#03 - Wacey Holt

#03 - Wacey Holt

Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.

I was born and raised here in the Salt Lake Valley, in West Jordan. I’m married, with two girls, who are six and two. I run my own business doing custom ironwork and welding.

How long have you been running your business?

Next month it'll be 3 years.

What led you start your own business?

I worked with my brother since I got out of high school, doing similar stuff, wood work, concrete work, and metal work. I worked for him for 10 plus years, but I didn't see a huge future, or much growth because I knew he didn't want to take on a partner, so I finally decided to pull the trigger on my own business, and I’ve loved it.

What have been some hurdles with starting your own business?

I think just the balancing of time mostly, especially with a family and a home to take care of, but things are going well. I’m extremely busy, I really hit the ground running, I've always had work, I haven’t really needed to look for work, and I’ve never advertised. I don't know if I want to grow or just stay small with just me. I love putting headphones in and just working, so it's tough for me to look at growing and getting a bunch of guys because then I lose quality control, so right now it's a toss up. My wife helps me with all the books, so I’m just driving her nuts because one day I’ll be like let's grow and the next I won’t want to. You hear about husbands and wives not working well together but it's been great for us, it’s a good balance.

I want to talk about your stutter. We met a few years ago at a NSA meeting. That was the first place I met anyone out here in Utah who has a stutter and since then I haven't really come across people randomly who do. So even if we feel good about our speech, just the rarity of it can feel a little weird, just walking around feeling as though no one else gets it. Have you felt like that?

Yeah they really don't. It's weird to me when I listen to someone talk and I can't imagine just being able to speak freely.

Are there any situations where you feel particularly confident with your speech?

You know, I never would have thought I would be running my own business. I used to think I would just have to work under my brother’s wing, but when I’m talking about metalwork and what I do now, I am confident and proud, and when I make bids and meet with builders and contractors, surprisingly enough I don’t struggle that much. And I don't have a lot of blocks. I think most people might meet me and wonder how I can communicate well enough to run a business and make bids, and it's surprising to me too.

On a day to day basis, how aware are you of your stutter?

Over the past couple years I haven't been that aware of it and I think lot that is from working mostly by myself. It's only really the few phone calls that I get or going to meetings, but now that I've hired a guy to help me out, my wife’s half brother, now that he's there all day, and I’m having to talk with him all day, I notice it a lot more.

Yeah it's tricky, and I think that awareness can depend on the person you’re with too. I've talked with many friends about my stutter, and this project has opened up that conversation. I think having something you're doing that is connected to your stutter is a nice way to open up the topic. Some people seem interested and it's easy to talk to them about my stutter, and others seem not as interested. I don't need them to be interested, and no one is obligated to be curious about it. With how many people, or how often, do you talk about stuttering with?

It's pretty rare, I did a clinic at the University of Utah, just before my daughter was born, so around seven years ago, and that really opened up conversations with friends and family. But before that I never really talked about it with anyone beside my wife and my parents.

Do you feel like there were improvements in your speech after the clinic?

For sure, it was really confidence boosting. It was organized in two parts: one was working on motor skills - slowing down and other techniques - and the other was working on acceptance of my stutter, which was huge for me. When I think about it, there was a before-clinic-Wacey and an after-clinic-Wacey. I think running my own business would never would have happened if I hadn't gone to the clinic and met other people who stuttered.

That’s awesome, yeah I think that self confidence is huge. Did you go through speech therapy as a kid?

I went a little in elementary school, grades 1-4 or 5, and it was only once a week for an hour in school, and then in fourth or fifth grade I remember feeling like it wasn’t really helping, and I remember telling my mom and dad that I wanted to stop, which they were okay with.

Do you remember the first time you stuttered?

I remember I was around five or so, as I was walking up our front porch calling out to my dad, and i kept repeating da da da dad until I got it. Around that time I had a little tape recorder that I would carry around, it was a little kids toy, and I would sing and talk into it all the time. I have this vivid memory of me talking into it about how I was going to get a real Walkman the next day, I guess was really excited, and I couldn't get Walkman out, it was like wa wa wa wa walkman. I remember my mom wanted me to save a tape that I had stuttered on, and I wonder if she thought that my stutter was something that would pass and wanted a recording of it as a memory.

I think my first memory of my stutter was someone's reaction to it. I think it was fifth grade, which was when I started going to speech therapy. I remember getting a funny look from this girl in my class after I said something, and I don't think at the time I had made the connection. What do you think the hardest time period has been in regards to your stutter?

Right around when I got married I think, when I took that step to take the clinic because I felt like as an adult I was still struggling to talk to neighbors about little things. Being quiet is fine when you’re younger, but when you become an adult, that has to change.

Yeah I can relate to being quiet. I was OK just being a quiet kid, and I think I welcomed that identity, like once people got to know me I would speak up, but if people just thought of me as a quiet kid, I was totally fine with that.

I felt the same. But when I got older, I would create a monster out of these little interactions like talking to neighbors that were so difficult for me. I would talk to them and struggle the whole way through, and then I’d experience the whole aftermath of questions like what do they think of me or what do they think is wrong with me.

Yeah I can relate to that feeling of dread that you put on yourself. I'm very aware of the words I have trouble with, if it starts with an s and a consonant follows, so stutter is actually a great example. So naturally when those come up I get immediately anxious.

Have they gotten easier over time?

Yes, actually. I don't know how conscious of a decision this was, but I started an experiment of sorts. Not long after I realized which words are difficult for me,l I decided to try to say a word that I have trouble with, as opposed to not saying it. I’m making those decisions all the time, whether or not to tackle a word that I know historically I have trouble with. So I decided to tackle the word ‘specific’, which has always been difficult for me. And after several years of being hyper aware of saying that word and not avoiding it, it is definitely easier to say and I have less anxiety around saying it. I definitely still prolong the s on that word but not as much as I used to.

That’s cool. Yeah I've noticed changes in my speech too. Recently, I've started having problems with saying “six,” and I've never had problems with numbers before, so when i'm ordering material over the phone I happen to have a lot of sixes in my card number. It's funny how its all of a sudden become a hang up. I noticed it just in the last year, maybe even less. Single syllable words have always been easy for me so it's a bit weird. I do notice my speech varies a lot. Every few weeks I'll go from not really noticing it to struggling.

Do you have any ideas about why that fluctuation happens?

Well when I'm tired it’s worse. So when I'm working lots of hours or late nights, I struggle.

What has had the single most beneficial impact on your fluency?

I think just slowing down.

Do you think stuttering makes you impatient?

I don't think so, I think I'm a pretty patient person regardless of my stuttering.

Yeah I think slowing down is great advice. Sometimes I just want to rush through what I'm saying, just to get through it. I’ll be going on a yurt trip soon with some friends, and even though I know everyone and it’s a small group, I’m already feeling anxious about speaking up in conversations. I feel like there's a weight to contribute, which only gets heavier the more people are in the mix. Just one on one, it's fairly easy to take up a good portion of the conversation just from the back and forth, but then when you add people there can be whole conversations going on that don't include you. I'm already feeling self-conscious about holding up my end of the conversation, about being the guy who doesn't talk that much. That’s been one of the biggest struggles for me, wrestling with the social pressure to talk. When I get in my head about being quiet within a group of friends, I’ll ask myself, “Are you not saying something because you are worried about stuttering, or because you don't have anything to say?” I think it's that train of thought that can be very detrimental, the thought that you don't have anything to say and beating yourself up about it.

For me, when I'm with my family, it's not worth it for me to try to add to the conversation, because I hate when I'm the center of attention and it just amplifies the effect of my stutter. All the focus turns to me, and I have stuff to say but in my head I tell myself that it's not worth it. I tend to stutter more around my mom and dad. I just know that they know that I stutter. So I'm not as careful. But if it’s a stranger, I’m really careful and concentrate hard on not stuttering.

I'm the same way. And I don't know how consciously I let my guard down with my parents and others who know that I stutter, I think it's almost automatic. Stuttering can be exhausting. After a night of hanging out with friends, I'll be tired. And I don't know if that's from concentrating on speaking fluently for so long, or something else. I do think stuttering has led me to be more of a thoughtful person. But we never know what we would be like if we didn't stutter. If there's something that you would ask people to do that would help you with your speech, what would it be? For me, another hard thing isn't hearing myself stutter, but when in the middle of making eye contact with someone while talking, I’ll stutter, and I'll see them look down or shift their weight and I'll see that they're uncomfortable. So I would ask that people maintain their eye contact with me, especially when I am stuttering.

Yeah I agree, you see people getting impatient, which makes you want to speed things up, which makes you stutter even more. I would like it if people asked me about my stuttering. It's hard for me to bring it up. But if they ask, I'm more than happy to talk about it.

#04 - Adam Pipkin-Litster

#04 - Adam Pipkin-Litster

#02 - Isabell Rennie

#02 - Isabell Rennie