Aristotle had it. So did Elvis Presley and James Earl Jones. Recently, Grammy Award-winner Ed Sheeran revealed his struggles with speech impediment on The Howard Stern Show. Triggered by a traumatic medical procedure in his childhood, the singer acquired a stutter which affected his confidence. It was rapper Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP that helped Sheeran cope. “By learning that record, and rapping it back to back, it cleared my stutter,” he shared with Stern.

While it may be caused by many reasons — from genetic to psychological — stuttering is more common than people think. But in a highly communicative social world, this can cause some challenges. We spoke to an opera singer, a stand-up comic and a composer who found a way past it to build a career in the spotlight.