For more than sixty years, Ron Ruiz stuttered. It shaped his school years and kept him from flying for the airlines. Through decades of therapy, the advice he kept hearing was to accept it. Then, after he retired, Ron started learning the banjo, and that showed him firsthand that his brain could change.

So at seventy, he took one more shot at his stutter. Nine months later, he says it's gone. In this conversation, Ron takes us inside the head of someone who stutters, including the moment he blocked at an airport ticket counter right after three weeks of intensive speech therapy. He walks us through the program that finally worked for him, and we talk about why that program has so much in common with what helps a musician play what they know when the pressure is on.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Lee Lovett's Neuroscience Method to Stop Stuttering, the program Ron used: https://www.stopstutter.org/
• How to Stop Stuttering and Love Speaking, by Lee Lovett (the book Ron mentions)
• Brainjo banjo courses, where Ron learned clawhammer: https://www.brainjo.academy/

More from Josh:

• The Genius and the Impostor (book): https://geniusandimpostor.com
• What's your Pressure Profile? Find out your type (free, 3 minutes): https://performanceneurology.institute/pressure-profile
• Institute for Performance Neurology: https://performanceneurology.institute
• Brains, Banjos and Beyond (Substack): https://joshturknett.substack.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brainjojosh

Banjo player Bennett Sullivan was sure he'd ruined a Broadway show with one flubbed intro, and the research on how audiences actually hear our mistakes explains why almost nobody noticed.

Links:

• Order the bookThe Genius and the Impostor at GeniusAndImpostor.com
• The full interview with Bennett Sulivan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4lvyXS6ek8
• Instagram: @brainjojosh

Theme Music composed by Julienne Ellen (@julienneellencomposes)

Bennett Sullivan has played banjo on Broadway, at the Grand Ole Opry, and on the Poker Face soundtrack. By any measure, he belongs on any stage. And for years, he couldn't convince himself of it.

In this episode, Bennett is honest about the gap between what he's accomplished and how it's felt from the inside: the comparison that made him great and got in his way at the same time, the night on Broadway he was sure he'd ruined the show, and the shift that finally let him get out of his own way, which turned out to have almost nothing to do with the banjo.

If you've ever been good at something and still felt like you were about to be found out, this one's for you.

Links:

• Bennett's teaching site: https://banjolicks.com
• Order The Genius and the Impostor: GeniusAndImpostor.com
• Bennett on Instagram: @thebennettsullivan
• Josh on Instagram: @brainjojosh

To get the "Genius Toolkit," head to GeniusAndImpostor.com.

Bryan Sutton is one of the best flatpickers alive, and like most great players, he'll tell you the guitar just came naturally to him. In this follow-up to my conversation with Bryan, I dig into what's really behind the making of a "natural," and what it means for you.

Links:

• Pre-order The Genius and the Impostor (out August 25): https://GeniusAndImpostor.com
• The full interview with Bryan Sutton: https://youtu.be/mF0MSRkrriM?si=oNmQxHoMon-UaRKT
• Instagram: @brainjojosh
• More at performanceneurology.institute

Bryan Sutton is a three-time Grammy winner and one of the most-recorded session guitarists in Nashville, with credits from Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift to Dolly Parton and Doc Watson. Yet, he's driven home from sessions convinced he'd never work in the town again.

In this conversation we get into how he built his playing growing up immersed in the mountain music of Western North Carolina, why performing under pressure is a completely separate skill from playing well, and the mental shift he uses to get out of his own way.

Links:

• Pre-order The Genius and the Impostor: GeniusAndImpostor.com
• Take the Pressure Profile: PerformanceNeurology.institute/pressure-profile
• Bryan Sutton at ArtistWorks: ArtistWorks.com/Bryan-Sutton
• Bryan on Instagram: @bryansutton28
• Josh on Instagram: @brainjojosh

In this Genius Arc breakdown, Dr. Josh Turknett takes the story of Nelson Dellis — 6× USA Memory Champion and author of Everyday Genius — and runs it through the Genius and Impostor framework from his forthcoming book. You'll see how a man who says he "truly would have said my memory is average" built a championship-level skill from scratch, why five titles still couldn't stop his body from going into revolt before the sixth, and the reset that let him step on stage as "the most chill version of myself I've ever been." It's a clear, worked example of how capability is built, how pressure hijacks it, and how you get it back.

• Take the free Pressure Profile assessment (3 min): https://performanceneurology.institute/pressure-profile
• Pre-order The Genius and the Impostor: https://GeniusAndImpostor.com
• Read Brains, Banjos and Beyond: https://joshturknett.substack.com
• Nelson Dellis's book Everyday Genius: nelsondellis.com/everyday-genius
• Follow on Instagram: @brainjojosh

Links:

• Pre-order The Genius and the Impostor: GeniusAndImpostor.com
• Nelson's Instagram: @nelzor
• Josh's Instagram: @brainjojosh

Music by Jullienne Ellen (@julienneellencomposes)

Nelson Dellis can memorize a shuffled deck of cards in under 30 seconds, and he's won the USA Memory Championship six times. But he didn't start with a special memory. He built it from scratch, and he's adamant that nobody wins a memory competition on natural talent.

In this conversation we get into how he actually trains, how watching his grandmother's decline from Alzheimer's set him on this path, and what it would take for you to build a memory like his.

Links:

• Nelson Dellis's book Everyday Genius: nelsondellis.com/everyday-genius
• Pre-order The Genius and the Impostor: GeniusAndImpostor.com
• Nelson's Instagram: @nelzor
• Josh's Instagram: @brainjojosh

Music by Jullienne Ellen (@julienneellencomposes)