MrBallen (Former Navy SEAL): I Wasn't Sleeping, I Became A Raging Alcoholic! I Was Disowned By The SEALS! This Will Turn Your Life Around In 2025!

23:53And he washed out so quick. And a lot of the other guys with big resumes, like the sports and big accomplishments, they typically wash out really, really quickly. And it's not because they lack the physical to do it. They don't. They definitely don't. It's that if you, and this is generalizing, because this is not true of everybody, but let's take the guy who played for the Diamondbacks. So this person is used to being, generally speaking, the very best person at what they do their whole lives. And it's not because there's anything wrong with them. It's just sort of a truth. That's how you became a professional baseball player.

24:27That's how it works. In buds, your instructors don't fucking care about who you were. And it's like a point they make. They don't care at all about what you've done before. In fact, if they even suspect that you think you're special because you have some some bullet point on your resume, like playing for the Diamondbacks, they will torture you and see if you really got it. They will single you out and specifically make you feel terrible and tell your class to like, look at this guy, he can't even do push -ups. You play for the Diamondbacks, you can't even do push -ups, even though the guy's doing push -ups just fine.

25:03But he's like, look, that doesn't even count. That doesn't get to another one. Getting the water, do this, do this. It's a mind game. But the guy's like me, who I went to put, and I'm like, I literally am a joke compared to the people that are here. I wasn't in great shape relative to my peers. I'm certainly not a professional athlete. The only thing on my resume is while I nearly flunked out of college but then managed to graduate college, that is the extent of my resume. I played a little baseball in high school. And so for me, I have very little to lose. Like, either I'll make it and that'll be amazing and I'll get to do the thing I want to do.

25:33Or I won't and people will say, that's about right. The folks that go in that have the resumes on some level, they expect to be really good, even if they're humble, and everybody in their personal lives also expects them to make it through, because who wouldn't? He played for the Diamondbacks. Expectation. It's brutal. And the course is too long to simply gut your way through it. The level of physical discomfort that you experience in Buds is so unbelievably high that it's not you've got to want to be here. That's the way they say it. You've got to want to be here if you want to make it through, it's you need to have something to hold on to in your brain that overrides the discomfort.

26:12And it can't be, oh, I need to make everybody else happy. I need to live up to expectations. Maybe that's strong enough for you. For most people, it's not. Like when you are at like your absolute lowest, like what do you hold on to? And it's for people like me, it was like, I have to prove myself to the like to myself. I want to prove to myself that I can do this hard thing. Like it was not even about serving in the military. It was accomplishing the goal because I've set my mind to it and I want to I want to believe that I'm the guy That can set goals that are hard and achieve them and so in my worst moments I would go to that place where I'm like this is worth it to me But for other guys it's not and so so at the end when you graduate you look around and it's like a rag tag group of like Short sort of weird looking guys that don't in any way embody like what you would think of is like I mean, some guys do.

27:01Some guys are unbelievable studs, but it's like a rag tag group of guys that just didn't quit. And a lot of it is because they had some sort of chip on their shoulder that internally drove them and it allowed them to persevere when things got so bad because things get so bad in butts. If I were to meet the guy in his mother's basement and then meet the guy who qualified for the sales training, in terms of their mentality, like their psychology, how would they be different? What is it that what evidence does the guy that graduated from seal training half that the other guy doesn't have what is that what's the difference?

27:37I mean not just to like shamelessly cycle back to this idea of responsibility, but I'm gonna do that before when I first got to the basement I've just arrived I was really not even able to see what a mess I had made of my life It wasn't like I knew I had screwed up and was blaming other people It was more like my default setting was this is somebody else's fault. Somebody did this to me. Like I actively remember being furious with my mom and dad for making me withdraw from college. When I literally was about to get expelled, I had a terrible GPA. I couldn't afford to live in the homes. I had as shown no, there was no evidence to suggest I would succeed in college.

28:19It wasn't until I was like home in the basement and the sort of like living in my mom's basement with no direction that I just sort of naturally happened. I was like, wait a minute. It's you. It's not them. It's you. And it seems so obvious now, but it took falling to the bottom and also, by the way, kudos to my mom, because she's single mom. She didn't give an F. She was not like, don't worry, you'll figure it out. She was like, no, you're going to get a job or you're going to move out or whatever. And you're also going to pay rent while you're here. And that's it. Like, like this is your fault.

28:52And at first I'm mad, but it's sort of like it became this arduous thing I had to overcome. So it was like no self awareness, none, and genuinely blaming the world for my problems, to like probably, if anything, an extreme on the other side, where like if you haven't already noticed, I'm talking about the CS guest thing that I mentioned to you earlier. That's something that if that happened to other people, I don't know if they'd talk about an message of public platform, especially just in the SEAL community, like reputation is such a big thing that even talking about things that other people know about, but that cast you in sort of a bad light reputationally, I think people would stay away from saying that.

29:31You know, like, but for me, I view it as a strength to highlight not only the things that I'm good at, but the things that I've made a mess up and screwed up because it shows other people that I'm secure. So it's like ultra -self -aware and secure in my image, the opposite as the basement kid. And it took basically falling to the bottom being home, no new opportunities in front of me. Other people are off at college succeeding, and here I am in my mom's basement for it to sink in. That like if you want to fix this, you have to start with saying it's my fault and then do something about it. And it worked.

30:02This is an idea of rock bottom. It's so interesting, and it sounds pretty tragic that sometimes people do need to go to the bottom on their own to realize that, as the quote says, the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of making a change. I've never heard that. That's actually a great quote. It's like 18 years old and I was just dropped out of university and I saw someone on YouTube say, the pain of change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change. And it kind of speaks to why some people sometimes when you listen to their stories, it wasn't until they hit the basement that they were able to look themselves in the mirror and then take actions in the right direction.

30:37But also sometimes when you try and help someone and you prop them up, like if your mother had gone, listen, here's some money and you know, here's some, you don't have to pay rent. right should be propping you up a little bit and you're way yeah yeah I'm trying to think about the kid that's listening to this right now that can relate yeah or the person in their life they might be in a job or whatever that can relate to knowing that there's something quite not quite right in their life yeah maybe they maybe they're at a point where they can start to look themselves in the merentake responsibility but do they do they have to go to rock bottom to start to change their life well I think that part of the reason or I should say this is more of a general statement that kind of answers this.

31:17I, in a way, was fortunate because when I hit rock bottom, I am a person that does not have what is it called paralysis by analysis. I'm sort of an impulsive person for better or worse. And so for me, it's like once I hit that rock bottom, it wasn't hard for me to sort of quickly find a good North Star, which the first one was college. I'm going to do college, right? And then when I was nearing the end of college, by this point, I've sort of righted the ship at this point, but I wanted a new goal. It was like, oh, seal training. That check some boxes. It's like, I want to serve, check. Like, it's a super hard goal, check, I have to work for it.

31:57Like, it offers me a chance at reinvention and rebirth, check. Okay, good. Like, I jump to that. That's what I do. I think there are plenty of people, and this is my guess. I don't know if it's true, who maybe have already hit rock bottom and they want to make a change. They know it's their fault or whatever situation that they know they've contributed to it But they don't know what to do next and there's so many choices think about it If you're at rock bottom in some ways you have every choice in the world to make And I think that one of the things that I certainly preach when I talk about this at all Which I guess in situations like this is You don't need like a perfect idea.

32:33You just need something that checks enough boxes for you to be worth doing So for me, it was like, okay, I'm in my mom's basement. I've done this to myself. I am the reason I'm not at school. I'm the reason that my parents are embarrassed about their son. It's my fault. What do I need to do? Okay, well, I should graduate school because that demonstrates that what happened at U -Mass is fixable. I can graduate school. I can do it. I'm not dumb. I can do that. Okay, fine. Gotta go to school. That was it. It checks a box, so do it. I think it was Dr. Kuhwili. But that said to me, his friend had called him and was going through a difficult time his life, divorced, lost his wife, lost his job, etc.

33:12And Jochus said something words to the effective, when you're lost in like a military context, whatever, you need to start moving. It doesn't necessarily matter which direction you move in, but you need to start moving in a direction. And that was, I was thinking about that as you said about this idea of like paralysis by analysis, people, they might be at rock bottom, but they just don't know what to do. so they just sat in the same situation, certainty in that context is sometimes benefit for people then the uncertainty of what happens if I, you know, if it's the wrong decision or something.

33:39Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and also you have figured sort of like a self perpetuating problem too, where if you, let's say you've hit rock bottom, even if you don't know it, and you're like, oh, I want to fix my life. I want to do something with my life, let's say the kind of generic rock bottom. Well, let's say you get paralysis by analysis, and you're not able to sort of like pick a path and you go nowhere that only reinforces the idea that you're, you screwed up again. But you haven't. There's just too many choices and you're allowing too many factors to be a play here. Jocco, however he said it is dead on and there's another way that's talked about in the military, which is an 80 % solution now is oftentimes better than a 100 % solution tomorrow.

34:20And it's all about like speed over certainty in the military it applies a lot times. But that's the way I think people should generally, not always, but generally look at their lives. If they haven't quite built anything yet, whether they're at rock bottom or just starting out like they're young people or whatever it is you're at. If you feel like you need to make a change, like you said, the pain of staying the same is greater than making a change. If you're at that point, you kind of know it. Think about what matters to you, whatever it is. Like I like to equate it to when you're in the shower by yourself and you're just having unfiltered true thoughts.

34:53Like, ask yourself, what do you really care about? Like, honest to God. Like, forget what society says you should care about. Let's say you really just want to be famous. And that's the actual core. And you don't even know why, but that's what you want. Well, guess what? Listen to that part of you. It's not vain. It's a thing that matters to you. Similarly, if you're like, I want to be just rich. Great. If that's a real motivation for you, like, at your core, in the shower, it's just you. If that's really what drives you, great. Those are boxes that must be checked for something to be worth doing.

35:27So it's like, have your shower thoughts and be real with yourself. Like, what do you really actually care about? Not what society says, not what you want your family. None of that stuff. For me, honestly, the reason the seal thing really paid, I wanted to do it ultimately is I wanted people to say, that's John Allen, the Navy seal. Because to me, it was like, I had been the black sheep in my family. Because of me, I had discovered this. But it's like, oh, I sisters have done this. Oh, it's dad's to Mrs. Mom's to Mrs. and then there's John. I wanted something that sort of overrode the mediocrity and failure and I felt like what better thing?

36:02What more honorable thing? And it also, I wanted to serve. That's another check. It's a big goal. That's difficult. That's checked. But ultimately it was like, I want people to know that I became a Navy seal. That mattered to me. And you know what? It flies in the face of what Navy seal instructors tell you. Which is you don't want, you shouldn't do this because you want to be a Navy seal. You should do it because you want to serve the country. And that's true. And what else are you going to tell your students? Yeah. But if you really want to be real about it, you've got to find your real motivation and that box must be checked.

36:33Must be checked. Yeah. So I pose on the must -be -check because once you become the Navy Seal, and everyone's saying that's John Allen, the Navy Seal, does your motivation disappear? Or does it become something else? It's really, I think it's really honest, but also quite unorthodox advice to say, listen, if you're in the show and you're going, I just wanna be rich so I can prove that those people weren't gonna be famous, prove these people wrong. It's an orthodox advice to say to follow that. I have to say, I just completely agree. I agree because sometimes you have to have a hypothesis fail you or some kind of idea fail you for you to scratch the itch.

37:13And that's why I was focusing on the side of taking the box. It's gonna stay there. Yes, it is. I don't know if you can go to therapy who do I ask her or something to get rid of that thing, but for me until you pursue it and have it fail you all succeed. It's going to stay there. Yeah, I mean, that ultimately exactly what you said. If that box goes unchecked, you might in your life eventually convince yourself that you never needed to check to check that box. But at some point, at some point in your life when it becomes too late or you're about to die on your deathbed, you will have regret. And I can actually speak to a specific instance in my life, which I had checked a box by this point, but I had one that I hadn't checked.

37:51I was in Afghanistan in 2014 and we were in this alleyway and a grenade came over the wall and it detonated next to a whole bunch of us and I nearly bled to death. And I had this moment where I can't pull the turnickets off of my kit that are rubber banded to my chest for quick access to stop the bleeding. But I was so weak in like losing my vision and we're in the middle of this gunfight, I couldn't get them off. And I realized as I'm sitting in this alleyway in the middle of this like horrible place in Afghanistan, like the town was very kinetic and dangerous. And I'm waiting to either be shot by the enemy who we know as the other side of the wall that could be coming around or I'm gonna bleed to death or there are RPGs being fired blindly in our direction.

38:33It's like I'm about to die, 100%. I'm actively bleeding out or I'm gonna be shot. And all that was running through my head, there's a couple thoughts. There's one that was kind of funny now, which was I was like, hmm, I wonder if my obituary will say Jonathan Allen killed in action or John Allen killed in action. So that was going through my head, but I also in addition to that I had this really acute sadness that I hadn't started a family yet. I didn't have kids. I was married We've been married for several years and my wife and I It's what we'd sort of talked about having kids before that deployment, but we were like oh We'll have time and I'm sitting there in this alley bleeding to death or expecting to be shot to that.

39:17I'm at the end of my life and it was like holy shit. I wish I had a child. Yes, that's horrible for the kid. They lost their dad. But like that was a box for me. I wanted a family. What was the first thing I did when I survived this and got home? We started a family. You know, so it's like that's sort of an extreme example. But I do really believe that a lot of people have boxes that are going to go on check, but to your point also, just try to do it and fail and believe it or not, you actually check the box. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's actually really, really true. Yeah, and yeah, it's so interesting that, that um, because I've never actually heard someone give that kind of advice before.

39:57What people say is you like find your why and they often are quite judgmental about what's motivating you. Sure. So the only like accepted motivation is something like I want to serve my country or I want to change the world. But actually most of us are either like driven or dragged as I say, which could be, yeah, like driven is okay. You're very conscious of what's driving you and you're in control. But then being dragged is the insecurity, it's the shame. It's that, you know, my siblings are better than me and I want to say fuck you to my parents, whatever it might be. Very, very, very interesting.

40:24It's also even more interesting that you ended up where you are today. So you get medically discharged from the military after the Afghan of South Korea. It was not immediately after, but basically between that and some mental issues I was having. I was pushed to see a psychologist. This is like years after. So 2014, that injury happens. I survived, obviously. And I ended up getting surgery to sort of like my shoulder was banged up. And I got fixed up enough to deploy again. But I was just not fit to serve physically. I was really struggling to keep up. I had some issues with my shoulders and my knees.

41:00I was shrapnel on my leg, but ultimately I was recommended to a psych in the military because they're like, dude, you are not like a sane person. Things are not going well for you. Like close friends of mine just sort of said, I don't think this is this is working out. I was very angry. I had like now I can say it. It's like I had very stereotypical or what I'm going to call it PTSD. Like I had not dealt with the near death experience in Afghanistan and sort of how that went. And so I end up going for a medical retirement, which was driven in part by the physical injuries, but also by like mentally I won there.

41:35So I get medically retired at the end of 2017. And you know, it's, I never really had a plan. You know, it's like I knew I was going to get medically retired, but it's just means like you're going to get out and there's going to be like this amount of money you get paid because of retirement. But it's not really enough to live on realistically. you're gonna have to have a job. And, you know, I basically, I got out at the end of 2017 and I went on LinkedIn and I'm like, I guess that's where you get jobs because that's what I think people do. And I was like on LinkedIn and I wound up randomly connecting with this guy named Jordan Selick, who is, he was living in New York at the time.

42:17He's this former investment banker who had just so happened at the time that I was on LinkedIn doing this like kind of weird job search that his best friend was a transitioning fighter pilot. Like he was leaving the military, going to the private sector, was struggling with the transition, which is very common in the military, making that jump to the civilian world. And Jordan, who's like this very entrepreneurial guy, he was trying to prove to his friend, his friend's name was Austin, that like you must be alone. Like you're so successful being a fighter pilot, like you're gonna find a job. And he was like, he was doing this exercise where he was reaching out to like random veterans on LinkedIn and be like, hey, what are you doing?

42:55Like, with your transition to the civilian world to prove to Austin that like, you're basically complaining and you can go find a job. You're not a, but he found like one, nobody really got back to him because they didn't know who he was. But I got back to him and I'm like, actually, you know what, I just got, that he retired. I have no idea what I'm gonna do. I got kids, I'm stressed. I don't know, didn't know this guy. And so Jordan quickly went from trying to prove a point to his friend and he was like, oh, well, hey, Why don't you come to New York and I'll just introduce you to some people in my network.

43:26And out of that was born this charity that Jordan and I actually started called Elite Meat that's still around today. It's like a networking event. It's a series of networking events for transitioning military veterans and private sector, you know, hiring managers to meet and get jobs. So I did that for a while. Ironically, my job became running a charity that helped other vets get jobs. But Jordan instilled in me, he was a big believer in Gary Vaynerchuk's style of social media, that sort of like bombard the internet with content and be like all in on content. And Jordan, he even had a similar sort of, he was similar to Gary Vee.

44:01And I found it like really fascinating, the idea of social media and content creation, because when I was in the military, I didn't even have, or I might have had a YouTube account, but I certainly didn't post on it, didn't have social media. But I, with Jordan, we began using social media content to drive donations for this charity we're running together. But at some point, I wanted to do more, like, with social media. I was doing storytelling, but narrative storytelling, like written out stories about military stuff to try to generate donations. And I was like, yeah, I want to, I want to do something for myself with social media, like build a brand for myself.

44:38And I committed a cardinal sin, one that I was very aware of. So this is self -awareness, but doing it anyways. In the SEAL teams, and really I think in special operations generally, despite what you see in terms of books written and like movies made about SEALs, and you can Google SEALs, and there's like 78 examples of SEALs that are publicly talking, publicly talking about being Navy SEALs, there is like this code of conduct amongst the active duty community that you don't talk about being a seal. That's not what you can say you're a seal. No one's telling you you literally have to lie about it.

45:18But being a seal is not something that's yours. Being a seal is you were allowed to enter a community of people that were like fighting for a common goal together, struggling, bleeding, dying together. Like the strength of the brand of seal, the seal brand is built literally on people dying. And so you can't then leave the military and say, hey, look at me. I was a Navy SEAL because that's for personal gain. You can't do that. It's sort of a gray area. I could have. I began posting about being I was the quintessential. Oh, this guy, Mr. Navy SEAL. At first it wasn't that way. It wasn't like one day.

45:56I was like, guess what guys? I'm a Navy SEAL. But it began as like, oh, I'm going to just like have my own accounts and sort of tell stories about my experience as a seal to push people towards elite meat. But then quickly, as these began to succeed, not really, but kind of, they've got like a thousand likes here or there. I was like, wow, that's pretty cool. And I like began leaning a little more and more until finally, I was like full send like the guy that you're not supposed to be. This is like in 2018, 2019. And And dude, I got disowned by the Navy SEAL community. I mean, like, hard. Give me specifics.

46:35Where do you say dissent? I could pull up DMs from Instagrams. Oh, DMs. No, so at first did not catch a whole lot of public... At first, I think I was doing it and people sort of were like, well, he's doing this charity, Elite Need, that's helping SEALs, it's helping vets. But gradually, as I sort of drifted farther and farther away from that into just like John on the Navy SEAL, mind you, I'm not giving up anything sensitive. It isn't like I'm talking about stuff that's problematic. It's really just doing some of this, you know, problem in my chest. I began receiving just some of the most painful messages I've ever gotten in my life.

47:10It's different than getting hate. You know, as Mr. Paul and on the internet, I certainly get hate from time to time, but it's different because they don't know me. It's like they see somebody on the internet doing something they don't agree with or like, and so they speak their opinion. and I'm sure you're familiar, but it's not personal. It might feel personal first, but you get used to it. This was actual seals who I knew, who wanted me to know exactly who was sending this message. Like writing me messages to be like, hey, I used to think of you this way, and now I think of you this way, with like detailed explanations of, and talking about how at the team, like we all talk about how much you fucking suck basically.

47:50And like I would, I lived in Virginia Beach at the time, which is where the seal team, seal team two, that's where I was at. And it's a big town, but it's where like a huge concentration of seals were. And during this time, I would like go out to like the grocery store, and I would see people that I know. These are not, oh, I think that could be a seal. It's like, oh, no, I served with him. I know exactly who that is. And they'd like mean mug me and my family at the grocery store or the gym. Because remember, this is not like a normal group of people. This is like a group of highly trained killers of like operators, people that like go to war.

48:30They're not afraid of conflict. And I have done something that in many ways is like tarnished their brand, not their brands, not have to look at tarnished the brotherhood. It's like I'm being selfish and I was re -voted and they hated me. I got regularly two to three messages, email, Instagram, wherever, I get phone calls, voice messages of people leaving me just the most deep -cutting personal. This is how I know you and this is what's being said about you and this is how I feel about you. It was horrible. But luckily, I had already had the experience in my life, CSCAST thing, the coming home from college thing of fairly quickly realizing that no matter how I justify this, no matter how I justify why I drifted into this arena, ultimately I knew it was going.

49:26I knew the line and I knew when I crossed the line of being no matter what the public thinks about seal content that you see on the internet and the internet, I knew amongst the huge majority of people that will never be public about their service, the active duty guys and the I was not dumb. I would have been just as upset if I was them. Still active looking at a guy like me. But instead of like getting mad at anybody or looking for retro abution or trying to justify it, I deleted it all at some point. I remember there was a night, I'm like sitting on my couch and I got a message from somebody that I would have said was one of my very close friends.

50:05And it just said, you suck. That's all it said. But that sounds stupid. But this is somebody who's on team six. This is somebody who is I specifically trained with and was like very close with like his wife and my wife were close. And like I know what the context of this message is. It's way more than you suck. It's we're not the same anymore. Like you're different and I look down on you and I was like I can't do this. And there's no amount of success that I could possibly achieve doing the Navy SEAL content that would be worth what I'm going through right now. And so instead of being like, I'm gonna just act like they didn't happen, I just removed all the content, saved for a couple of very small specific things.

50:51And I hadn't lost the itch for making content, but it was like, I can't do anything with regards to being a seal because that's not worth it to me, and I don't wanna do it if I'm wrong. And after trying things that never worked, like sketch comedy and like following trends at one point, my lowest moment, my worst one, was I, there was a trend on TikTok briefly, where people would tell, like, sort of, weirdly traumatic stories, not traumatic, but like, intense stories, but with auto -tune, they'd use the feature in TikTok that was auto -tune, and they'd, like, sort of sing it as auto -tune, but it would be, like, about the time they got, like, mugged.

51:31And so, like, the contrast is so extreme, it's sort of interesting. I did something like that, And I made it and I was like, I cannot post this. This is like the worst thing I've ever made. But nothing worked. And I remember thinking like, okay, you know, I don't have a clue what I could do that would be interesting. And I actually, I remember I had these two documents in my computer. This is again, post deleting everything. I'm like trying to make it on social media with something different. I had this one document that was like ideas for content that were not seal -related, that were like totally divorced from that.

52:03The sketch comedy, the auto tune, whatever it was. and I literally had exhausted all of them, but I had this other document that, I didn't even know why I had separated this topic, but it was all I wrote on it was Deatlov Pass. So personally, I am interested in the strange dark and mysterious, the tagline that's become the Mr. Ballin thing, basically unsolved mysteries, but not like, don't think true crime necessarily, think like world -level mysteries. Like, what's out there? Is there life out there? like, why is this portion of Antarctica blacked out on Google Earth? Like the deep, like, skin -tilating stuff that no one really has an answer to, I've always been drawn to that stuff, and I, uh, there's a really famous mystery called the Deoutlaw Pass, and it's about these hikers in the 50s, these nine really experienced hikers, who are going for their, what's called their level three mountaineering tests, which sounds sort of, of like run of the mill, but in fact, in Soviet Russia in the 1950s, this was like master mountaineer.

53:05Nobody had level three. This is like the top. If you did this, you're like the best climbers in the country, if not potentially the world. This is a big deal. And the way you pass your level three is you and the people taking it with you, there was nine of them. You have to map out this route through this really rugged part of whatever mountain you're going to use. They used the Ural Mountains. So big, snow -swapped, like huge icy mountains, and you map out this course that like checks the boxes of difficulty. And you're effectively timed. You have to start on a particular day in time, and they have people set up along the way, the scheduled checkpoints, if you will.

53:41And so they brought cameras with them. This group, this is again, 1952, I think it was. And so there's these young nine hikers who were like, so excited to do this test. No one's stressed. They're so pumped. There's a couple of couples in there, they set off on this journey. And I think they reached the first checkpoint. I forget what it is, but they didn't make it to whatever second checkpoint or whatever it was. And there was a protocol for the people who were sort of sponsoring this test. They were part of the checkpoints that knew this, they knew what was going on, where if they missed a checkpoint, there's like this big search that goes out to make sure they're okay.

54:16Even though, even though there's some expectation that they might not make a checkpoint by like a day because it's a difficult test. But the protocol is like really extreme. As soon as they go missing, it's like the army gets involved and they go and follow the route to find the hikers. So they missed the checkpoint. This protocol is enacted. And not only are there pictures that we will get from the hikers, but there was cameras that came with the search crew. They they follow the trail that they're supposed to be on. This is again, there's no trees. It's just like the tundra. It's like ice and snow and mountains, and they come across this mountain off in the distance, and they see on the windswept side of the mountain, basically halfway up, are these tents that are just these like canvas tents, barely seen, but they're situated right in the middle of the slope, which is like, strategically one of the worst places you can place these tents.

55:05So immediately they're thinking, one, it has to be the hikers, because who else is out here right now? But two, why in the world would these incredibly talented hikers or mountaineers. Why would they ever pitch their tent there? This is the most hazardous part. The wind can whip you all. You either go to the top and over or you stay to the bottom. Let's say you'd be hiking up that mountain, you get halfway and you're like, I can't make it, you better go back down and make your camp down there. So they see these tents. They're in the wrong spot. They go up to the tents and the hikers aren't there.

55:34They're not in there. There's pictures of this too. The The tents inside had stacks of clothing neatly folded and placed in the corners. Like as if they hadn't, they left their clothes behind and the tents themselves were cut open like with a knife, but somehow they deduced that they had been cut open, but from the inside. So presumably one or multiple of the mountaineers chose to cut open these tents in like negative 50 degree weather. And then there were all these prints in the snow that led down the mountain and some Some of the prints were bare feet, some had one shoe and one barefoot, and it's all nine of the hikers.

56:08They spotted these prints, and they follow the prints down the hill, or the mountains, a big space. And they find this little crops of trees. There's only a few areas in the year -old mountains, in this part of the year -old mountains that have trees, and there's this little group of trees. And when they get to the trees, they find three of the hikers, and they're all deceased. And there's one who's basically almost naked, wrapped up on the ground. There's pictures of this. There's one who I believe was draped over one of the branches up in one of the trees and then another one It was also on the ground as well and there's these deep scratch marks in the tree like gouges on the tree Is if some animal have been scratching at this tree and all three of these hikers are deceased and there There's it looks like exposure, but they're not really wearing the right clothing or they're missing pieces of clothing But they're all deceased There's more footprints that lead away from those three about a mile kind of back in the direction the search party had come from And there's this big snow drift that created sort of like a snow cave underneath it.

57:05And the footprints lead into the snow cave where the other six hikers were and they're all deceased as well. Except in there, the hikers had seemingly exchanged clothing and they know this because the women were wearing men's clothing in vice versa. Some of their clothes had trace levels of radiation and some of them had parts of their face removed. It looked like lip, snows, ears, it almost looked like surgical precision removal. They're all deceased. And one of the injuries, there was a person in there who their chest had basically been caved in, and it was deduced that the impact it would have taken.

57:38There's no, there's no lacerations, just their chest was caved in. The impact would have been equivalent to like a speeding car smashing into it full speed. But there's no sign of anything that could have done this damage. It's their all deceased. And so the Soviet government, they launched investigation. and during this investigation they discover that there was a huge military exercise, a Russian military exercise taking place in the Ural Mountains, who had no idea about these hikers. They have no clue that the level three mountaineering test is going on. It's not even on their radar. And they're, you know, 15 -20 miles away.

58:11And one of their senior commanders on the same night that it's believed the hikers all died and whatever happened to them happened, he began noticing all these strange lights in the sky over the Ural Mountains going up and down and moving all around to the point where he actually thought it was another country, a foreign country. Are they invading us? And he literally thought it was like an invasion of Russia. And he sent out messages to say, hey, what's happening over there? Having no idea that he was pointing to the one spot where these hikers were. So during this investigation, they discover that families are clamoring for information about their lost loved ones.

58:44Nobody has any idea what's going on. And suddenly the Soviet government says, up, we're going to shut this investigation down. All we know is that the nine hikers who died died from an unknown unnatural force sealed. And to date, even though there was actually a recent investigation done in 2020, it's remained like one of the great unsolved mysteries in part because it's got this like, oh, the Russian government sealed it and there's more information. What do they to mean unknown unnatural force, but there's pictures of the tent, of the bodies, of all this stuff. And so I always thought that was a fascinating story and I love stories like that.

59:27And I was at this water park in Pennsylvania with my family, indoor water park. And at this point, I've exhausted the one list. You know, nothing's worked on social media. And this new thing, TikTok had sort of begun to happen. I didn't even know what it was, but I was like maybe I'll try posting on there, you know, because it's a new platform. Maybe that'll work. And I was like, but I bet I want to try something else, you know, because these haven't, these ideas haven't worked. And so like in my hotel room, I tell my wife and three kids, like go down the water park, I'll meet you down there in a minute.

59:56And I just pull out the phone and I do a 60 second rendition of that. And I was like, Hey, you know, at the end of this, you're going to Google, you're going to Google two words. And I tell this brief story about this crazy mystery. And I'm like, that's called the deatlov pass mystery. That's the name of the past they were in when they were found. And I post this video to my account that has no followers. It's like the Mr. Ballon account. There's a story behind that. But it's a nothing account. Post it and really no expectation that this is going to amount to anything. I leave my phone in the room because I'm going down to the water park.

1:00:26I can't waterproof my phone. I'll be with my kids. And when I came back up a few hours later and I picked up my phone, I couldn't even get it to turn on. Like it was like, I was like, oh, is it all that power dead? And I finally get it on. and it's just like, like notifications like mad from this video. There's over five million views on this video. Mind you, everything I've ever posted collectively has maybe been 100 ,000 views. So this is like massive virality, but it was utterly divorced from seal stuff. This is like pure, I think this is fascinating and I love telling stories. And that wasn't like, oh boy, here's a business opportunity.

1:01:01It was more like, oh my God, this is so cool. I'm gonna tell more stories like that because this is what I like. And I just began making story after story that sort of fell in line with that. And it happened to fall at literally the start of the pandemic. So it's like suddenly everybody is not only on their phones, but they're on TikTok. And everybody on TikTok is like mostly kids dancing and also me telling stories with a flannel and backwards hat. And so the account just blew up like mad. I transitioned to YouTube and I've just been telling stories ever since. So first and foremost, I have to ask what do you think happened to those hikers?

1:01:37I don't know. So they reopened the investigation. Like I said in 2020, I don't claim this to be true, but I think it might have been in part because of the virality of that video. Suddenly, there's this newfound interest of people googling that the outlaw passed. And they concluded that there was an ice slab that broke off and killed them. But it's like, how does that account for the clothes being exchanged, the potential radio active nature of their clothes, like what the military guys saw with the lights, there's too many things that don't get explained. It is true that when you become hypothermic, when you become truly hypothermic and you're nearing the end, basically, you're about to die from exposure, you become warm to the point where you're hot and actually take your clothes off.

1:02:23Yeah, that's a well -documented thing. So you could say, okay, so they've pitched a terrible place on the mountain. They're being exposed to the elements. They're basically freezing. Maybe they did, maybe the skill was they were, they weren't really prepared for the weather. And so they became hypothermic. And let's say maybe an avalanche or a nice slab did come down. And maybe they got hit by the ice slab. And now the hypothermic, they're taking their clothes off. But it's like, okay, what are all the marks in the tree? You know, why are the clothes radioactive? What did the government mean when they said an unknown unnatural forest back in the 1950s?

1:02:57What were the lights seen by the military guy? There's too many unanswered questions. So I admittedly am a huge skeptic. And if anything, creating this content has only made me more skeptical, because there's so much stuff that gets put out that's not true. And it's just like totally made up. But this remains one of those stories that just sort of makes you wonder, is it possible there's stuff out there that we don't necessarily understand? Supernatural forces or extraterrestrials? I'd say this is a story that certainly opens the possibility. But I also would be perfectly fine to hear that actually turns out here's all the things that happened that makes that completely reasonable Maybe there was a leak of some kind that like leaked out radiation or who knows what so I'm open to it But I think it's it's one of the few cases that that seems like could make a case for paranormal And my next question is as you reflect on the journey of your life Yeah from from the basement to the seals to then producing the seals content and getting disowned from your sales brotherhood because of that, then stumbling across this TikTok thing, then YouTube and everything else that's happened.

1:04:00When you look back and go, like how can I give anybody advice on how to stumble into their thing based on the actions, the intentional actions that I took that brought me here. So one of the things that my wife and I often find or of selves saying is like, wow, like the timing on things is just amazing. We were so lucky with timing. And I'll give you a couple examples. So when I was getting medically retired from the military, there was a time where I actually was going to be pushed out, like actually cut from the military. And it was going to be like a year earlier than when I actually did. And so it was like, hey, you're going to get medically retired.

1:04:40And it's happening tomorrow. And I didn't have a job lined up. I didn't have anything lined up. And that's actually when I began reaching out. And I met Jordan. and it was like really quickly we came up with this elite meat thing. But then after the elite meat thing actually had some legs and we're getting donations in, we're putting these cool events on and I have like this feeble little salary coming in from it plus my retirement. I'm like okay, I can keep things afloat for a little while until I figure out the next thing. Right as that happened. So out of necessity, I've found a way to make an income within like a month of needing to have an income.

1:05:15The Navy says actually we're going to extend your contract for an extra, I think it was eight months or something. And so suddenly I had the the opportunity with Jordan and Elite meat, but also got eight more months or 10 months six. I forgot it was it was it was less than a year, but it was a lot more time in the Navy. But I really didn't have to do much in the Navy. I was already on the medical discharge way. I had to go to work and like be there like a couple hours a week. It was not hard. But it meant I got paid through the Navy. And so it allowed me really to not worry about pulling money from Elite meat and pulling a salary.

1:05:45I can just grow Elite meet with Jordan and get paid by the Navy. Is that the Navy is incubating a leaky, but a leaky wouldn't have existed if I didn't have that. Oh my God, I'm getting out in a month. I have to do something about it. And so it feels like, oh, the timing's so perfect. Like I started a leaky meet with Jordan. And then I was granted this extra time with the Navy. It fostered this company, it incubated this company. But no, I've sort of always looked at the looked at my life as being like, man, they're just such amazing timing on things. Like I just feel like we're so blessed with the timing.

1:06:15Like when like the TikTok thing, like I just so happen to like be making this video when suddenly everybody's on TikTok at the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah, that's insane timing for sure. And I'm not denying that that's a timing thing. But also I'm somebody that is perfectly willing to take a chance and do something. But I don't get stuck on is this a good idea or not. It's like I'm just going to try this thing. And it's the people that are sort of willing to quickly check a box and do this thing that will be in a position to where timing can benefit you. If you're constantly like, ah, I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking of, things are gonna pass you by.

1:06:52And so I, I look, I forget what the question was, but essentially the advice I would give is like, really, it's sort of what Jocco said. It's this idea of like, you just gotta start moving, because it's amazing what doors begin to open up for you if you're already on the move, if you're stationary, they don't open. It's interesting, because as you were talking about timing, us thinking, that's not what I think the answer is. I was thinking that timing is one of those things you see in hindsight and go, gosh, wasn't that perfect timing? For it to be perfect timing, you need to be the kind of guy who's willing to send their kids down to the pool with your wife and make a TikTok video on a platform you know very little about.

1:07:27Yeah. Doing something you've never done before. Right. And it's actually in that moment that I think that's your like moment of brilliance. That's when your life pivots. Yeah. Because genuinely 99 .9 % of people would not be making a video on a platform they don't know much about, on a subject that they've never made a video about before. And your story's riddled with those moments where, even responding to the guy on LinkedIn, you said most people didn't reply. That's right, but I responded and then you went and met him in New York or something in that Chris. So in hindsight, yes, it looks like timing, but actually it's that in moments where you lost, you got moving, you did something, you had a bias towards action, and failure is feedback, feedback is knowledge and knowledge is power.

1:08:07So it was interesting because when you're talking about like your bias of just like do something aim at something What what appears is happening there is even if the thing fails like some of the things you tried failed At least you're getting feedback through and then the feedbacks informing what you do next like you said I did the The seals thing on LinkedIn you learned some stuff about social media that okay didn't work out how you wished But you took that into the next test. Yeah, and And that's really, I think, when I look to your story, the defining thing is these just a willingness to, in fact, I'd be honest, a willingness to embarrass yourself.

1:08:43That's right. And be bad at something. You know, it's funny you say that because I literally have sort of a mantra that I've developed that I can't claim is something I came up with, but I definitely find myself living by it now. And that is, it's do things that scare you. I mean, I'll quantify that or qualify that. So actually Will Smith, the actor, has this great thing. He goes on Oprah, I think it was Oprah or some talk show and he talks about his experience skydiving. And it's unbelievable monologue, this impromptu monologue he gives. But he basically is like, my family was like, yeah, or my buddies were really skydiving tomorrow.

1:09:23And it was like, oh yeah, that'd be so crazy. He will go skydiving tomorrow. But he's like, we're not gonna really do that. And then it's like the next morning we get up and he's like, yeah, let's go get breakfast guys. He's like, no, no, we're gonna go skydiving. Like, let's go skydiving. And he's like, wait, we're really doing that? And they're like, yeah, and he's like, oh my God, I don't want to go skydiving. Although we were just like saying it last night, and he winds up, you know, going with his buddies to the actual, you know, airfield. And they're like, signing the paperwork. And he's like, guys, are we really doing this?

1:09:48I don't want to do this. Like, come on, it's not so bad. And so before long, he's like in the plane up in the air attached to the instructor. And he's like, they open the door up there. like, all right, it's your turn. And he's like, I'm sitting on the edge and I'm having like this full blown crisis. Like, I don't want to jump. I'm terrified of jumping. And the instructor is like, I will. We're gonna go on three, one jumps. Really? Right. And he was like, the second I left the plane, the fear was gone. Yeah. And it was just this exhilarating experience of soaring through the air, of skydiving.

1:10:23And he was like, when I landed, it, he's like, I suddenly understood that there's always been this aspect in my life that I've sort of seen in other ways in my life, but it's the best things in life. This is Will Smith, not me. The best things in life are on the other side of fear. And so what I've taken that as, you know, like becoming a Navy SEAL, for example, when I decided to do it, like there's a huge amount of fear. And not so much fear of failure. It's like, it's fear of not stacking up. Like when I got there, like you're so intimidated by the people around me. But I knew if I could just like not let the fear overwhelm me that the reward on the back end would be so high, you know?

1:11:04Or even take, you know, I just did a live, we did a live tour with 15 shows. I actually am terrified of public speaking. I've had instances of my life where I have frozen up publicly giving a speech and literally had to put the microphone down and leave. I've had that experience and I'm volunteering caring to do a tour with thousands of people, but it's the way I look at it is like the things that you don't want to do, you'll be indifferent to. The things that you do want to do, you'll typically have a, if it's a big enough thing, the best things in life, so to speak, you will have some element of a fear response to it.

1:11:39Now, of course, if you're scared to go down in the basement because you hear an intruder breaking in, listen to yourself, don't go down in the basement. When it comes to like goal setting, it kind of going back to that idea of shower thoughts, right? Everybody has something that they just really want to do. And it's not even necessarily motivated by one particular thing. Maybe it's some action they want to take. Maybe it's talking to a friend that they've blown off for 10 years or or it's public speaking or whatever it is. But they know, even if they don't admit to it, deep down they know fear is the thing keeping them from doing it.

1:12:12It's fear of embarrassment. It's fear of failure. It's a fear of all the things that make us human, it's the very select number of people in this life that are still able to say, I'm going to still do that thing that's here as the fuck out of me that have the best and most fulfilling lives, not always, but they often do. And like that's why we look at like Will Smith, for example, that dude, very likely just because I'm referencing him, he's probably had to do things that were so uncomfortable in his life. To be an actor at his level is like, hey, perform in front of everybody right now. and don't screw it up.

1:12:47You know, it's like pressure and performance. It's like, that dude has faced fears his whole life. Yeah, he's using skydiving as an example, but his life is very likely a product of a guy who faces fears. But it's the fear knowing that if I do this, there's something big on the other side. And so I preach to my children and I try to live this idea of do things that scare you. And literally the live tour that we just did was it. I was having like an existential crisis before we began, but the second I took the stage, it was like, oh, this is great. So it goes back to what you were saying about when we'll jump out of the plane.

1:13:20Yeah. All the fear was there before he jumped. Oh yes. And just like you walking out on that stage, the fear you're tormented before. Oh yes. I always find before significantly harder in every way. Oh yeah. Before everything that I've done in my life is the last part. Once you get into it, it's your confronting reality, which isn't always as bad. Yes. Before is horrible. And also when you're talking us thinking, you know, it's really it, Either way you're making a decision in those moments, like when you were thinking about your life tour, the decision is do I accept unchecked box? Or do I accept this mental torment that I'm gonna inflict upon myself?

1:13:54That's very true. And I think, yeah, when they talk to people on their deathbeds and stuff, the worst thing is the unchecked box. Not that. That's gotta be. But then I walked out and put the mic down and walked off. Yeah, like I don't look back at the fact that I, and I was in San Francisco at a dinner where I literally froze and put the mic down and walked off. I looked at that as a catalyst for why I was so scared to do public speaking this time, and then ultimately pushed me to do it. I don't regret San Francisco. I'm glad it happened. But only because I faced it later on. I would be so embarrassed.

1:14:26I would harbor my pain forever if I never tried again. But yeah, it's like the... You don't regret the failure you regret not trying. How do people misunderstand you? Because they like you, they see you on a screen. And they consume you miss that type of content you make. They probably don't know the full context of your life, but how do you think people have misunderstood you? Oh, good question. I would say, and this is not even to try to curry, favor with my former seal brethren, but I think that even when I was posting, and this is really just specifically to the people that really disown me, who still very likely do, So, you know, my intention when I was posting the seal stuff before Mr.

1:15:09Ball and thing happened, it was never like, I'm so great. It was more like, I want to do something with my life and this feels like an opportunity and I know it's sort of like questionable. But when you're no longer in that insulated team room, when you're in the wolf pack, so to speak, it's easy to view the rest of your life as being, oh, it'll, I've become a seal. I can do anything I want. but like when you're cast out or when you leave and you're by yourself and you get to like figure out your new life, it's really difficult to imagine how you're going to do that without leveraging the biggest thing you've ever done.

1:15:42And so I think that the one definite specific thing is I never made that content because I literally believed I'm the special guy and like everybody better look at me is like Mr. Navy Seal. I was very aware of the fact that I was a junior seal relative to the other people that had served and like my experience was minimal compared to others. So, I think that some people think that I actually somehow believe that I'm like, I'm a superhero and I didn't that and I don't know. I'd say now, sort of the Mr. Ball inside of things, there's like a practical thing which is the, as the sort of Mr. Ball and thing has grown to where it is now, to where it's It's a pretty recognizable thing in the genre of the strange dark and mysterious.

1:16:28It's been really, really challenging for me personally to balance my life with my wife and my three kids who I adore and sort of like, you know, responsibilities with content. I mean, we have a recording schedule. We have things that I sort of have pledged to do. And as you know, with content creation, there's not really an end. You just sort of keep doing it. I think that by no means am I saying, like, oh, this job is so hard. People better sympathize with me hardly. Like I understand the privilege. But at the same time, like I started making content and it was like an outpouring of content constantly.

1:17:03I was making five videos a week sometimes that are like 25 minutes each by myself, like shooting it, editing it, everything. It was like, it would take me about 26 hours or so per video over seven days. So it's like, I really wasn't sleeping. I became like a raging alcoholic. I became like horribly overweight because it was like everything got pushed aside to make videos. And then as I realized that like doing content at that fervorous rate was really taking a toll on my physical health, my mental health, and definitely my relationship with my wife and kids, I began to sort of make an exchange.

1:17:39It was like I'm gonna do less content for more time with my family and loads of people got that. It isn't like the masses were like, dude, you're a jerk. But I think what's happened now and it's sort of a product of success is we've reached a point, not just me, but like we have a team that's pretty sizable. We have an amazing studio. We have publishing division. We have this. We've reached a point where I think people view me as like this corporate guy out to get money. When in reality, like you were talking before the show, like you're like, it's weird people say you're so successful when I don't even know what I'm doing.

1:18:13like I'm still very much the guy that randomly made a video that went viral on TikTok. And so one of the harder things for me has been as the audience grows, which I'm happy for, it's like you really have to understand that there are people that don't like me anymore. Like have taken an issue with me and it's always this idea that like I'm somehow like this money grubbing like corporate guy that is only in it to make money when in reality like as you've probably seen with this interview, dude, my default is I love telling stories. I love this genre, always have and like I also I kind of like being my own boss to a degree.

1:18:52So it's like it checks a lot of boxes for me. Do you ever worry that you've got your priorities wrong? And what I say that I really mean because when you're a content creator like we both are, Yeah. Like you say, it's your constant. It's constant, it's constant, it's constant. And there's no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of there's not like you get off this train at some point. If you get off, you fail. That is how it works. So how do you think? Because if I said to you, you're going to be doing this forever. Like you're going to be doing what you do now for the next 30 years. You know, I think that I've actually probably reached a point in my life as a content creator where maybe I haven't come to it exactly the way you've just laid it out.

1:19:36But it's, I'm definitely not currently in this for money. If anything, I'm in it for, I get a lot of enjoyment out of literally telling stories I mentioned to you pre -show that doing the live tour was so much fun because I got to actually interact with these people that show up as numbers on my YouTube videos, but they're real people. And it's like it was so much fun, like fulfilling for me. I would have, I literally told Nick, or my CEO and my manager before the tour started. I would have paid to do the tour. And now, especially, I would have paid money to have that experience to put those shows on.

1:20:13But yeah, looking ahead, it's like I've sort of reached a point which is I have was never really in this for fame or money or I definitely was in it for the idea of being successful. No doubt. I want to be successful and things come with that that are in the money and fame and all that. But I ultimately just, I'm a guy that just tries new stuff. I've done lots of new things. I sort of reinvented myself several times over, but I do really well when I just sort of have a new goal. And I thrive in that environment. And like for me, like when the Mr. Ball and things started, it was not how much money can we make or how successful or how big of a business can we make.

1:20:49It was like, can I make another video that people like? Can I keep doing that? And that became the goal. Can I repeat interest in the videos? Could you see yourself having something? Yes and no, for sure, because I think that I'm also capable of saying, and now I'm good. I'm going to go do this completely new thing with my family and write off into the Sun. I think you're capable of that, say. I do, actually. How many subscribers have you got told it's like? I mean, your main channel's got almost 10 million. It's about 10. I think that if you, I think we've done the math and we looked at all areas, all platforms, including podcasts, there's probably somewhere around 20 to 25 million.

1:21:26Because like 20, 25 million subscribers, you would be okay with just walking away and saying, could you see that reality in the future? Yeah. Is there anything that it would take for you to get there? Is it like, would you need, is there anything, any catalyst you think? Yeah, actually, it's funny you bring this up because I've sort of mentioned the live tour a a couple times. If I had to be honest about my deeply internalized unchecked box from the time I became an adult, well, from the time I joined the military, it was, I always just had this interest in giving a big public talk. For no other reason than to simply conquer that moment.

1:22:10My dad is an incredible speaker. He's done some pretty big talks. And I've seen him speak and he's so good. and I've always known that I'm a good speaker. I can tell stories. This is something well before Mr. Ballin. But I viewed it as something that was so terrifying that I would never actually do it. I was the guy that had that thought and was like, I'll live with an unchecked box. And I would tell myself it's because I don't really have the content to deliver a talk. I have the ability but no content. And that was my excuse. But then the Mr. Ballin thinks that the Mr. Ballin thinks sort of takes off.

1:22:44and suddenly it's like, oh, you have the audience, you have the content, you have all this stuff, it is now a decision, are you gonna do it or not? And I, over the last couple of years, have like really mentally tortured myself to work myself up to be like, I'm not only gonna do the live stuff, but I'm gonna do a whole tour. Like, it's, and I told you before the show that I wanted limited production value. A part of that was because I wanted it to be me with a spotlight on me, with a microphone to make it as intense as it could possibly be, because I thought like if I didn't start there, I'd be worried I didn't fulfill the thing I've always wanted to do, which is like be the guy with the mic and captivate people.

1:23:24And so I did that. I feel like I genuinely accomplished this thing that I really didn't think I would ever actually do, because fear was too much. I wasn't able to get to get past it. But as a result, coming back from that tour, and this is going to sound so like egotistical, but it's like we come back from tour, and we have this graphic novel we released New York Times bestselling graphic novel, like it's beautiful. I'm so proud of that book. You know, the tour was like statistically, financially, whatever you want to call it, huge success. You know, the YouTube channel of pockets, everything's going great, but I suddenly had no more genuinely deep -seated unchecked boxes.

1:24:01I don't. The only thing I have is like a real desire to be a good dad, but it hasn't, there's not a specific way to quantify that. Like, but by doing the live thing, which was so in the back of my mind, it now that it's been checked, I could do 50 more live tours and it would never be the same as the first one. Like, I could right now, if there's a, there's 70 ,000 people out there go tell a story and prompt you. I could do that right now. It wouldn't be stressful as hell, but I do it. I don't have, and this is, again, not meant to be statistical. I don't have a goal anymore. I have now reached a point where in the only other thing that I wanted to do was pitch for the Boston Red Sox.

1:24:40And I think that ship is sailed. That'd be the one thing I'm not people to do. But I don't really have like the the big audacious goal. I'm sure I'll find one. Now I'm looking for one. But I've sort of reached a point where like I adore the storytelling aspect of storytelling. I just do it. Doing it right now. But I also adore my family and my kids and I want to have a full life there and by the way I definitely have a good balance right now, but to your point could I do this for 30 more years? The answer is no. I could do this for a time and I'll put all of my energy into it and when when people hear my fans When I say like I genuinely care about what you think I'm in the comments.

1:25:18I read Reddit I read I painful things on Reddit. I read all this stuff. It's because I genuinely care because this was never about building a business that's a product of the thing that I love to do. It's a product of telling stories and loving to do that. But yeah, I don't have the deep unchecked box. I hope to find one, but right now it's like, I feel like I'm just sort of doing stuff and I need to find the thing and I don't have it. I'm so fortunate, so blessed, and I love my life. I love that, but I don't have, I've done the box checking and I don't know what's next. Everybody needs an unchecked box, don't I?

1:25:51I feel like you do. It keeps you moving, keeps you thinking about It's like, oh, this meeting isn't it? It's like a, there was that horrible disaster with the little submarine that imploded horrible thing. And I was reading about it, like the people that go on these deep sea excursions are typically like billionaires. It's people that literally have every resource known to men. You can do basically anything you want within reason. And it's like, they can't figure out what to do now because everything like to us, if it's like, hey, do you want to go buy a hundred million dollar yacht today? Like, we can't do that.

1:26:30Like, I can't go buy a hundred. Maybe you can't. I can't buy a hundred million. But it's like, imagine being a, we, it's very difficult to do this. I'm sure billionaires could tell us if you could buy anything, it's like suddenly everything loses its value, at least the things you can buy. It's only valuable to us because we can't have it. You know, it's like, I can get this nice of a car, but I know I can't get a McLaren. But that's what makes this one special because I can't afford this one. But it's like the billionaires, it's like, oh, well, all I can do is like adrenaline now because it's money doesn't put up.

1:27:02So it's, I've sort of reached a point not billionaires that is even close, but it's like, it's hard to figure out what I even want to do besides knowing wife and kids is like a really big thing for me. It stems literally from nearly dying in Afghanistan, like really cherishing the fact that I have a family. But it's like, I also cherish what I have here with Balan Studios. I just am waiting for the next big sort of unchecked box to appear. What's your journey like been with your in mental health? Because you talked about PTSD, you talked about becoming a bit of an alcoholic as well at one point.

1:27:38What's that journey been like? What's that sort of overlaid across your story? Yeah, I've really struggled with my mental health in particular, kind of like in the from military service was a big part of it. I, when I was medically retired, so 2014 I get hurt in Afghanistan. I really didn't, I thought I dealt with it because you have to go see a therapist and stuff post -appointments. You go speak to somebody, but I sort of was just sort of playing the game to get through it because I just wanted to deploy again and be a part of the team again. And it wasn't until later on that I actually, so I deployed a second time and I went to South America.

1:28:19And I remember not giving much thought to the deployment before I got there. Remember thinking like compared to going to Afghanistan, we're going to South America to like sit in a nice house, literally in a beautiful part of South America and like train, Peruvian military forces. Like it's not a combat deployment. This is like you're deploying and you're living there, but you're just sort of like a teacher. That's the gist. And that's an amazing thing to do. But it's definitely not combat. But as a result, I really didn't like mentally prepare myself for what it would be like to be in Peru. And if you don't know this, like Peru is a totally Spanish -speaking country.

1:28:59It's very, at least where we were, there was very little English, like very, very little. And so I remember I had to go late to Peru. So my team had gone with a a group of us that was deploying there, they went early to Peru and I went like a week later. And it meant that I had to fly in to the airport in Peru by myself. And I had to like navigate the airport and I speak a little Spanish, like barely conversational. And I didn't take it seriously at all. They gave a Spanish course as I blew it off. And I remember I got to Peru and it was like, oh my God, like as soon as I landed and I look around and no one speaks English, I'm trying to figure out where to go, everything's in Spanish, I can't find my ride.

1:29:38My ride, by the way, is a local who speaks Spanish, doesn't know what I look like. And my bag got stuck and they were trying to figure out what was in my bag, but I don't speak. It was so stressful. And then I finally get in the vehicle to get brought to our house we were at, but to get there required driving through like a true slum, like a very, very unsafe place. And I remember thinking like, I am in a totally foreign country. I'm so far from my family and I'm going to be here for six months, which is not long by, you know, deployment standards, but that's a long time to be away. And it was like, I didn't put any thought into this.

1:30:16I can't believe I'm going to be here. It like I had suddenly, I feel like I was in Afghanistan again a little bit. I struggled so, so bad on that deployment with just being sane. Like I was so miserable there. There was like to the point where I was borderline having delusions, I was so depressed. I can't even describe it. I had this recurring dream where I'd be lying on my bed and it's also it's always moist and Peru, like it's everything's wet, like no matter what, like your sheets are wet, your clothes are wet. It's like a very humid environment. And I'm like laying in my bed, I don't have a fan.

1:30:52It's like humid in this crappy little room and outside of juice here, the chaos of like the Peruvian streets. And I would like fall asleep and I'd have this dream that I was in Russia standing on the corner of this like embassy or some federal building and Somebody would come out of a car and like grab me and like hijack me and like take me hostage But it was like over and over again I had this dream to the point where I began to believe I was losing my mind That like how can I have the same dream? I'd like wake up in a in a panic I missed my wife so terribly she was pregnant with her first child.

1:31:26It was awful It was like the worst time of my life. And it's hard to even now to put it into words. It was just like I had bordering on like a mental collapse. And it was in part because I just didn't appreciate the fact that like you're going to another part of the world where everything is different. And I also sort of began to confront, I guess my demons from the deployment to Afghanistan. There were just some things that we did that I did that were not necessarily wrong or like illegal at all. but just like it's war and war is like this horrible thing and seeing it up close. Man, it's just it's rough, you know, and at the time you're so conditioned to not only see war and be okay with it, but to practically revel in it because how else do you get young men to keep going to war and keep fighting and dying?

1:32:18You need men and women. But it was like I, Yeah, it was like I had that breakdown, like a mental sort of questioning, why am I in the military? You know, questioning who I was. And so I ended up getting medically retired and it was not really from Peru at all. It was more like, I was so unhappy. I came back from Peru and I just detested the fact that I was in the military. I didn't feel like it was the place for me. I also was physically injured. I was dealing with the injuries. and I ended up getting medically retired, but it was my choice if I wanted to continue to see a therapist after I got out.

1:32:56And at first, I didn't. At first, when I got out, when I got medically retired, I just was like, whatever, I'm done among my own. But I was so angry all the time. Like just everything made me mad. I was so like on edge, not even like jumpy, but just I was just like so high strong. And it got to the point where like nobody wanted to be around me. like my kids didn't want to be around me, my wife didn't want to be around me. And ultimately, they were like, I think you need to see somebody. And I was like, you know what, I think I do too. I feel like I'm a mess. And it was through therapy that I, this is like 2018 or so that I realized I had some very deep seated issues with myself, with my service, with just stuff I saw and did.

1:33:38And it was only when I began to sort of openly talk about those things that I actually began to sort of forgive myself. and begin to feel content, like, what's the word, content again? You know, it's not about therapy is not meant to make you forget stuff. It's to give you perspective that you didn't have. And I just, I think I had fallen into a cycle of just detesting who I was and why? I think that it was like, ultimately, if I were to boil it down to its simplest part, it's like, I wanted to be a Navy SEAL in part because I just wanted to go through the training. I wanted to serve in the military, but I didn't really think that hard about that.

1:34:20It was mostly like, I want to serve because it's an honorable thing and I know people would have done it and that's something that means something to me. But it was really the draw to be a seal that was the challenge that I saw. That's the thing. It's going to take years to do it. It's like this really hard thing. It was like the idea of even contemplating what life would be like as a seal felt like even cart before the horse. It's like, who do you think you are thinking about what it's going to be like to be a seal? Like if you ever get there, you'll figure it out. And this is actually a, I think it's a relatively common phenomenon that the people that become seals, it's almost surprising.

1:34:53Like you become a seal and you're like, wait a minute. Like now I'm going to be a Navy seal, which sounds goofy, but it's years to get to that point and all the way up until the end to a degree. You can not make it. You can like fail out. And so you finally become a seal and you realize like the reality of the job. And I say this not because I have deep exposure to this, but because it's just true, which is in this job people die and you kill people like that's kind of the gist of the job There's way more to it than that, but it's it's like a that's the job guys like it the what do you think they make video games and movies about it and I think that There's a mental conditioning to being able to do that job that comes from training and frankly it's a remarkable thing that they're able to create this system that creates really capable warfighters because that's how you protect your country, that's how you go out and do what you got to do.

1:35:49But when you come out of that, when you sort of, what's the word, it's almost like when you, it's like you enter this matrix of thinking, when you go through training and you become like willing and able to fight wars basically. But when you begin to fracture and you begin to sort of realize that you want to do something else with your life, you have to kind of come to terms with what you have been doing and the way you've been thinking about it. You begin to view who you were as a seal, as a person you don't, for me, only. I was not proud of the person I had become. I had sort of really leaned into being as aggressive and as like, you know, like alpha as I possibly could be, not with my teammates, but just in doing the job that I had sort of drifted down a path that I wasn't very proud of.

1:36:38And I think that realizing that this wasn't to fit for me, like being in the seals even though I got medically retired, I think I realized it wasn't to fit for me and I would have gotten out whether or not I was medically retired. It was really difficult to cope with that loss of identity. You still have those demons? Yeah, but I go to therapy for them and shout out to Vinny Shoreman who actually is he's based in the UK. He's my therapist. He's awesome. We haven't really delved too deeply into the military stuff, but yeah, I think that it's something that will always be with me. I certainly, when I think about having served, I'm very proud and I'm proud to have been a veteran now and the people I worked with were incredible.

1:37:18Even the people that hate me now, like I just I mean, I think any less of them, they're are incredible people in the military. I think that I just sort of, it wasn't a fit for me. It was like, I thought the military was, but it was the seal thing that drew me in. And in many ways, this is gonna sound weird, but I was sort of lucky enough to get to deploy to Afghanistan and actually have a combat deployment because many people, when happens is they go to like a war fighting unit, like a special operations unit and then they never see combat. And it's not because they made any decision. it's just the way it goes.

1:37:52And those people, it's sort of like they have this unchecked box. But it's not their decision. And so in a way, I was given this gift, and it sounds horrible to say it that way, but that's, I don't know how else to say it, of getting to sort of do the job in real life. But there are sort of like, and anybody who's listening that's done multiple deployments, like, look at this guy, like, I don't claim to have like, oh, I've done 87 deployments, and this is my experience. It's just from like, I had one combat tour, one. But it was enough to show me that like that isn't what I was cut out to do. And I think that but I still did those things and I still was that person.

1:38:24And now as a civilian sort of reconciling that I'm such a different person now in a good way. I've taken all the best qualities I possibly could and I've poured them into this person. I'm trying to be a good husband and a good dad. And I'm trying to do all the right things. But it's like I have this part of me that it's just crazy to me that I was ever in Navy SEAL. It's crazy. Everybody has their demons to some degree. Whether it's, you know, it's a spectrum of how strong those demons can be and how to control they can have over your decisions. What if you learned about dealing with demons that might be of any, because you've been to therapy?

1:38:59A lot of people haven't, maybe even haven't arrived at the awareness that they need to go yet. What if you learned about dealing with demons that might be useful to anybody listening? that you can't talk yourself out of them. It's, if you, a demon to me is something that, if you begin to have those thoughts and you feel them creeping in and you tell yourself stop thinking about it, I don't wanna deal with that. I don't wanna think about that. If you have those thoughts in your life that even just the slightest beginning of a thought about that thing starts to creep into your head and your reaction to it is not now.

1:39:36I don't want to do this. I can't do this right now. It's all happening in your head. If that's something that you deal with That's a demon. It's something that is like the uncontrollable thought that comes into your head. It usually happens at the same time of the day or same thing that triggers it And if your reaction to it is oh my god, I can't think about this thing Like that is a demon in your life and you are not going to be able at least in my opinion long term to simply Convince yourself that that's not a demon It is a demon. It doesn't matter if it's rational or not. For me, I have several that creep into my life, but the only way I have found to cope with them is to sort of not embrace them, because that's not what you do.

1:40:19It's to talk about them with someone who it's cathartic to talk about it with a therapist, but it's even more cathartic to almost hear yourself talking about it. Like, you actually, for me specifically, like, I have things that I've said in therapy that I can't believe I'm saying out loud that are so, like, personal and intimate and so tied to, like, deep insecurities and pains in my life. But it's only in that environment with, like, a third party who's neutral in a private setting that these things just come to the surface and I'm saying these things. And the beautiful thing about having a great therapist is their whole gig is they're listening and interpreting and providing perspective.

1:40:56They're not trying to like tell you all that's that's not a thing. It's like well, have you thought about it this way? Chuck me that perfected One of the things that I think about all the time because my life is quite hectic and busy is how to manage my energy load And as a podcast you kind of have to manage your energy in such a way that you can have these articulate conversations with Experts and subjects you don't understand and this is why perfect head has become so important in my life because is previously when it came to energy products, I had to make a trade off that I wasn't happy with.

1:41:27Typically, if I wanted the energy, I had to deal with high sugar, I had to deal with jitters and crashes that come along with a lot of the mainstream energy products. And I also just had to tolerate the fact that if I want energy, I have to put up with a lot of artificial ingredients which my body didn't like. And that's why I invested in Perfect Head and why they're one of the sponsors of this podcast. It has changed not just my life, but my entire team's life. And for me, it's drastically improved to my cognitive performance, but also my physical performance. So if you haven't tried Perfect Ted yet, you must have been living under a rock.

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1:43:09Yeah, how was your father been a sort of key figure in the man that you are and we talk about demons Sure, and the demons that you have So you know, it's funny my dad and I recently have sort of had a a resurgence He and I sort of had I guess you could call it a falling out I was very close with my dad growing up my parents split when I was 13 and even though I was living with my mom and sisters My dad was a very active part of my life it isn't like I didn't see him again. But we had like a good relationship, me and my dad. And then when I left for the Navy, it came after I had found a way to graduate college.

1:43:48And I was talking about law school a little bit. And I think my dad, he was like, that's great. My son, like he turned it around. He's got this career in mind that seems like a really strong idea. And I sort of sprung it on him and my mom and my sister's that I'm actually know when I graduate college I'm gonna enlist in the Navy and try to be a Navy Seal. I hadn't really talked about it with them at all. I mean I'm exaggerating that it was a very quick turnaround and I didn't want to talk to them about it because I knew they'd say, one, why will you make it through? And two, why are you doing this?

1:44:21And so when I began talking about it, like right at the end of my college career, like literally I'm getting ready to enlist, my dad, I think he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the idea that I really was going to do this. For reasons that makes sense to me now that didn't at the time, like, it's his son. If you're successful, that's not good. You're going to be a Navy SEAL, like going to war. If you're not successful and you wash out a train, you're stuck in the Navy in the sense that you don't get to pick another job. You kind of become needs of the Navy and you have to go do like these crappy jobs for like four years.

1:44:56Nobody likes being stuck if they don't have what's called a rate to your job. So it's like he's viewing it as both outcomes sort of come with big negatives, but the way it came out to me was he doesn't believe in me. He doesn't believe I can be a Navy seal. Like he thinks I'm not going to make it. I'm sure that was not what he intended, but that's the way I interpreted it. And it marked like a departure in our relationship in 2010. I left for the for bootcamp. and while he and I absolutely maintained some level of contact from 2010 until quite literally like a few months ago, I Barely spoke to my dad by choice.

1:45:33I had a lot of ill will towards him. I always just sort of felt like He doesn't believe in me. He also he got remarried and he has in he's you know, he got remarried as a family It just I had a lot of resentment towards him that some was founded much of it was not and it sort of became something that It never was, which is I had it in my head that my dad doesn't believe in me. That really was the thought. And it actually helped propel me to at times there were days in sealed training where I would literally think to myself, if I don't make it, I can't even fathom what it would be like to face my dad, who in my head at the time, I'm like, he'd be like, told you so, like the idea of that, like me, my skin crawl, you know?

1:46:17So in many ways, my relationship with my dad, It had become sort of negative for many years, but it sort of maintained a pretty healthy chip in my shoulder that pushed me to sort of prove him wrong in a sense. But with self -awareness recently, like very recently, through therapy with my boy Vinny Shormin, and through some sort of the world lining up, he and I sort of reconnected. And we actually had some frank discussions about that, and it turns out that no, my dad just literally was worried about his son and felt like I didn't like him, or love him and be sort of drifted and life happens. I had my life, he had his life, but we've reconnected now and I'm happy for it.

1:46:59There's a lot of men that aren't at the place yet where they will speak openly about their demons and how they're feeling and their emotions and stuff, especially I mean people that have been in combat and that scene is big tough guys, right? What would you say to those men? That maybe because we all feel things, sure. Most of us don't have the tools to know how to talk about it. We don't have the environment. Maybe we don't have friends or outlets where we can talk about it. And a lot of men don't feel like they can, even I was one of those men that probably until about the last, I'd say, two years, I would never tell my partner if I was having a bad day.

1:47:34If I was feeling bad, if I was anxious, in any way, if I was struggling with something, I would always try and shield everyone from it. Like I thought as a man, my job was to just take it. Yes, take everything absorb Hold but what I came to learn is that it is coming out. Yeah, but in with unintended consequences and in unexpected ways It's coming out somewhere maybe in my mood Maybe in my health maybe in my habits Maybe in my search for quick fixes of dopamine. It's gonna come out So I ran the experiment one day of just like sitting my partner down and saying look, I've been honest with you This is how I feel and this is what's happened.

1:48:11That's what I'm going through. Yeah And it was such a important pivotal experiment in my life. Because you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. So I'm just wondering what journey you've been on with opening up? I think that taking men specifically as an example, you sort of have like the society, the socially acceptable things that can be demons for you, that maybe we don't talk about them. But if you did, no one's really going to bat an eye. Like, it turns out I hate my job. And, you know, it turns out I don't love my partner. Okay, these are bad things, but they're things that if you brought them up, no one's gonna question your manhood.

1:48:52They're not gonna question, you know, things that society views is really important, right? It's the stuff that is super personal to you that's like could be potentially embarrassing. Those are the things that are your real demons. I'm not saying those other things aren't demons. They are. They are. But if you can't talk about those things, they will dog you your whole life. They really will. And so I think it's not about you need to go sign up for therapy and go talk to a therapist. But I do think that like you mentioned it yourself, you have to be able to sort of like unburden yourself. And part of that is simply talking about it.

1:49:32Like I had one, this is not really a demon, but to give people a sense who are watching of like how comfortable I am being forward about things that I struggle with. So, oddly enough, one of the reasons that I was also drawn to the military, believe it or not, was I struggle mightily to urinate in front of other people, just publicly go into the bathroom or front of other people. It's not like it's destroying my life, but it's uncomfortable. Like, it's easier for me if I'm alone, right? I knew this about myself at a young age. Don't have a reason for it. But like, I knew when I was like in high school or like in college, like I would go to a bathroom that was private because that was easier for me.

1:50:11And as I got older, I was like, that's not really that normal that this is happening to me. And so part of the reason I was interested in the Navy is they drug test you and they do it really publicly. And it was like, in order to deal with this, I have to go into an organization that literally will force me to have to urinate in front of other people. But like for me, it's sort of like facing these things that are hyper personal, like inability to pee in front of other people, which, you know, I've overcome. But you have to be willing to sort of identify those things. And in my case, I talked to my wife about it before I joined the Navy.

1:50:45And she's like, okay, I've talked to my therapist about it recently as well. But it's sort of like, that's a really specific personal thing that if I brought that up in a casual conversation, I'm sure there are people that could actually relate to it. But most people would be like, there's little uncomfortable that you brought that up, but like everybody's got stuff that falls into that category, maybe not specifically, but you everybody's got weird insecurities and they've got things that drive their decisions that would be to them deeply embarrassing to bring up. That is the reason you have to bring them up because they will they will dog you and they will always be there until you deal with them.

1:51:22And for me, it's been helpful and cathartic to state them out loud and then do something about them. The other thing I've noticed is that when I don't state them, especially in the context of a relationship is you live misunderstood. Yeah, that's true. So like likes play out the scenario that you struggle to urinate in front of other people. Your wife, your wife might always start to wonder why you don't want to go to certain places or when you're in those places you're acting strange, she'll misunderstand that is maybe he's X, Y, and Z. And then you're dealing with a problem. You're dealing with another set of problems.

1:51:55He's like, like he's cheating on me. No, no, no. It's like, actually it was just we didn't have an environment at safe space where we could talk about the actual issue. It started to create like five other issues. And I have that in my life where I'm like, like if I just told the truth, so it's a shame that sometimes I have to get to the like bust up moment, turn around and say, you've got this totally wrong. And the reason why you've got this totally wrong is because I didn't tell you the truth. Yeah. And it's led you off down a path which is really unfortunate. It's caused us more hurt than me just being honest with you.

1:52:23Yeah. But it's, I'm not saying it's going to be easy. I think like many of the things you've described in your story, first you have to just take one step in that direction. I'm not saying like pull your partner in and like offload or offload with therapists today. It's just, you have to run the experiment to build the evidence and have it compounding. Actually, this is a better life than secrecy. I agree. Keeping everything to yourself. You know, there's some, when I interview people, there's always questions I know that they get asked all the time. Yeah. I'm like, do I ask him the question that I know he probably gets asked all the time?

1:52:52But you're so good at telling stories. Yeah. You really, really are great at telling stories. Thank you. So there's really two questions I wanted to end with. I guess we've got a couple of minutes. Sure. The first question is, to be a great storyteller, and we're all telling stories whether we know it or not, is there any principles that you've come to line that you could give me to tell better stories? Yeah. So I would say, obviously, the medium by which you're telling the story matters. But if we're talking about literally speaking a story, telling a story and assuming you have people listening to that story right in front of you Which is the a medium by which many of us tell stories telling our friends telling our family members To tell a really good story it has less to do with the content of the story and more to do with the delivery of that story When I told you the de -at -law past story I was fully committed to telling you that story Yeah, I didn't care if you thought it was interesting or not I thought it was interesting enough that I was going to give you my hand gestures.

1:53:48I'm like going to make sure I harp on the details that I find really interesting, but it's like a level of commitment to telling that story. Like, that's the key. It's commit to be like you have to be in the story. And like, for example, when I'm when I did the live tour, like, that's the purest form of, you're either going to be awkward up there and like, get through it, or you're going to fucking own the story, be in the stories, and tell it to those people right there. and they're gonna hear what I wanna tell them. So it's like the delivery, it's not just practice and get your words right. Hardly, I do it.

1:54:19I don't even use a script, but I tell stories. I look at the story, I learn the story, I internalize the story, and then I inhabit the story. And when I tell you the story, it should almost feel like I was there. Like that is the level of commitment you need. And I would say also like with regards to general storytelling, it really is true that it has less to do with like finessing the language so it's perfect or getting your script exactly right, it's like, I would say, when it comes to most stories, you need to make sure there's some sort of payoff at the end of the story, which is sort of like storytelling 101.

1:54:52But if you look at the way newspapers structure stories, for those maybe don't read the newspaper, or generally here's how it goes. This thing happened, and now I'm going to tell you the details of what that thing is and how it happened, right? That's not good storytelling. That's great for getting information across, but all too often if you look on YouTube, or if you look at other people who tell mysteries, for example, sometimes in their header, it will be crazy, golden skeleton found in cave in Russia. And that's pretty compelling, maybe I'd read that. But it's like, Suzanne murdered in London.

1:55:31And then you click on it until you find out what happened, but it's like you don't want your audience to already in certain cases, you don't necessarily want your audience to know where the story is going. They might have a very strong inclination that Suzanne's going to get killed at the end of the story, or there's going to be a golden skeleton found in Russia. But being a storyteller, your job is to keep people invested and to build tension and to get them ready for the payoff at the end. Any story can have a twist at the end. It depends on how you tell it. It isn't like some stories have payoffs and some don't, absolutely not.

1:56:04You can use point of view. You can inhabit aspects of the story that give different lenses into the story, but own the story when you tell it, and ensure that there's some type of payoff at the end, whatever it is. When I told you that the At -Law Past story, like ultimately the goal is to get you to see that, wow, all these conflicting things, there's pictures of this and that, but the Russian government said, an unknown, unnatural force is responsible, and then close the case. The whole point of that is to say, all these crazy things that are objective, they objectively happen, that we have data, we have pictures with all these things.

1:56:39I've demonstrated that to you. And clearly, something's wrong and they sealed the case and no one could look into it. The whole point is to make you think, what is going on over there? But if I had said, guess what, there's this case that sealed it and no one would look into it. Here's what happened. It's the same story, but I've opened with the reveal. You gotta do it the other way. So pay off at the end and own the storytelling aspect of it. I'll go and tell people to check it out on your channel, but is there a particular story on your channel? That is this was the cliche question. That is your favorite.

1:57:09Oh man. It's like asking favorite kids, right? I would say the story that I'm the most proud of in terms of just how difficult it was to piece it together is the the headless valley and it's actually in our graphic novel as well. It isn't that it's literally the best story, but it's a story that is a composite of a whole bunch of anecdotes it's over about a hundred years. There's this, I know I don't have time, but there's this place in Canada called the Northwest Territories. And so it's a part of Canada that's already very remote and it's just wilderness and forests. And there's this section called the Northwest Territories, which is even more remote.

1:57:45It's as big as Germany, but Germany has like 50 million residents and this has like 50 ,000 people there. So it's like no one lives there. And within the Northwest Territories, there's this valley, this river that cuts through this beautiful valley called the Nahani Valley, which has been now dubbed the headless valley because over the course of about 100 years, all these people who have gone into this valley have turned up headless. They've been, but like in the most bizarre ways and you can't really get into this valley, it's very difficult to do. You can't fly there, you can't hike there, you have to either take a boat upstream and literally carry a boat up a couple waterfalls and then continue going upstream or there is an overland hike, but it's like 70 miles of treacherous terrain.

1:58:25So it's like really hard to get there. It's totally remote and the only other people that ever lived there were the Nahani tribe and They one day somebody was actually there on a hunting expedition They noticed that the Nahani tribe which made up like hundreds of people they were camped out along this this river They disappeared overnight and literally nobody knows what happened to them They left behind their all their equipment all their their housing. It's all it was left They just vanished no one knows what happened to them and there's rumors of like white white creatures wandering the woods But I took like seven or eight anecdotes chronologically and piece them all together and created what in my opinion is the most comprehensive Narrative of what could be happening in the headless valley and I'm very proud of the way it was written and put together And it's in it's the first story in the graphic novel as well We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next one Knowing who they're leaving it for and the question left for you is what do you see as the most desirable future for the new media podcast I would say that what I love about the podcast space that I hope continues is that it is not corporate in the sense that it's totally like anybody can start a podcast we're seeing so many podcasts but it's it's like podcast rise based on the merit of those shows versus like there's not a lot of corporate pushing behind podcasts it's sort of like the corporation show up and I'm not going to be able to do that.

1:59:53take the podcasts or try to license podcasts that have already sort of made their place, but they don't have a lot of influence over who or what they do. So it's like it's this great meritocracy of content where the podcasts are growing and succeeding based largely on merit and skill and they're covering all these topics that are like so far reaching. So it's like it just feels sort of authentic. I know there are plenty of corporate podcasts out there too and there's nothing wrong with that. But I hope that podcasting continues to be this sort of like, How in the world are like the Joe Rogan podcast and like, you know, whatever the random podcast is going to name like these like titans of industry But it's like it's so random, but it's like it's like this beautiful product of just like human like Authenticity and willingness to talk about stuff.

2:00:38I love it I think that it's a very authentic place that has not been corporatized yet. Amen John, thank you so much for everything that you do Thank you. It's really really incredible. It's really incredible you run a phenomenal media company, which I don't think people truly understand. Nick Witters does. You and the Corona, for not a little media company, which I think I don't know if people understand the scale and size of that media company, but it's truly impressive. And you have this awesome graphic novel. Yes, in the graphic novel, it's a New York Times bestseller. It's an anthology of nine stories.

2:01:10It's beautiful. And we intend to continue making more of them. So definitely check out the graphic novel makes a great holiday gift. It is absolutely gorgeous. The illustrations and all that, you can call them illustrations. The illustrations are phenomenal. Yeah, absolutely. We're very proud of it. Thank you so much for all that you do. I'm so glad that Love's is absolutely enthralled by all these stories. I love mysteries. I love unsolved mysteries and I love true crimes. So, and as we were saying before we got recording, me and my partner, when she lets me listen to these things in bed and it helps me sleep and your channel is by far and away.

2:01:42That's the best at this. Thank you. gifted storyteller. Thank you. And as you've been speaking to me today, I've been thinking, ah, that's how I've been trying to piece together what makes you so brilliant as a storyteller. Thank you. I guess it's a long journey, a family influence, and generally, you know, the experience that you've had. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for your time today as well. And it's been an honor to learn about your story of Reinvention, but also to hear some of these stories, which by the way, I need to go and figure out this fucking, what's it called, Diathlon Pass?

2:02:05The Deat Love Pass. The Deat Love Pass. Pretty well - Thank you, Ed. It's an honor being your show. Really. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you. I'm going to let you into a little bit of a secret. You're probably going to think me and my team are a little bit weird. But I can still remember to this day when Jemima from my team posted on Slack that she'd changed the scent in this studio and right after she posted it, the entire office clapped in our Slack channel. And this might sound crazy, but at the Diroversio, this is the type of 1 % improvement we make on our show. And that is why the show is the way it is.

2:02:34By understanding the power of compounding 1%, you can absolutely change your outcomes in your life. It isn't about drastic transformations or quick wins. It's about the small, consistent actions that have a lasting change on your outcomes. So two years ago, we started the process of creating this beautiful diary and it's truly beautiful. Inside there's lots of pictures, lots of inspiration and motivation as well, some interact developments. And the purpose of this diary is to help you identify, stay focused on, develop consistency with the 1 % that will ultimately change your life. We're only going to do a limited run of these diaries.

2:03:10So if you want one for yourself or for a friend or for a colleague or for your team, then head to the diary .com right now. I'll link it below.

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