"See Fear as an Opportunity for Growth"

Editor’s Note: Susannah Parkin, a former intern at the Stuttering Foundation, received the James Soper Merrill Prize. Here is the speech she gave when she graduated from Hamilton College in the spring.

Thank you. I am truly honored to be standing up here speaking today. So many of my classmates deserve great recognition for their accomplishments. I take pride in saying that I belong to the Hamilton College Class of 2013. And I know that I speak for everyone seated in front of me when I say that we could not have made it here without a great deal of help. Thank you to our professors, the administration, as well as the staff of Hamilton College. And of course, thank you to our family and friends. All of our accomplishments are a testament to the support and encouragement that you have provided.

It is an honor to have been chosen for this prize, but it does come with a small catch. The recipient speaks at commencement – which I think would make most people scared, even if they did not speak with a stutter.

But fear can be helpful. There are many things in life that we should be afraid of: tigers, poisonous frogs, falling off of a cliff. For these situations, fear means survival. However, for other situations, fear just means that we are facing something new, something intimidating. For example, we might be afraid of going to college for the first time, taking a higher-level course, or studying abroad for a semester. For these situations, fear simply means that we are facing a new challenge.

My first message is something that we have all heard before, but it is a message that deserves to be repeated on this special day. It is important to do things in spite of our fear. We know this to be true because this idea – doing something in spite of being afraid – has characterized our experience at Hamilton. Hamilton has presented us with challenges. For many of us, it was our first time living away from home. We had to make new friends, choose a major, and meet exceedingly high academic demands. These challenges were scary. No one sitting here today can truthfully say that they experienced no fear during their time here. But this fear is not important. What is important is that we did leave home; we made new friends; we chose a major; and we met the demands. Today is proof that we succeeded in spite of our fear.

My second message is a slight revision of the first. I believe that we should do things in spite of our fear, but I also believe that sometimes we have to go even further. We have to do things because we are afraid. We have to see a situation, recognize our fear, and do it because it scares us. We have to see fear as an opportunity for growth. We have to seek out challenges. Facing our fear with a sense of purpose makes us stronger because it puts us in control of the fear. When I was choosing my classes for last fall, I came upon a public speaking course. As I read the course description, my palms began to sweat. It seemed like my worst nightmare – a course dedicated to developing, delivering, and critiquing speeches. But I also knew that it was a quintessential Hamilton course and used to be required for graduation. Hamilton prides itself on its students’ abilities to communicate their ideas successfully. I was afraid of the course, but the fear meant that it was important for me to take the course. It was something new, something intimidating. It was also an opportunity for growth. And today, speaking at commencement, I am thankful that I made that decision.

It is okay that we are afraid, but we cannot let the fear stop us. We need to let the fear fuel us — and do things because we are afraid of them.

Pictures: Susannah at the podium and Susannah, Renee, and Jane at the East Coast office in 2011.

From the Winter 2014 Newsletter

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

Mel Tillis

Mel Tillis, born Lonnie Melvin Tillis, was an influential figure in country music, both as a songwriter and a performer. His journey to fame was marked by overcoming personal challenges, including a stutter that he turned into a defining part of his public persona.

King George

In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences were presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.