He was deaf for 35 years + Listener Stories kickoff

Hey listeners! Last year we launched a listener stories competition where we invited you to send us a fully produced mini story about sound. The response was overwhelming and we received incredible sound stories from all over the world, from high school students to professional sound designers and everything in between. We collected our favorites into three episodes that we ran last summer. It was such an overwhelming success that I couldn't wait to do it again. And as of today, the 2026 listener story competition has officially begun. Whether you're an audio pro or just getting started, this is your chance to be heard by over 100,000 sound loving listeners. Your story could be hilarious, surprising, heartbreaking, mysterious, it just has to relate to sound in some way, be appropriate for all ages, and be around five minutes or less. You can include guest interviews, music, sound design, anything that helps tell the story. And in the credits, you can plug your business, your podcast, your band, whatever you want to promote. Like before, we'll collect the winning sound stories into an episode or series of episodes later this year. The top creator will also get a $500 credit toward our online store so everyone you know could have a super soft t-shirt. For full details on what we're looking for and how to submit, visit 20k.org slash 2026. There's also a link in the show notes. The competition closes on May 31st, so be sure to put that on your calendar and get started now. I can't wait to hear what you come up with. You're listening. To 20,000 Hertz. The stories behind the world's most iconic and fascinating sounds. I'm Dallas Taylor. Last year, we kicked off a brand new competition where we invited you to produce your very own mini podcast about sound and send it to us for our listener stories episode. It turned out to be even better than we expected, and the winning submissions filled three entire episodes. So this year, we're doing it again. And I'm really excited to hear what you create. But before we kick off this year's competition, there's one more audio story from last year that was too long to include, but would have absolutely earned a spot in our gold episode. But be sure to stick around after the break, because supervising producer Casey Emerling and I reflect on what these listener stories meant to us. We also talk about what we learned from them, and we officially kick off this year's competition with a few words of advice. But first, here's that final story. It's called The Choice to Hear by Jesse Herrera. Enjoy. Jidu's house was full of sound. Our big Lebanese family, us grandkids and our parents. The gumball machine, the old rotary phone, the electric organ in the spare bedroom, and that huge mechanical grandfather clock that chimed every hour. But even though his house was a whole world of sound, his world was silent. I was deaf for 35 years. I had never heard any of my 11 grandchildren. As a kid, I remember putting my hands over my ears to try to imagine total silence. But it really wasn't silent. It could still hear. It was actually pretty loud. As someone who has always loved music and sound, from singing in choirs since I was a kid to now being a film sound designer, I can't imagine what this world was like. And at times I felt there was no way my grandfather, we called him Jidu, could understand my world. I would go to the Albuquerque Boy Choir to see my grandson Jesse sing. And the silence was just devastating for me at times when I wanted to hear. Then when I was 13, Jidu received an operation for a cochlear implant to regain his hearing. My name is Dr. Chris Epstein. I'm an audiologist at Presbyterian Earr Institute, and I specialize in working with patients with cochlear implants. So a cochlear implant is a surgical device that helps people with severe to profound hearing loss hear. There's an internal part that goes inside the cochlea that takes the place of the damaged part of their ear. And then on the outside, they wear a speech processor, and the brain interprets that sound, and that's how they hear. It doesn't give anybody normal hearing, it gives them a new type of hearing is what I usually tell patients. He didn't want it at first. Years previously, he had actually had an operation to fix his hearing that failed, and accepting the risk of another disappointment was almost too much to try. Besides, he could communicate really well by reading lips and his speech was perfect, even after decades of total deafness. And as Dr. Epstein said, the hearing you gain from the cochlear implant is not the same. I was against it because I thought I would only hear scratchy noise, not different sounds. And my family kept after me trying to change my mind. And one day I was walking with my two grandchildren, Joshua and Noel, and Joshua said, did we want you to hear our voices? And with that, he got it. After recovering from the surgery, you go into a testing room where the audiologist activates the device. When we walked into the testing room, I saw 17 members of my family there. My silent world was shattered by three soft beeps. And all I could say was I can hear. I remember that moment when he could hear again. We all went around the room and said whatever we thought of, mostly hi or I love you. And then I remember right after that when we got into the car, my mom was driving. His window was open. We're driving and he said, what's that sound? It's really loud. And I said, oh, dad, it's your window. I closed the window. It was the traffic going by in the wind. And then I turned on my turn signal. And that was just really loud for him. And he asked me, what's that sound? And it was alarming to him. It was a little alarming. And then we were told to go right home, but we went to a restaurant, which was probably the worst place. But we just wanted to celebrate the footsteps on the floors, the talking. He was just taking it in. He had no idea what any of the sounds were, but he was just taking it all in. And then when he came home, same thing, the water faucet turning on, the refrigerator, dry leaves crunch. I'm hearing something and I don't know what it is. It's too much information. I can't take it all in. And sometimes I want to just turn it off. It was like wanting the glass of water and finding myself in the pool. This type of experience can be very common with cochlear implant recipients. Dr. Epstein told us that it's extremely important to keep it on as much as possible, to give the brain the opportunity to identify sounds and begin prioritizing all of that input. I explain that to a lot of my patients, the family members especially, saying this recipient is going to hear lots of new sounds and they are going to need help knowing what these sounds are because if they don't know, it can be frustrating. Once you know what a sound is, your brain can kind of put it on the back burner and just be like, okay, I don't need this. But if you don't know, it's always there. And you're like, what is that? So it's important to know what the object is making that noise so that you can move on. As the brain begins to interpret all of this new sonic input, even the quality of sound begins to transform from something that feels foreign and digital to something much more natural and even enjoyable. But getting over that initial obstacle requires the patient to find an ongoing motivation to learn, to remain open in this new world of sound. And it required us, his family, to support him in that. If a patient is motivated to hear, one, they're going to wear their processor all the time. And research shows that you need to wear it at least 10 hours a day to get full benefit. They're going to do that auditory training. They're going to force themselves to have to listen, even in hard situations, to train their brains to listen in hard situations. The patients that do the best are the patients that are highly motivated. And he was highly motivated. And his family was highly motivated. And that's another good point, because if the family is not supportive, the patient gets really discouraged. Family members have to be willing to work with the person who has a cochlear implant to make it successful. And I think Harry really had that going for him. My family was so, so good by taking care of me. They were right around me all the time after church, socials, whatever we were. There was always somebody with me to help me with someone who wanted to talk to me. When I was home, I began hearing sounds that I never heard before. Instead of buzzes on the timer, it was a tone sound. And the telephone, when I pressed the numbers on the telephone, it was a tone sound. I heard the grandfather clock ticking, and the chimes were beautiful. But the garbage disposal was like a 747 my driveway. Reflecting on his story has totally flipped my notion that he and I couldn't ever relate on the topic of sound. Two years ago, he passed away at 96 years old. And only now, I realize his experience is a lesson to me about the fundamentals of what it means to hear. Sound designers will often create the sound of rain in a movie scene by using recordings of bacon frying in a pan. It's easier to record that than getting your microphones wet in the actual rain, but the effect works because the scene prompts the audience to believe it's rain. What we hear is our belief of what's happening. Jiddu had to hear that garbage disposal with the understanding of what it was enough times to train his brain to not believe that it was an actual 747 airplane in his driveway. And that was true of every sound in his world. Most of us get this ear training from birth, and as our world of sound changes, our perception learns along with it. But he had to start from scratch again. The type of auditory signal that his brain was now receiving is completely different than what he heard when he was a teenager back in the 1930s. And he had to take a crash course of the last 30 plus years of human-made sound that he had missed on top of the shock of any sound after that much silence. And yet, with the help of his family, the audiologists, and his own willingness to find gratitude in all of it, he did it. I saw him for that initial activation, and then I saw him a few days later, and then I saw him a month later, and then I saw him about every three months after that. And he was always so positive when he would come in, and he would say, you know, things are getting better, things are getting better, I'm understanding. The way he would describe sound was just so touching. He was so thankful to be able to hear and be able to hear laughter, be able to hear the ocean, and being able to hear his grandkids. If I knew every word in every language, I would not be able to describe this feeling of being able to hear again. Jiddu's house was always full of sound, and over time he began to notice and enjoy those sounds more than any one of us. I remember he actually changed the grandfather clock to chime every 15 minutes, like a little note to self that he could hear. The choice to hear is dedicated to my Jiddu, Harry Hakim, survived by his big Lebanese family. It was created, edited, sound designed, and mixed by Jesse Herrera, and produced by my wife, Michelle Priest. Special thanks to Dr. Horn and Dr. Epstein for giving my grandfather the gift of hearing again, and thank you to the rest of the staff at the Presbyterian Ear Institute who continue to support implant recipients every day after they've made their own choice to hear. To see pictures of Jiddu and his 11 grandchildren, or to make a donation to the Harry Hakim Scholarship Fund supporting the education of children with hearing loss, follow the link in the description or go to peibq.org. After the break, Casey and I kick off this year's listener stories competition by unpacking what made last year's submissions so special to us, and the philosophy behind what makes a story stand out. When you shop across multiple websites, it's easy to forget your login info for each one. But if you see that purple Shoppay button at checkout, everything gets easier. Because Shoppay can save your info for one tap checkout across any web store that's powered by Shopify. 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Kite makers will also sometimes add a device called a Hummer, which involves a thin strip of paper attached to a tight, vibrating string. As the wind passes over the Hummer, it makes this sound. And here's this episode's mystery sound. If you know that sound, submit your guess at the web address mystery.20k.org. Anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win a Super Soft 20,000 Hertz t-shirt. And if you just want to cut to the chase and buy a Super Soft 20,000 Hertz t-shirt of your own, go to 20k.org slash shop. Small business life means hustling and figuring things all out, often all on your own. And as much as I love running de facto sound, sitting down to do payroll and track benefits, that's not the part that excites me. That's why I use Gusto. Gusto is an online payroll and benefit software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote friendly and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. From experience, switching to Gusto is quick and simple. Just transfer your existing data and you'll be up and running. Then let Gusto handle all the tedious stuff, including payroll tax filing, health benefits, workers comp, and 401ks. It also has automated tools for offer letters, onboarding materials, and direct deposits. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash 20k and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash 20k. Once again, that's gusto.com slash 20k. If you could go back and change one thing about how you ran your business what would it be? For me, it would be automating the admin work sooner. Payroll, tax documents, benefits, it was all eating up time I could have been spending on the high level stuff. And that's why the whole team at DeFacto Sound and 20,000 Hertz runs on Gusto. Gusto is the online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote friendly and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. Gusto covers automatic payroll tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, workers comp, 401k, and more. They're trusted by over 400,000 small businesses and ranked number one on G2's highest satisfaction products list for 2026. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash 20k and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash 20k. Once again, gusto.com slash 20k. Okay, so my first question is when we first heard Jesse's story last year, what was your immediate reaction? Jesse's really good at this. My first reaction was just how not only how good it is from a technical sound design and mix perspective, which Jesse is an incredible sound designer and mixer, but so much of the nuance of storytelling that we've worked on for years was just inherently built into Jesse's story. He just gets it. Yeah, totally. And it obviously is so personally relevant and resonant to him because it's his grandfather. He's hearing the voices of his mom, his family. When a story means something to someone, obviously that just kind of takes it to a whole another level. We love learning about things and hearing about an interesting topic, but of course, what we talk about all the time is when we can weave an emotional human story into that topic and learn something along the way, in this case, a little bit about cochlear implants, then that just, yeah, that's what really makes a good podcast a great podcast. Yeah, I like how you brought that up because it is something that we talk about a lot is that we're in this phase of the podcast in its maturity where we're always trying to find the human story first and then wrapping the tech or wrapping the concept or the sound thing around it. It's rare that we just go, here is a cool sound thing and here, listen to it. That's awesome. So sometimes we'll get pitches where it's just like, you should do the sound of something. Acoustic barriers. Right. And it's just more of like an observational thing. Whereas we're always trying to find this kind of like, well, where is the human start, middle and end? Because it's easy to think of sound as being this technical thing because so many people who are technically minded do it, but sound is just as human as our other four senses. And so it's very important that when we are projecting and putting sound on this stage that it is done so with the same level of respect and care as any visual work of art or anything else based on any other sense because it is so human. So just recently, Jesse emailed us about a college course of his as it relates to this competition. Do you want to mention that? Okay. So I'll rewind a little bit. We needed stories. There was a point here that we really needed some help just due to overwhelm and other places. And so Casey and I are talking and we're going, what can we do to just kind of, we just need a little bit more help from maybe finding old stories or finding other podcasts or whatever. And I remember thinking, I don't know if this is going to work at all, but why don't we just ask the audience for stories? Maybe we'll get enough to play one single episode that just relieves some of the production burden that I think anybody who's heard this show can imagine how much goes into every one of these episodes. So we were thinking, okay, maybe five or 10 people might submit a story just to help us out in this moment. And then I think that's what happened at first. And we're like, okay, well, you know, we'll get one good episode out of this. And just like any creative project, it was the day before deadline when they just all started flooding in. And I remember just being so flattered by that to begin with, I was like, oh my goodness, people have put this much time and effort into these pieces. I can't believe it. The feelings that I get hearing other people tell these incredibly beautiful stories. I just got like really emotionally overwhelmed. And I just felt like a huge sense of love. I think that like, if you've been with the show long enough, I have a tumultuous history of childhood and stuff. And I think that reaching this phase of my life where I can make this thing that I just pour my heart and soul into, and I believe in so much. And I literally went way into debt to make 20,000 Hertz. And then eventually it caught up. And then eventually it like eeked a little bit of profit and at least paid the people who work on it. And then now there's listeners who want to take their time and put their art together for this little podcast that like, I started thinking it was going to fail or going, oh gosh, everyone is going to think I'm such a nerd or like I was just so cringy. And here we are nearly 10 years later. It's such a complicated emotion. It's hard to put into words, but it feels so good. Because another thing that I say often, you know, since the beginning of 20,000 Hertz is that I want other people's voices on this show. For me, the greatest thing about 20,000 Hertz is when other people are telling me stories. So, you know, this might be extreme, but the perfect 20,000 Hertz for me is where every single episode is told by someone else. It's crafted by someone else. It's their voice telling that story. I'm happy to kick it off. I'm happy to end it. But my personal satisfaction is to make something that I consider a work of art in audio, such as 20,000 Hertz. And now it is a massed, so many people who listen to it won, but then so many people who now want to contribute to it is so emotionally overwhelming for me. And I can't think about it too long without getting welled up over it. But it's very surreal to have these stories come from all over the world. That's pretty incredible. Oh wait, so we didn't actually talk about the student thing. Why don't you talk about that? That's like classic Dallas. Okay, so I remember Jesse emailed us not too long ago. So the same Jesse who told that story wrote in and said, Hey, I know de facto sound works on tons of projects and 20,000 Hertz and all of this. Do you happen to have any video footage I can use for my students to like resound design or remake? Now Jesse is a legit top notch sound designer mixer in his own right. But like every great audio person, he also wants to give back and teach. And I think that's very interesting in the audio community that everyone at the top of their game, for the most part wants to share that knowledge. And so we wrote back and I was like, well, I don't feel comfortable with all of this copy written stuff or even my YouTube channel stuff because there's so many corporate entities and PR and things that are involved with that. And we have to sign all kinds of agreements to even get access to this. However, every single technique that we use at de facto sound for sound design, mixing, dialogue editing techniques, fully, everything, we do that and more for 20,000 Hertz and we have control over the entire story. So I said, why don't you just make this part of your curriculum in your university or college and make this something that you grade or you all guide together. And then maybe as the semester comes to a close in Mayish, you all work together, you present this together and then if they feel happy with it, then submit that work from the students to our listener stories episode. So what I would recommend is like the best thing that any, I believe that any sound designer or aspiring sound designer or mixer or whatever could do is just make a compelling podcast with your own voice, with your own source recordings or interviews. And then you'll start to think like someone that you will help service, you know, in this industry. I often tell people that like de facto sounds been around for over 15 years, but when we incorporated 20,000 Hertz into the DNA of de facto sound, the unintentional serendipitous side effect of that is now every single sound designer on our staff and people that we work with now think like creators. So when they're servicing these filmmakers or ad agencies or producers, they have experience crafting stories because we make our own. And that is incredibly valuable to anyone trying to get into this world. Hmm. I hadn't really thought of it that way. I obviously, since 20,000 Hertz grew out of de facto, I knew that the sound design techniques and mixing techniques from de facto translated into 20,000 Hertz, but I hadn't really thought about the feedback loop of then the 20,000 Hertz, you know, storytelling sonic mindset feeding back into de facto work. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a big part of the secret sauce of just de facto sounded general and why I think it's important to make our own stuff inside this organization. It's one thing to service someone, but to walk in their shoes and understand the creative difficulties that they're trying to navigate and crafting a story when we have experience on our side and we're able to come in and support that. And then also sometimes go, Hey, you might actually want to think about changing this edit or this word or this sentence, like take it or leave it. But I think that also keep in mind that a lot of the people that we're working with are working on things that millions of people may interact with. However, when we're in our organization, there's very few people who are watching it. So it's quite scary if you have maybe five people or even 30 people working on a piece, whether it's an advertisement or it's a documentary or movie or whatever, because the amount of brains on it are so few that when you put that out to the world and now hundreds of thousands or millions of people now consume that, they start to point out things that you just straight up miss and you go, Oh my goodness. So feedback in this creative world, whether it be TV, film, games, anything, feedback from a story perspective is what everybody's craving. Who's telling a story? And so we're able to do that due to the feedback loop of 20,000 Hertz and de facto sound. That's true. That's a good point. What do you think listener stories bring to 20,000 Hertz that we simply couldn't create on our own? Well, when we bring in an independent producer to tell a story that you and I have already greenlit, then we've already kind of boxed in what the capabilities are. So by just going, you know what, we're going to make it five minutes and we're going to blast it to the entire world. These stories that someone has inside them that they know it's really good. They just, they haven't taken the first step. They haven't had a reason to make the story, but they know deep inside them. This is like one of my favorite stories ever. Those stories will be gone with you unless you tell them. Right. As creative people, it is our duty to tell these stories in the most beautiful way that we can to the best of our ability. And I also believe in finished, not perfect. Don't be held back by like, I don't want to submit this because it's not perfect because perfect isn't what I care about. And perfect in a world of AI is a negative to me. I want the bumps and the humanity that come with any story. Whether I get a story from a, you know, a 13 year old that might not be as polished as somebody who's a senior level sound designer, that 13 year old has just as good of a shot because that's authentic and it's real and there's humanity to it and beauty to it. So I want to encourage everyone to get that story that you know is amazing out there through sound. So that's what this invitation is. Now we can't promise that we'll be able to play every story that is submitted. However, I do guarantee that any person who does submit a story will learn so much from that experience and it will be so meaningful to you. And you may be able to even pick back up on that story or learn something from that story that you take into your creative journey that I promise it will be worth it. And going along with that, what would you say to the teachers out there whose students might benefit from submitting a story to us? So I'd say to the teachers who are trying to shepherd students in sound music, instrumentalists, I mean anybody who creates anything or performs anything that's interested in this to use this in your curriculum, have this deadline, make your own deadline, because it's easy to think, oh, I can only do my sound design or mix if someone gives me a picture. Like, oh, I need to go and get, you know, interstellar and take the audio off of it in order to then do my job. And I think that that really starts to stick with people and creatives who are young. And to the teachers, I would say, like, give them the agency through a project like this to have complete control creatively. We don't often get that as sound people or even sometimes in the musical world because we're always trying to recreate someone else's work. But I think it's just incredibly important to give someone full creative control. And I hope that it encourages people to just go, hey, I don't need permission from anyone. Like, I can just make things myself. So yeah, I mean, I just I want people to think, what vibe can you create? It could be pure joy, it could be pure sadness, it could be anything in between. You know, I don't know, I just think that's what sound does. It gives a vibe. Like, what vibe do you want to create? Yeah, could be funny, could be mind blowing, could be mysterious, could be anything. You can make your music, you can not make your music, you can work with a friend, you can find a music library, like anything. I want to just encourage people to create something. And again, finish not perfect. If this is your first step in going down this path, go for it. If this is your 10, 20, 30, 40 years into it, try it. But then don't let perfection stop you from hitting submit. 20,000 Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of DeFacto Sound. Hear more at defactosound.com or by following DeFactosound on Instagram. Thanks to Jesse Herrera for sharing his incredible story with us. And to everyone submitting this year, you can find details and submit your story at 20k.org slash 2026. There's also a link in the description. I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening. Okay, before you go, a few quick reminders. Remember that using our unique sponsor codes and links is how you tell these companies to keep booking with us, which is what allows us to bring you these incredible stories. With that in mind, get 20% off your first six months of Quo at Quo.com slash 20k. Get three months of free payroll with Gusto at Gusto.com slash 20k. Start your $1 per month trial of Shopify at Shopify.com slash 20k. And start building an incredible Sonos sound system at Sonos.com. Finally, start working on your listener story submissions. If you need inspiration, go back and listen to our listener stories episodes from last summer. There was a huge range of topics and styles from all kinds of people. So the contest is open to everyone. For more details, visit 20k.org slash 2026. All of these links are in the show notes.