CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #154 Rabbi Yanky Kaufman - Channeling Your Challenges to Help Others

you go for therapy when you're ready to be successful when you're ready to put your effort into it so just cuz the person stutters it doesn't mean that we jump into therapy you go for therapy it could be successful every person who does better I tell them you don't understand how it's almost miracul it is miraculous how fast and how simple a person can turn around now sometimes most people have gone for therapy in the past before they come but some of the newer people they feel like okay I guess this is just regular stuttering therapy of course they get better right I tell them no no no this this is unbelievable what just [Music] happened and welcome to Torah talks kazak's Tuesday night program with special guest tonight we have with us all the way from lakew New Jersey Rabani Kaufman Shalom how are you doing good great to see you thanks for joining us great seeing you again and we're going to be speaking about channeling your challenges to help others and before we get to that uh exciting topic you know to help others is always exciting a little bit of background about yourself and the great work you're involving so thank you for inviting me again of course and uh I got into this field because I had a major stutter myself so so to speak it's not something I chose at least as far as I know so you had a challenge a major challenge of stuttering uh from starting from as far back as I can remember wow from when I started speaking and stuttering ing people look at it as just speech but it's really much more profound than just speech because in a you's life speech is so front and center and therefore the when someone is challenged with their ability to be able to speak properly it affects so many aspects in a person's life so we have the the speech part the dis fluency then we have how it affects the person so academically lot of people don't ask questions that's right they don't ask questions they don't understand one that's ones that's embarrassed is not going to be able to learn because you won't be asking questions yeah uh socially having friends being a part of it it's one of those things that just sometimes it's a little gray area but because we have a stud will just rather avoid and be more comfortable avoiding it than being more involved affects a person uh choosing a job a lot of people who stud will choose a job that's easier for them on their speech than something that's more lucrative if they have to be out there more um really in so many ways and uh one of the big challenges about it also it's a very lonely challenge because people don't really understand it well it's very complex and it affects a person much more like we said than just speech so when I was younger I went for a lot of uh Speech Therapy uh I remember going I don't remember too much of what I did playing some games and things like that but you know got a snack bag and a drink box and I was happy to go middle of school to the therapy that went on for around 3 years and so no results wow so my parents said okay let's take a little break and then I grew up in Mony by the way and then we had home therapy PE speech therapist came to our house and then again you know no improvement so we took a little break and we waited till I was a little bit older and my that's the only thing I remember at my mitz was trying to speak or lack thereof not being able to speak um that's pretty much what I remember from my Reit and that was a very big challenge you know the apprehensiveness of getting up there in front of everyone and um but in general there's a fear of public speaking yes it's like the famous thing that the individual rather be in the coffin as supped to giving the eulogy for the person they passed away because the fear that they have is speaking in public right so so just to bring it out um I think we're speaking in public over here yes and I have a little bit of fear very very little it's not to compare whatsoever to stuttering because if I had a stutter I wouldn't do this at all and uh so my bah was apprehensiveness from before during and after and um so it was very hard and then you know there's D different levels of studying but I had a major stutter and so I went to another specialist then one after the next just to fast forward all the was around 15 years of therapy wow all different types of therapy and in America and AR Isel I really went to anyone who I heard of because I was very desperate I'm a very motivated guy and I like to do whatever I can to help myself and this was something very important to me the problem was that all the methods out there really this a common denominator and that is they work in the office but the problem is they don't work in real life for most people because they're not practical for example let's say now that I don't stutter it's very easy for me to use these methods even without any practice right I didn't practice this before I came and uh here we go let's try this one speak slow that's a very popular method so I have no problem speaking slow now or another very powerful method is taking a deep breath and talking the breath out so I have no problem now doing that third very popular method is speaking very softly in the beginning my name is yanii calman and I'm doing three methods right now I'll do more uh just say three words and then just wait just stop so right now I can do these methods I don't really care how I sound if I talk like this because I don't really stutter anymore I don't stutter anymore so I don't have the stuttering on my mind but when a person stutters and that's taking up so much space in their mind besides for the actual stuttering and the old behaviors that they have because they stutter plus the association of stuttering plus the fears of stuttering so even if you don't have a fear doesn't mean you won't stutter you still have the associations and the habits of stuttering and the habits of the way you speak because you stutter all that comes into play and plus having another thing on your mind so in the office it could work very well but in real life for the most part they all fall apart and that was part of the challenge of stuttering going for therapy and not working um then I tried things on my own after I so that therapy was not working for me so one of the things I realized when I spook very slowly it worked amazing but again I tried to do that for six years in real life just speak slow when you try something for six years every day it's not working then like I said before it's just not practical so it's a great method but it's not practical I got married B and my wife happens to be she doesn't care at all about uh stuttering at all she she's right past it and uh I in and the Mir and I was raising a family I was actually giving Shear in the mirror on Navi I wanted to learn Navi nobody else was teaching it so I decided okay I'll do it make a long story short for the first few months I stopped stuttering shortly after but the first few months I was stuttering when giving the shear and the Mir on na'vi uh in learning I was a little more confident so I didn't stutter as much so people were able to follow it but definitely with a stutter but this learning is something I wanted to do and uh I didn't let this stand in my way even though some people may say oh so it probably didn't bother him because he's giving she it did bother me a lot but I gave she anyway one day I get a phone call this is when everything turned around uh somebody knew someone who was struggling tremendously with his stutter inel he was Israeli he spoke a little bit English I spoke a little bit Hebrew and otherwise we really had nothing in common pretty much I mean we're both hien but um he had a major study he went for a lot of therapy and he was burnt out with the system and somebody knew him somebody knew me said invited me to come speak with him to beak him to give him some what do we call it over here Kakak go he needed a lot of kazak he uh stuttering his stuttering was his stuttering was kazak and he KN a lot of so he uh he left Yesa because he couldn't find kusas and he couldn't ask questions like we said just didn't really fit in and uh Sprints were afraid really just really afraid of him he was all alone and this lonely challenge nobody really to speak to about it so somebody knew him somebody knew me said why don't you speak with him I was like me I could teach him how to stutter I can't teach him how to not stutter so the person said well maybe just um try to give him some said oh sure I'm very good at I'm very good at getting because I was still struggling myself giving and I was still stuttering at the time was not really my thing so he said you know what maybe just be his friend said okay could be any that I could do I could be any you's friend 100% so we met and I didn't know what I was going to say to him because I was still struggling myself so I tried I took out a piece of paper I took it very seriously I D should be able to help him I remember now vividly sitting at the little desk and taking a pen of paper like okay hasem please put the words what should I tell him I started to write things down and has put pop something in my head why don't you experiment this for the next day it wouldn't hurt make a long story short while I was trying to help him within a very short time within a matter of days I realized that this method what I said before was missing in the field was it was pra missing something that's practical put into my mind something that is practical and that worked for me immediately then a few days it took me some time to really that it was really working to understand that this is really working because I'll give you a example of what this is like imagine somebody who you know wakes up one day and he has wings so of course he goes in this car and uh you know has to drive to wherever he's going doesn't realize like you don't have to drive in the car you have wings M it's just so easy so when is he going to really understand that he has wings when he's pushed off the bridge he's like whoa I have wings so that my uh you know the Clincher that seted it in my mind that you don't have to stud anymore was when I was invited to a my friend brought me in and make a long story short the rub is very friendly this is in R inel and uh the r is very friendly in the middle of his speech at The KES after daving he's he sees a new person he says hey I see you have a we have a new person what's your name I didn't know he's going to ask me that if I would have know I would have have walked in cuz for people who stutter usually their name and exact things are the hardest things for them to say so he says what's your name and I'm like what should I do now I'm stuck like you know I mean how can you do that maybe I stutter you should give me the 3 second warning I would have been out of here like if in case you stutter you better run it out but hasm has his ways and this was the perfect time for it to happen and I'm thinking to myself well what should I do now wait I have a method I said Yan cman he's like oh very nice where you from like who I don't know if this going to work every time so I said s they said no no where you originally from I was like wow is this part of you to like you know see you oh the new guy who used to stutter anyways I told him M New York and then he continued on his Jia and that's when I realized like whoa wait a second we have something that really works and I wanted to share with other people that must shabas I took out a phone book and I called up all the famous people that I heard of anel who speak English and I told him I have a new way if you know of anyone who studs maybe I could help them slowly but surely people took me seriously people sent me people and the success was growing and I realized a lot of people I was seeing had the same Journey as me going for a lot of therapy working in the office but not in real life and I explain to them how they can speak better within a short time not as short as me I structured the program over time that it should be able to cater to as many people as possible but make long story short from that time on I've been busy with stutter ring all day all night and N years so far and we do one thing just stuttering wow so amazing unbelievable so so so you had a challenge and you're taking this challenge of stuttering and using the challenge that you had to go out and to help others how does one take a challenge that he has whatever it may be to use it as a method to be their fathers as well yeah so because I had the challenge for so long I was very keen on what exactly the challenges are and when I started to put together this method I realized that the number one thing is that it needs to be practical not just another method but it's got to be practice got to work for real life that was the most important thing number two I realized that people can do well in a one-on-one but they have to be guided of how to use this in real life unfortunately a lot of people say well now you're on your own I taught it to you maybe scientifically at best um there's something to the method and then they say well I did my part you got to figure out the rest but that's not fair for people who stunner because there's a lot of barriers in the way so I came up with a system of how to guide people to use the method from the office into real life it's we have a certain structure to it but individualized as well to understand the person takes a lot of a lot of care and patience to understand where's the person what are his challenges what does his Social Scene look like what are his capabilities and finally I realize that when L learning a new habit for this to become second nature which is ultimately what people need to be successful long term is they need follow-ups and I think it's like this in any chronic challenge that there's a turnaround especially a fast turnaround people need follow-up so who's the best person to do follow-ups someone who studed themselves they so we have now a lot of people who used to stutter all my we call them speech coaches all these people are people who used to stutter themselves went for therapy so they really understand it started into their adult life and now are speaking amazing and we have all different types of people older younger men women and we have people from different communities we have someone here in Queens uh but really many other locations really around the world and these I selected the best ones can give it over to others as well so we have a filup system for months that someone also who had the challenge and you know they get obviously a new friend CU like I said before stuttering is a very lonely challenge people don't really understand it I remember people used to tell me y like why can't you just like say your name like you know your name right should just say it so people don't really get it um so this is taking everything that was hard for me just this aspect of having aend somebody really who understands it know there are people who um stuttered and they have their own anecdotal experience like you know they woke up one day you know inspirational I realized that you know everything's good it's all good we're all good and um and then they just stop stuttering or for the most part stop stuttering but this doesn't talk for most people because most people are don't necessarily have that inspiration they don't even know how they got that inspiration themselves necessarily to give it over to other people who here they're able to speak to someone who had the challenge and worked hard to overcome the challenge and now they're helping them and a lot of these people then become coaches themselves it's a very good feeling for them that now they are able to take their Challenge and give it over to other and help other people along the way that's the main part and then we have extracurricular programs where I realized I'm always looking you know how can we help more and more people I could have told myself many years ago helping a lot of people and this is good enough but when it comes to helping people it's never good enough it's how can I help more and more and better and faster 100% And long term never be satisfied don't stay status quo take things to the next level do more 100% that's that's uh music to my ears so I realized that there some people they're we'll call it almost traumatized by their by their Nevers like speaking in public or getting the alyah or introducing themselves to new people or saying their name so we have this is extra curricular for people who need that extra help we have these exclusive groups where people come together from the all over mainly from the tri-state area and I've done around 65 of these where we have anywhere between 10 to 20 people come together and we have our exclusive minion um you know people pray together and they're the leaders and they speak in public and they introduce themselves we have a brus party and they have they're they learn together they're partners and we take walks together a whole Community whole community and we had a lot of the big speakers uh come whether it's ronam whether psychologists whether medical doctors and uh a lot of the speakers who were on kazak came to us as well and um they introduced themselves and uh and a lot of times we have psychologists and there question and answers and unique questions that they can hear from a professional and people they really the sense of it's really professionally called a skills group where they improve together it's not just a support group but there's no support that can be greater than a skills group where people are not just talking about the challenge but working together to overcome the challenge then I have people who were in the program let see five six years and speaking fluently and holding it down they come and say you know you got to keep it up you got to keep up your practice it's doable and uh therefore everyone really gets a a big um really the idea was to take this challenge all the intricacies that I've seen of myself to help other people one more thing uh that is very important and that is that a lot of the one I got very busy myself helping people who stutter and I needed uh I had a six-month waiting list I was doing this for around two years um and six month waiting list is there statistics or percentage or how many people out of how many people is there such a thing yes there is it's very vague because what do you consider a real stutter some people stutter when they were younger um some people very slight stutter they try to hide it um but um well I've I've helped already over a thousand people in the last a lot of people stut and recently there's a lot more of the slight stutterers that are coming because they see that if there's real help why should they even have a slight stutter 100% so but laa got very busy and I need to to train in more people so the coaches the speech coaches helped out a lot but I wanted to cater to people in different locations and I wanted the cat to people speak different languages Hebrew yish English so I looked into the best therapist I could find to train in more uh to help and C to more people so because I went for so much therapy I know what it's like what a a good quality therapist should look like and I strain no effort to find really the best people in the field and some of the people working for me are doing this for 20 years therapist for 20 years they're really I didn't look for people who are in the lower end people who are very very successful these are the people who Rabbi imagine for a moment there's an individual watching and he himself or a family member friend neighbor that started what message can you give over to these uh to this individual that stutters I would say that there's different there's basically two different types of people who stutter one is the people who say it's okay to stutter for whatever reason which there are which there are that wasn't me I mean I tried that also to tell myself it's okay but think there I know that right there are people like that there's all different reasons why they're like that but either way for whatever reason they're not looking for therapy that's fine but for the people who are looking for therapy they should know that for the first time ever right there's a guy who used to stutter completely over had a heavy stutter completely overcame his stutter ring and now his therapist working under him and the reason is very simple because we have a practical way number one and number two we have a system that guides a person how to make this in their real life to be successful and how they could be it could be long term so I think that that's the most important message that people should know that there is a practical way it's not something you know exotic dramatic sophisticated it's simple straightforward very methodical obviously proven yeah but you know recently our our latest up uh update let say one is that I started to teach in college actually it's a future speech therapist W and number two is um you know people always ask me what's your success rate it's a very hard question because you know how much effort did they put into it where holding before but it's a good question so with the first for the first time in history of the world we have a success rate especially for for teenagers and adults for the first time there's a success rate most people look at it in the field right now there's no such thing as a success rate because it's always individualized there is no better method they're basically all the same so how can you have a success rate but the for the first time I worked with a a very prestigious uh psychologist in Lakewood who I collaborated with to do research and for people to attest what they gain from the program and it's really the first time we have a proven success rate helping tremendous amount of people in a very short time so this is something that's professionally backed and uh it doesn't take long but you definitely have to put your effort into it uh so so Rabbi you've been doing this for for for a while and uh any interesting stories that stuttering that stick out so there's a lot of stories I'll mention two of them sure one is with the uh G rabi I heard this from the Mas in G in London I was flown out over there to help people over there I actually flown it three times um and I stayed in his in his house so he told me a story about the G Rabbi that the the G opened up a community in asod put and they would uh settle over there when the rabba interviewed the people who would come the B he would choose to relocate over there he noticed that one of them had a stutter and he told the person in charge even though we feel very passionate that this is very important to bring people open up uh new locations but this group we're going to have to put it on hold this group is not going and the gab said why is that he said because there's someone who stutters and it's already uncomfortable for him to socialize and to relocate him to a whole new place it's going be much harder for him it's not worth the whole thing W that's one story and the other one is one of my favorite stories of how people have come to the program just it's a little humorous that's why it's my famous favorite one um so a lot of times after PTA you know parents are told you know we think that uh your childh should go for speech therapy for fluency um again I mention because this is very popular you go for therapy when you're ready to be successful when you're ready to put your effort into it so just because the person stutters it doesn't mean that we jump into therapy you go for therapy it could be successful as an aside just an important point now um so one person wanted to go first therapy but he's thinking you know should he send his son for therapy comes back home he sits on the couch should he go for therapy should he send the son what should he do should he go to and uh person gets a little bit bored after think about this uh conversation that he knows nothing about so he slips his hand on the side of the couch in his dining room to the magazine rack and he pulls out a magazine and he opens up MB magazine and all of a sudden this is the first feature and there's from Jonathan Rosenblum it's about stuttering so that's part one of the story he's like wow I got to go to this guy he wrote you know Jonathan Rose M like five six years ago wrote an article on me about stutter in I said so he called me up and told me that story I said I said you know why that's even more interesting than you think I said that article was written 6 months ago and out of all the magazines that he had in his rack magazine rack he left this one there I guess and he pulled that one out from six months ago wow wow wow wow wow unbelievable unbelievable unbelievable wow so so this really every person really the truth is you ask me what's the every person who does better I tell them you don't understand how it's almost miracul it is miraculous how fast and how simple a person can turn around and sometimes most people have gone for therapy in the past before they come but some of the newer people they feel like okay I guess this is just regular stuttering therapy of course they get better right I tell them no no no this this is unbelievable what just happened you should know it's a very big a very big inspiration to see an individual that had a challenge that had a difficulty and overcame it through whatever methods it is and now not only just moved on in life and did whatever he wanted but he took that challenge and is going to help others as well so that's a very big very big inspiration it's a lesson for every single one of us that if there is a challenge in any field stuttering anything a person goes through in life these challenges difficulties are for you to be able to give help to others and uh you know reminds me of RAB W that uh he was invited one time to speak for a group that had a certain difficulty and the first thing the individual asked the rabbi was that did you have this difficulty he's like no so what are you doing here and the rabbi like you know you're right you're right and he said that every time you had a difficulty hardship with regard to something you would use those difficulties in order to inspire others and that's something that we all have to take upon ourselves to learn Froman and to see what difficulties hardships we go through in life and then hear about others that have those hardships and difficulties and go give them the so Rabbi amazing very inspiring and we have a a custom which is a f message for our broad audience so we'll just broaden it to not just fluency but really the value of speech and how it could be used so I think just quickly one of the most important ways is to we understand that lashara we hear so much about its terrible sin and we know that which means something that's used the positive is much greater than the flip side of it in the negative so if is so bad it's so destructive what's lashar speaking bad about someone then we should focus a lot on lash speaking about the good about other people and you can if you have a you know the guidelines for lashar we know if you have a suff if you have a doubt whether you should say it or not better not to say it but by it's the opposite if you have a doubt should I person give should I give the person the compliment or not you have something about it say it and you could tell it to yourself also powerful very very powerful and one last thing also about uh that's we using a positive and in the negative that I think that when it comes to talking you know when it comes to daving which is something that something I've always done when it came to stuttering there's one thing that the method that I Ed the longest it was and when a person comes to sh that is really their time where else are they supposed to D you come to sh in order to D that's what it is sh davic and when a person talks m davic i just you know I think it bothers a lot of people who try to concentrate especially for myself when I see the value spe of how much people are ready to do people fly in people spend people will do anything to get their fluency and to to really be appreciated to be used only in a way that is uh productive certainly not in a way that's destructive to disturb other people and disturb their I think that's something that people should think about that uh you know especially if other people are trying to dve in that respect that and like I said the that uh what helped me was my whole life the most powerful method I used was always ding always a new inspiration that maybe will bring it out now and finally when I stopped sing was from that I tried I asked I don't know what to tell him please help me just and from that came something much more Grand much more Grand something that I never thought would have happened and like to thank for having this new new uh platform to spread the inspiration and let people know that you can take your challenges and it was for a long time and I never thought this would happen really my dream what I used to D for because I never got anywhere was just 70% better 80% never imagine that would help even one person and I sometimes think about that all that feels that I DED for myself and because I knew the challenges i d for other people I many times reflect that maybe this person who I'm seeing now is somebody who not that I met him physically before but somebody who was in my mind when he used to D for other people maybe this is the guy that used to that for very very very powerful bian kofman uh taking your challenges and challenging them to help others it's a very very important message for those amazing words of wisdom inspiration and we should take this message to our heart to uh help others whether it's stuttering whether it's whatever may be take the challenges that you have and be there fathers we want to thank the rabbi for coming in from Lakewood really appreciate it and we want to remind everyone Tuesday nights 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time K Tor talks with special guest the feedback has been amazing everywhere we go people tell me I heard this one when I gotp from this one and I forwarded this one to the person that needed it it's it's great and we appreciate it so please continue sending back feedback it uh really really gives a lot of like we spoke about the importance of and inspiring others and we want to thank our friends at Tor time and the many other platforms that have our Torah talks podcast kazak's podcast a shout out to our friends at Daily giving day really goes a very far away we encourage everyone to check that out as well want to think Natan bear behind the camera and the entire kazak staff volunteers team board members donors great things are happening lives are being changed and we're not satisfied we want to do a lot more be part of the Revolution and till next time we'll see you complete Redemption beautiful [Music] [Applause] [Music]