Justin’s Blog

On Sunday when I started talking to my wife after getting of the bus I started talking about how things had gone wrong for me on the way home. Do we think if we talk about how bad things have happened to us someone will make us feel good ? I don’t know what it is in our human mind that makes us think talking about bad thing’s is good for us. Some people say they need to do it get get thing’s off there mind. Talking again about the bad thing’s that happened to you make you relive it in your mind. You get all the bad feelings and negative emotions coming back again and the end result is you punish yourself by making yourself feel the ways things did when they went wrong for you. I think the correct way to deal with bad thing’s that happened to you is to not give them permission to effect you. If a train gets canceled why not say to yourself you are not going to let yourself get mad about it. It is not your problem and it is not your fault. Why take ownership of something that you did not do ? Accept the past is the past. What has happened has. There are no time machines. You cannot go back and change it. Define your own borders with your own border control. Set up borders around you with doors in them. Place the handle on your side. Then you decide what you let in to effect you and what you leave the door closed to.

I headed for the train station on Sunday morning just down the road from the hotel. The first entrance I tried to use was closed so I crossed the road to the main entrance. When I headed down the stairs I noticed platform 2 entry was blocked off. This concerned my since platform 2 is the one to the airport. I went down the platform one stairs, purchased a ticket and asked the station attendant how I am to get to the airport. He told me I have to catch a train to Central, about a 10 minute trip then catch a bus. I had planned to arrived 1 hour before my flight so I could check in and get a good seat. I new this would delay me and I started to get angry that I had not been told when I picked a timetable up the day before and specifically asked for timetable for Sunday to the airport from Museum station. I started to fill anger to the station master and then composed myself and told myself “This is not what I have planned but this is now how it will be. I will be a bit late for my flight, not get my choice of seats but I will still arrive in time to catch the plan and I will still get back to Melbourne on time”. I did this to put my Hexagon back into line it and worked great. I put my smile back on and headed to the platform. I arrived at the airport with 35 minutes left till the flight left.
On the course I told everyone at the public speech what I planned to do on the flight home. A plan as a few of you new was to ask the cabin crew on the flight if I could use the PA system in the plan to address the cabin. After takeoff and when the seat belt sign had gone of I pressed the service button on the overhead console. A crew member from the rear of the plan came up and asked me if she could help me. I told her I was on my way back from a speech program in Sydney called The McGuire Program and I would like to keep pushing out of my comfort zones by using the plans PA system to talk to the cabin. She said she would have to ask the 1st in charge and headed up to the front to check for me. She came back shortly after with the 1st in charge and the 1st in charge told me it would be fine to do it after service. She would come down and get me. I new her face from somewhere and I could not place it at first but after a short time I remember flying to Sydney early this year and asking the same thing. The person I talked to then was this 1st in charge I had just talked to now. She also refused me the last time. This time she must of had her hexagon in the positive because she said yes.
After service the 1st in charge came down to my seat and asked me to follow her up the front. She explained the way the PA system worked (press 8 then press and hold TALK). I addressed the cabin, did a disclosure and talked to the cabin about pushing out of my comfort zones. After saying thanks and getting heaps of applause I headed back to my seat. My seat was 14 rows back because it was the only isle seat left at the time of my check in. On the way I got heaps people saying “Well done”. When I sat down the lady along side me by the name of Supatrar started to ask me about the program. We talked for the rest of the way home and exchanged email addresses. She thank me many times for sharing with her and we talked a lot about being the person who you are inside and as any McGuire Graduate will know it is one of the most important things to admit “I am a recovering stutterer”.

Check out the wind we had on day 2. We where in door’s for the entire day. If I had a video camera I would of got some great footage of people having there umbrellas ripper clean out of there hands. I wanted to post this earlier but I had been short on time and could barley get the time in to write what I wrote. The hotel was 8 stories tall and our conference room was on level 4. There was a arboretum on in the center of the hotel on level 4 with open sky above it. The wind would howl all the way down from the 8th floor to the 4th floor down the center of the hotel. It made quite a racket.

image copyright www.seabreeze.com.au.

It was a start to an exciting day with the new students looking forward to doing contacts and speech’s. The morning session started of with Everyone reading out load at the same time. Every one’s great voice projection made it good competition. I few old grad’s had just arrived got up to say there name’s and what they do. It was not long till we got into the Harrison workshops. There where 7 session ran. Old grads got to volunteer to do a workshops. First in best dressed. I was first up out of my chair to have my pick and as Rob asked me what I wanted to do I said “You chose, Give me a hard one”. He gave me “Interacting with the Audience”. I spent the next 10 minute break reading the section in the Harrison book called “Conquer your fears of speaking before people”. After the break with split into groups of 4. The old grads doing sections of the workshop all moved around from group to group. Robbert kept use to a strict time frame of 1 minute to explain the 1 minute for each person in the group to demonstrate the skill. Adding on to all the previous skill as they where given to them. Everyone had a great time with the workshop and generally had a ball speaking. Just after 11 we headed out to make our way to the public speech’s. New students did contacts on the way. I had 2 students to keep an eye on but I only needed to get them a little motivated and they where firring on all cylinders. The rain was coming in patch’s and would get very heavy at times. We all got wet and our group had trouble finding the location we where doing the public speech’s. The smiles on the faces of everyone doing the public speech’s where great. To think only 4 days the thought of doing a public speech would of sent shivers down the new students spines. Now it was hard to hold them back. There where the usual mix of funny speech’s and tear jerkers. We did not finish till around 2 and the same groups of old grads/new students headed of to get lunch and make our way back to the hotel. On the way my new students got to 85 and 86 contacts. They where both very happy. With the rain it was hard to get as many. There both said there aim was to get over 100 next time. WOW. The next session the grads stood up and did reports on there new students work. Some great interesting stories. We got handed out our pictures from the public speech’s and Geoff did a session on NLP and image replacement of a bed speaking situation in our mind to replace with a good speaking situation. Dinner time was started early with a medical issue with one of the new students. I wish he gets well so. After dinner it was time for some more fun. A split session into 4 groups. 1 of the group leaders had disappeared so Adam was asked if he could wing it. He was more than happy to run a split session on a subject he was very comfortable with. Ricky did a great session on “Who is driving YOUR bus”. I chose to go into Rickys session and I enjoyed it greatly. I have to catch a train in 1 hour so I need to head of and get some breakfast. I will miss the closing ceremonies but I have a lunch appointment I need to attend. Thanks for reading.

It was a huge day yesterday. We started out with a fun session of reading out loud with expression. The new students did very well and we have still not done the Harrison workshops. It was a great practice for voice projection for all evolved. We followed up with mantras and kinesthetics. A rearrange of the chairs gave use the room needed for the kinesthetics. A session on the 10 points of the Auxiliary checklist was done with the grads standing up out the front to say each point with short explanations. Being one of the first speaking opportunities for the grads for the day I stood up before Scott finished saying “can a new student.. UP”. The next session we did levels of overkill with a interruption to sing Nick happy birthday. Checklist overview with new and old grads explaining a point. Strangely Sandra asked Declan to call her mum… Will keep an eye on that one. New students got up and said there name before the end of the session. Any student’s who spoke 2 languages where asked to also do there name in there other language. All with great smiles on there faces. Fem told me she is going to take some of my motivation with her. It was a great compliment ! A session on law’s was shortly followed presented by Tom in his first section presentation. The session with very interactive with direction’s being explained by old grads then repeated by new student’s. For most the day I was lucky to have 1 on 1 with all new students moving past me. The large numbers of new student’s is really putting the pressure on the grads. At crunch time where the new students decided to stay or join all 27 new students stayed ! Contacts started late at 5pm. Every one rushing around to get home made the going slow. I have to get creative to get more contact’s up. I found someone handing out free MX newspaper’s and asked him if I could hand them out for him. I explained the McGuire program and the reason why and he was very happy to accommodate. Used my McGuire toolbox to had paper’s flying out of my hand. good eye contact. Deep and breathy had people feeling they wanted one of my paper’s. I played with my McGuire toolbox and exercised all the tool’s with Assertive first sound have a awesome effect of making people want to take my paper. we also had dinner while we where out and got back for a 7 o’clock session. I managed to do 156 contact’s that I was very proud of doing. My new student Nick did a great report of it. The night session started of with all the new student’s doing a report in front of the class about the contact’s the old grads did. Some great story’s of the grad’s steeping out of there comfort zones. We then talked about Power zones followed by 3 split sessions. I chose to do Lisa’s session on recovery and I am very glad I did. She has so much energy and confidence in her speaking. a brief was made on how to us the phone and we where told that phone calls are starting at 6:30. And that brings me to my urgency to finish. It is now 6:35 and I need to get back to the room to see how the 2 new students are going with there calls.
Thanks for reading whoever is out there in cyberland.

Just on lunch on day 3 and I have a few minutes to update. Will do more later on. I found out from Nick last night it was his birthday. He is one of my room mates. After our 11 o’clock break I pickup up some candles and a chocolate muffin. I worded up Scott about what I was going to do and asked him to bring nick to the front of the class then I would spring the muffin with the candle on him. He was suppressed to say the least. We all sung him happy birthday and got back to doing the levels of overkill.
Get to do contact’s this afternoon !
Hi to Melissa and the B call center.

Dinner was for 1 hour. 8 new students and old grads headed down to the Shark bar for a meal. $10 buys you a soft drink and a meal. The rib eye was the choice by most grad’s and new students. Table conversations where mostly McGuire related. I spent most my time talking to a new student who is really getting to grip’s with the concept’s of the McGuire program. He is a very skilled covert stutterer and he was having troubles with coming to term’s to throw away all his old trick’s. I enjoy helping him because I myself was a very covert stutterer with a bag full of tricks much the same as his.
After dinner we headed back for the final session for the night. All the new student’s stood up and said there name’s. The smiles on the faces of the new student’s where great and really set the karma for the session. Eloquence Hexagon vs the Stuttering Hexagon was addressed in small interactive groups of 4 or 5. This was a lot of fun and also the first real interactive activity we have done on this course. Speaking opportunities for all the new students where had to tell the class about the point’s the small group had found about the point on the hexagon. After being promised a early night by Geoff he decided to chuck a curve ball at us and keep us in class. It was a presentation of the Pyramid to Eloquence with a Stella performance done by past instruction by the name of Lisa. She used every skill from the Harrison workshop to the fullest. Really got the class enthused.
It is now early in the morning now. Declan meet me in the foyer to head down to the Internet cafe early. Just coming on to breakfast time. Maybe the toaster will be working this time.
The weather is looking better than yesterday but still overcast and windy.
Talk to you soon.

Weather started off very windy with gale force winds in the early morning. We were lucky to be inside and not ding contacts. The morning started a 8am covering the makeup of the stutter. the Ice burg and the stuttering mindset. A short break and we were back to it with Lots or breathing and eye contact. First day video’s of Wendy and Robert where shown. The session after lunch seemed to go for ever. All on the checklist from start to finish no stop for over 2 hours. A nice 1 hour lunch break was well deserved but the wind outside was still awful. We returned to do student name first up. Then to finish of with a detailed explanation of the Harrison Hexagon. Got 2 new students with me for dinner so I best be off.

Touched down in Sydney at 16:30 and the weather was beautiful and sunny. Not what I had expected on the forecast. Wendey and Robert were in the foyer when I arrived. Had a quick chat and headed up to my room. For the first time my room mate had arrived before me on a course. He is a new student called Steven. After Dinner with Robert,Geoff,Wendy,Elan and Steven we headed in for the briefing and the first day videos. By 7:15 everyone was seated with Scott doing a pep talk. Intentions where covered first. Then a brief explanation of the hexagon. Geoff gave a good explanation of the program itself and the long term commitment that is needed. Geoff than started the First Day Video’s. He elected to call the new students up in order of enrolment. 26 new students where there and another one is still to come in the morning. We had a nice mix of covert’s and overt’s, 12 - 14 by my scoring. A few of the covert’s where very skilled in the word substitution but you cannot avoid your name. Video’s finished at 9:00 and Geoff explained some more about the program. The grads stayed bag for a talking to by Scott and Robert.
This morning I woke up to the wind howling. The weather in Sydney has turned to the worse and I have been told the winds will be picking up to gale force in a few hours.
I have found some good Internet access for a good price just down the road so lots more updates should be coming.

The forecast is not looking good for Sydney. It looks like rain for all the day’s of the course. Packing my raincoat. About to head down to the station to catch a train into the city. Let the Trip begin.