Conversation with Cathy Olish-Maciejewski

Scroll down for host and guest bio, additional resources, links, notes and more.

TOPICS INCLUDE

- Early years and growing-up as a young woman who stutters

- Most memorable experiences and influential people in your life journey

- The path of hiding/revealing stuttering in life 

- Obstacles and breakthroughs

- Wisdom to share with others in their journey - young people, women, parents...

- Vision for the future

GUEST BIO

Cathy Olish-Maciejewski is from Grosse Ile, Michigan, and works in HR in the Executive Recruiting organization at Ford Motor Company.  She is a covert person who stutters and has been a member of the NSA for 21 years. During this time, she served on the NSA Board of Directors for seven years, is a former adult and kids chapter leader, and has led at least 60 workshops at NSA conferences.  She loves spending time with her husband and two boys, working out, and photography.

HOST BIO

Uri Schneider, M.A. CCC -SLP passionately explores and develops practical ways for us to create our own success story. Delivering personalized experiences of communication care informed by leading professionals and influencers, Uri is re-imagining the next-level of speech-language therapy for people to benefit in real life.
Uri Schneider, M.A. CCC -SLP is co-founder and leader at Schneider Speech Pathology and faculty at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine.

Resources and Links

National Stuttering Association

Upcoming events

TRANSCRIPTION

6:16US: What would compel a person like you, in the position that you're in, to take a limited day off to devote to this, what does this mean to you? What does this conversation mean to you?

6:29COM: I had some time off I needed to take but I was waiting till the end of the year. I want to give this my undivided attention because I've done some of these interviews before, and you never know who you can help. So I wanted to give this my undivided attention. I didn't want to be interrupted by work emails or pains as I'm online and or someone calling my cell phone. I think the key to getting people, to accept people who stutter is educating them. I think the majority of the times when people laugh at you for not knowing your name, I just kind of blow it off  because they don't know. So this is a good forum to educate those or someone who may be feeling alone at home, not knowing where to turn. So, this was important enough to get my head clear. 

13:50US: Cathy, why were people thinking that you were a professional and not a person who stutters because there is something interesting there, and I just don't want to take it for granted. What does that mean for people that may not be familiar? What does that mean about your experience? 

14:30COM: People thought I was a speech-language pathologist, because I was fluent. Because I was so hidden and I would do anything to not let anyone know that I was a person who stutters even to this day I do that. I’m a little bit more open now…(15:07) So I didn't feel like I fit in because I didn't stutter enough for the stuttering community, but I wasn't fluent enough in the regular word. It's like you're caught in an elevator and you're caught between two floors. Like you don't know where you've fit in. And I struggled with that for many years. Because I was so intuned with ways of hiding it, like, coughing, sneezing, and rephrasing. I was so used to doing those avoidances.

43:39US: Let’s delve into the aspects of your life, the professional side.

44:16COM: At the age of 20, I began working at Ford as a call operator. I worked in that position for a year and a half before I was transferred to the executive office…(45:24) During a town hall meeting, there was a vice president in finance who was blocking, and I was surprised. He was one of the first people I told at work that I stuttered. After that meeting, I had asked to have a word with him and told him about my stutter. I would never have thought that the person I'd come out to at work would be a VP. It was cool to see someone go that high up with a stutter and he encouraged me a lot. If he can do this in front of thousands of people, why can’t I? 

58:37US: Could share just about being a mom of boys who stutter and how they're teaching you?

59:47COM: I think all of us when we have kids ---if there is something about ourselves that we don’t want to pass on to them--- this was the one thing. I thought I don't want to pass on this disfluency, something I spent most of my life hating onto my children. But the key is to want to change. You have to help them realize that (in my case), this is no big deal, it’s a small piece of you. Don’t let it get in the way of what you want to do. 

01:24:00US: I want to give a plug for the national stuttering association:Westutter.org has tons of programming going on, great opportunities, especially in the area of employment. So people that are looking for ways to crack that Or just talk about the challenges there and opening doors there are more opportunities to talk about that. You can even get access to interviews or mock interviews. There are all kinds of great stuff.