I watched “The King’s Speech” again last weekend.
It’s possibly one of my favorite and most painful movies to watch because I resonate so strongly with the lead character, King George VI (played by Colin Firth).
Why?
I used to stutter worse than that.
You see every single pain, frustration and anger he feels as he struggles to get the words out? I felt it. I know it. Every single one of those experiences is embedded deep in my nightmares.
Growing up, it would take extreme effort for me to get words out, let alone speak full sentences. I remember I’d only be able to get out one or two phrases in a minute or two. Sometimes, words would not come out until I banged on a table or hit a wall. Fellow kids would walk away while I was still trying to speak.
My stutter shaped my early life in many ways; it made me deeply insecure, incredibly introverted and it was generally much harder to make friends. People called me shy, arrogant or proud because I kept to myself, my books and the gadgets I’d build. What they never knew was that I literally didn’t have much to say.
But it also shaped my entire life. The incredible thing about being deeply introverted and not being able to speak much, is that you learn to say less and listen more. You learn to observe and to discover knowledge more intensely, because there are fewer distractions. To this day, I still prefer being the listener than the speaker. I still prefer to read, write and silently create. And I prefer to carefully think out my words before I speak them.
Anyway, at some point, by some miracle, the stutter disappeared. I cannot point out any single event, time or stage when it vanished. It just… stopped. Traces still linger, of course. Certain words stress me to no end and there are specific verbal tics that are singularly annoying. It’s more pronounced when I’m speaking a language I don’t have strong fluency in. Most times, when I feel the stutter coming on strongly, I simply pace my words or add the pauses to the narrative.
But it’s not something that many people would notice unless I point it out. And you wouldn’t tell from the numerous talks and interviews I have been privileged to give over the past few years, to audiences of thousands when a much younger me could barely command the attention of one person long enough.
So last weekend, I watched the King’s Speech. I needed the catharsis.
The past eight months have been… tough, to put it mildly. I’ve lost a lot; family, friends, money and at some point, even my sanity was at stake.
I have failed a lot. God, I have failed a lot. It’s sad, embarrassing and hilarious how much I have failed.
So I’ve had to painfully take a step back and evaluate my life, my choices and my future. I’ve had to objectively tear apart the past fourteen years of entrepreneurship, life decisions, foolishness and brilliance and figure out how to chart the next fifteen years.
It’s been a tough process, no lie, and I’m not even halfway there. I fondly call it an autopsy because it’s an almost clinical deep dive into what went wrong, where, why and how. My journals are full of rage, anger, self-doubt, and thousands of instances of imposter syndrome. And questions, lots and lots of questions.
I’ve talked to friends, advisors and God. And I’m eternally grateful for the few friends who know me well enough to know how dark this all was, who gave me the time to process and allowed me to be the one coming to them with the talking when it almost often is the other way around.
At some point, I had to take a step back from everything and just breathe.
So, I watched the King’s Speech.
And everything came into perspective.
Adversity will always be with us; we’ll always have challenges that we never see coming. They may be curveballs life’s journey throws at us or disadvantages and in-abilities that we’re inherently born with, whether physical, racial or socio-economic.
There’s no escaping that. There’s no magic wand that we can all wave and suddenly all is roses, unicorns and rainbows.
There’s work; intentional, deliberate and consistent effort that goes into facing adversity and addressing challenges. There’s growth and maturity and the development of character that goes into shaping mind, body and soul. There’s the celebration of victories, small and big and the constant setting of the next goal, even if that goal is to simply maintain a status quo you finally achieved.
And then, there’s also the realization that you’re fighting the wrong battles, clearing the wrong forest or climbing the wrong tree. This is a little harder, because our own weaknesses — which are, incidentally, almost always a result of stretching our strengths beyond rationality — fuel our various cognitive biases which in turn prevent rational and objective decision-making, specifically when it comes to quitting.
We must be deliberate about introspection, self-awareness, and the search for purpose. We must constantly work towards finding what our true north is and relentlessly pursue the achievement of that happyness through excellence, diligence and integrity.
The most important lesson that debilitating stuttering and introversion taught me, though, is that there’s beauty in the stillness, in the silences and in the places where the mind roams wild and free.
So, despite all the challenges and failures, I’m excited about the next fifteen years. And the next five years. And next month… next week and tomorrow, because now I have more experience, more resilience and the invaluable wisdom that only adversity, time and hindsight can provide.
And finally, I’m going to start sleeping. Let’s see what the fuss is all about.
