Transcript of Breaking Stigmas with Brandon Sawalich

I'm so excited in this episode. I just sat down with the CEO of Starkey, the number one wearable hearing technology device in the world. But more importantly, we're going to talk about his journey from intern to CEO. There's leadership lessons, there's life lessons, there's even love lessons. Stay through the end because we're going to talk about what happens when we sit down with our favorite publicist and Damon John for dinner. Who's going to pick up the check first? Ladies Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down and welcome my good friend, my guy, Mr. Brandon, Swalich. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mic Unplug. Today, we're talking to the man, the myth, and the legend. He's the leader who turned hearing aids into health tech statements. The executive who spent 30 years in every corner of his industry pushing innovation with heart and AI. He's focused on customers, caring, and scientific excellence. He's bold, he's caring, he's relentless. He is my friend. He is Mr. Brandon Solowich. Brandon, how are you doing today, brother?

I'm doing good, Mickey. Yourself?

Dude, I am doing amazing. I'm honored that we can spend some time together. Glad that we can have this conversation, man. I was telling you, Zack, our mutual publicist, our good friend, Damon John, speaks so highly of you. So when I got the call that you were going to be on, I froze for a moment because I was like, I get the man, the myth, the legend. I'm honored to be here with you, brother.

Well, thank you. Yeah, those two great friends and business guys, and they always level me up. I get something out of them. I think that's the point of relationships like this is we get to learn and talk to each other.

Yes, sir. Brandon, man, I love starting the conversation with your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, your true purpose, and with all the amazing things that you're doing in healthcare and tech and hearing aids. What's your because? Why do you continue to do and move the needle the way that you do?

Well, for myself, I like to push myself. Ever since as far back as I can remember, my mother tells a story of I was five or six and we're at Disneyland, and it's a big deal. Doing all the rides, and I'm asking, Well, what are we doing tomorrow? What are we doing tomorrow? To the point of my whole life, I've always been looking up and out. Whether it's ideas or whatever it might have been in school, a sport, work. I always been challenged or thought, Oh, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. I want to put you in the box. I'm always looking up and out, and I don't like to be confined to a box because I like to look the opportunities of what could be. So I guess by becausees, I'm always challenging the status quo because I've been told I can't do something or it won't work, so I like to try it.

That's amazing, man. And speaking of challenging the status quo, here's what I love about what you do, and here's what I've learned about you through so many people. I think there's a big myth. There's a myth, there's a stigma on hearing loss, and most people seek help when they feel it's too late. With your eyes, you can tell when your eyes are getting a little worse. But with hearing, you just turn the volume up a little bit. But people aren't checking their hearing as much as they should or could. I'd love for you to talk to everyone about the importance of just getting those tests and how they can get those tests.

Yeah, I think with hearing loss and hearing aids, it comes the age-old, decades-old stigma, right? What's the first thing you think of? Well, I'm old. No, that has been a stereotype for decades, but today's technology is cool. I mean, we're doing things with hearing aids. I have mine on right now. You probably couldn't tell here, and you could barely tell if you were in person. But we have to make complex simple to help people with their everyday life. We change people's lives. With a hearing loss, people It doesn't resonate that they're missing out until they have their hearing checked. Then, yes, I do have a hearing loss, whether it's noise-induced, because today's generation, I think, one in six teenagers have a noise-induced hearing loss from music, headsets, gaming. You have to have hearing to stay connected to your job and your family. Getting a test, nobody the word test. I know I did in school either, but it's really an evaluation, just quick where you're at. Then what we're doing with technology is bringing your world and life into this product where it connects. Yes, it helps you hear noisy situations, but it also connects with your phone, your TV.

We have language translation. We're doing a lot of cool things with this technology. So it's not the hearing aids or hearing technology of 20 years ago. It's the hearing aid of what's next.

Totally agree. And I think I'll go back to when I was in school and you would see people, whether they're students, adults or whatever, with the bulky hearing aid. And I think in my uncle, I have an uncle who has hearing loss. And I remember him talking about just the lack of confidence that he would have in public because he'd have this big, bulky hearing aid. And so because I knew he needed it, there were times when we would be out in public and he wouldn't put it on. I knew because he wanted to have a certain confidence or certain swaggerer in public that he felt like he couldn't have if he wore that.

That's the stereotype because it was probably whistling, too. It would feed back. That's the stereotype that they do it in the movies and shows and in the media where they have these old pictures of hearing aids that they use even today. It doesn't represent what we're doing at Starkey Because we're setting the speed of innovation in our industry and using AI and other technologies. The ear is the new wrist. We have health features and all sorts of things that can help people have the edge, or I'll say, gain the edge of their day in their work, family, whatever it might be.

Yeah. Brandon, again, when I talk to people about you, whether it's Zack, whether it's Damon or people on their teams, one word always comes back. And that's caring. And I think the culture that you've created at Starky, while yes, innovation and technologies are the forefront, I also think the most important thing about your culture is that you show genuine care When and how did you develop that? When did you know that that was you? That one, you legitimately care about humans, but then two, you have this innate ability to make people feel so special when around you. Again, I could tell that 10 people in all 10 are going to tell me that about Brandon.

Well, I think you have a caring attitude or you don't. For myself, I feel I've had that most of my life. I like being on teams and building teams. It gives me satisfaction to help somebody out to see that smile. I've done that most of my life on little things where helping the neighbor shovel their sidewalk or blow the yard At Starchy, I really started coming into that where… My first year was '94. I was just an intern, and I got responsibility. I'm from Southern Illinois, small coal mining town, just a Midwest kid, and it was going to go to my second year of college here. I got the intern job, and I really liked it. I had responsibility. I was around people. I got to be a part of a team and then just helping out. That's my Our mindset, even today, is just helping. What can I do to help my teams and the company do better? It's not always about the financial reward. We all understand where that comes into play, but is it work worth doing? The culture is huge in business, and it's been big for me in building high-performing teams because you have to hire caring attitudes, develop the talent.

You can't develop caring attitudes as easily as you can develop talent.

Brandon, I liken that to I'm a sports nut. And so you got to grow up in Starkey. So like, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant got to grow up in the Lakers. That's the only organization that they ever knew. So part of that culture became them, and then they got to enhance the culture. So for you, how has growing up in Starkey and doing all the jobs that you've done, from repair to service to everything. How has that shaped your philosophy about leadership, innovation, and the products that you're designing now?

You're only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with. And at Starchy, it wasn't always perfect because I had certain jobs, whether it was in inside sales or in customer service or throughout my 31 years here. There was, I'll say, dysfunction, and the culture wasn't as set because of a I'll say, administration per se at the time. But the owner and founder of Starkey, who's still here and is my mentor, he's been unwavering in what the values and why because he grew up in the industry as well. He's an American success story, started Starkey, 1967, basement of his home. It always starts with caring. For those in clinics today, helping people with our products and and they're hearing, you have to care about the individual. You have to care that because it's personalized, it's unique, it's not one size fits all. At Starky, I've seen what hasn't worked, and I've seen what's worked. Then so I just grabbed and really just really got a hold of the caring, our dedication, fearless, and then brought the culture to the forefront because you could start to see culture feel it, but you can't grab it.

And it has to start with those attitudes and the people that you bring in and work as one team, one vision, one team, one star. That's my approach. I'm CEO of the company, and I view this pyramid, my own personal approach to leadership, is I invert the pyramid. I'm not at the top. I'm here to help everybody here be successful and understand the work that they do matters. We do change people's lives. What can I do to help? It goes back to my because of wanting to help people and see that satisfaction, whether it's helping the team be successful or seeing a patient smile because we just reconnected them to their life.

Man, and that's where I want to go next. All the things that you're doing for humans, for society, and I'm going to say leading the charge with innovation, technology, and AI. I think a lot of times people I like this call everything one thing, right? Ai has been a buzzword. And I'm like, there's a difference between technology, robotics, and AI, but it's great that you're innovating, right? But for you, man, you literally are the leader in innovation for what's going on. And I saw a couple of weeks ago a post or video on translating. So being able to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even speak the same language as you, man, I'm like, the world is coming so far, so fast. Talk to us about the innovation that you're doing with Starkey. Let's go into the products a little bit.

What we're doing is really starting back in 2018, I wanted in an industry where it would be easy to have incremental change and improvements. We're a privately held company, which is an advantage because we can move fast. We're agile. Our other companies, there's four other companies, public companies. And I want to invest in AI. We started there. And then also take the hearing aid, that stereotype, from a single purpose device to a multi purpose. So the ear is the new wrist. So we look at three buckets: the sound quality, the actual performance of the hearing aid for the patient. We look at health and wellness features, and then we have personal assistant. Those are three areas that we put features into the product that helps somebody. It can track steps. We have fall detection because we have a patient-based demographic that prone to falls. And if they fall, the hearing aid will send a text message up to three people in the family that indicates a fall, and they could be helped. I've had many stories where we've saved people's lives. Then the personal assistant, basically, as you mentioned, the language translation, you have to start somewhere.

The goal is that instantaneous translation where I'm talking to somebody over in Germany, I'm hearing it in English or whatever it might be. And we have 78 languages that we can translate. I can go on and on. So I can sum it up like this. Think of Ironman and Jarvis. My son, when he's growing up, watched all the Marvel movies, of course. And it's going to be your personal assistant. It's like that Jarvis in your ear that's helping you get throughout the day as you need it, personalized and customized to the patient's needs. So it's not just a product that's amplifying sound. It's a mini computer that's thinking and helping you the best that it can each and every minute of the day.

Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit about the quality of product that you put out because, again, I think it's second to none, just from users that I know that use your products, I want to talk about sound quality from your hearing aids and from your tech, because I got to to use one, and I was like, holy crap. I remember what my uncle sounded like from the '80s. I think a lot of folks, while yes, some things have improved, they probably haven't improved. Like, Starkey has improved. Talk to the viewers and listeners just about the quality of sound that they can expect using your product.

Well, it's technology, so intelligent. It's superhuman. It's sound quality where for me, if I'm talking to you, it's analyzing what's going on behind me or to the side. If I stop and think, I can understand what's going on really 360 degrees around me. Hearing aids haven't been able to process that clearly or with that much sound quality, because you might hear a noise that's overcoming our conversation, the hearing aids picking it up, and I can't quite make it out. So what we're doing is analyzing our products analyze the sound, where they're coming from, but also knows what type of hearing loss and how it's personally programmed for that patient. So it's specifically, I'll say, optimizing and performing the best it can be for what I need. And then I'll say a little bit more because it's a superpower. Even if you have a mild hearing loss or no hearing loss, it's going to help you. Damon uses it for streaming and other activities, and it feels that it gives him a little bit of an edge in meetings and such because you could hear more clearly. Again, it gives you a little boost.

Yeah. I think that's vitally important because, again, I have friends that use it and they talk about the focus and clarity that they have now. Being able to almost lower senses a little bit because they don't have to strain to hear. Now they can almost have better focus, better clarity because they're relaxed. Talk to us a little bit about why that's so powerful.

Well, we have to exercise our brain. It doesn't matter how old we are. If you have a hearing loss, you're starting to miss things, you're starting to miss sounds, and you're hearing health of the five senses. Hearing is one of the most important because it keeps you connected. I mean, it's your primary sense. It keeps you connected. If we're having this conversation, I have to be able to hear you, or if I'm out driving or go down the list. And so what we're doing is people with hearing loss, they start to draw inward and then loneliness. There's recent studies, early set of dementia, Alzheimer's, because you're not connected. Your brain is not functioning to the optimal performance. So what we do is we analyze and understand, again, with the hearing loss, we keep that brain healthy. We keep it, I'll say exercise it, per se, because we want people to stay connected and not be lonely, not not miss out on things, where you think about loneliness and how that could be the onset of depression. There's so many different things that we know what hearing loss causes. How can we bring solutions to keep the brain and the person as active as possible?

I love that, dude. I love that. For the person that's listening or watching right now, that's like, I think I have some hearing loss, but I don't know if it's dramatic enough to go reach out to Starky or anyone else for that matter. But I'm always going to recommend Starky. But for the viewer or listener that's paying attention and they're like, I might, what are some signs, some symptoms, and then what are some immediate things they can go do?

Well, signs or symptoms, usually it maybe starts with a spouse or significant other if you're not catching everything. Also, it sounds a little hokey, but you're turning the TV up too loud or you're everything a little bit louder volume than that needs to be because you really don't know it unless somebody else points it out. Then once you regain some of that hearing, your hearing sounds that you had, whether it's leaves or a lawn, I mean, things that you took for granted every day and you're just reconnected. They could go to starkie. Com, S-T-A-R-K-E-Y, and just check out the technology because the two words hearing aids puts a negative connotation in people's But we're doing cool things. It's really about how you can have an extra... Whether like with the people have their iWatch or their Apple watches and other devices, this is wearable tech that helps them outperform even the normal performance of hearing or whatever it might be that our products can do for the person.

All right, so now I'm going to ask you the tough question, Brandon. If you think that you're a significant other, I'm not saying me, if you think that you have someone close to you who may be experiencing hearing loss, how do you bring that up to them? I know you're not a psychologist, but how do you help others where it's like, okay, maybe we should do something or have a conversation? Because I think that also could be harder is when you know someone may be experiencing hearing loss. I don't even mean dramatic, but enough to where it's like you're starting to see it.

Well, count the number of and what's throughout the day, and that's the number one sign right there. But no, the relationship between your significant other or a spouse, it'll be known. But then the debate could ensue that it's selective hearing, and I've heard it all. But it's got to be a moment where it's your kids, your grandkids, or work. Really, when it starts to... Hearing loss is happening right now in a much younger age, and we're really looking at whether it's the generation Z with all the music and the loud noise and the gaming. Then you look at the Gen X, where you have the largest generation of hearing loss coming into that area where it's going to affect them at their work or with their family, whatever it might be. There's got to be that moment, and you'll just know it. But also what we're doing is bringing other features that helps them outside of hearing to give them that, as I say, I call it that superpower throughout the day that gives you that edge in life.

Yeah. Let's talk about that, man. I want to pick your brain on what your vision for hearing health is over the next 2-3 years.

Well, we continue to improve the sound and We're on our eighth generation of AI development. Like I said, for our industry, we're setting the pace of innovation like no other. If you look ahead, it's going to be connectivity. I mean, continuing doing and strengthening, enhancing what we're doing now. But as technology becomes available, examples, yes, the phone, you're being connected to the phone, TV. There's going to be features. Think about we're talking or you have one of your family members wearing a product because they have a hearing loss, but the product can also detect their voice fluctuation throughout the day. Are you battling depression? I mean, be able to pick up on all types of, I'll say human emotions from our sensors, heart rate, blood oxygen, also then getting more enhancement on the personal assistance side of using the product. What's the temperature outside? Just instantaneously knowing what's going on or asking it to be, as you said, your personal assistant from a dictionary glossary, your Google, you name it. So For me, the technology and what we're doing continues to advance. We're staying at the forefront. But again, it's getting people to open up, in which we are on wearing hearing aids and understanding that It's not even a hearing aid of 10 years ago.

I mean, this is high tech, wearable tech technology that does much more than what you think. From a sound clarity standpoint, even if they have a mild hearing loss or no hearing loss, it's going to give you that boost in hearing.

Yeah. I'm becoming a fan. Again, I would be on the side of the fence that says more people have hearing loss than they realize, again, even if it's minimal. Yes, they do. But those boosts, man, when you talk about, for me, just you hit on the brain waves and the brain activity, I think for me, when I test them and put them on, it's just like, okay, I'm relaxed. I don't have to strain, even though I don't think I'm straining. But as a podcaster and other things I'm doing in business, I have headphones. I travel all the time, so I'm on planes, and it's like, man, I need to shut the world off for a little bit. What do I do? I put on headphones the volume's up so I don't hear anything else but me, right? And I just applaud you for what you're doing and knowing that all the big things that you have coming up. And I know that there's some potential, I don't know if they're integrations or conversations with some of the big names out there that you're continuing to have as it relates to AI and what we're doing.

I just thank you for all the cool things you're doing.

Well, it goes back to why I love what I do, and that's helping people, and it's getting those smiles as you see the work that we do connects people and helps them throughout the day in their work and life. I appreciate you having me on so I could talk about the cool technology and really what hearing aids are, but where they're going and really knowing that you never want to wait till it's too late on your hearing loss because you can't get it back. We stabilize or help get back to someone as much normal as possible because there's a lot of cool things that come with it besides the stereotype of old.

Absolutely. All right, Brandon, I'm going to get you out of here with my quick five. You ready? Rapid fire. We're just rolling.

All right.

We're at dinner. You're at dinner. I can't sit at this table. You're at dinner. It's you. It's Zack Rosenfell. It's Damon John. Who's picking up the tab?

Oh, I am.

No comment, no comment, no comment. All right. What is your favorite sound in the world?

Oh, A baseball game at Wrigley Field.

Okay. I dig that.

I popped my head because I'm going probably this week. But yeah, that's that. I could go down the voices, but if I think it relaxes, it's something fun. That's just popped in my head.

No, I love that, man. I love that. Summer's pastime. The best place you've ever traveled for inspiration?

Back home. My home on. Because sometimes I travel a lot, and there's a lot of great things I've done, but sometimes you got to get grounded. I don't like to get too full of myself or get off path.

I love it. What's a tech gadget that's not starky that you use or love almost every day?

I just almost blurted out my... Well, my electric toothbrush. That's what was just in my mind before we got But of course, an iPhone, who doesn't love that?

There you go. I love it. Again, you've been at Starky since you were a growing adult, right? What's one What's one lesson that you've always held dear through your journey at Starky?

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Amazing. Amazing. I love that, brother. I love that. Well, Brandon, man, how can people find and follow you? I know we've got starky. Com. I'm going to make sure I'm putting that everywhere. But where do you want people to find and follow you?

Whether it's Instagram, Facebook, my website, brandonsawalich, S-A-W-A-L-I-C-H. Com, or that handle at any of those social.

I love it. I'll make sure I have everything there. Brandon, again, appreciate you so much for your time. I know how busy you are. Can't wait to see you in person really soon. For everybody that's listening, please check out starkie. Com. Have these conversations with the people that you care about. If you are someone who has experienced hearing loss or you think you're experiencing hearing loss, definitely go look at some of the evaluations. I can promise you personally, the products are amazing, the tech is so wearable, and where they're going with the future, you're going to want to be a part of that. So again, Brandon, thank you, and thank all that you're doing at Starkey and your team and staff.

Thank you, Megan.

You got it. And for the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. You've been plugged into Mic Unplug. Don't just listen, take action. Rate and subscribe. Follow me on social and get the full experience at michuntofficial. Com. Keep building, keep leading, and most importantly, keep dominating.