Voicemail

In a recent posting on Yahoo finance, Penelope Trunk wrote that you should generally try to avoid voicemail, essentially for efficiency reasons. She makes a good point, often I find myself at work using voicemail only because I want the transfer experience.

Pray Big!

A few weeks ago, Andy Stanley at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA gave an excellent message titled "Asking Big" regarding having big prayers. I do not know what my big prayer is in regards to stuttering.

What are you working on big?

ISAD Conference 9

Every October, Minnesota State University, Makato hosts the International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD) Online Conference. I always find some interesting reading in all of the stories and papers presented.

Other Ways to Blow an Interview

Yesterday, MSN had an article discussing things not to do in an interview. For that lucky 1% of us, stuttering could also be on that list. In my 9 year professional career, I have had 6 different accounting jobs (though only 2 jobs in the last 5 1/2 years), so I have a good bit of experience in job interviews.

In this time, I believe I have developed a good approach to job interviews. In the days leading up to an interview, I try to really focus on monitoring my best targets. In the morning and on the way to an interview, I will really key-in on monitoring my full breath target. In the 30 minutes before the interview, I will sit in my car and do my PFSP CD. I will get into the interview and then do really well for about 20-30 minutes. After that I tend to get tired and my fluency falls off, so I try really hard to sale myself earlier in the interview as opposed to later.

When I am pursuing a new job, I go through a lot of interviews. I don't really (nor do I care to know) how big a role my stuttering plays in the positions that I am not considered for after I interview. During one interview I was doing really well and then missed one class IV sound and the interviewer looked at my like I had just spontaneously burst into flames. He was clearly rattled after that and started asking questions which made no sense.

Earlier I mentioned my prep for an interview; one time I woke up late (imagine that?), and barely made it to the interview on time and did not have a chance to prepare as I normally do. I have never been less fluent during an interview in my life. My speech was awful and I got so distracted by that, I started giving really bad answers and doing lame things like word substitutions. The interview got so bad that halfway through I was tempted to just end it early and excuse myself. However, a few days after the interview mercifully ended, I was called and offered the position (on the same morning I was downsized from my then-current position). It is funny how things work out sometimes.