Hi, I'm Ty. From Stutter to Stage

A queer storyteller from Salt Lake City introduces himself. Meet Ty Pollock.  In the premiere of Ty in Progress, Ty shares the story behind the show: the childhood speech impediment that became his voice, the boardroom moment that finally cracked him open, and the day he decided to stop dimming his light. Pull up a chair. New episodes every Tuesday.

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Don't dim your light and share it! Be true. Be you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome everybody to the first episode of Tie in Progress. I am so happy and excited that you are here. Oh, this project has been a long time coming. It's something that I've wanted to do for years, and it's something that I think is really important right now. And so I'm excited that you're here and I'm excited that you that we're sharing this together. Kind of a little bit of backstory about me is I was in corporate for 16 years. And this past year, I unfortunately got laid off. And you know, I was starting this project beforehand, but I was laid off and I decided I'm like, you know what? Now's the time more than ever. It's something that it has been on the back of my mind. And so I want to share all those experiences with you. On this podcast, you're going to see special guests that share their light and share their interests, and especially in the queer and minority communities, because I feel like that is so important to share those stories. What kind of got me this idea was I was I was listening to some podcasts, I was kind of doing some research. My background was in was in PR and film production. And I was noticing, I'm like, there's not really a space. There's not really a space that we can tell our stories, that we can tell our stories so we don't repeat history, you know, and that and that's one thing that is so important to me is there's so much light, there's so much goodness out in the world, and we just need to share it. There are so many good people that you don't necessarily hear of from a day-to-day, and I want to give that a I want to give them a platform to be able to share and really share what their light is, their passions and their funness. And this is going to be something that it's just us on a couch. Like you can see if you're watching YouTube, everyone on podcasts, like go watch the YouTube because I'm like, we're sitting outside, we're grounding ourselves in nature. It is so beautiful right now, as as much as we can, right? Like whether contributing or whether cooperating, but that's the beauty of it. So yeah, just sitting out here on the couch, talking to your best friend, and that's really important to me. It's it's like when I pick up the phone and send a voice memo to my best friend

Why I'm doing this and who it's for

SPEAKER_00 2:00

and is like, oh my gosh, like how was your day? Like, what are you doing? You know, and just just that kind of conversation. So yeah, I'm very ecstatic that that that we are here and that you chose to listen to this. As I was starting to think of what I wanted my first episode to be about, you know, and it took me about six months. Let me tell you guys, little tangent, is I started filming this clear back in September of 2025. I got three episodes filmed, ready to go. I was going to launch it. Me and my family ended up going to a trip in Europe, and I was editing it on the plane, and I was so excited. I was gonna launch it when we got back. That 10-hour flight, so I was finishing up the final touches and everything like that. Well, we're we're in Switzerland. Unfortunately, we left our backpacks in our van. Yeah, rookie mistake. Like, how many of us just leave things in the car and then just walk away? Okay, well, we're we thought it was safe because we're back behind a hotel and yada yada yada, you know, all the things, stupid American for doing that. And basically, like we were done. Like, we shouldn't even do that here in our own backyard, right? So we go off and we're exploring interlock in Switzerland, and it's beautiful, like we're taking pictures and we're tasting chocolate and we're doing all this stuff, right? Well, all of a sudden, like we decide to walk back to the car. And as we're walking, my husband like goes, um, Tyler, I think our car got broken into. I'm like, oh fuck. I'm like, no, you've got to be kidding me, right? And he was like, No, I'm serious. And so go over there and sure shit enough, like there was glass all over the seat, all over the parking lot, and our backpacks had all been stolen. Luckily for some of my family, we were carrying our passports with us. Other parts of my family were not, so they ended up getting stolen. I had taken the car and I had backed it up against against the stall, so they couldn't get to our suitcases. So we still had our suitcases, but like our backpacks are souvenirs, and interesting enough, we just got done at Disneyland Paris like a couple days before. They ended up leaving the souvenirs from Disneyland Paris. So we always laugh and joke because we're like, oh yeah, they took everything else except for the Disney souvenirs. But anyway, so part of that too is my laptop, my hard drive, everything like that got stolen. So all of my podcasts, all of that work, it defeated me for just a little bit. I'm like, oh, I'm like, that was so much work to put that much energy to. But I'm like, you know what? Now's a better time than anything. So decided to start this, and and we are we are pushing through and we got back on that horse and we are going. So as I was as I was contemplating what I wanted my first episode to be, I went over to my parents' house and I was watching some old VHS tapes, right? Just some old, like I was a nerd as a kid, so I would take all the tapes and then I would combine them into one VHS. And so I was watching this VHS, you know, and there was some of me on sports and my sister in dance and like our families and everything like that. And then this newscast came across that I had totally forgot. And it was a newscast because when I was four and a half, my sister was just born, four and a half, five, I believe. We went to Disneyland. I remember getting back, and my grandma was like, Your dog has been stolen. Now, this is a dog that I just barely got. So she was a puppy. Her name was Tisha, she was a golden lab, she was the best dog ever. She ended up living to be like 17. My parents had just bought her for me because my sister was born, and so they thought, oh, it'd be a good idea to get a dog. I'm like, you guys are crazy. I'm like, I wouldn't do that now. I wouldn't buy a puppy and have a newborn. I'm like, good God. Anyway, so we come to find out they got stolen. We made little posters, and it was a little poster of me and Tisha was on top of me, basically, as we were playing and roughing around, and like we had an reward and everything's like that. But producer from ABC4 ended up picking it up. And so they came and interviewed, and I was watching it, and I'm like, oh wow. I'm like, I had a stutter.

The VHS of 5-year-old me

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Let's listen to it. Um that still brings up so many emotions for me because I'm like, oh, I'm like, I love that dog and the fact that it was stolen, and then everyone's like, oh my gosh, you were so cute, and everything's like that. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I had little curls, and now I'm bald, so like that doesn't matter. But I didn't realize how much of a stutter I had. And then it started bringing back a whole flood of memories. Like, who else has had stutter? Who else has had speech impediment problems? And and that was challenging. Like, we've all had challenges growing up. And this was one thing where I had to go to speech therapy for many, many years, all the way up until junior high. I was looking at that now, and it was I've been made fun of by friends, I've been made fun of by family. And yeah, people are like, oh my gosh, it was so cute and different things like that. And I'm like, Yeah, it was, but at the same time, too, it was very, it was very challenging. There were very there are a lot of words that I still that to this day still have a hard time saying, like tomorrow, right? Like now I have to break it up and be like Tom or Roe. So, like, what kind of words and stuff like that are are you still having trouble with to this day, right? And so I'm sitting there and I'm being like, wow.

What my mom said when I told her

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And then my mom was like, you know, it is pretty cool that you went from having a speech impediment to then being able to start a podcast, being able to talk on stage, being able to host different things, right? And I'm like, wow, I'm like, you know what? You are exactly right. It brought up a lot of different things. Like a lot of us have very much issues with sharing our voice, right? And that's the transition that I wanted to make here was sharing your voice is very difficult, right? Especially like if you do have a stuttering problem, or if you're in a minority group, or if you're a woman, or if you're a queer person. You know, sometimes spaces that we are in wasn't designed for us to have a voice, wasn't designed for us to speak up, wasn't designed for us to even us be us. And so I'm like, that is where this first podcast needs to go, is being able to share what our voice is. And I'm like, girl, I'm like, we've all got to start speaking up because nothing is going to change if we start if we stop speaking up. Like, for example, I worked in corporate for a lot of years. Those spaces are not meant for queer people, and to be honest, they're not really meant for minority groups or women. And I watched many times people were silenced by these men that thought that they were the ones that had the power, that the system was designed for them. I would be in boardrooms and they would make little passive aggressive comments to a woman over here. They would make passive aggressive comments over to

The boardroom moment

SPEAKER_00 8:52

me as a queer person, and you know, basically like making jokes about one of the top leaders being bi, and then they start going off about that and laughing. And I'm just sitting there being like, Cool, what the fuck, guys? You know, and it was one of those spaces that you can't speak up in. You can, but then there's retaliation, there's all these things, and they can say that there's protection there, but you mainly don't speak up for safety. This is a space I want all of us to stand up and speak and voice and just be able to get our light out there. So I was in speech resource all the way up until middle school. You know, there were a lot of kids, and middle school was even brutal. Like, there was a lot of kids that would make fun of you for having a speech impediment. Like, I still have a little bit of trouble with my R's, but my R's and W's were extremely hard for me as a kid. And then I remember at one of my previous companies was the first time I ever got on stage. Like it was the first time I actually gave a public speaking forum on a stage like that. I've done other things and like hosting a sports show and different things, but this was the first time that it was actually like a professional setting that I'm getting up. And I'm going through my speech, and I remember I had a boss at the time that there was a couple words that I messed up on, mainly because when I start talking fast or when I get nervous or when I get excited, I start to stutter. And I still have that. Like there's no getting past that, and I've accepted that, and so that's where I'm like, okay, just take a deep breath and be able to go. Like, we all just need to breathe. I think that's a I think that's a general consensus for everything. We all just need to breathe. I get up there and I'm rehearsing, and I remember I looked down, and my boss at the time was just busting out laughing. And I'm looking at them and I'm like,

"What the fuck are you laughing at"

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Like, what the fuck are you laughing at? So I get off stage and they're making fun of me because one of the words I said was wrong, and one of the and some of my speech uh was wrong, and was like, oh well, like you need to fix that. Da da da da. I'm looking at them like, well, first of all, you don't get the fuck to tell me what I can do and not do, and yada yada yada, right? There was that little bit of rebellion in me that I'm like, yeah, go fuck off. I remember then that made me even more nervous going on there. And so I remember stepping up on that stage and I killed it. You guys know the feeling of just having that feeling of like, oh yeah, I killed that, and you are confident with that. It's one of the most glorious feelings, like we've all had that. And I remember looking

The kid who stuttered, now the kid on stage

SPEAKER_00 11:16

back, being like, Yeah, I was the kid that stuttered, and now I'm the kid on stage. That's where I want to lead into with this podcast is trying new things, right? The reason I named it tie in progress is because I am always growing. You are always growing, like you are here because you still continue want to want to grow. Because as we stop growing, life isn't any fun anymore, as we're not learning new things, as we're not not growing, you know. And I think that was the I had this realization, just turned 36, and so I'm like, oh, I'm like the first, I I'm literally at the double point of 18. And I'm like, the first 18 years was worth so much of growing and you know, learning how to speak and growing both physically and mentally, and as a child and learning from different things. Then the 18 years past that, after I was turned an adult, and I put that in quotations because I don't necessarily think that 18-year-olds are adults yet, like we're all still growing. I still feel like I'm a baby and I'm young. Then I looked at everything that I was growing towards then too, and my biggest achievements, my biggest failures are all things because I just tried. And I think that's so important for us to just try things. It's it's fun to fail. It's fun to succeed. I mean, it's really fun to succeed. It's not so much fun to fail, but you look back at it and you're like, oh yeah, this is fun to fail. I want to learn all that. I want to go through life and I want to continue learning. I want to continue to meet new people and share their light and have their light shown. And that's the most important thing in life is to learn those lessons and to just grow. That's what I decided to do. I decided to blow up my life. I think they're now calling it the millennial midlife crisis, I guess. I was talking to someone the other day and they're in their 60s, and they were like, it has been fascinating to watch because I had my lift midlife crisis in my 50s. Millennials are now have starting to have their midlife crisis in their 30s and being like, wait a minute, the system was not built for us. Like, yeah, the system was built for other generations, but we have to break that cycle. We have to do something else. And yeah, I don't know if I'll ever go back into corporate. I'm hoping that or I know that this will turn out because I have a lot of I have a lot of hope. And at the end of the day, if it does fail, at least I tried it. At least I can say that I tried it and and be able to go. And so that's where I'm I'll be sharing stories about like my corporate times and I'll be sharing other people's and like bringing other people in because I feel like that's so important. Because if we don't learn from other people, however are we going to grow? However, are we going to get rid of judgments? However are we going to not be bigoted and how else, you know, because I feel like once you put a face to the name, then it's so much harder to judge that. Like in the media, you're always saying about different things and and certain groups and different things like that. I'm like, yeah, I'm a queer man and I'm proud of it. This is me. This is you. We are all someone special. So I'm blowing up the version of my career that I thought worked, raising the ranks, you know, and now realizing that yeah, those spaces weren't created for us. It might be bonkers, it might be crazy, but you know what? That's what gets us to live life. You know, there's this quote that I absolutely love, and it's from Alice in Wonderland,

The Mad Hatter philosophy

SPEAKER_00 14:32

and it's from the Mad Hatter. Just goes, Alice told the Mad Hatter, You're entirely bonkers, but I'll tell you a little secret. All the best people are. Let's be bonkers together because that's what makes us us. A couple little housekeeping items. Every other week you're gonna hear from a guest, and then every other week you're gonna hear what's called TIE Talks. We're just gonna be best friends sitting on the couch and we're gonna be talking and we're gonna be chatting and we're gonna have different subjects of things that I've experienced in my life who other people have experienced. And then at the end of the TIE talks, we're actually gonna have a little segment which I like to call in the group chat. I asked on Instagram for some stories or a question, and I got this one. So this one is from a queer man, 37 years old, who also is working in corporate. So I'm like, okay, I can relate to this. Ty, I am struggling right now in my job at my company. There is a boys club, and it makes me extremely uncomfortable. The other day I was asked to go golfing with them. I don't feel comfortable around them, but also I know if I say no, they will leave me behind. What do I do? This

In the Group Chat: the boys club question

SPEAKER_00 15:33

is a great question because I have been through this exact scenario. For me, instead of golfing, it was actually pickleball. What I want to share some light on is I'm like, do you feel unsafe? Do they make you feel unsafe? Do you feel unsafe because it's a bunch of straight men getting together and play sports? Do they mentally make remarks about it? Do you feel like you're the butt of the joke? Because in in the instance that I had, so they asked me to go play pickleball. And I was nervous as hell. I'm like, oh, I'm like, oh, a bunch of straight guys. I'm a pretty athletic person, but you start to doubt yourself. I'm like, you know what, Tyler? I'm I'm I'm just gonna go relatively at the time. Like I felt safe. Granted, like I wore my shorttiest booty shorts and I have a tattoo of basically a naked man on my thigh. And so I'm like, oh, okay, I'm gonna show up this way. And it was fine, it was a lot of fun. I felt the same pressure and I felt the same, I felt the same fear that you were probably feeling right now. When I got back, I was talking to a female executive that we were on the same level, and they were never invited. So I never went again. That was one thing that I'm like, I will never go again. I completely empathize why you're struggling. I think my best advice for you would be to sit with it, see why you're nervous, why you're struggling, either decide to go, find out who else is going, if it's something that maybe one of the other executives on that boys' club that you feel comfortable with, like go share it with them and say, hey, this is why I'm feeling uncomfortable. And at the end of the day, they might. I wish I could say that we live in a world that would be like, oh no, like that'll

Close: Be true. Be you.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

never happen. Like, people won't retaliate. I'm like, bullshit. Bullshit. We've all been retaliated on, we've all been discriminated against. Just sit with it, see where exactly your fears are. Because if it's just going out playing with a bunch of straight men's, I encourage you to maybe go try it. If they're being mentally or physically unsafe in any way, that's when you'd be like, you know what, I think I'm good, and really make sure to find your group of people that you can go, you can go do that with. Every company I've ever worked for has a boys club. And I have yet to wanted to be in that boys club or been invited to be in that boys club because I'm like, nope, I would rather surround myself with like-minded people like me from a system that was that was broken. So anyway, sit with it. I would love a follow-up. Let me know what you're thinking, and then we can say it on the show. But if any of you have any questions or any scenarios that you would like to share, I would love to read them in my next TI Talk. Thank you all so much for listening to the very first episode of Tie in Progress. Please like and share. Go follow us on all social media accounts. And in fact, on social media, we have this series called What They Don't Teach You. And it's a series of where we take people from that are queer women from minority groups and we share their stories out. Because if there's one thing that I learned, it's people like us get erased. Always remember to go out there, share your light because your light is the one thing that matters in this world. So always be true and be you. And I look forward to seeing you next episode. Okay, love you guys all. Bye.