Mark Schulman on Hearing Loss, Tinnitus and Rocking the Stage with Purpose

Welcome to This Week in Hearing. I’m Gael Hannan, author and hearing health advocate. Today we are talking to the amazing speaker, keynote speaker, drummer, author Mark Schulman. Mark has performed for more than a billion. That’s a billion with a B, people. In his 30 plus career, he’s been the drummer for some of the greatest musical artists of our time. Pink. Foreigner, Cher, Stevie Nicks, Billy Idol, and a couple that I didn’t recognize. But he is also the author of two books, and the latest is called the Attitude Equation. Mark also has life changing hearing loss and tinnitus. So let’s talk with Mark. Mark. Hi, Gael. What an intro. I want to take you everywhere with me. Oh, do. Oh, I would love it. I can do more than that. I can, like Oh, I don’t know. Whatever you need. I could be your right hand person. Whatever. So how strong are you? Can you carry a nice, big, heavy rack? Yes. Yes. I’ll work out so Fantastic. Sounds great. Yeah. Where am I speaking to you? Where are you? I am in Marina del Rey, California. Los Angeles. And I have a week off or so. A couple weeks off from speaking. I do a lot of speaking gigs these days. I’m not touring anymore. After 32 years, I’ve committed to a higher purpose, which is keynote speaking for corporate audiences and executives and associations, and it’s been incredible. What’s your message when you speak to all these people? Well, my new book is called the Attitude Equation, and I consider my expertise to be employee engagement, attitude transformation, team building, and I also have an all star rock band that will perform as well. And I call it a rock show disguised as a keynote because it’s very oriented toward the messaging of the particular corporate client, what they’re expecting, what their challenges are, combined with what I speak about, having to do with employee engagement, and the power of attitude, which is huge. And that’s where the attitude equation came from. My co author, Doctor Jim Samuels, created this equation that I’ve been living by for 25 years, which is essentially, we can’t control what happens to us, but we always have the power to control, change, or shift our attitudes about what happened to us. And your attitude, this is where it gets incredibly powerful. Your attitude is what drives your behavior. And you think about the leverage and the power in that one. Attitude can drive many behaviors, and your behavior is what determines the consequences of your life. And it’s a times b equals c. So by shifting your attitude, you can literally change the outcomes of your life. And this has to do with everything from your productivity at work to your health to your communication, your relationships with your family. And I interviewed top performers in all fields, from Howie Mandel to Judd Apatow to Martina Navratilova to Grant Cardone and a bunch of musicians, a bunch of my drummer buddies, about how attitude has literally been the cornerstone of their success and their failures. So it’s powerful stuff. Attitude is not what we do. It’s who we are. You know, this is not only fascinating, but you are singing my song, because I am the co author of a book called Hear & Beyond, and it’s about improving that hearing loss journey. And it’s not just about hearing better. It’s about communicating better. And one of the cornerstones of this for us, our mind shifts changing your attitude and how you view your hearing loss and how you view your life with hearing loss. So let’s talk about your hearing loss. And that’s what brought us here today to talk about your hearing loss. And you also have tinnitus, which I know you pronounce tinnitus. And we’re here to say. We’re here to say it doesn’t matter what way you pronounce it. If you have it, you definitely have it. So when did you When you first noticed your hearing loss and when it became a fact? Did that impact your life and your career as a drummer? Well, I had an acute awareness of hearing loss because my grandma had severe hearing loss and wore two hearing aids. So from the earliest memory, I was always communicating with her, and she had very impeded speech. And as a drummer, I spent my whole life playing drums. And I started noticing when I was about 14 or 15 years old that when I’d sit down a plane, I didn’t wear hearing protection. That when I’d be done, my ears would be ringing horribly and I would be playing in bands. And I quickly discovered that I needed to wear hearing protection, or the tinnitus or tinnitus would be unbearable. I would lay down at night on my pillow and be like. So, from a very early young age, I always wore hearing protection. I had no idea that I would. This would end up being, like, extensive hearing loss as I got older, and I’ve been very, very attentive to always protecting my hearing. And when I’ve been on stage for 32 years, in 1998, they released molded in ear monitoring. And that was a lifesaver for me, because then I could have these sealed in ear monitors in which I could have my own monitor mix and I could control the volume, and I could cut out all the extraneous noise and try to keep the volume down. So that actually really helped as well. And I still use those. And that’s been magnificent. So I’ve done everything I can do. And I tell my students, I cannot say enough how careless people are, especially musicians and drummers and people that are playing, you know, with amplified instruments. It’s critical to protect your hearing. And I did not realize the extent of my hearing loss. And I went in for a hearing test about four years ago, and I hadn’t had one for a long time. And a lot of your listeners may understand the frequency spectrum of hearing the people that don’t. At 4kHz, which is essentially right in the middle of the hearing spectrum, where voices are, where the snare drum is, where the metronome is that I had played with for 32 years, I’ve lost 60 dB, which is essentially, I’ve lost my hearing in that rage. So from 2kHz to 8kHz, my hearing goes like that. And I had no idea. But I started realizing actually ten years ago, 15 years ago, I’d be in restaurants with people, and if they weren’t facing me, if I couldn’t see them and read their lips, I couldn’t understand them once they turned around, especially in those environments. So when I finally took the step and got fitted for hearing aids, right now I’m using the Widex SmartRIC, which are great because they’re computer controlled. They have four microphones, and they actually, they’re adaptive, so they adapt to the environment. So depending upon the environment I’m in, I could actually wear them when I go to concerts, and they will actually close down and suppress some of the volume as well as when I’m in different environments. So I really love the intelligence of the hearing protection. And I’ll tell you, it was emotional for me because I first got the hearing aids, I went into my bathroom and I could hear the birds chirping. I took the hearing aids out. I couldn’t hear the birds chirping. You have birds in your bathroom? No. I could hear the birds chirping outside. Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Yes. But I didn’t realize what I was missing. It was almost like I was seeing in two dimensional. And then when I put the hearing aids on, now everything is three dimensional. I’m so much more aware of all the noises and the background noises and. And so many details and nuances. It literally is life changing for me. And what you’re describing is that joy. And you know, so many people, when they get hearing aids for the first time, they’re kicking and screaming. They don’t want to get them. And when they get them, it’s like oh, I’m hearing too much. I don’t want to hear all those birds, you know? But then there’s that moment of joy, and it’s I think it’s when you take them out and you don’t have it. Like, I love your phrase, two dimensional. I think that that’s amazing. So a question for you, as – So you wear your hearing aids all the time, I’m assuming? As often as I can, I wear like, I’m wearing the Apple AirPods. When I’m on a plane, I use the noise suppression. I like the noise suppression for the AirPods because people also don’t realize when you’re on a plane or you’re in a loud car, that constant. It’s not super loud, but the constant noise is really depleting on your hearing, and it can cause permanent damage. So I’m very, very conscientious that when I’m on a plane, I’m wearing noise suppression headphones or wearing earplugs. But all the other times, I wear my hearing aids as much as possible. Not to mention that everybody in my family, including my older brother, my parents had dementia, my brother has dementia. And they’ve found out that 9.3% of the dementia patients had suffered from hearing loss. So now I’m pretty freaked out. Now I’m like, I’m going to wear these things as much as I possibly can because dementia runs in my family. So there’s another reason to correct your hearing because it will minimize the potential of you getting dementia. And those messages are still being clarified. There’s untreated hearing loss as higher potential for dementia. But I think this is so important to bring out. So I want to get to your speaking because I can see that this is a passion for you and about attitude. When you are speaking on stage, you’re wearing your hearing aids, correct? I am not. Because when I’m speaking on stage, I’m wearing my molded in-ears because I perform with music, because I still play drums. It’s like a rock show disguised as a keynote. I perform a Pink medley, a Billy idol medley, a Stevie Nicks excuse me, a Cher medley, and a Foreigner medley. So I’m always needing to have those in ears. So that’s the only time that I don’t wear my hearing aids is when I’m on stage, because I’m wearing the molded ears so I can hear my music and hear my metronome, my click track, because I’m playing along with tracks. But every chance I get, I wear my hearing aids. And the interesting thing is, you know what you talked about earlier? I’ll wear my hearing aids all day when I get home and take my hearing aids out. It literally sounds like somebody’s put a sock over my head. It is so wild. I don’t realize how much I’m missing until I realize how much I’ve missed. So it really is critical. And the hearing aids look cool. You can’t see them. They’re small. It’s not like your grandma’s hearing aids, you know, they’re cool. All you can see is a little plastic wire coming down. And I also have widex provided me with these in ears that aren’t computerized, that you can put all the way in your ears. And they’re not adjustable. But if I feel like wearing something where I don’t want anybody to see me, I can wear these hearing aids that are completely not visible, but very, very helpful, so. So there’s really no. I can’t stress enough. There’s no excuse to avoid wearing hearing aids. If you have an excuse, you’re just. It’s ego or you’re lazy, and you’re really missing out on the potential of how much better your life can be. Thats fabulous. And I had brought up the question about being on stage because as a speaker myself not a musician, I am so not a musician. But when I’m speaking on stage, right off, the sound will go out. Been a problem. When the – do you know what hearing loop is? Telecoils and hearing loops. Are you familiar with that? I’m a bit familiar with it. For those that aren’t, you should explain it. Oh, gosh, I don’t explain it well, but what it is, it’s a magnetic field that when you’re inside this loop connects with your hearing aids, and it’s like, streaming, so the sound comes directly into your devices. Clear, crisp, absolutely no background but noise. When somebody had done this for me, they have a looping they’re looping giants looped the stage that I’m speaking on, so my own voice is coming, so I’m hearing myself better. So it’s the same concept of the in ear monitor. You’re able to hear yourself. And when you were a speaker and a talker, if you can’t hear yourself clearly, if you’re a musician and you can’t hear, then it affects your ability to communicate. If I don’t hear myself well, I don’t speak as well. So tell me with your books and your keynote, do you mention your hearing loss at all? Not unless somebody asks me. If someone happens to see me at the. Because when I go to the after party and I hang out with the clients and the attendees, if I’m wearing my hearing aids, somebody asked me, I want to tell. I’m on a soapbox about the importance of improving your hearing. So rather than being embarrassed about it, I’m the first one to tell you as much as I can to promote it for everybody, especially younger musicians and kids and people. One of the issues that we have now is kids are wearing Bluetooth headphones, and they’re cranking them way too loud, so they’re getting hearing loss from that. So I also tell my daughter, make sure she’s 14. Like, make sure when you’re listening, because she loves her, you know, I got her the AirPods to make sure you’re not listening too loudly, because that is our main source of listening to music now for almost everybody either in the car or through our Bluetooth headphones. And it’s very easy to turn them up way too loud. If you turn them up way too loud, you’re going to get hearing loss. And of course, your 14 year old daughter follows what you say because I just having been a mother of teenagers, is that. You’re being facetious, right? Yeah, very facetious. When you have what you have when you’re a teenager, your hearing loss, and you’re going to have it forever. That’s what you think. How could I possibly lose this? And the thing is, with hearing loss, as it starts to atrophy, for lack of a better word, you don’t notice it. You don’t walk out your house, and you don’t say, oh, I’m not hearing the birds as clearly as I did yesterday. You don’t know that you hear what you hear. And it’s usually only when you’re interacting with other people, as you said, if you’re not catching it, if you don’t see the lips. Yeah it’s so important. Hearing loss affects communication, and I say communication is the glue that connects us as people. And hearing loss can dissolve that glue unless we do something about it. Wearing hearing aids, letting people know what we need. And it sounds like you have not shy about letting people know what you need to. Well, a couple of things, too. When I wasn’t. When I didn’t have hearing aids and I’d be watching tv I would have the tv so loud that, you know, between my ex wife and my kid, they were like, we can’t. It’s too loud for us. We can’t take it. And also, I got tired of saying, what? Excuse me. Excuse me. What? Pardon me. And then I just stopped saying. And I was trying to get read lips and get communication within context of missing words. And I thought, you know, why? Why, if I can just wear hearing aids, it’s such an easy resolution and it makes it more comfortable not only for me, but for everybody around me, because who wants to be annoying and have the tv too loud or be repeating, what did you say? What is like the old man going, what? What? What? He’s got the little bullhorn. What? What’d you say? I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be, like, as cool and as, you know, I like to be of service. I mean, it’s part of what I represent. I’m a corporate speaker. I mean, I’m here to be of service to people. So anything I can do to make everybody else’s life easier, including my own just is part of my personal mandate. Well call it. And that is so true because communication, as I just said, is between two people or groups of people. And our hearing loss affects the communication with other people. So there’s no shame in it. Absolutely no shame in it. And when we can convey that to others, say would you speak up, please? I have hearing loss. Oh, I’m sorry. Well don’t be sorry, but usually that’s just a term of speech. We say that because what else are we going to say? Oh, I’m sorry. But I think people like you, Mark, help spread that message that there is no shame in this. And you want to live life, you want to hear life, you want to like you said, be of service. So I think it’s really, really amazing. Now, your daughter, who is 14 and you had a grandmother with hearing loss. Is it hereditary? Does your daughter think that she herself perhaps might. Have hearing loss one day. She’s not thinking about it. And I think that my grandmother had polio or some other disease when she was very young, and that might have caused the hearing loss. So I don’t know if it’s genetic, but I don’t know whether my. I mean, I said I really was very adamant and fastidious about protecting my hearing over the years. So it could be genetics as well, because that’s some pretty severe hearing loss for someone who’s spent their most of their life. And I’ll tell you, I play one song on drums without hearing protection, the tinnitus is unbearable. It goes away. Fortunately, I’ve had some friends that have really bad tinnitus, and it’s permanent, and it actually drives them crazy. One of my friends needed to go to a therapist because she just couldn’t take it anymore, and she needed to find ways to adjust psychologically. But, you know, for me, fortunately, it goes away. And it’s not that challenging for me. But even. Even right now, like, in the ear that’s open, I still hear a. I can always hear it a little bit. It’s just not that extreme. And when I have my hearing aids in, I hear so much of my 4K. I hear so much of what’s missing that I’m not even thinking about the tinnitus anymore, you know? Yeah. And I think when we think about it, when somebody mentioned tinnitus. It blooms in my head. I am one of those who have chronic tinnitus, and it’s very loud And But I have learned to, if not habituate to it, but I learned how to deal with it. And it. Because it causes anxiety, it can be caused by. And it can be caused by anxiety. So. But if I like talking to you if we weren’t talking about tinnitus my brain is focused on you. My brain is focused on our conversation. So it is not listening to what’s going on. And this is one of the things I feel badly for your friend, because I know from experience how stressful it can be. So there’s a lot of research going on with tinnitus, and hopefully in our lifetimes, we’ll be able to to address that. So that’s great. My goodness. So you do corporate keynote speaking, and you still Do you still drum for fun? Is that a thing? Drum for fun? Yeah, I still do sessions, and I’ve got my all star band, and I play drums when I do my corporate speaking. I won’t do a speech without my drums. It’s part of who I am. It’s the foundation of what brought me to all these realizations and the study. And I have great road stories, and every performance that I have has a content connection to it. So even when I’m performing, there’s a story behind the performance that the audience can learn or have a sort of a content takeaway from. And it’s fun. And I bring somebody on stage and I teach them how to. How to play a Pink song in three minutes or less. So it really is, it’s foundational to who I am and what I do. So I’m never going to get rid of the drums. I love, you know, I still love drumming. It’s just that after 32 years of touring, I think that speaking is a. Has a much deeper sense of purpose. I talk about my speech, you know transforming your passion into purpose, because passion is fleeting. Passion gets you there, purpose keeps you there, and purpose is an extension of passion. So speaking to me is a sense of purpose. I feel like I’ve had all this experience, and I’ve been very philosophical, and I have all this information that I can share and impart, and it’s my responsibility to do so. And I’ve got the platform and I’ve studied. Both of my parents were professors, so I’ve got the teaching gene, and I’ve studied with two speaking coaches, an acting coach, a director, a storyteller, and I refine my craft like I refine my craft of drumming. So when I get on stage, they’re hearing a very refined, professional speaker, not just some rock and roll dude who’s getting up there and telling rock and roll stories. I worked very hard to nuance it, and I mean, I think about every, you know, my positioning on stage, my body language, my inflection. There are so many nuances to the craft, like an actor would be thinking about it. So to me, it’s like an acting gig in a sense. So I take it very seriously. Oh, I mean, it’s clear. What was the name of your first book? Remind me. Conquering Life’s Stage Fright. Three steps to top performance. So, conquering life stage fright was really the lead in. It was really all about the three steps to top performance, which are Clarity, Capability and Confidence, meaning you have extreme clarity of your goal. And the more clear you are about your goal, the more you will understand how to develop and where to develop your capability, and when you truly develop your capability and put in the time that brings you real confidence as opposed to false confidence. So it’s definitely a sequential learning theme of the three c’s. And I did a lot of interviews with people in that book as well. But I like the groups of threes, and I like these acronyms like ABC and CCC, and they’re all very, very important. And then I speak with my partner, who’s a neurocoach, Heather Crider. We do a presentation as well called my presentation called hacking the rock star Attitude, and ours is called hacking the Rockstar brain. So she will analyze a lot of my stories and a lot of what’s going on through the neuroscience approach. And we have a three c’s as well, which is connection, communication, and collaboration. And we tie those in and link those in. So there is so much great information on this planet and so much to talk about and so much for people to learn, and we all have a story to tell, and we can all learn from each other. Fabulous stuff. And so much of what you’re talking about. So any of our viewers are watching with. With hearing loss, can perhaps be inspired and see the connection of what you’re talking about to their lives and how they deal with. Hearing loss in their lives. And in fact, we will include your website so that people could go to that, which I just as a reminder, you were going to update that real soon because we want people to go to your website to see about how they can learn more about your books and about your speaking. And also hopefully a little bit about your hearing loss journey which is my passion, about living the best possible hearing loss life as possible. And so much of what you say about performance and about attitudes is what I use to live my life. So, Mark Shulman, I am so grateful for your taking the time to talk to us at This Week in Hearing, and I really hope to see you again. I think we should write a book together more on the hearing loss side. I think that would be nice little thing to add to your portfolio of books and fabulous people in your life. What do you think? Yeah, at the very least, we should write a few articles because you’ve inspired me already. Because I do a lot of. I put out a weekly speech on a weekly different topic as part of my newsletter. And I’m thinking that I should write something about hearing loss and how that ties in and just let people know how critical it is. You know, for those of you that struggle with anxiety associated with your hearing loss, you really do have the power to shift your attitude about it. And if you. I like how you talked about when you’re focused on something that matters and you’re not focused on the challenges of the hearing loss. And a lot of it is acceptance. And if you can do anything to augment your hearing or do anything to change or improve it, please take action. Simply take action. I love it when I see people wearing hearing aids. I notice them now, and I’ll get together with a lot of different friends, like, oh, you’re wearing hearing aids. You’re wearing hearing aids. So many people do. And you see it and you realize, wow, even the most you know, successful people from a forensic accountant friend of mine, to the keyboard player of journey, Jonathan Cain, to all these different people, wear hearing aids. And Kelly Kiki from night ranger, another rock and roll band, wear hearing aids. And it’s cool. It’s not uncool. It’s cool. It’s much cooler to treat yourself well and to have a positive effect on everybody else than it is to deny yourself and deny others of an ailment that needs to be addressed. So that’s what cool is to me. I can’t think of a better point to end this fabulous conversation with you. Mark Shulman, thank you so much. And I look forward to speaking with you again. Have a fabulous day. My pleasure, Gael. Thank you so much for the opportunity.