I stuttered as a child.
Not a momentary stumble. Not something sweet or quirky.
But a full-body, throat-tightening halt.
Words trapped behind teeth that couldn’t—or wouldn’t—cooperate.
People assumed I was slow.
Less intelligent.
Hard to teach.
Hard to reach.
What they didn’t see was that I was navigating the world through a different kind of wisdom.
One that understood silence as a sacred thing. As a safety thing.
One that taught me how to listen, deeply.
And one that would, eventually, give me a fierce reverence for the power of words.
I spent years in and out of speech therapy.
I got better. Clearer.
And then, a tire swing.
A direct hit to the mouth, knocking out my front teeth.
No insurance. No fancy appliances.
Just another round of speech therapy.
Another chapter in the saga of trying to be understood.
Then finally, new teeth.
But guess what?
That meant learning to speak again.
If anything, I now over-enunciate.
Crisp consonants. Deliberate vowels.
A subconscious effort to make sure I’m never misunderstood again.
But here’s what I really learned:
Reframing my language and redefining my words had me obliterating every door, window, wall, and ceiling they built to contain me.
Because those weren’t just articulation challenges.
They were identity challenges.
I wasn’t just the stuttering kid.
I was the foster kid.
Eighteen homes.
Four years.
Each one branding me with new assumptions.
“Troublemaker.”
“Unteachable.”
“Problem child.”
But what they didn’t see was the loneliness of packing my life into a garbage bag.
The white-knuckled silence of trying to be small enough, quiet enough, good enough to be kept.
I wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the story being told about me—and eventually, the one I almost believed.
So I learned to speak myself into a new story.
To reclaim my voice—not just the sound of it, but the sovereignty of it.
This is why I care so damn deeply about the words we use.
Because I know what it’s like to have your voice misinterpreted, or worse—dismissed entirely.
I know the difference between saying “I can’t” and saying “I’m finding a way.”
I know how it feels to say “I should” and feel the invisible chains of someone else’s expectation tighten. And I know how freeing it is to replace it with “I choose to.”
I’ve spent my life turning limitations into liberation.
And language has always been my sharpest tool.
So much so, that my coach Jeffrey Shaw recently pointed out something I’d never fully owned: That my gift for helping others reframe their language is so instinctual, I do it without thinking.
I interrupt mastermind calls with gentler, more liberating alternatives.
I offer new words like offerings on an altar.
Not corrections—invitations.
The next evolution of this work? A gift. A guide. A rebel grammar guide for your rising.
And yes, it’ll be a free download. Stay tuned.
Because when your words change, your world does too.
And I’ve lived that truth.
The first time I recall speaking something into existence, I didn’t even mean to.
It was three months into entrepreneurship, just after I bought my bookkeeping company. I casually said to someone, “I can’t wait to get my first real client—not one I bought, but one I closed myself.”
The very next day, I got the call.
They became my first self-sourced client, and I worked with them for more than 20 years.
These aren’t coincidences. They’re confirmations.
When your language is rooted in desire, clarity, and audacity—the universe conspires.
Words don’t just describe our reality.
They design it.
And while that was the first time I consciously noticed my reality bending that quickly, I’ve always had a secret spell. A sentence that reclaims the rules and rearranges the energy.
“That’s NOT the way things work in Shaneh’s World.”
It’s a refusal. A boundary. A declaration of sovereignty.
And it has always been my most potent magic.
Because we get to decide what’s true in our world.
And when we do—reality listens.
And yes—your money too.
Every time you say:
“I could never charge that.”
“I’m not in it for the money.”
“I just want to help people.”
—those are ceilings. Stories.
Spells cast in someone else’s voice.
Language shapes your pricing.
Your profit.
Your permission to receive.
In Shaneh’s World, money speaks the language of joy, desire, and unapologetic agency. Anything less is a lie we no longer tell.
Here’s what it sounds like when your words rise to meet your truth:
“I should” → “I choose to”
“I have to” → “I get to”
“I can’t” → “I can’t ….. yet”
“I need” → “It’s important to me that…”
“I want to” → “I am going to”
These aren’t just tweaks.
They’re tectonic shifts.
They tell your subconscious that you are in command.
That your life is not a reaction, but a revolution.
Reflection + Expansion:
✨ Where have your words been borrowed from other people’s expectations?
✨ What ceilings might you shatter just by saying it differently?
✨ What would change if your language was infused with more choice, more agency, more joy?
✨ What stories about your voice—literal or metaphorical—are ready to be rewritten?
PS:
They thought my voice was broken. That my story would stay small.
But I rewrote the narrative.
With grit.
With grace.
With gorgeously chosen words.
I used to swallow my voice to keep the peace.
Now I wield it to make war on every system that told me silence was safer.
Profit is protest. Language is liberation.
And every syllable you reclaim is a strike against the systems that tried to silence you.
Speak your reality into existence. Again. And again. And again.
Song of the Day: Main Parwaaana from the Movie “Pippa”
I think often about my first book, LINGO. While I focused on the energy of words in marketing, I believe of the words we say to ourselves are equally if not more powerful. One changes the other.
I am gobsmacked by the beauty and the meaning-making and the generosity of this post. If commented on every gift here, I’d be writing a comment longer than the post itself. Here’s one that illuminated, as you explained the import of your response to stuttering. “…and those weren’t just articulation challenges. They were identity challenges.”
And thank you for your glossary of alternatives expressions for challenges. It was deeply thoughtful.
I’ll be thinking about all this post offered far into the future.