(upbeat music) - Welcome back to part two of our delicious conversation with Mandy Harvey. Mandy Harvey is a spectacular young woman who has gone through some extraordinary challenges and turned them into massive victories. We talked about in part one of the show, how she lost her hearing at 18 years old while being a student in music, being in choirs and singing every day from middle school to suddenly becoming totally deaf. Can you imagine the devastation of that? I can't. Then we talked about how she went through a great deal of depression and a great deal of struggle with having to let go the grief of her dream, which was to be a music professor. She was on target, she was on the path, she was doing extremely well, and then suddenly that dream comes to an end. How do you turn that around? Well, we talked about that in part one. If some reason you didn't catch part one, I highly encourage you to go back to the first episodes. It's very moving, it's very insightful. And here in part two of the show, I wanna talk about what happens after the, well, it's not really after the grief, 'cause grief doesn't end on Tuesday and then everything starts on Wednesday. It's not quite like that. There's an evolution to it. But in part one of the show, Mandy talked about this moment of sitting with her dad and playing guitar and after being deeply, darkly depressed and sort of staying in a room. And then that's the beginning of coming out. So this one, we wanna pick up the story here moving forward. Can we move into that, Mandy? Just the moment, like you said, you've written the scales on your face, you've felt all those in, you're starting to try and develop the scales. What's the next step? What happened after that? Well, like I said, I had made a promise to my dad I would try to learn a song to sing, which was insane. But I found that I didn't know where to start with it. And so I asked my sister, Sam, I was like, can you just pick a song? Just pick a song. It's not gonna matter, I'm gonna fail. So just pick something. And there was a popular song on the radio at the time by one republic called "Come Home" and happens to be in the sea. And it's a super easy key for starting with, 'cause that's the key that I was practicing all my scales in. And so I found the sheet music for it and I found a different tuner that actually you could see everything. And I have a very similar one that I use all day now. Like I show you, as you're making noise or as you're talking, you can see everything. And so I would sing a note and then watch it as the little light would go green to say that it is actually in tune that note. And then I would go to the next note and then wait for that little light to go green and then toggle between the two. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until I felt confident that I wasn't gonna lose it and then add another note into the process. And then back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and then add another note. And any time I would make a mistake, I'd start the entire song over again. So it took me, gosh, all day, like 10 hours to get through that song once. And it's a pop song, it's not horribly difficult. Of course, as repeat, it's not like a crazy aria or anything, but I finished it. Dad came home, he came downstairs. He started to play to the song for me to sing to. And I closed my eyes and I had this thought in my head. I was like, you're gonna fail anyway. What's the worst that can happen? And I just stopped thinking and just let it go. And I opened my eyes at the end of the song and my dad is crying, which I assumed it was because I hurt him so badly with how badly it went. 'Cause I was trying all avoidance of looking at him until the very end so that I could get through it so I could check that box. And he was like, no, you really very much did it. And I didn't believe him. So we recorded it on a little home recorder so that I could play it for one of my teachers. 'Cause my dad's a unit tuned, everything sounds the same. You wouldn't have cared. You got for refrigerators decorated with macaroni art from parents who think that they're child's the next Picasso. You're biased, I love you, but no. I know that my teachers will be harsh and real. And to have that be validated, to say that your notes are actually accurate, was a massive and such a difficult thing to overcome mentally because overcoming what you think is possible is difficult. When you're constantly told by the world what you are and are not capable of, it's very difficult to not limit yourself because they tell you what is possible and you start to believe the masses. It's like if this person and this person, and this person, and this person, and everybody tells me that this is not possible. Surely it must not be because it hasn't been done. And to do something that people haven't done before is almost insane. - Is there now that you are where you are? Is there, to your knowledge, any other singers who are deaf? - Yeah. There's an opera singer who's performed at the Met. I don't know what the entirety of her deafness is, but I know she's at least fully deaf on one side. There's a lot of performers out there. I know several rappers that are deaf, less that tend to be as melodic, but I think that my circumstance of having heard for 18 years and having been so studious in those 18 years has really kind of put me in a unique place to be able to figure things out. It's the same with my speaking voice. People are very applauding that I speak so clearly. It's an unbelievable amount of dictation work and unbelievable amount of speech therapy and unbelievable amount of constant work that is exhausting and I do it for the benefit of others. And I think the reason why I'm so successful with it is because I did have a deep foundation. And then from the moment the foundation started to crumble, we started hardcore working on it. And I had to create a lot of different tools. And some of the things that I've created and kind of just done are things that other people have started mimicking and using on their own right. And it's kind of been helping them as well. So that's kind of fun to see. - Well, that's what I wanted to talk about because you broken the mold in many ways. You and I talked about in a previous conversation how your dad had broken the mold of where he came from with multiple bachelor's, multiple masters, multiple PhDs. Like the guy is obviously a bit thick, but it's muddling through. - Yeah, yeah, he's amazing. From a background where you were an idiot if you even wanted to graduate high school because nobody was gonna anyway, where were they gonna lead you? - He just did him amazing with that. He broke the mold. Clearly you got some of that breaking the mold thing. But when you, any of us, break the mold or even push up against it, there is resistance. And there is name calling and there is rejection and there is all of that based on, and I've talked a lot about this in my own work, based on if you push outside of the mold, I can't hold onto my restrictions anymore. And you invalidate my restrictions and my limited biases. And the way I describe it is you've joined the union but you worked too hard to be in the union. So we're gonna shut you down because you're making us look bad. - Yeah, told me about being in the deaf union. - It's a tough union. I wanna say first and foremost how blessed I am to be surrounded by incredible people who are deaf and I have a lot of love for my community. I really, really have worked very hard to try to open doors for people in my community as well for nothing more than just love. I think it's hard on multiple ends because what I'm doing is successful and it's not understood by so many that there's a lot of different things that people have said. There's a lot of anger because there are people in the hearing community who think that it has to be fake because nobody could do this because that's my expectation of deaf people is so limited. And so it has to fit the mold that I perceive or else it's a fake, which is hard. Or you get the people who are very accepting of things but they think that because I talk about my experience or because it's mentioned when I did AGT, people knew that I couldn't hear, that I must be using my disability for popularity gain or for that something that makes me special. But in the deaf community, there's a lot of divide and it comes from a deep, deep history of pain and one that I would not be the right person to really give the deep lowdown on. But I faced this feeling of being kind of lost in an island by myself because there's a part of the deaf community that's very accepting to what I do and to who I am. There's another part of the deaf community that because I speak and because I sing and because I don't always just sign. 'Cause I can sign to you, Dove, but how is that gonna be beneficial for this conversation that you and I are having based on you? Don't sign. I can do an interview with another person tomorrow that's entirely in sign and I would still get the same flack. But because I talk, because I sing, I am pushing a narrative in their eyes that deaf people are lazy if they don't talk, if they can't do. And not everybody has the skills to do everything. Not everybody can talk. Not everybody has had the benefit of 18 years of being able to hear to talk as well as I have. It's very hard and the more deaf people that I've met, the more often I see time and time again, we all feel like we're on an island by ourselves because every person's journey has been so unique and their capabilities are so unique that you don't fit into a stereotype and that's hard. You almost wish you did. - Well, I noticed that the header on your book is written by Molly Matlin, Academy Award winner, who is a deaf actress who speaks with a deaf accent. - Sure, but now most of the time she doesn't speak. - No. - She has her interpreter speak. And if you remember when she won her Academy Award, she was crucified because she spoke for the next nominations for a category. And there was a community of people who were so angry with her because no one had done it before and she's talking, she shouldn't be talking because she's the queen of the deaf community. She's the queen of the deaf community because she's amazing. She's an amazing human being and she's got amazing capabilities and amazing talents and she's herself and she's real and she's honest. And that was a moment of her that was also real and also honest, but it didn't fit a narrative that everybody wanted. I may have made a lot of people very angry with my choices. But it's very emblematic of what's going on with political correctness is that we're all supposed to be very accepting as long as you fit into a category. - Sure. - So you must fit in the category of transgender or bi or straight or lesbian or something, right? Or deaf. - But don't label me. - But don't label me. Hold on a second. You're the one labeling me. - Right. - And you don't accept me for being something other than because when you and I talked about it, it seemed to me the analogy was that you were mixed race. - Yeah. - Only you were mixed culture. You're the hearing culture and the deaf culture and you're not either or you're and. - Yeah, I'm and the really, really sad part for me is that I felt like I was and forever. Years and years and years and then with time because of the doors that I was opening for others and because of my persistence with having ASL be a part of my craft and wanting there to be inclusion with performance and art. A lot of the both sides started to be okay with me. And so I felt like, okay, I'm and but I'm not hated as much anymore by everybody. This is great and then I got married to a man who speaks French and I had a son who is learning French and I wanted to have this crazy pipe dream of learning French. And so in order to do that, I decided to for only this reason and only this purpose to get a cochlear implant on one side and then it all happened all over again. It was as if I murdered Jesus and I was like, are you guys serious? I'm not Judas here. I haven't turned my back on a community because I got an assistant device which most of the time I don't use. Like if I'm home by myself, I don't use it. I don't need to hear an air conditioner. It doesn't sound like an air conditioner anyway. I had 16 years of no sound. So my brain doesn't understand that that's an air conditioner. I have to retrain my brain for every obnoxious noise and most of them sound like weird, demonic, robotic tapings. But I did it because I wanted to be able to see if it was even possible to learn French and the hate and the anger all flooded back and all those people who have been like, you were an idol to my children and now you're the devil. I was like, wow, it didn't take much. - No. - It took me living my life and doing something that I think if you really analyzed it from the death side of things, you would truly understand. Communication is the biggest gift of love and also the hardest thing to have and you're so isolated all the time. Lip reading all day long is exhausting and I don't do it as well as everybody thinks I do. There's a lot of times where I just stop. I just stare at the wall or ignore people because I can't do it anymore and I don't want to be that with my own kids. I don't want to be that with my own spouse. Why would I? If they're willing to learn sign language for me, I'm trying to learn their language for them and I think that any person would really understand that, that it has nothing to do with me wanting to disown or shed off my deaf identity. I love who I am, all of who I am. So this brings up something that I'm passionate about, which is when I work with companies and corporations in 2015, I wrote a book called Fiercely Loyal and I said in that book, if you're going to build a business, you have to build a community. Now I've said, since COVID, that's wrong. Now you must build a community and put a business in it. And very much what you've talked about is in many ways seems to me like gaining and losing communities. Sure. And I'm sure there are people, not necessarily in the deaf world and potentially yes, going deaf, who are feeling that loss of community. Talk to us about how you deal with the loss of community or how you build a community when you're so much in the end world. I think that the first step for me was letting go with the idea that I needed a large one. I don't need many people to love me for me to love myself and for me to be who I am. I just need some specific people in my life. And I've kind of been very blessed to be surrounded by incredible people. And there's a friend of mine, his name is Eric Weinmeier. He's the first blind man to climb Mount Everest, incredible human being. But he has a team when he climbs a mountain that is his rope team, the people he's tethered to. And when one of them falls, if one of them falls off the mountain, they all die. So you're literally tethered to this person. And so when you're tethered to people in your community, when you win, you win together, when one of you fails, you pull the rest of each other down. And that's very true. And so who you're tethered to is extraordinarily important. And so the qualities and characteristics of who I have in my life has gravely shifted. I want people in my life who know my core values and who can hold me to my bottom line and make sure that I don't change into a person and I don't recognize. I want somebody in my life who is going to push me past my comfort zone into doing things that I am absolutely terrified to do. I want people in my life who've been where I want to go so that I can pull education and knowledge and thought from them. I want people in my life who have skill sets that I don't have so that I can learn from them and leech from them and have them push me to be uncomfortable so that I can grow. I want people in my life who can lend me hope. And if you are constantly thinking about building a community that only serves you and that you're not serving them, then it's not a community, you're just using people. And so having these people, I have to give that back to them as well. And so it's like, how many people do you really have time for to be that intimate with, to be that much of a cheerleader for, to be that grounded with? I can't be bothered and destroyed by thinking about the masses of people who I'm letting down because I'm not fitting into their expectations. I can only focus on being as much me as I can, as true to myself as I can, and being focused on what I was focused on at the very beginning. My whole dream for music education was to help build community, was to help other people not feel alone in their experiences and to feel like they had an opportunity to be a part of something else. So how is that different? If I do education versus performance versus having a conversation with Dove, we are having an opportunity to encourage people to maybe look outside of themselves and see a little bit of fire inside of them that they maybe didn't think was there. And then hopefully they're cultivating the right relationships so that that tiny little spark can become something quite amazing. - Absolutely. So talk to us about how you ended up auditioning. How did that happen? Because, you know, when you talk about being in the basement and, you know, that seems like a million miles from the level of puts, but it would take to be on that stage. 'Cause I speak, I'm on stage, you're from over thousands of people, and the idea of going on, America's got talent, I would have to wear a diaper at the even consideration of it. - Well, you know, you're still talking to the pup girl. The idea of performing was not something that I wanted to do, but that teacher that I showed that song to, Cynthia Vaughn, I love her dearly. She said, well, you're gonna get back into music. What do you wanna sing? I said, I wanna sing jazz. Okay, you're gonna sing in a jazz club. It's like, I don't sing in front of people. That's not something I do. I'm a teacher. - I don't sing without a bucket. - Right, and oh man, I threw up a lot that day, but I told her I'd give it a try and I couldn't take it back. And so I showed up at a nightclub, Jay's Bistro, and I sang my funny Valentine, and it was the hardest, scariest, most important concert I've ever had in my life. There was like four people eating dinner and not paying attention to me at all, and it was life-changing. And I think each step along the way, I've had other people pushing me. I'm like, Jay's asked me to come back the next week, and then I started performing there regularly, and then people asked me to make an album, and then I made Smile, which I just made because I lost my hearing. My dream died. The odds that I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and not be able to figure this out, possible. So at least I had this to prove that I did it once, and then I could take the time to figure it out again. Every step along the way, I kept having people push me into doing things, and then this opportunity to audition for AGT happened, and I said, "Hell's to the no." I don't wanna do this. I had been asked for years to audition for AGT, the voice, X-Factor, you name it. American Idol, and I kept saying no, because it's not my heart. It's terrifying. You're voluntarily getting judged to smithereens, and then I started to talk to those people who are on my rope team, my core, and they said, "What do you want to do with your life?" I wanna encourage people. I wanna make people smile. I wanna show a different side of what a disability looks like, and show that failure is just one beautiful step towards success, that you can get back up, even if you keep failing, at least you're learning something. And they're like, "Well, what's the worst that can happen?" So I showed up, and I was standing in the wings of this audition, trying not to die. I was very sick at the time I had bronchitis, and I kept repeating to myself, "What's the worst that can happen? What's the worst that can happen?" If I can make one person feel a little bit less alone, doesn't matter if I get Xed off, it'll be fine. What's the worst that can happen? What's the worst that can happen? And then they called my name, and they pointed me to go on to the stage. In this flash moment, I thought, "What's the best that can happen?" I focus on the negative for everything. I'm always waiting for the shoe to drop. I've always been that person, and then the shoe drops, so I've been validated in it. If I can get one person, that's the best that can happen. One person, just one person, Mandy. And I locked eyes with one woman in the crowd when I sang try, and she was sitting there with her twins, and she smiled, and that was the end. I stopped caring after that. Didn't matter what Simon said after that. I made her smile. I was there for her in a moment with her kids. When your dad walked on stage after... Yeah. He just looked like he was glowing. Oh, yeah, we still talk about it. I was like, "What just happened?" You know, all I was thinking was that on repeat. It's like, I was so inside my head that when everything happened, like, you're not going to need a translator for that. And then the stuff came down from the ceiling. I was like, "This isn't real life. I'm going to wake up from this tomorrow, and it'll be fine." And so we were sharing a room, and at different beds, I popped my head up, and me like, "What just happened?" He's like, "I don't know, but your life just changed. What just happened?" He's like, "I've got no idea. No idea where this is going to go." So what has been the dramatic difference for you musically in the expression of who you are since AGT? I don't know if it's because of AGT. I think it happened before, but I would say that the biggest and best thing that ever happened to my music career and me as a musician was losing my hearing, not only because it's given me such an amazing freedom, my freedom of not being afraid of people anymore. I don't vomit on people anymore. For the reason of what can they take from me? My biggest fear happened, and I survived it, and I got back up off the floor. You can't take anything from me that I'm not willing to give. So I stopped being afraid. I never, ever expected to write music, and I never wrote music before I lost my hearing. Oh. And I only started writing music after because I was too afraid to do it, and I never thought that I had that skill and capability. Try as a, I mean, it's the only song I've heard, but it's a beautiful song. It's a beautiful song. You would hear on the radio and you go, "That's a beautiful song." Thank you. I didn't have the freedom of myself to write before losing my hearing. I think being able to not judge myself because I can't hear myself to judge myself. I can't hear myself to pick myself apart. I can't hear myself to analyze my mistakes. I can't hear myself to compare myself with anybody else or sound like anybody else. I'm just me, and what a joy. Everybody has that capability, but you really do not allow yourself to have it. You limit yourself. It's been the best gift. So, if you and I were to go in a time machine. Okay. Back to meet the little girl you were. Yeah. At the beginning of middle school, young girl, what would she think about who you've become? I don't think that she would believe it, but I think that's the beautiful part about going through such trauma is that you're not the same person anymore. And so, it's like I think I could have been standing in front of myself, looking at myself and thinking, gosh, I wonder she's my aunt. Like, she looks familiar, but I don't think I would be even recognizable to myself. And I think I wouldn't even say anything to her. Everybody's like, what would you tell her? Like, oh, you got this girl. No, I wouldn't say anything 'cause she needs to learn it. She needs to fall. She needs to tumble. She needs to break her leg. She needs to get back up. She's gotta work it through in order to be where I am today with the family that I have, with the spark that I have, with the heart that I have, and my head focused the way that it is. I needed to go through everything that I did. I understand. So that you that's in your room pulled off her own nails by trying to get sound. Yeah. And it was darkly depressed and doesn't want to leave to go to the bathroom. The you today with your two beautiful children and your husband and learning French and having traveled and spoken on stages and endorsements from people like Molly Mattlin and all kinds of things like that and having the community that you have, what would she, that girl in that room, locked in the room feeling like life is the shit and it's never gonna be any better? What would she say to you? I think she would just breathe. I think I spent that year just holding my breath for such a long time. I think that she would just exhale and have like a comfort. It's like, okay, this is gonna suck for a very long time. And I still have days, I just wish, but there wouldn't have been anything that I would have been able to say that I would have believed. There wouldn't have been anything that I would have said that would have made me feel all better. And there was nothing that pointed to hope, nothing, except for the people that I had in my life and I didn't wanna believe them for a very long time anyway. That's why I asked a question in reverse. Everybody wants to know what you would say to them, but I'm always interested in what they would say to you because I know-- I think they would just breathe. Yeah, I know that my little self could not have imagined that I would become this, whatever this is. I don't see myself as anything particular, but it's unfathomable to my child's self. It's like, what? You live where? You who? You do what? It's so unbelievable. And I think that this is the thing that we all have to realize is that in the moment, the future is impossible, but you are living in the impossible for your past self. Yeah. And so that is always my message to anybody struggling is, "I am the impossibility of my child's self." And you, in the shittiest moment you're in, prior to that, were they living the impossibility of your child? And there's an impossibility you're moving towards and that that's where the strength and the distance and the power is in knowing that there are moments of pure joy of holding your children that were unfathomable. Yeah, it's only impossible because it hasn't been done yet. Right. And just like the community has seen you doing the impossible and feel threatened by that, you're also, as much as you're that threat, you're that light for others who are saying it's impossible. And then they go, "No, no, no. Have you heard of Mandy? No. Oh, she did the impossible." Yeah, well, and there's so many examples now of so many pioneers that it's like, that's become a new dream. I want to become completely irrelevant. I would love for there to be so many deaf singers that are so phenomenally good that I'm just not that cool anymore. I love that. Mandy, this has been a joy and a pleasure and a genuine honor. Thank you so much. You're very, very welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been a true, true pleasure. Listen, please tell people where they can find out more about you, about your book, about the albums, about any other things that you have that people can tap into. Sure. You can follow me on social media, Instagram, Mandy Harvey or Facebook, Mandy Harvey music. You can stream my music from pretty much anywhere. My last album is Paper Cuts. I have a song on a video form in ASL for every song. So there's music videos and ASL videos for everything. My book, you can easily get from Amazon or from my store website. And if there's any businesses or any places that need a speaker, I love talking. I love speaking and sharing my thoughts and messages and hopefully inspiring people to build a good community around them and to embrace failure and get back up. Beautiful. Well, I hope you'll stay with us to the end that we really do appreciate you being with us. And for you out there, remember, ladies and gentlemen, those who control the meaning for the tribe control the movement of the tribe. And that's the meaning you give yourself, as well as the meaning you give others as a leader. Leaders committed to positively shaping the political and business landscape. No, they've got to tap into what drives human behavior. And that is the emotional source code. I'm Delvera and I show businesses, teams and leaders how to harness their emotional source code to move their tribe. Because unified, actualized meaning is the single monolithic difference between mediocrity and greatness for individuals and for companies. Remember, we need your help in staying relevant. So please, go to wherever it is that you tune in from and do us a favor. Great review and subscribe to the show. It makes a huge difference and we do really appreciate it. And for all of you who are regular listeners, thank you for sharing the show with everybody you know. Till next time, stay curious, my friend. Stay curious about what you're holding as impossible because you are already living in the impossible of who you used to be. So where you're going to might seem impossible today, but it's very possible once you open up to it. I'm Delvera and I'm here to assist you, tapping into your deepest meaning to reach that next level of clarity, focus, purpose and profit in your business, in your life and your leadership impact, and I am out. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (dramatic music)
