We were 7 people at this meeting. We had a new person attending, an SLP interested in stuttering, as well as some members we had not seen in a while.
One of us shared that he is now working in Philadelphia’s Fire Department. He had 6 months of very hard training, paramilitary style. There is a lot of speaking during the training drills and he had to practice a lot in order to prepare for the exam. He forced himself to make phone calls every night to talk to people. He repeated the lessons out loud, as well as all the different scenarios that could come up during the drills. At the end, he had practiced so hard and so much that he had the highest score in his class. We are all very happy for him and wish him success in his new career.
We talked about the upcoming holidays, our plans and how they make us feel. The holidays can be very stressful. There are a lot of gatherings, personal and at work. There is a lot of pressure to talk, catching up with people you haven’t seen in a while, get ready to have visitors, etc.
We continued talking about initiating conversations. It is not always easy. It can be very hard, but it depends on the situation. This turned into talking about public speaking. This was interesting because public speaking is not easy for many of us, but it is for others. For some, when they talk to an audience they are in control of the conversation and feel more at easy. For others, the audience is a source of anxiety and makes things harder.