

Now savor the divine poem, Gunga Din.

Gunga Din

By Rudyard Kipling

You may talk o' gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

Now in Injia's sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

(Continue with the full poem as originally written.)