Comedian born with a stutter uses comedy to overcome his fear of speaking

A life-long stutter hasn’t stopped comedian Joze Piranian from travelling the world to perform.

Joze Piranian has a severe stutter and avoided speaking for more than 20 years. Now, he’s confronting his fear of speaking.

“I have a speech impediment, and I am simply doing an exercise of introducing myself to strangers for speech therapy purposes,” he says.

“I learned this exercise from a speech therapy program that I had done. It involved asking for directions to 100 complete strangers. The objective is to feel more desensitized to people’s reactions to stuttering. It is also a way to practice this breathing technique under pressure in a real-world situation which I have found to be the perfect exercise right before I have to go up on stage.”

Piranian says his mother first noticed he had a stutter at the age of two. Growing up in Toronto he avoided speaking all together out of the fear of being different.

“I avoided it because I associated it with having to admit my vulnerability about myself. As soon as I started to joke about it on stage, it completely changed how I felt about being different,” he says.

Discipline, hard work and perseverance are just a few words to describe Piranian’s journey. In 2017 he made his debut in standup comedy and keynote speaking with focuses on mental health, disabilities, and fear.

He has made quite the name for himself, performing at organizations, conferences, and educational institutions all over the world. He also performed standup on the Canada got Talent stage.

“I’ve been working with different organizations and associations across industries and internationally to do talks about overcoming fear. I also do talks about mental health and about disability. These are the three main topics I have been tackling at these events.”

Just a few weeks ago Piranian released his first book about his journey called ‘Stop Holding Back: An Honest Guide to Turning Fear into Action.”

“Everyone has an inner stutter which I describe as in action in the face of fear. And the same way I have overcome my own stutter, people can overcome their inner stutter by following those same steps,” he says.

“If I could talk to my younger self, my younger self being the one I was before I embarked on this transformation. So, I would tell that pre changed self, three things, one it’s ok to be different, one what makes you unique, two use fear as a compass that will guide you to where you need to go.”

He says once you find the thing that scares you the most, do it and then do it again and again.

“In the past I saw fear as a roadblock, today I interpret that exact same fear as a trampoline that propels me forward. The changes we seek in our lives happen through what I like to call micro moments of bravery,” he says.

Piranian has performed at the LaughAbility fundraiser hosted by Dartmouth Adult Services Centre and on the Yuk Yuks stage in Halifax.