Believe in Yourself
Audio CD, Nick Tunbridge

Reviewed by: Andrew Harding

In Believe in Yourself, Nick Tunbridge presents a rags to riches vision of how he did just that - come to believe that he could succeed in life and not be held back by stammering. Having thus secured the foundation stone of his self esteem, in this 50 minute talk he describes how he used a range of motivational ideas and techniques.

"By changing the way I was reacting to and dealing with my stutter, I was able to free myself so that I was able to live a much more successful life," Nick said. His approach is to talk directly as one person who stutters to another.

There are four key elements: 1 - define for yourself who you really are; 2 - use role models; 3 - understand your real motivation; 4 - manage anxiety.

In the first couple of tracks he describes in detail how stuttering ruled his life, his sensitivity to it and to other people's reactions. We are then told the first step to taking control is to recognise the people who have an effect on you and why. The next step is to create a secure basis for success by becoming as good as you can at what you do. The main theme is that by redefining and empowering yourself with a supportive belief system you can reach ambitious goals.

Most self-improvement materials are strongly individualistic, creating the ideal of the self-made person. In many ways, Believe in Yourself is the same. The section on finding and learning from role models provided some balance to this.

Despite having the tone and pace of an evangelical sermon, Believe in Yourself has some good practical ideas, based on Nick's life during the past 15 years, especially in the middle part (tracks 4 to 6 ).

If you are looking for a can-do approach, Australian style - and think that we all have the creativity to live our lives in new ways - a few minutes with the CD is time well spent.

Believe in Yourself is available for loan for £1.50 from the BSA postal lending library. Contact library@stammering.org or 020 8983 1003

From the Autumn 2006 issue of 'Speaking Out', page 16

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