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Meet Trailblazer Shawnae Jebbia

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Shawnae Jebbia.

Shawnae, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My path began when I graduated college with honors with a degree in Mass Communications and a Minor in Business Law. I played Division 1 Volleyball on a partial athletic scholarship because being involved in sports was a core of motivation most of my life.

Upon my college graduation, I became a Certified Personal Trainer with hopes of starting a career in the Entertainment Business. I landed my first job on-air co-hosting a fitness show called “Co-Ed Training” airing on ESPN2 every morning for five years, shot on location in Jamaica.

During that time, I competed and won the Title of Miss USA 1998, making top five at Miss Universe out of 90 countries. I was really a jock at heart, and a wrench to the pageant system, nevertheless experienced in television while competing. I became the first to leave my title year with a working contract in 47 years as a host on DirecTV for a couple of years. I was just beyond blessed to what the future had in store for me.

Several years later, a career change was on the horizon, and I began studying Nursing and Medical Esthetics while moving to Denver, CO. I also went through an incredible journey to start a family through multiple attempts of IVF, while becoming a Licensed Esthetician in 2010. I then went back to teach PT at the college I had originally graduated from once I had my twins in 2015.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Traveling at times 20,000 miles a month during my Miss USA title year, I soon began having trouble hearing and communicating which made my job very difficult. I was soon diagnosed with a rare form of Meniere’s Disease which comes with degenerative hearing loss, tinnitus (ringing of the ears), vertigo, and hearing fluctuations with water retention. The severity of my condition and how it might grow worse was then unknown. I treated the symptoms with the best hearing instruments in the world, a diuretic, and allergy treatments. But I soon came to the realization that I must begin preparing for my life to change in a drastic way.

All the while, I still kept my foot in the entertainment business when in 2008, I began working with Siemens Hearing Instruments, now Signia.

We’d love to hear more about Signia Hearing Devices & Some 1 Like You.
At that point, I became an ambassador for the early detection of hearing loss with Signia, traveling the world speaking at trade shows, shooting in catalogs, testimonials, and international commercials for over ten years now. I’ve been extremely proud to talk about my journey wearing the latest and greatest hearing aid technology. Today, I wear Signia’s CROS Pure Charge&Go hearing aid model, a rechargeable solution for people with like me with unaidable hearing loss on one side. With this technology, the device on my left ear transmits sound over to my right ear. These have helped me achieve a quality of life I didn’t think was possible so many years ago. And they have Bluetooth connectivity, which makes life much more seamless for me.

 And still, my health journey has continued. Due to my routine hearing screenings on a quest to attempt to pursue a Cochlear Implant in my left ear, an MRI discovered that I have an Acoustic Neuroma (brain tumor) on my cochlear/facial nerve. This was a miraculous finding because if left undiagnosed, I would have acquired irreversible facial paralysis on my left side and compromised brain function as well.

 Catching it so early now leaves me to monitor its growth every six months, and the course of treatment will be to shrink it with radiation in the years to come if it grows to threaten my health.

 This step then brought me to my latest professional endeavor – Some 1 Like You. I became the Spokesperson for Some 1 Like You two years ago when asked by a good friend and colleague Makayla Allison and her daughter Lily. Some 1 Like You (S1LY) is a low-profit organization founded in 2017 to privately connect patients with rare health conditions at no cost. S1LY is internally funded through its BE KIND Project.

Through the sales of products that share the universal message of hope to BE KIND, families in health crisis are connected directly to each other. This is done at no cost through our partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities and other organizations across the U.S. Products include trucker hats, beanies, t-shirts, hoodies, and jewelry.

S1LY also launched BE KIND HUMANS this year, which is a quarterly volunteer initiative designed to raise awareness for the need of volunteerism in our communities. This project promotes the mantra that it feels good to be kind, and also highlights localized charity efforts along the way.

In conjunction, our YOUTH AMBASSADOR PROGRAM is in motion with elementary, secondary and collegiate schools who are able to register to retail BE KIND products, while retaining approximately 50% of the profits to reinvest into their own communities through an act of kindness. This flexible program offers a variety of levels of involvement and can be customized to fit the needs of different social-emotional applications.

In the new year, S1LY will also begin partnering with non-profit organizations to provide travel scholarships for individuals to meet face to face with others just like them. It’s a comforting feeling to connect with others going through similar journeys, knowing that we don’t have to go at it alone.

It seems a perfect fit for me in this chapter of my life to be representing these important causes and to advocate for both better hearing health and for those with difficult health conditions…both are truly feeding my soul.

What’s the most important piece of advice you could give to a young woman just starting her career?
I would certainly say that my experience as a volleyball player gave me a strong foundation of discipline, structure and work ethic that has since helped fuel me through difficult chapters in my life. Through my time in the Miss USA pageant process, I also learned a lot about the adversities people have overcome in the world, and I was inspired to handle my own health adversity challenges with grace and optimism as a result.

I also greatly benefited from the decision in my late 20’s to take my hearing loss seriously. You simply have to stay on top of your physical and sensory health in order to have the chance to maximize your potential – no matter what your age.

For instance, did you know that if you don’t get hearing aids as early as possible, it won’t be as easy to adjust to the new sounds if you’ve already let go and just made do? Sounds with technology can be overwhelming and foreign if you haven’t heard things for a while. Another problem for me was I couldn’t hear myself speak anymore. I began stumbling on my words, and hearing aids helped me be able to hear myself to enunciate words properly, allowing me to achieve so many more career opportunities since that time. I used to yell and often strain my voice to hear myself or make people hear me, which didn’t work well with family, friends or in any environment. So by prioritizing solving these challenges, I was able to open up the rest of my future and my career for many greater opportunities.

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Image Credit:
Shawnae Jebbia, Signia USA

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