No, in fact you have a pretty good shot at becoming President apparently.
"If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill |
"It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
I've seen an MD at a middle market IB shop with a stutter. Also know of a guy at Apollo with a stutter. Not a huge deal, but would put in a reasonable effort to work through and minimize it.
Just curious on how these people make it through interviews, especially at a place like Apollo
By being good candidates? Do you actually think everyone who works on Wall Street is 6’5” with blue eyes, etc.? Most are nerds. Plenty of awkward yet intelligent people get hired because you don’t have to be a “gigachad” to run excel models and change fonts on PowerPoints. You just have to be smart and willing to work.
It's a speech impediment, it's not your fault. Anyone that judges you for it can go f*ck themselves, genuinely. I worked with a very talented trader who had Tourette's - sure, the occasional outburst was a little bit off-putting, but the guy worked his f*cking socks off and was excellent at what he did. He was known more by his talent than by his affliction.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde
If you have crooked teeth it is not your fault either, but there are ways to fix it.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
It ultimately depends on how severe it is. If it is mild-moderate severity, then you should be fine, but if it is high-moderate to severe severity, then you’re probably fucked. Even if it is mild-moderate severity, though, it is something you should work on fixing.
I went through recruiting recently and have a stutter that varies in severity depending on what situation I’m in or the status of the person I’m speaking to. That means that in an interview my stutter can go all the way up to severe levels, while on networking calls it’s pretty manageable, and in casual situations it’s virtually nonexistent. I underestimated how much of an issue my stuttering would be for recruiting, since I had assumed that it would be of similar severity to situations that I’m used to, but instead I struggled with it a lot and had huge difficulty in trying to manage it. This basically caused me to have to take a step back and quit recruiting in order to spend time figuring out what was going wrong and how I could fix it.
The issue with stuttering is that there is very little practical research on it and, although speech therapy can be successful for many people who stutter, especially children (and data suggests that 80% of children who stutter get rid of it by the time they hit puberty) it is pretty useless for most adult stutterers since they usually will either teach you fluency shaping techniques, which ignore the variability of stuttering severity depending on the speaking situation (there are studies showing that people who stutter are completely fluent when speaking by themselves or in situations considered as “safe”), or force you to accept that you will stutter for the rest of your life and try to help you live with it in a way that doesn’t affect you too much, which for client-facing roles in finance does not work.
However, on the bright side, there are people who have overcome stuttering in adulthood, among them very famous and successful people such as Jack Welch, James Earl Jones, Emily Blunt, and Joe Biden before his recent downfall. Further, there are two such people who have written books on how they were able to overcome it and I suggest that you read them, since they are by far the most helpful material I’ve ever come across in approaching stuttering recovery by looking at the psychology of it, rather than speech mechanics or acceptance therapy. The books are Speech is a River by Ruth Mead and Redefining Stuttering by John Harrison, you can find free PDF versions of them online by looking up the titles. Both books basically argue that stuttering into adulthood is caused by a complex interaction between different elements of speech that is corrupted by underlying beliefs accumulated over numerous traumatic experiences of stuttering that cause you to become overly critical of your speech and then block when trying to say something, rather than letting your speech process naturally do its thing and direct all attention to the content of your speech. The way to fix this is pretty similar to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and basically entails writing down the underlying beliefs that cause you to stutter, then challenging each of them, and then gradually exposing yourself to speaking situations of greater and greater difficulty until you’re completely confident in your ability to produce fluent speech and, therefore, not stutter.
It takes a huge amount of work to undo years of stuttering, but, like anything, with enough hard work, dedication, and practice you will be able to make significant process and probably overcome your stutter entirely. I just recently started on this journey and have made significant progress already, and I’m sure you’re capable of achieving something similar. Feel free to PM me if you would like to discuss more or have any questions, and good luck.
If you're really sharp, helpful, and nice, people won't care at all about something like that. If you're a dick to people or mean to your analysts, it might be noticed.
I'm in the same boat as you and have been working in the industry the last few years. Something to look into would be a delayed auditory feedback device (I use the speecheasy). If you're near a provider you can make an appointment and test the device.
I trip over words every once in a while. Have done it in interviews, meetings, etc - no one cares. Can be annoying/a little embarrassing but you’ll soon notice hat you’re the only one who does it
Jamie Dimon has an awkward way of speaking, not a stutter but sort a lisp? And presumably it was as noticeable or worse when he was younger and climbing the ladder.
He’s obviously one of the most widely respected and successful people on Wall Street. When he opines on issues, everyone hears him out and considers his thoughts. I’ve never met him but I know people who have, and they all said good things about him. No one is secretly thinking less of him because his manner of speaking is unique.
OP, we’re all rooting for you. I’ll defer to others on advice for beating a stutter, and by all means improve it if you can, but just know that even most guys like me who aren’t always Mr. Sensitive would never hold it against you professionally if you stutter sometimes.
He’s also an articulate New Yorker with the accent and street smarts and is decently looking so the “lisp” doesn’t hurt him much if at all
I’m working with the known fact set. For all we know, OP [@Ferisio] is a handsome 6’4” with a British accent and he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Also, not sure what your cultural background is, but if someone gives you a ball-breaking nickname based on your stutter, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that person means harm or dislikes you.
This is industry has a lot of ex-jocks and fair amount of ex-military guys. Obnoxious nicknames are often a positive in American male culture.
One of my old football teammates was given a nickname that was a play on his last name and basically feminized it. Verbally, it was a slam-dunk in terms of syllabic similarity. But it was never intended as disrespect. Everyone on the team deeply respected and admired this guy. Part of what made the nickname funny was that he is a seriously formidable and physically imposing person with strong backgrounds in martial arts and powerlifting; nobody would want to fight this guy. So the feminine nickname was just more comical for that reason. He has gone on to a highly successful career in the military and I still bust his balls with that nickname sometime, even though he would be on my Mount Rushmore of admiration and respect in terms of people I know personally.
Jock/bro guys can be that way sometimes. Use your judgment to decide whether any teasing about it is malicious or just you being welcomed as one of the guys. Most likely, anyone who would be a dick about it would do so behind your back, because that’s how those kinds of people usually are.
If it were me I would hire a speech therapist and work to minimize or eliminate this. There is no way to know how much this could hurt you in the workplace and in life, but why take that risk if there is a way to address it? Invest in yourself. It will be money well spent.
Speech therapy does not work for most people who stutter, especially most adult stutterers. This myth that it is easily treatable is what hurts us the most, although I do agree that it’s best to take action, but pursuing alternative methods is much better.
Not fundamentally, I just think you have to assert yourself more than others if you deliver the same performance. But if you still perform well, it shouldn't be an obstacle, but there may be a few stupid questions or something.
Know a well respected analyst in the biz who has been at it for over 20 years. He has thrived and so can you. Now this doesn't mean you shouldn't seek ways to mitigate it. It can be worked on, however, the content of your work will be core of what you bring to the table. Best of luck.
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No, in fact you have a pretty good shot at becoming President apparently.
But he’d have to wait 160 years before that happen though…
That’s an awesome opportunity if he doesn’t get PJT RSSG
Isn’t this fixable with a speech pathologist?
.
Yes. Multiple people in my family, oddly enough, are speech pathologists.
This is definitely the answer.
.
There's still a small portion of childhood stutterers that become adult stutterers. For most it phases out before adulthood.
I've seen an MD at a middle market IB shop with a stutter. Also know of a guy at Apollo with a stutter. Not a huge deal, but would put in a reasonable effort to work through and minimize it.
Just curious on how these people make it through interviews, especially at a place like Apollo
.
By being good candidates? Do you actually think everyone who works on Wall Street is 6’5” with blue eyes, etc.? Most are nerds. Plenty of awkward yet intelligent people get hired because you don’t have to be a “gigachad” to run excel models and change fonts on PowerPoints. You just have to be smart and willing to work.
Say it with me bro, "Sam sells sea shells by the sea shore".
You are going to be fine, I used to have a stutter but I learned to say the words in my head before I spoke them, and that helped.
It's a speech impediment, it's not your fault. Anyone that judges you for it can go f*ck themselves, genuinely. I worked with a very talented trader who had Tourette's - sure, the occasional outburst was a little bit off-putting, but the guy worked his f*cking socks off and was excellent at what he did. He was known more by his talent than by his affliction.
Comparing apples and oranges here - if OP wants to ascend into a client facing role it’s going to an obstacle.
sure for trading it’s fine because you just need to convince the hiring manager and your coworkers that you can perform
If you have crooked teeth it is not your fault either, but there are ways to fix it.
Take a theatre or improv class
It ultimately depends on how severe it is. If it is mild-moderate severity, then you should be fine, but if it is high-moderate to severe severity, then you’re probably fucked. Even if it is mild-moderate severity, though, it is something you should work on fixing.
I went through recruiting recently and have a stutter that varies in severity depending on what situation I’m in or the status of the person I’m speaking to. That means that in an interview my stutter can go all the way up to severe levels, while on networking calls it’s pretty manageable, and in casual situations it’s virtually nonexistent. I underestimated how much of an issue my stuttering would be for recruiting, since I had assumed that it would be of similar severity to situations that I’m used to, but instead I struggled with it a lot and had huge difficulty in trying to manage it. This basically caused me to have to take a step back and quit recruiting in order to spend time figuring out what was going wrong and how I could fix it.
The issue with stuttering is that there is very little practical research on it and, although speech therapy can be successful for many people who stutter, especially children (and data suggests that 80% of children who stutter get rid of it by the time they hit puberty) it is pretty useless for most adult stutterers since they usually will either teach you fluency shaping techniques, which ignore the variability of stuttering severity depending on the speaking situation (there are studies showing that people who stutter are completely fluent when speaking by themselves or in situations considered as “safe”), or force you to accept that you will stutter for the rest of your life and try to help you live with it in a way that doesn’t affect you too much, which for client-facing roles in finance does not work.
However, on the bright side, there are people who have overcome stuttering in adulthood, among them very famous and successful people such as Jack Welch, James Earl Jones, Emily Blunt, and Joe Biden before his recent downfall. Further, there are two such people who have written books on how they were able to overcome it and I suggest that you read them, since they are by far the most helpful material I’ve ever come across in approaching stuttering recovery by looking at the psychology of it, rather than speech mechanics or acceptance therapy. The books are Speech is a River by Ruth Mead and Redefining Stuttering by John Harrison, you can find free PDF versions of them online by looking up the titles. Both books basically argue that stuttering into adulthood is caused by a complex interaction between different elements of speech that is corrupted by underlying beliefs accumulated over numerous traumatic experiences of stuttering that cause you to become overly critical of your speech and then block when trying to say something, rather than letting your speech process naturally do its thing and direct all attention to the content of your speech. The way to fix this is pretty similar to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and basically entails writing down the underlying beliefs that cause you to stutter, then challenging each of them, and then gradually exposing yourself to speaking situations of greater and greater difficulty until you’re completely confident in your ability to produce fluent speech and, therefore, not stutter.
It takes a huge amount of work to undo years of stuttering, but, like anything, with enough hard work, dedication, and practice you will be able to make significant process and probably overcome your stutter entirely. I just recently started on this journey and have made significant progress already, and I’m sure you’re capable of achieving something similar. Feel free to PM me if you would like to discuss more or have any questions, and good luck.
.
No problem, and good luck on recruiting this upcoming cycle.
never seemed to be any kind of "limiter"
If you're really sharp, helpful, and nice, people won't care at all about something like that. If you're a dick to people or mean to your analysts, it might be noticed.
Try your best to improve it, but you should be fine. Be confident.
I'm in the same boat as you and have been working in the industry the last few years. Something to look into would be a delayed auditory feedback device (I use the speecheasy). If you're near a provider you can make an appointment and test the device.
I trip over words every once in a while. Have done it in interviews, meetings, etc - no one cares. Can be annoying/a little embarrassing but you’ll soon notice hat you’re the only one who does it
Jamie Dimon has an awkward way of speaking, not a stutter but sort a lisp? And presumably it was as noticeable or worse when he was younger and climbing the ladder.
He’s obviously one of the most widely respected and successful people on Wall Street. When he opines on issues, everyone hears him out and considers his thoughts. I’ve never met him but I know people who have, and they all said good things about him. No one is secretly thinking less of him because his manner of speaking is unique.
OP, we’re all rooting for you. I’ll defer to others on advice for beating a stutter, and by all means improve it if you can, but just know that even most guys like me who aren’t always Mr. Sensitive would never hold it against you professionally if you stutter sometimes.
He’s also an articulate New Yorker with the accent and street smarts and is decently looking so the “lisp” doesn’t hurt him much if at all
I’m working with the known fact set. For all we know, OP [@Ferisio] is a handsome 6’4” with a British accent and he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Also, not sure what your cultural background is, but if someone gives you a ball-breaking nickname based on your stutter, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that person means harm or dislikes you.
This is industry has a lot of ex-jocks and fair amount of ex-military guys. Obnoxious nicknames are often a positive in American male culture.
One of my old football teammates was given a nickname that was a play on his last name and basically feminized it. Verbally, it was a slam-dunk in terms of syllabic similarity. But it was never intended as disrespect. Everyone on the team deeply respected and admired this guy. Part of what made the nickname funny was that he is a seriously formidable and physically imposing person with strong backgrounds in martial arts and powerlifting; nobody would want to fight this guy. So the feminine nickname was just more comical for that reason. He has gone on to a highly successful career in the military and I still bust his balls with that nickname sometime, even though he would be on my Mount Rushmore of admiration and respect in terms of people I know personally.
Jock/bro guys can be that way sometimes. Use your judgment to decide whether any teasing about it is malicious or just you being welcomed as one of the guys. Most likely, anyone who would be a dick about it would do so behind your back, because that’s how those kinds of people usually are.
If it were me I would hire a speech therapist and work to minimize or eliminate this. There is no way to know how much this could hurt you in the workplace and in life, but why take that risk if there is a way to address it? Invest in yourself. It will be money well spent.
Speech therapy does not work for most people who stutter, especially most adult stutterers. This myth that it is easily treatable is what hurts us the most, although I do agree that it’s best to take action, but pursuing alternative methods is much better.
Not fundamentally, I just think you have to assert yourself more than others if you deliver the same performance. But if you still perform well, it shouldn't be an obstacle, but there may be a few stupid questions or something.
Know a well respected analyst in the biz who has been at it for over 20 years. He has thrived and so can you. Now this doesn't mean you shouldn't seek ways to mitigate it. It can be worked on, however, the content of your work will be core of what you bring to the table. Best of luck.
Neque sed itaque ad voluptate officia quaerat sequi. Fuga ea qui accusantium distinctio similique consequatur vel.
Quis harum totam voluptate ut. Pariatur totam qui aut ipsum suscipit veniam a. Voluptatibus dicta est eos non est consectetur maxime. Est sapiente ut distinctio fuga voluptates dignissimos ut quod. Ut quasi asperiores consequatur ad sit velit voluptatem. Odio autem et veritatis rerum voluptatem nulla ipsum.
Distinctio voluptas repellendus quia quo. Pariatur est error ratione libero. Eum ullam quam cum.
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Qui quia autem dolor iusto. Modi praesentium accusantium fugit voluptatem et sit magni. Voluptas reiciendis dolorum ut est. Ut id ut sit commodi porro quidem eveniet. At et dolorem ea.