The Why Files: Operation Podcast - The Basement: MrBallen | YouTube's Best Storyteller Tells His Own

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

-Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://hims.com/thewhyfiles to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. -If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch: https://ForThePeople.com/WHY -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call [phone] now. John Allen built an empire telling strange, dark, and mysterious stories. But the darkest story he's ever carried is his own. We talk Navy SEALs, the night his life went viral in a water park hotel room, the price of fame, and the confession he's kept buried for over a decade. This one goes places I didn't expect. Stick around. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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stories to keep his class sane. That instinct survived a grenade in Afghanistan and a medical retirement. Then it made him famous. They called me Shakespeare Folsom, you know. Telling stories? Yeah, for organizing a theater program. We did cats. I have regrets.

Today we're covering how that happened, what the success cost him, and the craft of a story five million strangers will stop scrolling for. His new book is The Terror Within, nine illustrated stories, four never told anywhere. The Terror Within, great title. My memoirs got a similar one. The terror within 14 feet of my bowl. It's about the crab cat. Feed it crab cat. Part way through, John tells a few stories from his military years. He's never told anywhere else. And it gets kind of heavy. I'm glad he trusted me with it.

Stick around after the episode and I'll pop back in and untangle the conversation. There's going to be some surprises at the end, like there always is. Let's go down to the basement. John, welcome to the basement. Thank you, man. All right. So happy to be here, dude. Are you really?

No, really. No, I'll be honest. Straight up about it. Like, I have seen in our comments for years. Not like, oh, dude, I love the Y Files. Like, this is crap. What you do? But more like, dude, you and AJ, you got to get together.

Like, these are my two shows, like Mr. Ballin and the Y Files. and so I've always been aware of you and your show. I see clips of you all the time. I saw you went on Sean Ryan. And I was like secretly like, that's fucking awesome. Like,

I don't even swear on the show. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay. And I, and no, just you're someone that I'm,

I've always really respected. I love like, you talked about craft before the show. Like, it's so obvious that you put so much care into building out your show. And like, it's,

it's so uniquely yours. And I know how much work goes into this and how much skill goes into this. And I've just respected you from afar. And it's really cool to finally be collaborating, as they say. That was very sweet. I wasn't going to start with this, but since you were so nice, I probably have to credit you for at least my early success because I was just floundering and obscurity doing my weird stuff with the fish.

And my brother's like, you should post on TikTok. And I was like, no one watches this shit on TikTok. He's like, well, Mr. Ballin does it. I said, I don't know how that is. So I go and I see you, I'm like, wow, it's working for him. So I did it. It didn't work for me on TikTok. It worked for one video and they're a shadow band.

But it did drive some people into the channel. And it was because it was because of you. That's awesome. You kicked the door in. It's so weird. Like the TikTok thing, man. Like so you said the little story there. I was at Great Wolf Lodge, the indoor water park.

I have three kids. They're very young. And our family vacation of choice is always like some indoor water park. anything to do with water. That's our family vacations. It's the best. I figured you have a weird love-hate relationship with the matter. I do. It's complicated, right? Yeah, actually, earlier today, I was actually

in Los Angeles for an advertising conference, and I was near the Pacific Ocean. And it's funny, like, I go down to the water, I go for a little run. It's like so beautiful. And I'm just like staring at the ocean and remembering what it was like, you know, in the seal

and the seal training. But, like, back to the water park thing. So I post the story about the missing hikers. And like personally, I've always been really into just as a consumer, I've been really into strange, dark and mysterious true stories or things that are purported to be true. I used to love watching that channel Dark Five. I don't if you are familiar with like if I was, I just love that channel. It's like if I was going to put something on the internet, if I was going to put on something on YouTube, it was always going to be something like that. And I told that story. And then I come back.

from being in the water park and it's gone viral. But like, I'm a 30-something-year-old dad of multiple kids. I was, like, in the military. And I did intentionally post something on social media. It isn't like I didn't do that. Well, you were trying a few different things. I was. I absolutely, like, truly, nothing came close.

So it never really felt like I actually was like, oh, I'm a content creator. Are there really TikTok videos of you dancing? They've been eradicated. What? Did they exist, though? did. No, the worst one was I, I think this, it's like so cringy. Like, I'm pretty good about talking about stupid stuff I've done. The worst one I did was, uh, so this is, this is pre-virality. This is like, get up and show us. No, it wasn't a dance. It wasn't a dance. It was, uh, there was this,

there was a, uh, trend on TikTok. This is like late 2019, where early TikTok, and probably still today, it was like almost exclusively kids. It's like teenagers. Like I was generations older. And I'm not even old, but like for TikTok, like you're old, right? And the trend was these kids would like tell a sort of innocuous story that was sort of like maybe about some stupid thing that happened to them. Like when they like spilled milk on their pants in front of their friends at school or something. But they would do it while singing into the auto tune feature on TikTok.

So it's like this weird. like you're singing a song about how you like pooped your pants when you were in fifth grade to like auto tune and I was like I should do that. I told a story about something to do with Navy SEAL training but like I remember I did like 50 takes I'm like sitting in my truck outside of Starbucks and in Doylestown Pennsylvania where I was living at the time and I finally had it I'm like that's great that's that's the one post and then it was like who's this unk? Oh no that's the worst. And then I'm like, all right, that's bad. But the dude, yeah, like everything just sort of took off. And even now, like, you know, TikTok was where it began. And I transitioned it to YouTube.

And it's like, that's a whole thing now. But I think people say this and they feign humility and they're like, oh, I can't believe this is happening. But like, really, I was like, I'm going to go be a Navy SEAL. I'm going to devote myself to this. This is going to be my thing. And I fucking did it. I became a Navy SEAL. seal this is like a career path and I was I couldn't have been more proud like this is it and then

you know should go sideways I'm I'm getting hurt in Afghanistan I actually stuck around in the teams for a couple of years I did another deployment before I was medically retired but it was because of the injury but then it's like I'm suddenly a civilian and it's like dude now what now what I'll just post cringe stuff on TikTok but it like it you know it it's just weird you know like I I feel like such an imposter and also confident like I'm very confident confident in what I do. But like I was at this, this advertising conference, you know, literally today and yesterday. And it went great. Like we're partnered with serious. They're awesome. And they, we want to meet clients. And like, we had these great meetings with like advertisers and,

and brokers. It's like, it's great. But the whole time, I'm like, what am I doing? Like, what is this? How is the, how am I being like ushered on state? And here's Mr. Ball. And like, whoa. It's like so surreal, you know? So, Jen and I just came back from LA and we kept saying, whose life is this? Because it's so unlikely what happened, certainly to me, because you're much younger than I am. So unlikely. Did you know how... Here's what I'd tell me about YouTube, is if I knew how hard it was, I probably wouldn't have done it.

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But people don't realize how, because they're like Mr. Ball is, because you're so huge. It was quick. Yeah, it was rapid. Like, I, uh, the weird thing is when I really think about, like, where have I, in my life used, let's say, Navy SEAL, my experience is a Navy SEAL. Where have I used those things that I sort of learned about myself? in my life, where have I done it?

And honestly, I only have one place that I can honestly say, I channeled my inner Navy seal. And it was in the first six months of making YouTube videos. And it was because to put out consistent videos when it's basically a one man show over and over and over again, it sounds so silly. It's the video, dude. Like, what's that?

Dude. To put a script together. Even if you don't even adhere to the script, to just make something makes sense that can be translated across like different generations and like to do the research and then to be on camera

like that's not a natural thing like you're awesome at it like you're really a natural I wasn't and like early on I had to sort of like do so many takes so many takes and no prompter right you're just like glancing

no no I was I well because I spent so much time researching it I go right into recording that a lot of time it was fresh but no I didn't use a prompter at all I tried that I couldn't do it I need the prompter it's brutal

It's brutal without the prompter, dude. Even now, like, I still, we have a prompter now, but like, it's almost ingrained to sort of go off the cuff a little bit. But I would, I remember having so many moments in the first six months of doing YouTube when, like, it's objectively being really successful. Like, I, I have lived an incredibly modest life before that. Like, I did not come from any sort of money or anything. And, like, almost literally overnight, you know, videos are being posted on, you know, videos are being posted on, YouTube that are making thousands of dollars in a fucking day, like in a day that's happening. There was a video that I remember I posted a video that it was like post next at like $18,000

for like one video. And I have I've never even come close to this. And so it's like the work that I'm putting in is being almost instantly rewarded. And it's also like I love this content. I really do. but the grind is so intense and I would have moments where I'm like on my third Red Bull and I've been up for like three

like two days and I have I know I have easy four five six hours before I even record and I got to edit it myself I would literally say to myself I'm like delirious you were a fucking Navy seal you'd have to psych yourself up you can outwork the other aspiring YouTubers out there And like, so help me God, I did.

But there were, there were stretches of time that it sounds so silly. But like seal training and buds is like objectively a challenging thing, but it's so structured. Here's what you're going to do. Either you do it or you don't. But with a creative venture where it's like all on you, there's no end. You just sort of like go as much as you can. You work as hard as you can. And then sometimes like when things don't go well, like there's no one there to be like,

don't worry, buddy. Like get them next time. I'm like, no, you just got to pick yourself back up and do it. And the hours are crazy. The pressure is insane. I think what people also don't know is like if you've hit any level of success on YouTube at all, you really stop thinking in terms of, boy, like this video did really good. No, it's like, boy, I hope it doesn't suck.

That's it. The metric is I hope the views aren't so bad that the channel starts to deteriorate. Well, you know what sucks when you post it, right? You know, that's terrible. I worked 80 hours in that and sucks. and they're going to tell me it sucks. Yes, dude. Every week.

But it's like the algorithm, unfortunately, like you're tethered to it. I mean, like, you're foolish if you don't think you are. If you want to make a career over any amount of time doing YouTube, doing like digital media today, you are beholden on some level to the performance of your video in the algorithm. And so you have to sort of play the game of understanding what's going to make it perform, what's not without selling yourself out. And my God, like, you get to. the hate comments, that's part of life. You get like sort of the criticism that way. But I,

I started to attach myself worth to like the performance of a video, which is so silly. Like it's- But you're speaking in my heart right now. Dude. And like, oh. And I stopped doing true crime. I've only done a few true crimes because it's so risky with the algorithm. Oh, yeah. So you, even early on, like before you were in the partner program, you must have been like, am I going to see the orange dollar sign? All the time. All the time. Because it's like, oh, I don't get paid this week. Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, good. I put in all this time and I suffered for this and it's a great episode, but it might even hurt my channel because it's demonetized. We had a deluge of we, I. It was reds and oranges. Like there was a video, oh my God, like it's funny because you

totally get this. Like the video was like 50-some odd minutes long. So it's about an hour long. And like right out the gate, it was dominating. Like it was, I think it was like 10 million views in the span of like a few weeks or something. Wow. It was like, and even better was at the, it's a buddy of mine, Ephra Matos, he's a former Navy Seal. We served together. Unbelievable story.

Forget how you feel about like geopolitics and stuff. He's a Navy SEAL, right? And I think he went to Iraq when he was, or in Syria or something when he was a seal. We didn't deploy together. He left the military. He left the SEAL teams because he felt a call. to go fight ISIS because the US military wasn't in his mind doing enough and he literally

left the military and by himself went to Iraq and fought ISIS he joined up with like faction military groups and filmed it and he ended up and he saved this little girl there's a video that made it all over the world because this little girl was pinned down outside of Raqa in Syria I guess it was Syria her whole family family's been killed. They've been lined up at a wall. They've all been shot down and it's just bodies against the wall and Ephraim had found out because he was working with this underground group that was like fighting ISIS and trying to save victims that they had left this this pile and they believed there was one little girl who had survived and she was laying under the bodies of like

her family. And so it's broad daylight. There are all these trucks with like their black ISIS flags and everything like parading around the area and and Ephraim goes up there behind. behind an Abrams tank and he runs on camera, picks this girl up under a hail of gunfire and runs her back behind the tank and gets shot in the process. He gets shot and he saves this girl's life. And so I told his story of he was the guy that when I was in training for the in, this is actually a very humbling moment that Ephraim and I are connected. In the early part of seal training, there's this test you got to do.

I think it's called a life saving. just called life saving. It's, it seems like not a big deal, but it's brutal. You have to jump in the water and the way a lifeguard is trained, you kind of do a lifeguard save of your instructor, but they pick like the six foot eight beast who's going to fight you in the water. And they refer to it as like the puking evolution, because there's no way to deal with that like just totally being gasped. And you're on no sleep. Oh, this is, this is like a day after hell week when you've been up for like a week. And so, because technically you have to pass this lifeguarding test. Anyways, I get out of the water after family.

my various attempts. I eventually passed it. And like everyone's just done attempts and everyone's miserable. And we're all like shivering on the pool deck. And I'm like dramatically heaving like, oh like as I've just, I've just done the test. I was really like hamming it up to make sure everybody knew how hard I tried.

And effort just goes, shut the fuck up. Wow. Shut the. And he like got in trouble for even speaking out of turn. But he's like, he was like, shut the fuck up. It's hard for everyone. And I was like, oh. That's a good lesson.

Right. And I was like, yep, stop performing. Like stop performing your drama. Um, but I, I opened the episode with, with that little story. And then this, in Ephraim, by the way is like the most like non, you wouldn't think, wow, that dude would drop everything and go fight ISIS. He's like this totally normal guy. I mean, he's very skilled, like an incredible shot, like tactically, a brilliant guy,

but just the most normal dude just like doesn't swear. doesn't cuss. Just a normal dude. Super low key. And I told his story. And he actually started this charity called Operation Stronghold Rescue where he goes to conflict zones, like with no help from any government and like rounds up support from locals that are often like family and stuff.

And just like does guerrilla missions to often save people that are like in the middle of genocides and like mass killings and stuff. And he saves so many people. He films it all. But he had no. funding because he has no idea how to do it. I do this video. This is going to make me sound so lame. We do this video where I have this big call to action at the end, like go support Ephraim. He has this thing stronghold rescue. It's a great charity. His funding jumped. I think it's

like to millions of dollars now. And it's like largely on the strength of him and his story, but this was the mouthpiece. And so this story goes mega viral. It's got like so many views demonetized. Oh, why? I don't know. Bodies? Probably, probably. But, uh, you're doing them This is, that makes me sound so lame, but it's like, this is a video that was probably, it would have made hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's like none. But the upshot is, it was so cool with Ephraim. It was like the amazing silver lining.

So I, anyways, it's just like, that's, that's the nature of the beast though, you know? Like. Does Ephron still do that? Can we still support a sheriff? Oh, yeah. How does he get through the red tape overseas with doing that? Dude, I don't know. At this point, he's like connected with like parts of the world that only you get connected

if you're in this world. But he is like, you know, a fiercely, like, religious, just very driven guy who is just like, I mean, honestly, he's the guy that's probably going to die in a hail of gunfire saving somebody's life. And like, this is his calling. Like, he's just, I'll, like, talk to him. He's like, I'm in Cambodia right now.

Like, of course you are, you know. But he's so chill. Like he came to, I did a show a couple years ago in Massachusetts. And he, like, showed up unannounced for it. And he, like, he, like, waited in line to, like, come up and see me. And like, dude, dude. Like, what the hell, dude? You hire a shark as your lifeguard.

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but I think there's a lot of thought that, like, there's like an archetype to those that, like, join the military, especially special operations. But it's like the people I've met, in the SEAL teams, there's just a little part of special operations are some of the most interesting and just brilliant people.

Like there was this guy was like this total, like, just like skinny, goofy guy. Like just looks like a weighs 100 pounds kind of guy. He's like a little bit. And, but he, he was gifted at, at everything. Everything. Didn't matter what it was. He would be the best at it.

He set the course record for our, there's a shooting, a shooting course. that we do in Mississippi, that like for the history of the Navy SEAL teams, like every Navy SEAL goes and does the shooting course. So it's like the best shooters of one of the most elite groups in the military, this is where they train. And at the end of their block of training,

they do this shooting course. He goes and blows it away. He sets the record. Blows it, blows it away. Like he beat the instructors. Oh, yeah, man. Like, whatever.

Like, he, one time we're like in the gym, we're talking about who can deadlift the most weight. He doesn't lift. He does not lift any weights, zero weights. And like 400 was on the bar and he's like, oh, I can do that. It goes out deadlifts 400 pounds. Like traditional, he like picked up skateboarding while we're in Afghanistan.

And there's nowhere to skateboard. It's like rocks. But there was this little strip of of linoleum in our crappy gym we had. And he like quickly learned how to like 360 flip and like front side flip. Like immediately. Anyone can do it. Yeah. Oh, no.

He became a professional wakeboarder just like on, on the side over one summer. He's like, yeah, I picked it up. He's a competing and wakeboarding competitions. I love people like this. Dude, he's just, but there are just people out there that are just like so amazing. And you see him a lot in special operations, actually. It's pretty cool. I think all operators are a little crazy, a little tweaked.

One of my buddies, this dude, he was just a total adrenaline junkie. And he was just known for just like getting hurt all the time. He also, he, he was a dog handler. And the dogs are like amazing. They're terrifying. They're Belgian Malinua. I don't know if you're familiar with these dogs. Just fierce animals.

These are not normal dogs, and they're so well trained. And, like, he would bring his dog into my hut in Afghanistan, and the dog's, like, looking at me. And he'd like, I'm going to go get something to eat. And I'm sitting in the room with this dog that will not touch me. But it'll scare you down. But it'll stare me down. But so we had a skydiving block where, like, one of the things you're taught is, if you

pull you, if you're under canopy, and even if the canopy is, is, is, graded in some way. If you can land it, you don't ditch it. You don't go to your reserve because your reserve might be worse than your main. Right. And so you're taught you absolutely, you do not ditch if you can land it, even if you're going to really hurt yourself. But the reality is when you're actually under canopy and you're careening down and you got some stuff going on, you're probably going to ditch it. Like that's the reality of it. And so I remember there was one night where we did, it's called a a wall locker jump where you have like 100 pounds of gear on. It was a stupid pack that you like, dangled down by this long cord.

It's a joke. It's what you do with a high altitude jump where you need every piece of kit for every environment. It's designed to be like, we're going to give you all the stuff and we're going to see if you can jump. And so it's like really sketchy

to land under the best of conditions. Are you standing there while they're loading you up and you're like, dude, how much? Oh, dude, it's a joke. What do I need all that for? You're an idiot. Five flashlights? And his shoot was all jacked up.

And like normally, we have radios that once you're sort of low enough to the ground, you can call it in and be like, Yeah, I have an issue. And we're in training. He doesn't call it in that he's got such, he can only turn the shoot one way. The other side is fully compromised.

And basically, the way skydiving any parachute works is that when you pull down on the toggles, it flares your parachute and you slow yourself down. It's really similar to flying a plane, not that I've done it, but it's like flaring the wing slows you down. And he basically couldn't flare his parachute. And he's torching towards the ground.

And you need to flare to land safe way. Oh, dude. Torching. and all he did, and it's night time. He can't even see the drops on. Oh, no. Not even on night vision, just nighttime. And so he's blasting in with his hundred pounds of beer, and he just goes, coming in hot.

Blasts into the ground. I think he broke his ankle or something. Just got up. He's like, yeah, whatever. But like, me? I am a Navy SEAL, and I wouldn't have done that. I probably would have ditched the main, but, you know, anyways, pretty funny guys. I love those guys.

That was a good segue. Something I wanted to ask you. your old bio said that's a quote just another number one world ranked video game player turn philosopher turn navy seal turn non-profit CEO number one in the world at skate at skate is that true will you number one so the truth is is I was briefly ranked in the top 30 okay and I know for a fact I was 30th for sure but I only found out like after so here's the story so Skate came out like in 2000 and maybe like nine or eight or something. It's like...

Are you grinding leaderboards while flunking out of UMass? Yeah, same time frame. Nice. Perfect. And so I would actually get super stoned and I would play skate. And I would sit in my mom's basement and I would just play skate. And so it used to be like, you know, Tony Hawks pro skater was the precursor. And it was like left square, up circle was sort of how you did tricks.

But on skate, it was the first time that everything was done with the two joysticks. Like all tricks. just slight variations of the joystick. And so anybody can flick the joysticks around and do random tricks, but to be precise, required a lot of practice. And so the game that you played online for skate is you, it's a sort of like horse in basketball where like somebody sets a trick and you got a match it or you get a letter. It's S-K-A-T-E.

And again, anybody can do some random trick, but can you do a trick on command? And it's very, right. And I became like savant-level. good at doing these tricks. And I had, I am not doing this to set records. I didn't even know, like this is early my playing online for any game.

So I'm not thinking at all about like how good I am at this game. But I, after playing for quite a while, I began to notice, it actually was on skate two. I didn't even notice on skate one. Skate one, I crossed skate two.

I was doing the same thing. I used to, I used to get on with people that I knew were really good. And I would like intentionally give up. letters to make it more challenging for myself so I would like and they then it piss people off but I'm like I don't care one one day I open up my PlayStation and I'm just I noticed that there's always these little like mail icons in the top right corner of my thing and I just I don't I never thought about it didn't I did I've been

playing video games since I was like nine I'm like an offline gamer other than skate you know and I was like what is I've always wondered what that is and so I open it up and there are like thousands. Just so many messages. I held the scroll down button. It's like, it just kept on going all the way down. Mostly people telling me how much they hated me. Do you suck? But it was people being like, you're the number one world ranked player. Like, you're terrible. I couldn't beat you, man. You're not as good as like the other guys. But all these references to me being the best player in the world. And I'm like, what? And so you didn't know? I didn't know. Let's talk about the number of the Fed doesn't want you to say out loud.

PCE inflation just came in at 4.1%. That's double their own 2% target. A target they've now missed five years in a row. And here's the part of that that should really get your attention. The Fed's own projection says we don't get back to 2% until 2028. That's three more years of your dollar buying less than it does today. You're already feeling it. Grocery bills are up 32% since 2020.

Retirees have lost 26% of their purchasing power. And if your 401k isn't up 30% or more, or more in real terms, you're not gaining, you're going backwards. And it doesn't stop there. The next wave of inflation is already in the pipeline. Here's the thing. Gold and silver were never really a bet on inflation. Their insurance against the currency that's losing value on purpose.

Golden Crest medals can show you how to move part of your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver, tax and penalty free, or help you buy directly if that's a better fit. It's a free conversation, no pressure, just information. Visit goldencrestmeddles.com slash the Y files or text the word files to metals. That's 63825. You'll receive a free investor kit explaining how physical gold and silver can be added to an IRA or 401k, a free portfolio review with no obligation or hard sell, and on qualifying purchases up to $25,000 in bonus silver. And so I had invitations from EA not to be like, you're going to join the skate team.

It was like, do you want to play the next beta for the next skate game to give us your, But months after the fact, I've missed the boat. And I pulled up the current leaderboard. I think it was like 29th or 30th. But it's like of the world. And they only show the top 50. And there's like probably at least, you know, several hundred thousand, if not a million people playing this game.

And then it actually was funny. I didn't really enjoy playing the game because no longer is it really about fun. It became like, well, I got to maintain this ranking now. That's an interesting personality point because it came back around again. Yeah, dude. I just want to make videos and then you crush it. and you're like, oh, now the pressure's on.

Dude, it's true. It became a job. It's not fun anymore. You know, it works. It is, but it's... It's a different kind. It's a job. It's a job.

Like, that video game became a job. And so, like, I could only play it really and enjoy it, I should say, offline. And I was, like, exceptionally good at it. But, like, the fun was that I got to beat people always. Right. I'd never lost. I just never lost. I mean, I did.

But it was, like, so rare that I would give people four letters and just, like, I'd spend an hour just like never giving up my final letter because it was fun. And then that was it. It was just, that's what I did. And then it was like, well, wait a minute. Now I have to maintain it. It was just, it wasn't fun anymore. Actually, that was one of the, when I got to Buds, seal training, they make you give your fact.

And that was my fact. That was your fact. I was like, I was briefly top ranked in an obscure video game 10 years ago. Oh, you had to get wedges for that. They were like, shut the fuck up. This one saved the kids of fire. I was a national champion wrestler, D1. And I'm like, oh, I briefly was really good at a weird skateboarding game.

That's hilarious. The nonprofit stuff is interesting. What was the operators association? Were you kind of mentoring young people going into the... Yeah, dude. I appreciate you. Yeah, there was a period of time. So I was medically retired from the Navy in end of 2017.

And then, you know, Mr. Ballin, you know, the viral moment. The posting of the hiker video happened in very early 2020. So there's like, you know, two years. window there where I did stuff. And what I did is I, I, in an effort to, to find myself a job, I, um, I wound up connecting with some sort of random people in New York, uh, that were like business people, one of which is a great guy, this guy Jordan Selleck, uh, who was this former investment banker turned entrepreneur and, and like it just so happened. He was sort of trying to help his buddy, who was a fighter pilot, who was like trying to find his way in the world, be connected on

LinkedIn. It's a whole thing. It turned into Jordan, who's like, this master networker, he says to me, he's like, dude, if you want a job, you can totally just like go apply for jobs or really, you should just like network, like meet people because you have no idea how powerful that is. One thing leads to another. Before long, like Jordan and I are like organizing this like networking event in New York for like, I'm going to bring all the transitioning Navy SEALs that I know. There's many or guys that have gotten out that don't have a job yet. And then like Jordan's going to bring all his business connections and we like have these events. And so we have like this inaugural event in New York City in like May of 2018 or whatever it was, 2017, 2018.

And I went to be a participant to like go and meet employers. But like naturally I sort of emceived the event. Hey guys, we're going to get started. I got my suit. You know, I've just bought. And people assumed that that was my job. It's a nobody, no employer talked to me. And I was like, what the hell?

Like I helped organize this. Nobody wants a job. But it came out later. They're like, oh, we just assumed this was your job. that this is what you do. That turned into a charity, elite meat. You didn't bring it up, but it's sort of in tandem

with operators association. I and Jordan, we were a team for a couple of years and we put on like, I don't know, five or six of these, like pretty decent size, like events, a couple hundred people,

a bunch of veterans got jobs. It was my job. My job became fundraising. I'll be honest, that was my job. And it was like phone call fundraising. It was like micro donations. It was a slice of humble pie

Because it's like if you want to ask people for money on on every single day like it's people like that some people do Some people don't and and I did that for a while But then towards the end of like 2018 2019 I was looking for other things to do I think that I'm someone that does well when I have something new to chase a little bit And one area that was just sort of naturally already happening is When you have been a Navy SEAL. It's probably true of like green berets of any sort of like select any

any group in the military that has a selection that's required to pass in order to join that group. There's all these people that want to be a Navy SEAL that can read all they want about the selection course, what goes into it, what do I need to do to prepare for it. But there's nothing that really beats speaking to an actual Navy SEAL, especially like a relatively current one. And so it's just sort of a thing that when you get out of the military, If you have a social media account of any kind, or if you are publicly available in any way, aspiring Navy SEALs are going to come, they're going to come calling. And they want to ask you questions.

And they're super respectful. And so I was getting hit with a lot of questions in virtue of being the CEO of Elite Meat. I was sort of a public facing Navy SEAL, which had its own challenges. I had people hitting me up a lot about people as an aspiring Navy SEALs asking me questions. and I wanted to centralize it. And the guy that I was working with at the time,

not Jordan, but this other guy, Zach, who was a green bray, he was helping me with elite meet. We were like, hey, like, why don't we create, like, a Patreon channel? So it becomes sort of, like, if you want access to us on, like, a really personal level, like, it was very cheap, but it was, like, people need to show they're committed to it, like, pay five bucks or whatever.

But then we have, like, this sectioned off group of people that we can, like, train with. We can give them. I was making podcasts like four or five times a week for these guys. I was like pouring my heart and soul out because some of these guys went on to become Navy SEALs. It was like really cool. But that was I only did the operators association for like eight or nine months before.

One, I felt like I had sort of given all the stuff I could give. And also my currency as a Navy SEAL was dwindling because things changed quickly in the teams, the training changes. Like what I went through is probably comparable to what you do now, but it's not the same. And YouTube was really becoming my main focus. And so I handed everything to Zach and I said, go forth with Operators Association. And he still does.

He's still running it now. And he's more of like the bring the guys to a location and like put them through literal physical training. And it's like really grueling and people love it. So that's sort of transitioned into that. But the logo for Operators Association, it's actually me in Afghanistan. It's my silhouette of me in Afghanistan with a backpack on like about to make entry into some building. And so that my legacy is I'm still on the logo. But I'm not involved with it anymore.

What would you have told a 19-year-old John Allen coming to ask advice? Oh, man. I was lost as a 19-year-old. So I grew up in Quincy Mass, which is just south of Boston, Massachusetts. Very successful family, like, maybe not like financially, hugely successful, but definitely not hurting. You know, we were like firmly middle class. And, you know, my dad's a successful reporter and my mom's like, she's like, she's, a she's a part-time freelance journalist.

She's a librarian, but like really well-spoken, really sweet people. You've had an unfair advantage in your family with what you do. I do. I mean, I have multiple Pulitzer Prize winners in my family, which definitely helped. But I had the aptitude, I should say, to be successful academically, which was a big thing in my household, like, being an academic achiever. And I just didn't want to do that. I think I just wanted to like carve my own path. But like my form of rebellion was like literally being a bad student.

As if that would like get me somewhere. Why? In a funny way. Were you an asshole? No, actually not really. Or teachers like John, you could do better than this. Oh, constantly. Yeah.

Yeah. Like you're not applying yourself. You're literally just not. You're not doing anything. I was like skipping school. Doesn't apply himself. Yeah. Like.

Yep. And I think also my, my sister, Evan, my old. my older sister, she sort of was similar. She skipped school constantly. Good surprise, Evan. Skip school? Pull its surprise. Yeah, constantly.

But Evan, I mean, truly, I would argue that she probably has near genius level intellect, just pure intellect, pure computing brain power. Like she, when she was like 12, she, without telling anyone, wrote a story about the Salem witch trials, but from the perspective of like a daughter of someone who was being accused, it was fiction. Like the daughter of like somebody being accused of being a witch, but it was like

from the perspective of like this child. And I think she's like in bed and it's like the 1600s, you know, and it's, it was a short story competition. She enters it and she fucking wins. That's a great approach to that story. Oh, it was brilliant. And so she wins and so she like told us like, hey, so I wrote on her pseudonym

and I won this competition. I can't say it's me because it's 18 or older. Oh. Yeah. And so she's 12 and she's like won it. But Evan, so she would like skip school all the time, like all the time. And she just like crushed cigarettes and just was like a total like loser. But like she was so, so, so smart that like teachers couldn't, they like couldn't fail her because she could come in and like ace every test.

She was better than everybody else. And so she sort of like was pushed through high school. But like I didn't have that. I had like that you could probably be a pretty good student. you're just sort of skipping school and like the class clown sort of guy. But I, uh, I, my sort of like form, my, my, my, my, my, my moment that things really change for me and I realized that my tendency towards sort of like bad behavior was in part because I didn't really have a goal, um, was when I was, uh, I, I, I, I barely graduated high school

in the sense that I probably could have failed on truancy alone. Like, I just didn't go, but I graduate. and I didn't apply to college, or I should say I haphazardly, like half applied, left some of my applications were incomplete. The parents aren't on your ass? They were, though. And that's the only reason they didn't be, I didn't really, I didn't really. But my mom, who is, you know, she's a brilliant writer, and she actually was the writer for our podcast for the first year, she wrote my essay that I, and she sent it off as me to

to UMass Amherst. And so again, my grades are terrible. Like, it's all bad. My mom writes my essay, and we send it off. And UMass got in touch with me, and they're like, hey, you know, your grades are really not what we're looking for. But my God, that essay was just brilliant. She wrote this essay about, it was really short, too, which is sort of the brilliance of

the essay. It was about my best friend, this guy, Ray. He lived down the street for me in Quincy, and we were like thick as thieves, his kids, but like he came from a completely broken household, like in all the worst way. It's like drug abuse, like you name it. It's like the worst stuff happens in that house. And he would come to our house and it was like he was another son. He was a brother. He was beloved. He came on vacations with us, but he always had to go back home. And it was always bad for him. It was like he every time you saw him over the years, it's like he's got a new tattoo and it's like clearly not professionally done.

And he's like 14. He's got bruises on him. He's got track marks. You know, things are going bad. worse and worse for him. And, you know, he completely fell into the trap of drug addiction. He had a kid very young. Is this the guy who robbed your house? And then he robbed my house. Yeah, he robbed my house. And I remember we hadn't seen him in a long time.

He led his friends in the side door and he stole some stuff, some pretty valuable stuff. But like we knew it was him because there was nobody else that would have, like we had seen him that day. And he's so down on his luck. And by this point, he's not really in my life anymore. but he left me this voicemail after it was like maybe the same day and he wasn't saying that he did it but he was like apologizing because he knew like I've broken the sacred trust that you've given me but it's like we know your life is broken you know but he ends it he OD'd and he died when I was 21 but you know before that when the essay was written it was about the last time we saw ray and it was it was actually the day he robbed our house he came to the house and he was like lingering and it was almost like he was looking at the house like he just wanted to go inside and like Be like it used to be but like his his buddies in the car was like the music blasting you know and it's like smoke coming out the windows and it's like he knows he's He's got to go with this friend. You know he's got to go to the life that he doesn't want to be in anymore and

My mom described and this is true I didn't go out and say bye to him and I didn't even tell my mom why I just like stayed in the I knew he was out there I could see him through the window, but I didn't go. He wanted me to like wave to him and I just wouldn't do it. I didn't go to the door. I just sort of stayed in the house. Were you angry at him? I had never expressed my feelings to anybody about it. It was like I drifted so far from him and I wasn't mad. I just like I knew like we are no longer compatible. Like our lives have so diverged. And so my mom wrote the essay about him and it was just this contrast of like what happens when your life is broken from the start. And it was just really good. And so I got in.

to college, largely on the strength of that essay. And I proceeded to shit it all away. I all just on stupid stuff. Like I was in this, there are these dorms at UMass Amherst. There's all these sections of the campus. It's a huge undergraduate school. There's like 30,000 students or something. There's like five or six sections that are the housing areas.

And one of them is called Southwest. And Southwest is like the place to be. Okay. If you want to like party. I all had those quads. That's the one. And the reason for that was, you know, it sort of had that reputation for a bunch of reasons.

But a big one is it had these, I think, five, like, mini skyscrapers that were, like, 26-story kind of narrow buildings that were just packed with students. And the buildings are all on top of each other. And, like, this is, like, Western Massachusetts where there's, like, really nothing around. This is, like, this is it. And it's, it had a reputation for that's where you go to just be a knucklehead, right? And I had to be. And so West, you know, and I got door on the towers.

And I, uh, I had like 30 some odd violations in my first semester. These are stupid stuff. What are you doing? My, my roommate, Jake, who I didn't know, he was awesome, awesome dude. He's like, hey, bro, like, I'm going to, uh, I'm going home for the weekend. And I was going to stay at the school. This is like, this is an example of things I would do. I'm going to go home for the weekend.

Uh, my, my mom sending me a reading pillow, one of those big, like, heavy pillows you you sit up against a big pillow he's like would you mind just like because they can't leave it in the box you got to get it and bring it up and I was like of course of course I'll get your pillow and so he goes home for the weekend and his pillow arrives and I bring it up and I shred it to pieces

why what's the matter with you threw the fluff all over the hallway but like there's a pillow no reason for it no reason no and so like there's that one time we would go to the the cafeteria, the amazing dining halls at UMass. These are huge dining halls.

And they had like, you know, soda machines. Like, you know, and there's like this mixer that, like for orange juice. They don't put like tons of orange juice into it. It's like there's like the syrup and the water that mixes and you make the juice. And I was like, dude, let's get some of that syrup and we can like mix it with water up in our rooms and we can have juice. And I realized when I got up there to my, my little room up in the 26, floor that like there's really no good way to do this. You need like, you know, industrial tools to mix the syrup. And so naturally, I lop the top off of, where'd you get the syrup? We just stole it.

She stole it. She stole it. Stole it. And we'd like, we just like, you know, dumped it out in the hallway. And it was so sticky that they couldn't really clean it up. And they'd like professionally clean the carpets. Jesus. I had like 20 some odd noise violations. Like I, weed was constantly coming out of the door, constantly getting rid up for that. You wanted to get in trouble. I think there was an element of like I just, I really just didn't care. And then it all came to a head when at the end of this semester, mind you also, this whole time, I'm telling my folks, things are going great. Things are going real.

I'm telling you what I really take it like in a college. Things are really good. I'm getting pretty good grades. You know, I'm not. I'm literally not going to class. Getting pretty good grades. Things are going pretty good. Like, it's going horrible.

they don't know that. And so at the end of the semester, our football team, who admittedly no one really cared about, like there are some guys that have gone pro. Like, it's a big deal. But like the school is just not really a football school.

Like, yeah, it's like, yeah, cool, we have a football team. Well, we like find out, because no one was paying attention to this team,

that they had made it to the finals. They were like, they were going to play Appalachia State for the final. Like, whoa, right? We find this out. Wow, I didn't even know. And they're not even home.

They're like, away. And they played the game on like the UMass TV. Because this is like pre-streaming. This is 2006, 2007. And so I remember like for whatever reason, it was like everyone, especially in Southwest was like, great. We're just going to watch this game. Like, let's go UMass.

I hope we win this game. And they lost. Fair and square. Good game. They lost. And for whatever reason, it was like there was just this energy. Oh, no. In Southwest.

People were like, mm, this doesn't sit right with me. We should have lost this game that I didn't care about until six hours ago. It won't be a good idea? I look out the window of these stupid little windows that barely open, and there was just people starting to mass up in the center of these five high rises. There's like this little pyramid you can sit on. It's like, you know, the size of a football field. And just people were just like coming out of their rooms and just sort of milling about all the lights are on.

They have these, these, they have riot lights at UMass because riots are a thing there. And that the riot lights go on. before anyone's doing anything. But what it did is it was like, oh shit, like, are we rioting? Is this a riot? And like, people are like, what's going on here? And then suddenly, this kid, this kid,

he climbs up on the awning of our, of our cafeteria that overlooked this, this area where we were amassing. And he yells, put this on YouTube. And he runs and leaps off the roof, expecting, I guess, people to be like, we'll catch you. No one caught him.

It's Western Mass. We're not, actually you. Blassing the ground. clearly breaks one of his legs and the crowd just goes, and it was madness. It literally was like that kicked off like a storm of just chaos. People are picking up rocks, throwing them through windows. I'm completely sober, completely sober.

Again, only recently invested in this game that I didn't even know was the thing. And I was fully committed to that riot. Oh, was I a part of that riot? And like the riot police show up like the mounted riot. The riot police, like hundreds of these... Did you vandalized property? Well, I could have. Statute limit since expired.

Oh, yeah. Fire rocks all over the place. Just complete debauchery. So, like, 100% sober. So the cops come, are they in hats and bats? So bad. And they brought their rubber pellets. Oh, no.

And very quickly, the crowd, once the riot police showed up, like the crowd sort of began to dwindle. And there was a hardcore group of like maybe 50 people, and I was one of them. I had taken my shirt off and wrapped it around my head because of the CS gas in the air. And I had been shot like by the pellicons so many times. And like I just stayed out there. Like I couldn't go in. I was like so enamored with like evading the police like running it all over the place.

And like everybody else is going in. I was just still firing rocks all over the place and just staying out. And I finally like I go in my room. I like I could tell if I stayed out any longer. I'm going to get arrested. And I go in my, my dorm. I run up to my room. I'm like, man, that's fucking awesome.

And I, my pockets. Oh, dude, I was stoked. Like, what was I thinking? No, this was great. And in my pockets, I had pellets in my pockets because I've been shot so many time for these rubber bullets that just by probability alone, they had peppered the top of my pocket and like landed in my pockets. I have like pellets in my pocket. Welts on your skinny bear chest. Oh, dude, all over me, covered in welts.

And I'm just like, awesome. Go to bed. No problem. Next day I wake up. And it's like there's a haze over the campus. Like, just fog had rolled in and like it looked like just a war zone. There's broken glass everywhere. And I'm like, damn.

And like that day we started to hear like, hey, they have this website, the UMass police. They were running a video and pictures of everybody out there. And there's this anonymous page where it's just pictures of the riot. And anybody can identify anybody in these pictures. And like that day, day, like 12 hours later, people were being escorted off the campus and expelled. Yep. I was fucking hated on my floor.

And I immediately found... You were already hated. Already hated. Because of... So many noise violates. People are like, who the fuck is this freshman idiot who's just causing problems? People were looking for you. Like, I bet John was in there.

Fine, you know? And I found, I think it was like two pictures that were like, that's me. And so amazingly, no one named me, at least not yet. But it was right at the end of the semester. And grades come out. And I had a 1.016, you know, a little lower than my folks expect. And I also, due to the number of violations, they had this rule that even if your violations are minor, I think it's like 20 in a semester, you are banned from being in the dorms.

You can still attend the school, but you must live off campus. And so all at once, my parents were told, well, your son has a 1.016 GPA, so we put on academic probation, if he can even continue here, and he must live off campus, which is like, imagine making the decision to send your kid off campus who's just been doing all this. And so my dad comes up to meet with the dean thinking he's going to like talk it through with him and it's going to be fine. And he realizes pretty quickly that the dean's like, no, you're going to live off campus and you're going to get your grades up or you're going to leave the school. And so we have this like really stark meeting and my dad's like furious. Does your dad know how hard did it is to get thrown off of an emerson?

You have to beg to get off of that. He did say, he's like, this is unbelievable. And I, uh, we left and we're sitting on this bench and I'm like, fuck. Like, now I realize this is pretty bad. And I'm like, dad, also, you still has damage here? There's a pretty big riot here. And I explained that like, I'm in these pictures. It's a matter of time before I get named and expelled.

And he's like, you have to withdraw from school and come home. And so amazingly, I withdraw to avoid expulsion, basically. And I go home and I'm literally, I move into my mom's basement. My parents were split. I moved my mom's basement. and I actually remember, and this is the change that happened, the 19-year-old me, I'm in my mom's basement and I was so fucking mad at my parents. At your parents?

Yeah. Like, how dare you? I have my friends at school. You took this from me? But quickly, I don't know what it was. There wasn't like a specific moment, but like it just set in like, dude, no one fucking cares about you. Like, you're a dude who had every opportunity.

This is entirely architected by you. And my mom, to her credit, was just ruthless when I came home. I come home, there's zero sympathy. She's a very sweet woman. She's like a librarian. She's like, you're going to pay rent. And if you don't, you can leave. If you want to go to college, great.

You can figure that out. All on you. You want to be an adult? You want to walk around? Like, go for it. I had this conversation with my mom. Brutal. Brutal.

She kept the note card of all the money I owed her. Oh, my God. We had a whiteboard. Yep. Down to how much toothpaste I used. And, but it was really important for me. And it cleaned my act up real quick. And I set my sights on first, I'm going to go to school locally, get my grades up.

And I ultimately went back to UMS Amherst. And I did graduate. But it also, as I began reshaping my life, getting a job, getting good grades, being diligent, getting high and playing skate and ranking in the world, doing all those things. It's when I fell in love with like the idea of being a seal, in part because it was like, it's this one place that I had found where truly. just about anyone can try out. You need to be an American citizen. There's some medical requirements. But for the most part, it's like,

if you're in decent enough shape, you're a citizen, you can go try out. Even now, women can do it too. But like only a handful of people get through. And I met some seals that were like, a lot of guys that become seals

often have, call it resumes, that look like mine. Or it's like, you've fucked everything up. Hold on. Is this art camp day? Is this day you went to art camp

I haven't talked to the guys in the shed? Yeah, dude, that is the art camp. Well, tell us what happened. You said there were some CIA guys. Oh, yeah, dude. What was going on in that hut? So, yeah, actually, so I got my grades up with school. So I kind of got back on my mom's good terms.

She stopped squinting at you? A little bit. Because it was like, I got a job. I was scanning IDs at the YMCA at the gym at like the 5 a.m. crew. I didn't have a car, so I would get up at like three and I would bike on my little 10 speed to the YMCA, three miles. miles away. I looked at it as like, I looked at it as like, I want this to suck for myself. I want to like earn this. And so I'm biking at three in the morning. Um, and I do my little scanner job. And then after my like three hours of work, I would hop in the train and go to UMass Boston, which was very easy to get into at the time. And I, I was getting my act together, right? And so after three semesters of good behavior, of paying rent, of being like a high functioning kid, I began thinking about what I was going to do after college. And so after college. And so after. And so after. And so after. And so after. And so I was. And I was. And I was going to do. And I was. And I was. And I was. And I was. And I was. And

Because now it's like, okay, I can probably graduate. I'm going to graduate from college, right? Now, hold on. When you being a good kid, was it going against your grain, or were you really turning it around inside your brain? No, I felt good about it. Because sometimes you have to act the part before it sticks. I was embarrassed. I think that.

And I don't even know, I don't know, it was like came home and I was mad from being brought home from UMass Amherst. But then something quickly clicked that this was my fault. And I suddenly sort of saw myself for the first time as like, a really ignorant, entitled little brat who had gotten away with acting like an idiot for a long time. And like literally my mother wrote my essay that got me into that school and my parents paid for it. Like, what are you doing? It was like embarrassing. And so I think I wanted to not be a fuck up anymore, like genuinely.

And so as I'm turning my act around, not even like within like several months, I'm like back on track. I'm like training like like I'm working out. I'm like doing stuff that like shows I'm being responsible. And you're studying for SEALs at this point, right? Not really. Not really. It sort of all happened at once. I'm like maybe a sophomore slash maybe as a junior at this point.

But it was like, no, I was a sophomore in college. I'm still at UMass Boston. So I'm still living at home. But I'm like, okay, like I've sort of turned my act around a little bit. I was thinking about what was next, you know, like I knew I would graduate. I was studying philosophy really with not a clear shot for what I would. do. I just loved philosophy. I love thought experiments. And I didn't really have a plan, but a lot of my buddies when I graduated high school joined the Marines and they went off to Iraq and Afghanistan. And,

you know, I just, I looked at that as incredibly honorable, not so much literally what they did, but just in a time of war to volunteer is a big move. You know, it doesn't matter what you think about it. It's a big move. And I, I always sort of, I would find myself wishing that that had been what I did in part because of my fuck up and all that. And so service was on my mind. I wanted to serve. I was thinking about it. And I remember talking to my mom who at this point she softened the way she treats me. She's back to being very, very gentle. Jesse the librarian. And I was like, you know, I'm thinking about, you know, the military like after after college. I don't know how or what exactly been thinking about it. And she's like, oh, you should talk to their sort of family friends.

More specifically, my mom's best friend is this woman, Susan. And Susan is like, she's a close family friend. I've known her for years. And I knew she had brothers who are military. I didn't really know what they did. And my mom's like, oh, yeah, you should go talk to me. And I'm like, oh, yeah. I was like, what do they do in the military?

You didn't absorb at this point that seals don't really talk too much about what they do. That didn't stick yet. She goes, actually, you know what? They're retiring. they they they were navy seals and i'm like what the dudes i've like seen at barbecues that are just like hey what's going on guys just like non nonchalant it like it didn't compute and it was like so amazing and i'm like oh my i've i've talked to them i like know them but now it's i've seen them all over again and my mom's like actually you know john they they were a part of seal team six they were on

six they were on six when six was like doing everything like they were they were like on team and I don't want to totally give up who it is, but like basically they were like leading stuff on team six when the war on terror began. So like, okay, special operations are going to go do some of the gnarliest combat that's ever happened. They're the ones that are like leading it and therefore it, like very hardcore stuff. And so I began like looking at what it took to be a Navy seal and it's like so cool. They're just just cool.

had really no sense of what it would really entail. He calls me, he's like, you're going to come up to the camp up New Hampshire. Military camp or compact? No, like, and I'm like, okay, all right, I will. And this is the day of, this is the day's like pre-GPS. It's like map quest directions. And so I tell my mom, like, I guess I'm going like some camp. And she's like, oh, oh, it's Susan, Susan's art camp.

They're like, what? You're at the art camp? He made it seem like this was not an art camp. This is like hardcore. I don't know what he's doing. He talked about shooting guns and stuff. Like I'm pretty sure it's not art camp. And she's like, no, no.

It's definitely her art camp. I'm like, this is weird. So I put it in MapQuest to go to the camp out in New Hampshire. And I'm driving there, following these directions. And it's bring me out into the sticks. And then I get to the camp. And it looks like it's a beautiful kids camp. It's a sunny day.

There's literally kids running around, like playing with bubbles. And there's like, it's a music camp. And it's beautiful. Oh, it's nice. And I go in there. And I'm, like, I find Susan who she's jumping fatigues. What did you do? I was like in

just gym clothes. I didn't know what I'm going to do. And I just see this like gravel road that like goes up and over a hill off into the forest. Like I don't even know what's up there. And I'm like, okay. And so I drive my car around and I'm just like going up this rise. And like the road is just like going on and on. It's like deeper into the forest. And it eventually comes to this clearing.

And there's this like ramshackle plywood hut. It's just sitting like conspicuously in the middle of this clearing. And nobody would look at that and think a professional built it. It's like a children built this hut. But it's huge. It's like this pretty big space. And I park my car and like I get out and I don't, I don't even know what we're doing here.

I've been told to come to the camp. That's it. And immediately when I get out of the car, I hear the sound of like men bullshitting with each other in in the hut. These are not like teenagers. These are not, these are fucking men that are bullshitting. they're laughing. It's a lot of them. And I'm like, fuck.

I have to go in there. Like, I'm so intimidated. And so I'm like, all right, you got to go. Like, I've driven out here. You got to go in. And so I hear him talking. This is the first test right here. In a way, I kind of felt like that's what it was.

And so I walk over and it's gravel. Every step is so loud. There's no soundproofing here. The seals heard you parked in a car. Oh, dude, of course. They knew this is happening. And I walk over and I get to the door, which are these crappy hinges.

on it and you can't see through it and he's outside the door and they just go silent inside and slowly open the hot and there's no furniture inside. It's just like a vacant space with all these upturned buckets that like 10 or 12 dudes

who were like some of the most physically intimidating people I've ever seen who by the way a lot of them were active duty team six guys that are just sitting on these buckets. They're all like chewing tobacco and they all turn and look at me and one of them goes, who the fuck are you?

That's perfect. And I was like, oh, hi, I'm Jonathan. I'm Jesse's son. And then Dave's like, I'm going to who you fuck you are. Like, get it here. And then they were like really cool. But dude, they go up to this camp. It's sort of a not well-kept secret, but like they'll bring guys up there, even though

they're retired and they'll like take guys through some shooting training. But it's sort of like crazy shit they do because it's not really sanctioned. It's like go out there. But they'll bring guys that are like active duty team six guys. They go out and train out there. And so I had the chance. to like chat with these guys. Some of them are about to go like deploy to parts of the world that like no one knows

we're in. And on the one hand, it was like, holy shit, this is like a different species. I'm not around normal people right now. Like it was just, it's hard to even put into words how impressed I was with these people. But the other part of it that it was like when I had my moment of I now know I can't not at least try. I had that moment when I sat down with this guy. It was a seal.

He's an older seal. He was in Beirut when it was bombed, the famous Marine barracks bombing. He was out there. So he's written a couple of books. And he's the guy that told me, he's like, you know, buds, it sucks. You know, buds, it basic underwater demolition. Seal training, it's like seal boot camp. It's brutal, you know, it's all those things.

But he's like, I'm telling you, like, it's amazing. Like, he described it as the best time you never want to have again. and he's like the people that make it, it isn't that they're battling, oh boy, should I quit today or not? Because you can quit it anytime, you know? He's like, the people that really want to go, a lot of times they don't really have an alternative.

It's sort of like they fucked their lives up or they had opportunities, they squandered, or whatever it is, but they have something to prove, you know? And he's like, a lot of the people that make it, they refer to it as a calling. That it's not like, today I've decided to be a seal and I hope I don't quit when I'm in training. it's like, no, I have to go try.

I have to do it. I have to see if I stack up against this. And as soon as it was put to me that way, I realized that like, this is like the most incredible thing I've ever, like, been around. And I then went out and like shot AK-47s with them. And like, they're telling me their stories about buds

and like deployment. And it's just so surreal. And I came back from that trip. And it was like 100% I'm going to go become a Navy SEAL. Or more specifically, I wasn't that. sure of it. It was more like, I for sure I'm going to try. And it's going to be, if I don't make it, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with like, didn't make the cut,

but I'm not going to go and see what happens. You knew you were going to make it, though. You just feel like you're going to make it. I could do this. I think that's true. And I would even say like when I went out to Coronado for training, and this is not, this is pretty much universal for the guys that make it. I never had a moment where I was like, oh boy, am I going to quit today? I didn't.

did I have moments of pathetic weakness of just embarrassing failure of course like there are moments of like horrible failure like I have like totally humiliating moments in my training but I never ever ever was like hmm I might quit better talk myself out of it never came close never and I there are moments in buds that are so fucking miserable like there we would do these like log carries where you're, and it sounds so like, oh, it's just a heavy log, right? No, no. You're barely sleeping. You're in the freezing ocean, like, all the time.

And then you would do that, I think, what do, what do we call them? The elephant walk or something where you and your, your, your, what's they call it, your boat crew, who are similarly sized people so long as the class is big enough to afford you that, you hold this telephone pole that's not even that heavy. It's a heavy pole, but it's not as heavy as a true telephone pole. But you hold it in, in your front like this. You can't hold it up like this. You literally can't hold it down here because you'll drop it.

And you're walking on really soft sand in the heat. And you're all walking in line. And you're just walking for a mile this way. And then you go up and down the berm a few times, then a mile back. You are, imagine holding any weight with your biceps just basically nonstop. It becomes, if you haven't done this, the pain you feel in your biceps, if you just hold it long enough is excruciary. And there are instructors that walk. with you for each of these logs that are just like waiting because it's considered at times they'll consider it quitting if you drop the log and they're like you you be bitched out of this it's called a nonverbal DOR drop you quit yep see ya and so you you basically have to suffer constantly it's like this out of body level of suffering but you do it like all the time in buds and you slowly come to realize that it's always horrible but you can do it if you have like the constitution

and the guys that stuck around, the most random group of guys. It was like a guy who had never swam before. He literally hadn't swam. And he's like, yeah, I'm trying out for buds. Dude,

this is a huge swimming component. Well, we'll figure it out. And he did. We had a guy who he went to boot camp. This guy's incredible, by the way. He walked on to the,

um, Indiana's football team like as like a 23 year old or something. Like it was unheard of. After the teams. He went to boot camp. didn't know what a Navy SEAL was. In today's age, this doesn't happen. Doesn't know what a SEAL was,

but they do offer to all the people who are in naval boot camp. Hey, if anybody wants to go take a physical screening test for the SEAL teams, you're welcome to do it today because the Buds guys are doing that. You can go do it. Nobody does it.

He was like, all right, I'll go do that. He has no idea what he's getting himself into. Pass of the PST, goes to Buds, never fails a single test, becomes a Navy SEAL, and he's amazing. I think he went to Dev Crew, Team 6 for a while.

I don't even know if he did. He gets out. He's turned into like the incredible Hulk too. He put on so much muscle, all natural. He's huge. And he's like, I'm going to go play football. Never played football in his life. He walks on to the Indiana team.

But it's just like... You said out of body. That's interesting. I think a lot of the guys who make it learn disassociation, almost like meditation. Like, that's my body. I'm not really there and just let it happen. Definitely.

Are there guys who just sail through buds? Yeah. And there's actually, there's a name for it. It's first time every time. other guys that never fail a test. And it's a real thing. There's a buddy in mine. He got this thing called BGE or VGE.

It's a stomach virus. And he got it right at the end. So in seal training in buds, it's six months long. And like the really brutal physical part of it is like the first two months. It's called first phase. And it's just like,

it's like the log carries. It's like a million pushups and that kind of thing. But Hellweek is a component of that. And it's a week of really no sleep and constant training. It's five and a half days. You sleep for a total of four hours broken up into naps. And I can tell you there isn't anybody who wants to take those naps. They're the worst thing.

They're the worst part of hell week in some ways. So you're awake, training nonstop. You're in the ocean. It's miserable. So it's going to be hard no matter what. He got VGE, BG, whatever the stomach virus. Montezuma's revenge is what it's colloquially known as. Oh, no.

You're vomiting and you're pooping the whole time. and he got it like the week of leading into hell week. So the last few days, a brutal first phase before like, and next week is hell week, he can't keep a meal down. He's like with, we're all withering away because we would,

we would finish up the day at like 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock and we'd eat like gallons of ice cream and cheese. It's an or not, nothing was enough. You're burning so many calories. The instructors were like, just eat. Eat constantly, right?

And it wasn't enough. He's still losing all this weight. He couldn't keep anything down. never complained, not once, goes into Hell Week. He's like dying during Hell Week. He'd be running with the boat on your head as we do throughout the whole time. And he's like vomiting. He's like pooping himself the whole time.

And Hell Week, you're up against how long it is, is the really, that's the hard part of it. It's like any, the closest thing I think of is like, if you've ever gone for a run, just any run that is uncomfortable for you to do. It doesn't even matter what it is. Maybe if it's a mile, maybe it's 10 miles, whatever. But some distance where you start to think, man, this is going to take wild. And every second sucks. So Hellweek is sort of that feeling and it never really goes away. And it's so, so long and it's so physically demanding that like every second really feels like an eternity. And then what makes it even worse is invariably you sort of lose your mind. You start to hallucinate really badly at about

like the 72 hour mark, you start to hallucinate. But like you're acutely aware of how bad it is and how slow it is, but you're not able to form coherent thoughts. And so everybody's struggling and is like dying from BGE. And like he's being talked to by the medics because if you don't quit, like they really won't pull you out of training. They will let you keep going pretty much to the brink of death if you want to keep going. Because I mean, we're training for the big leagues, you know?

And this dude just like never quit, never complained, had probably the worst week of anyone's life. And then afterwards, like he just never talked about it, just went to, never failed to test. It's like there are people that just have this capacity to just do things that are just unbelievable. And you see it a lot in seal training. I was not like that.

I was definitely more of the complaining type, more of like the pitching type. But I think that it's funny. My nickname was Shakespeare. at some point in training because I just was always telling stories. And I think that one of the things that I brought to the table,

like there was this area on the buds compound that was sort of sacred, that even the instructors that gave you this space, it was known as the pit. And all it is is like this little space behind the first phase barracks

where all the students who were in first phase go and the fence that sort of is up against the back end of the beach. So it's like this literally three or four foot section of space that runs like, you know,

100 yards or whatever. and it's it's your insight of the instructors but you're sort of obscured by a fence in the barracks and the instructors even tell you like when you're in there we'll leave you alone and when we're in there and it's like for five minutes at a stretch or whatever I would always just like be telling stories

like bullshitting and like fucking around with people and honestly like what you find in shared suffering is like everyone sort of has a role to play to like keep the vibe from getting overtly negative and I think one of the things that I found is like I was able to just tell people's stories and that definitely was the thing that people were drew to they they were drawn to me because it was a distraction you know but other guys like the ability to suffer well was incredible by some of these guys let's take a quick break because that's a good segue

come back and talk shop talk stories let's do it back in a minute oh got the flannel let's go you like you a good look, dude. Is it? Yeah, that's a pretty good look. I myself, uh, fancy that. Are you sick of it? A little bit.

It's sort of like, now the thing that is so synonymous with, what do I do? That it's sort of like, all right. But like, uh, when I'm not Mr. Ballin, I'm wearing nothing like this. No, of course not. No. Yeah, dude. This is from Reddit from the fans. Love it.

Let's hear it. The old format was better. He's phoning it in. Quality fell off. Sell out with the big bucks. Those were about me. Oh. And Veritasium.

And Linus Tech Tips and Mr. Ballin. And everybody. Oh, wow. Same. Same across the board. You thought I was talking about you. I did. And I fully assume that was about me.

No. It still gets to me a little bit. Does it get to you? It does. And you know what? I think that part of the reason that gets to me is I know there's some element of truth to it. And it doesn't mean that, oh boy, I'm now covering it.

It's more like there is, here's the way I view it. You go viral or whatever. You have your spark on the internet, let's say. What I think people don't necessarily know, although it's sort of logical, is that there's really kind of like two outcomes. You go viral and you either find a way to sustain, replicate whatever, do it again, make a name for yourself, whatever.

Or you don't. It fades off. That's sort of it. It's sort of binary. You don't hear about the people that faded off. And I can tell you just from just, I'm not going to say who they are because it's totally throwing shade. But like when I went viral on TikTok, when there was no strange, dark, mysterious, it was

like I had a video that in, think how many videos probably went viral. today that in a week no one will remember. Like I had my moment. There were these other creators that went viral at like the same time just by happenstance, completely unrelated to me. But there was this cool like almost like this is my graduating class sort of feel to it that like immediately I was in touch on TikTok with like all these other creators that were sort of comparable in speed of growth and like sort of their accounts,

whatever. And a big part of it is we just would swap anything we knew. because it helped both of us. And all of them, all of them, just completely fell off. Not like, oh, you fell off. I don't mean it that way. I mean, there was no sustainability long term.

There was too much like they had a thing that worked once and they just frigging drove it into the ground. And I get it. Like in some ways, like you could make the case. That's exactly what I have done. I have a thing, the schick that I do.

But what people don't know or what people don't, let's say, appreciate on the audience side is like you can't this can't be a long-term thing unless you're willing and able to make changes to make it a business on some level it's it's a total pipe dream to think that it isn't that it's possible to topic find research write shoot edit nonstop because by the way I remember I was making five videos a week I remember that I I was like, how does this guy do it? Oh, it was horrible.

It was horrible. Sounds horrible. I took a week off when I reached a point. You didn't panic taking a week off? Oh, no. It was like a... It's awful. It was a true, the purest form of writer's block.

I could even possibly imagine I was trying to write this story about these two brothers in Maryland who were hoarders. And basically the story is that ultimately one of them dies amongst the mess and goes unnoticed by the other. It's the Collier brothers? The Collier brothers. It's a great story. You can tell it if you want.

You know, I don't know the details that well, and I never actually, I think I did tell it eventually, but like, basically it's these two brothers and they're total hoarders and it's just this grotesque story about hoarding and death. They're a maze of newspapers. Yes. Yes. And so I could not come up with, like, how to tell the story. I couldn't do it.

It was like, what is happening? I have the research. I've done the research. I'm ready to do. I couldn't do it. And I remember I started at like nine or 10 in the morning to like start the process of this 20 somewhat hour process to make this video. And it was like the sun was starting to go down that night.

And I hadn't done anything. It's the first time in months. I've ever like missed this much time. And I was like, holy shit. I can't do this. And I went out and talked to Amanda, my wife. And I'm like, dude, I can't write this episode. And she's like, dude, take a day off.

Yeah. And so I took a day, which turned into. to a full week of time off, which again, I have been creating effectively nonstop for like five, six months.

And it's taken a big toll on me to a week off. It isn't that I was met with a deluge of negativity. Not at all. But this is the part that I'm coming back to this whole idea that like people don't necessarily see this.

The audience knows that like you have your platform because the audience is watching. They have the power. to give you the platform or take it away. If you don't give them, and I'm saying they, not specific individuals,

but as a collective, if you're not giving them what they want, they will leave you. It's, it is not a friendship. It's not like, oh, this is my family member.

No. It is a commodity that they want, and you're giving it to them. This is so easy for them to just find someone else? And it's immediately available. It's right there.

And I remember coming back from that week and seeing for the first time comments about me not caring. Wow. And it's like, you know, I get it. I can sort of see like off the cuff. And there's at this point, you know, millions of people. I get it.

Like there's going to be people that have their opinions. But it like really hurt. You know, and you're not supposed to. I'm like, I'm like an adult. I have kids. Like I'm an adult as I came into this. I was a Navy seal. Like I should be able to handle this stuff.

But it was really hard. And it always stuck with me from that point forward. that I love, I've met so many amazing fans. I know you probably have too. Like there are some really incredible people out there that do comprise in some ways the majority of the audience. Sure. But make no mistake,

if you're the one that is sort of the key, key man, if you will, for the show. You're on a hamster wheel that you must maintain. If you don't, the audience just goes away. It's not the same with traditional media, not that I've ever had traditional media experience, but in today's day and age with digital media,

if you want a career in this space, you better find a way to do this over and over and over and over and never fucking stop ever or else it goes away. And once you reach a certain scale, when you have like a staff and you have expectations and you have people to depend on you

and you're like a thing now. As the creator, you need to make decisions that are designed to keep this thing going. And sometimes what that, means is I may need to bring in other people to help me do this because I can't fucking do do this nonstop for the rest of the next 10 years or something. And so when you see creators, me, you, you named a few other people. Part of the reason they're still relevant is they've made

decisions that may degrade in terms of quality compared to the first episode they ever did. And also people have a lot of emotion attached to those first few episodes. They were there with you, you know? They were there. They don't want to see it change. They don't want to see change. And even if the changes are good, the change itself represents what's going on here. But like you don't get really much sympathy is the wrong word. You don't get much slack if you start altering what you do at the same time that you've sort of perceived as growing and being successful. And so the sellout thing, I think that it doesn't like hurt, but it's it's just purely a misunderstanding of how this really works. I could have just as just as a.

easily become obscure by not making changes and running myself into the ground and stopping making content. And then guess what? There wouldn't be any commentary about Mr. Ballin because Mr. Ballin wouldn't exist. It would be, oh, that was that thing that happened that one time for like a month on TikTok a while. It wouldn't matter to you. It wouldn't. It's the fact that you're still hearing about the Y files and AJ and John and the Mr. Ball is because they've done something that allows them to maintain a sort of near impossible to maintain thing. which is a never-ending supply of content. Because that's your career.

It exists so long as you make content. I don't know what happens when you stop, but I'm pretty sure your career as a content creator changes pretty dramatically. It does. People tell me, you know, you're a slave to the algorithm. And I tell them, yeah, that's how we make our livelihoods here. Yeah. And if you take too much time off, you will be punished.

The audience will punish you, the algorithm punish you. Now new things show up in your feed. Sometimes I don't even see my own episodes of my feed. Same. Oh, because I didn't post last week because why I'm not getting impressions. Same. So I went through phases of drinking too much, not sleeping, showering in the office. It's like it's not glamorous.

You know, it's so, man, is that true? I, dude, I, in 2023, I had like the most banner year on paper that you could have. Like, even now looking back, it's astounding. I'd post a YouTube video and it's like fucking a billion views. I remember those. A million in a day. Yeah, a million in a day. Dude, it was like, oh, whatever.

I had the podcast that we started and we had the fastest from conception of podcast or inception of podcast to signing of a mega deal. We did it the fastest against anybody else of that deal size. It was like nine months from, from, we're going to do a podcast. Hey, we'll sign you to a fucking enormous contract for three years. Was that the Amazon deal? So only nine months to get that. It was like, I want to say it was 10 months, 10 months.

And we're talking like tens of millions of dollars. It was like, you know, it was like $62 million. $62 million. That's what it was. In fact, I don't even know why that's so secret because my deal is serious public too. Right. So it's $62 million. And I.

So in 2023, my YouTube channel, which by the way, wasn't even licensed. So I licensed my podcast. And we were crushing. It was doing crazy, crazy downloads, but we, for 62 million for the podcast, and I have a YouTube channel that's doing like $10 million a year. And so in 23, the reason I sale that, I am making so much fucking money that I literally didn't even know what to do. It wasn't like I'm gonna go buy a bunch of shit. It was like I don't even know who to talk to. Even my financial people,

I don't even know if they know what to do. Like there's money coming in that's so high. I'm uncomfortable even talking about it. You don't have a support structure for this. There's a point where my mom is my financial advisor until she's like, I don't understand anymore. It's not, it's fun, but it's also very stressful. But at the end of 23,

I was, if not a alcoholic, by some sort of definition, I was close. Because I, oh my God, it's like I've become sort of financially successful. And right away, there were like these really difficult exploitations that began happening in my life. I actually, you know, I began doing a renovation. I was telling you about this before, you know, and the, contractor basically took a ton of money for me. A shit ton of money. I'd have a million dollars for me. And I was stupid enough to give it. But it was like totally being gaslit into giving money. And it's

like they knew that I had money. It was a thing. And they're like taking the money and not doing the renovations and just extorting me for more money because they've gutted my house already. And like then I had people that were coming in to work for me that are not with me now. So this is nobody now, but like that were just hugely exploitative. And so at the end of 23, I am like, in the eyes of being, in terms of being a creator, I got it all. I got fucking everything you could ever ask for. And I would work myself to death. And then at whatever time I was done working, I would just drink.

I just drink, dude. And it wasn't even for fun. And it wasn't even as an outlet. It was almost habitual. It was just fucking drinking. Take it away. I don't want to think about it. It's the only way to sleep.

And then, and so by the end of 23, I was, so like right now, I'm like, like, in the 170s. I weigh about 170 and I'm like really on top of my like health and I'm sober. But I was like, I remember looking at the scale and it was like 199. And I'm like not exercising at all. This is, there's no part of this that is like good body comp. I'm like out of shape. And I had this ponytail. I'd grown my fucking hair out like really bad.

And I don't even know why I was doing it. It was sort of like this schick that began. when Mr. Ballen happened, I wasn't really cutting my hair. And I just never did it. And I had this, like, ponytail. And I'm like, I remember the long hair. I was, like, just bloated looking. And if you look, if you look at the videos from 20, 23 and like early, early 23, late 22,

and a lot of the videos, I'm hung over. A lot of the videos. And you can totally tell it. I mean, you can. Oh, dude, I'm red face. I have a whole year where it's like, you don't even see the white in my eyes. Is skinny? And I, so.

So you don't feel like. a megastar at this point. No. Not at all. And like I think that I also realized that it's like a permanent shift in terms of like how you're viewed by like people around you like who really know you because now I think that I offered a lot to the world before this but now there's like a financial opportunity. There's more than that. There's there's like an opportunity for people that you represent that they can't really get elsewhere. And I I was sort of realizing that, like, I had very close friends that were, like, from the teams that were, like, trying to, like, get money out of me. And it's like, what the fuck? It's like,

my circle just shrunk. And I was, like, so physically just like, I felt so gross about myself. And I'm, like, just drinking all the time. And then I shifted from, well, here, I'm going to stop boozing as much. And I'm going to just, like, eat edible marijuana. We're just like, oh, no big deal. And it got to the point where, dude, I was, I don't know if you're familiar with dosing, but I was eating like 200 milligrams of THC a night. I used to run a weed company. Okay, there we go. Perfect.

200 milligrams, which for some people, that's a ton. That's a lot. And this is, I worked my way up, but I, it wasn't enjoyable. I would take it and then I would like green out and I would grip the sheets.

I would lay in my bed and grip the sheets as I would have these insane heart palpitations and I couldn't sleep. Every fucking night I would do it. It only brought me discomfort in pain. Yep. But I couldn't stop. or I'd be drinking too much.

And so it's like I fell into the trap or whatever you want to call it of like huge success in sort of like a very specific way. Like money and like he's got like millions of followers. But like my life, my actual life is sort of falling apart all around me. But the idea of complaining about this to people, it's a joke.

Oh my God. I just had this fucking huge deal signed and I have this amazing stuff. And it's like no one gives a fuck about you. They don't. And so it's hard, man. Your world shrinks. And so to the question or the comments around like you're a sellout, whatever, there's

a huge toll to doing this. I'm not saying that the challenges that I have are worse or whatever than other people's problems, far from it. But the idea that like anybody that's been, you know, relatively successful in social media and content is just like living this great life like dude it's really hard and it really changes your life in some really negative ways especially when people start to associate you with money and um what mrs ball and say during all that my wife's awesome Amanda she she must be she's fucking great she's awesome dude I met her in college when I went back to college to

emsherst the cool thing about Amanda is she uh doesn't give a fuck about Mr. Ballin at all, like none. Like she loves John and she loves me as her husband and the father of our kids and she's just like naturally very very grounding for me because she met me as when I met her of so I was in college and by this point I've had my my meeting with Dave and Pete up at the camp in New Hampshire I'm back at UMass Amherst because I reapplied I'm gonna close it out at UMass Amherst so I'm gonna go to the SEAL teams that's my plan and so I'm like training a lot. I'm running and working out and I go to my buddy's apartment and his mutual,

or a friend of his was this other group that Amanda was a part of and she came over one night and we're just like sitting around this apartment and Amanda and I just were like sitting by this kitchen island and we're just like talking and I wasn't like, I wasn't bragging at all, but I was like talking about, you know, what I was going to do after college and I was like, well, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to go try out and try to become a Navy SEAL and Amanda. And most people when they hear it was like oh wow like whoa cool and Amanda she's she's I'm sitting and she's standing next to me and just unprompted she reaches up and she grabs she grabs my arm like my biceps like reaches under and squeezes it and she just goes I don't know I don't know I don't know if

you're gonna make it what did she say when you said I'm gonna be a full-time ticotker oh well you the thing is is by that point she had seen me because she was with me when I I was she's been with me since 2010, you know. I was in Buds. She was with me in Buds. She was with me for all the deployments and everything. She was with me when, like, I fucking lost my mind on my second deployment when I went to South America.

I had a mental breakdown. She's been with me for everything. Have you talked about that much? No. No. I haven't. Do you want to share? You don't have to.

No, I brought it up for that reason because it really ties to Amanda. I, yeah, I haven't really talked about it. So in Afghanistan, the way that it's been sort of. the way that the story goes publicly about how I got medically retired is gets blown up by grenade, survives, and then gets medically retired. And in some ways, that is true. And I've never actually said explicitly one exactly went to the next. It's always been like, well, you know, I got hurt. And then, you know, subsequently I did get medically retired.

And it was connected to the grenade. It was. But what people don't know is there actually was a deployment that happened in between that. I come back from Afghanistan in 2014. I was literally blown up. And then like, I think it was like seven days later, I'm like literally pushing a shopping cart and like Home Depot. I'm like home like hobbling around.

No debrief, no processing. No. And they do have, they have a way to do that. I didn't. Because of the way wound cares handled and what I needed, I sort of was ushered out. And I felt like,

in special operations in particular no one no one says this but it's sort of a thing or it was when I was in that it's like you want to go to war you do you want to go to war and it's it's not even like a bloodlust thing it's more of a

this is the thing that we're supposed to be able to do and it's sort of like this incredible not in a good way but like this like crazy thing to like go to war and to really actively be participating in it. Not fun. No.

And I got the chance to go. And I say that, that sounds weird to say it that way, but I was thrilled. And weirdly enough, and this is some shit that I probably haven't even fully processed. I remember one of the last things

I told my wife before I went to Afghanistan. We don't have kids yet, but like I told her, I was like, I hope I die there. Oh, no. And she's like, what the fuck are you? terrible things. Hey, what? I was like, yeah, like, I can't think of a better way to die than to be in combat.

I was like, and I meant it. It wasn't even like, I'm so depressed. It was sort of like the opposite. It was like, this is my hero's journey. I'm going to go die in Afghanistan. And I couldn't even believe I was saying it to her laying in bed in her house in Virginia. And she was like mad about it. She's like, why would you say this to me now? And I'm like, I'm just being honest. And so I had this like weird mentality. And like, I go to Afghanistan. And like, honestly, in a way, it was many of the things. I thought it would be and many of the things I didn't. There were some fucking horrible things over there. Like the way that I acted at times, not like illegally or something, but the person I became was like,

I was the guy that's that would would talk to people on target after the shooting was done or just like I was like the interrogation is the wrong word because it's it's very sensitive if you call yourself an interrogator. There's a whole course for that. There's levels of clearance. I wasn't any of that I was like a I was known as a tactical questioner. And what it meant is I would often be alone with people that were just trying to kill me and I'm trying to extract information from them really quickly about things that we need to know right, fucking now. And I'm an A.B. Seal and I've been trained in certain ways

and there were things that I was doing that were like fucking barbaric. And just like violence, committing violence to, extract information and you know have that voice going dude what are you doing yeah and I couldn't stop dude there was like moments of it was like thrilling and so fucked up at the same time again like I never did anything that would would like not pass the the test of are you allowed to but I was not awful no it was like the humanity's gone yeah like we had a guy and I still think

about this guy who came into our um our care whatever you want to call it he was like some sort of informant or something i don't fucking know and um i made the decision to shave his beard which literally signals to any of his handlers that he's been in american custody and what do you think happened to him get killed yeah and i knew that was going to happen in spec ops do they train you to dehumanize the enemy to make it easier yeah yeah I would think so yeah and then there was this fucking another way huh I don't know of another way well there isn't I mean it's like you're asking people to go commit violence like really intimate violence yeah it's like I mean I I struggled mightily with with sort of the reality of what we have been asked to do because

when I look back at that deployment, I did all the things that were trained to do, you know? And like, I remember there was this one kid, and he lived, but just sometimes we'd have people turned over. We were staying at this outstation that's like way off in the sticks in Afghanistan. And periodically, the Afghani police or army would like drag in some person they claimed was like, oh, they're passing information to al-Qaeda. or the Taliban.

And honestly, it was so corrupt. Like, there's 99% of the time, it was just they didn't like somebody. Of course. And somehow or another, we got this 16 year old kid in our custody, and I was called over to go talk to him.

And like, I don't have kids at this point. I'm like 25 or 6 or whatever I am. And I'm in this small room with him. And I made him stand in this like, fucking like bin of ice for some reason which is just stupid but like I hadn't like stand in ice and it wasn't even I wasn't even like asking him questions I was like humiliating him and you got to remember that it sounds just like I'm I've lost my humanity but in a way like when you are in an environment where like it isn't

that you are literally being shot at 24 seven and far from it but you're in an environment where death could come at any moment for real Like we were in a base that like theoretically could be overrun at any time. We had like this thing called a P-Tids blimp overhead that constantly looked for like suicide bombers that would attack us at any moment. We had to sleep with like weapons right by our bed and had to be ready to go run out. And like, you know, so you're living in an environment that's nothing like being a civilian. And in order to not just survive, but thrive, you take on a lot of guys did this like primal state. And when you're the guy that's meant to be in a weird way like the intimidator,

like you need to go in and you need to scare the fuck out of these dudes into giving you information, you need to embody that persona and make sure your dudes are confident that you can do that. And I really took to it. And it's funny now. It's not funny. But like I'm so not the guy that's like walking around puffing my chest out trying to be like intimidating. But like in Afghanistan, like I was. I was the guy that was put in the room to like fuck with people and get them to give us information.

It'd like scare people into doing. Why would you be chosen for that? I was really fucking good at it. Like walk me through and I was just, I had this weird like ability to like stare at people and like get them to see that like I'm prepared to kill you right now. I'm genuinely prepared to kill you. Did you ever tell them stories? Yeah. Because the stories can be used as a weapon for sure.

There was, there were definitely moments where I would, like, it was a little bit difficult. Like, I spoke very broken posh tune and farcee. We had an interrogator, we had interpreters. But like, there were some people that broke really quickly. And by broke, I don't mean like lengthy interrogations or anything.

But like they just, they quickly understood that you're in a closed room. There's no surveillance overhead. If you die in here, no one's gonna no one's gonna do anything about it yeah and they've been they've been up against nato for long enough to know that like you don't want to be in closed rooms with by the way i wasn't i was wearing like shorts like cut off shorts and a fucking a flannel and like my kit doesn't look normal i have like a fucking bowie knife on my chest and i have like all this kit that's like not normal i have a fucking

huge ass mohawk and this weird facial hair and i'm like gaunt and just like i've been out here like doing these operations for months and we've been getting shot at and shooting it back at people. It came across when I was in the room with people. Like my capacity for violence is higher than yours. And I'm backed by people out there. Right. You're tied to a chair. You got to do it.

And so, but that kid, I remember I just, I knew why he was handed over to us. It was actually because he had taken some pot shots at us, like our convoy as we like rolled into our camp or whatever. And I don't really know what his story was, but it's like,

okay, you're a 16 year old kid. We know that the Taliban like routinely, like summerarily will just execute people in these neighboring villages. We know there have been cases of people being told go shoot at the Americans or we're going to fucking kill your family.

And this kid is in this impossible situation where first of all, if you shoot at us, forget NATO. If you shoot it at our platoon, we're going to kill you. Yes. And I don't mean like in a we might find you at some. I mean like literally you're going to die because we will track you.

We will find you and kill you. There weren't any survivors. I mean, that's an exaggeration. But it was sort of like if we saw you and you engaged us, you're fucking dead. That's what's going to happen. We're going to call in fucking jams. We're going to lock on you with our 50 Cal and our up armored vehicles. where you can't even hit us,

even if he shot us 50 fucking times, you're dead. But this kid, it's like he's shooting at a convoy. He's been handed over to us, but like, what else is he going to do? He probably was put up to it.

And it's like, here I am. He didn't have that gun. He didn't, he had nothing. He's a kid. Someone gave him the gun. He's a kid. And like,

but I was like dealing with, I wasn't alone in the room. And this doesn't, I'm not putting blame on other people, but it's like me and a more senior. your guy who's like watching. There's no blame here, I don't think. This is just a thing.

And I'm like getting physical with this kid. And it's just, he clearly doesn't even know what to do. He wasn't mouthed off or anything? No, he literally didn't know what to do. And eventually I sort of stopped and let the kid go. And it was like, almost it was a joke by the end. It was like, fuck this kid. Like, you can go.

He's not useful to us. And we turned him back over. And I know he survived at least several days later. But like, the reason I say all that, that is like the actually there's one other that I would say I've never spoken about publicly um towards the end of the time I was in Afghanistan there was we did this operation where we were just sort of clearing this valley which sort of is a generic way of saying we were sort of marching through an area with known militants and we just were seeing what happened and we did get into a contact

they're shooting at us we're shooting back at them but it was like at a distance and we are totally within the rules of engagement called in an air strike on on a group of military h males and we struck them we used a hellfire missile which is like a relatively precise small munition that is very lethal to like people close by but not so lethal if you're like 10 i'm probably wrong about the actual distances but like if you're near up but not that close you might get maimed but you're not going to die and um this guy this older guy got badly wounded. We thought he was dead. And so after you, you

kill someone or kill anybody, we, you know, or even just after any sort of contact, you do like a battle damage assessment. You'll go and you'll like look at what happened and documented. We have like these fingerprint scanners. Like, it's called a seek. Like take dead guys hands and like,

so there's a process to it. And it's literally to document what happened. And it doesn't mean that we constantly were killing everybody and whatever. But we went over to, not me, but another element within our platoon went over to do the battle damage assessment on this drop. And they found this guy as they're getting closer. They could see he was still alive.

He's an older guy. He's been gravely injured. And he's clearly bleeding to death. He's like propped up against a tree. He's fucking, he's in a really bad way. He's going to die. But he's totally alive. He's like dying a slow and miserable death.

And I mean, truly I can't even get into like who said this. but put it this way. There was, there were senior people that were there that day. And it was like, hey, Alan,

like write a passage and they pulled a knife that we had, we had gotten off of one of the guys we'd killed earlier. And they were like, go,

go finish him off. And they were like, as I took the knife, and I'm walking over to this village, like the guy's family was out. Like, they're all out in the courtyard.

And, and they were telling me, I'm, I'm, Fox Trot 8 was my call sign. They were like, make sure you go inside of a building first. And I remember I just, I didn't want to do it. I, I walk over to where there's this group of crying women

and children and they know what's happening. And I start walking over to this guy. And I'm like, I'm about to murder someone. This is different. This is different than other stuff. and right as I'm like nearing him, I didn't literally have the knife up, but as I'm like as close as you and I are

and I see how fucked up he is and he's looking at me and he knows what's happening. One of the best fucking dudes I've ever met on the planet, also a new guy, he walked over and he was like, no, you're not doing that.

And he literally, he came over the radio and he's junior, he's a junior guy, and they're very senior dudes on target. This is a fucking big deal. He's like, he's not doing this. Right now, we're going to call in a medevac.

We're going to get this guy help. We cannot become fucking savages. We can't kill people like this. Can't do it. Were you going to do it? Yeah. And that in a weird way, even though I didn't do it

and the guy was brought to a hospital, I got to be honest, I don't know what happened to him. Like in a way, I don't know what to do with the fact that I would have killed him. That's a moment that changes you. it's different than shooting in a building

you're from his family and I mean dude so not long after that like very shortly after that day you know I have the the near death experience of the grenade blowing up near me and I'm suddenly

like medevaced out of country and I'm like back home and I just I never the mentality of being that guy, the interrogator, if you will, the guy willing to murder, uh,

it didn't go away, you know, and, and it didn't mean that I was like being violent, but like, I, what do you mean it didn't go away? You carried what? I was so fucking mad. Yeah. And you know what's funny?

And I can only, I know this now. I remember being so critical, mentally, like internally, very critical of anybody who claimed PTSD who in my mind didn't deserve to be able to claim that because I in my mind I'm like I'm a fucking Navy SEAL I've been to war I fuck I almost died you know I'm the fucking man that was sort of my mentality non non ironically that was like actually how I felt and I remember thinking and I don't even have PTSD I don't have any of that shit like I'm fucking good to go right and very quickly I got into another the way it works on the white side so anything not seal team six

all the other teams you're in these two year rotation cycles where it's like you deploy for usually six months and you come back and you're you're almost immediately within reason in another cycle often with the different team different platoon you do 18 months of training to go deploy for another six months so it's constantly and then sometimes you're pulled out of the rotation and you do a teaching cycle. You go become a Bud's instructor for a couple of years. But I pretty much right away was put back into a rotation by choice. As a new guy, you sort of do back-to-back tours, back-to-back rotations before you can do anything else.

Well, hang on. Did Amanda see anything different about you when you got back? I don't know. I know that I was, well, yeah, she did. For sure, she did. I would say my temper was pretty extreme. and it wasn't extreme like I was mad all the time. I would get so, so, so, so mad about everything.

Like, I remember our, our, uh, the homeowners association in Virginia Beach, they, they, they were pretty nitpicky and they like came around. Everybody hates the, yeah, everyone does. And they, and they, and they can't put an American flag in from my house. I'll pay the fine. They were mad about our chimney cap being rusted. and I was so mad. And I called him.

Do you have any fucking clue who I am? And they're like, sir, we have no idea who you are. I was in fucking Afghanistan. You don't get it. It's like, sir, how could we have known that? We just want you to paint it. Please, please. We'll even do it for you.

But I was just mad a lot. But the thing is, is I was really quickly back into another rotation. I had injuries that were bad. You know, I have, right now I have. I have 26 pieces of shrapnel that are still in my leg. They're microscopic at this point. But like I have pain in my ankle. I got pain in my hip.

They debreed it as much as they could. But I had like real, real issues with pain in my leg. And then also I still have this. I have pretty serious shoulder pain. The grenade blast when it happened, it dislocated both my shoulders like briefly. Like it's a slap tear.

It tore both labrums. So I had like really bad shoulder pain. And like I'm sort of hobbling around a little bit. But I was able to sort of, I got the bicep tendonesis surgery, which sort of patches shit up. And I was just like, I'm a, I'm a guy that's done some shit. I'm a Navy seal with combat experience. I'm getting into another rotation.

I'm deploying again. I'm not, I'm not a guy with PTSD. Like, and so I'm like immersed pretty much right away with like the next cycle. And even though it's 18 months until you deploy again, you're training constantly. There's no psyche valve coming back on rotation? No. Like, you're just in it. And someone's got to know, like, this guy's probably not ready.

The thing is, is I was one of many. Yeah, of course. Two cousins, they came back fucked up from this. One in the Corps and one army. And so we end up... And they're still fucked up. It's been 15 years. It's unfortunate, you know.

I ended up 18 months later deploying to Peru to do like, I mean, basically counter-drug operations, but like in a really indirect way. I mean, effectively, we were going over there to train, you know, on a daily basis. Other, they're called the foeys, the foerza de operations,

especiales, how to do drug interdictions. And then they would go sort of execute and we'd sort of advise to some degree. But it was like very, very more advisory, right? And I remember I was in a school for the Navy called JTAC school. I was learning how to talk to aircraft and calling airstrikes and stuff. And it meant that I would deploy after the group had already landed in Peru. because very fragmented. I was going to be deploying

with just like seven or eight guys versus a full platoon to a full troop to Afghanistan was like 50 or 60. And I had put no thought, honestly, into the South America tour because I'm like, dude, I was in Afghanistan. I've seen combat. Like, this is going to be stupid.

Like, fucking dumb. You know, I thought of it. It's just a waste of time. Like, it's just, hopefully we'll get through real quick. And then I'll go, you know, maybe I'll try out for Deb Crew or something. and I got in the plane and I flew to Germany and I'm going with just like two other guys. Actually, one of them was actually Jim Flatley.

Love that guy. And actually, actually that was our trip to Afghanistan. I think I flew to South America by myself. I did. Yeah, I'm confusing the two. I flew to South America alone. So I fly to Germany and then I fly to South America. And when I got there, I had been given instructions to like, hey, you know,

you're going to land in this airport that's like, you know, it's predominantly Spanish speaking because Peru is like very non-English. It's like very non-English. And you're going to meet up with your driver. You'll get your stuff. And like, you know, we were staying in this house, we, the seals that were there in Miraflores, Peru, which is fucking beautiful. This is like where you go.

If you're like rich and you want to go on an amazing vacation, you go to Miraflores. And we were staying in this literal like mansion. in a compound. It was in this beautiful neighborhood that was like so expensive, so affluent. And it was actually next to like a slum that was like the murder capital of South America. But, you know, we were there because it's like,

you know, we're not really doing direct operations at all. We're just there to advise, like the government's putting us up in a nice place. We're going to work out of here, commute in, whatever. And so I land in South America. And I don't know how to describe it. It was like I had like in the most cliche way, like a flashback.

I hadn't given much thought to the Afghanistan deployment really at all beyond like the top level like I'm so cool sort of mentality. But I land in South America in Peru and it was like, oh my God, I'm in like another country. That sounds stupid. But like I had discounted this so much in my mind because it wasn't going to be combat. And I'm like in a foreign country. I don't speak a lick of Spanish. Like I blew off any of the Spanish training. I didn't give a fuck about it.

Like I've seen combat. I have a fucking purple heart. I don't give a shit about any of this. And I got in the car, which was such a nightmare trying to navigate this very crowded little airport and everyone's speaking, you know, Spanish and I'm so lost.

And I finally find my car that's going to bring me to the house and he didn't speak any English and it was like, I don't even know where I'm going and we're like driving. And it's like you're driving through at times when we got to like the mirror flora's area

it was beautiful. But a lot of the drive was through some really rough neighborhoods. And one of the things that was immediately striking when I was in Afghanistan is there's nothing quite like driving through an area in Afghanistan that's like war-torn and like rough. Video doesn't do it. Like hearing other people, it's just different.

When you're looking out the window and you're like, this is literally like war. That's where we are. And driving through like the slums of Peru where like truly there's like child hitmen out here. Yeah. I was like, holy fuck. I am like, I am not ready for this. I'm not ready to be here. And, dude, I got there and I didn't really know the guys that were part of the team.

It was sort of a hodgepodge of seals and techs. I think the statute of limitations have passed, so I can be honest about some stuff. They sold Cape Clonsopan, Clonsopan, a benzodiazepine over. the counter there and I discovered that really early on. That's pretty addictive stuff that Benzo. Dude, I became hopelessly addicted to it and I was drinking constantly. I had no, oh yeah, because I began, I began having suicidal tendencies. Not even suicidal tendencies.

Like, I began looking up like how likely is it to die from drinking too much on a Benzo and it's pretty high. You're looking that up. So you know, you know, this is, I'm hurting myself here. So you're aware of that. But you're doing it. I don't even really remember the first month that I was there. I, I'm, dude, I went so overboard.

I, I would, like, just go out at night. And this is, like, not okay what I was doing. I put the team in a lot. I put them in a very hard place. I would go out at night and not tell anyone. High as far. I don't even high. I don't even know how you describe what it's like to be fucked up on Benzos.

you're like wow I'm so lucid I'm so focused but you're fucking not and you're not gonna remember any of this no and I would just go out and wander the streets and I went to this one area where it was like homeless people of like the slums of Peru and I would just like sit there and smoke cigarettes with like and I'd like stay there all night and I like began I began going there on purpose to like ask them about if they had suicidal thoughts I'm like sitting with, they didn't even speak English. I don't even, now that I'm thinking about it, like I'm speaking English. I'm like a rambling, fucked up dude. And it got to the point where my team literally, they're like, dude, what the fuck is wrong with? They took my gun away.

Of course. I was watched 24-7 and coming down off Benzos is fucking horrible. It's also you can like die coming down off Benzos. But my team that was there, I mean, luckily a lot of them been with me in Afghanistan and sort of like, you know, if there was ever some good grace there, I think they understood that it isn't that I'd seen so much shit. It was just like, I was, I was really struggling with, frankly, the role I played in Afghanistan that a lot of the guys that I was there with actually weren't even fully aware of was like that behind closed doors guy that, like the, the not

honorable stuff. Like in some ways you could make the case that like at least out on the open battlefield, field. There's honor in, you know, like you're both sort of having a shot at each other. I believe that. After action, when someone's fucking, they can't do anything and they're in a room with just you and like you can do anything to them. There's no honor in that. There's none. And I, I fucking hated myself for it and I lost my fucking mind. I began having this, this is on the towards the tail end of that first month. I was hallucinating. Like I had the same hallucination like all the time. I'd be laying in my room and it was like so like muggy in Peru.

There's constant moisture. Like everything's wet and it was like hot. We didn't have air conditioning. Like laying on my sweaty ass sheets that I never cleaned. That was so fucking gross. Like just unclean. And I I would fall into this like weird mindset of I would be convinced I was on a corner in Russia. Like on a street corner in Russia.

And it's like all. brown buildings around me and I'd be like standing on the street corner and like I felt like I had orders like military orders to be there and I like had to be there and I would lay on my bed believing I was standing in Russia on a street corner for fucking like hours and hours and hours just like unmoving I would just sit there and then I'd like come out of it and be like what the fuck am I even doing and then I'd like go pop some benzodiazepines are you doing are you working at all or any of this? Are you advising?

I didn't do shit on that deployment. You didn't have a CO? It's like, dude. I was a liability. And I was such a liability that they, I think they recognized that like, this is career ending for sure, if anybody finds out that like you're doing this.

It should be, shouldn't it? I should be out of the military. You're not fucking fit to be here. No. And it got to the point where I, I was open. saying I want to fucking die like I want to be done but to be honest it was almost like my own cop out I don't even know what I'm doing and I didn't even know why I was so upset but it was definitely tethered to

like this belief that like I'm a fucking fraud there's like the people that that back home think I'm like this honorable war hero the guy that I really I wished I was I know I'm not I know I'm not like there are things that that I did not need to do forget blame or not just things that I found myself doing overseas that are just inhuman and did not need to be done, but I knew I could do them with impunity. And living with that, knowing that there's no recourse. Did you finally figure out who you were angry at? You know now. I mean, I was fucking mad at myself. I know that. You're mad at yourself. I mean, it's shame is what it was. It was intense shame. And so when I came back from Peru and actually I did do the whole deployment it was only because my team frankly

kept me there and looked after me and frankly I bet they fucking hated the fuck out of me while I was there but they protected me and I actually it's I remember it was just it was a lot but I came home from that deployment and I didn't really even know how much my wife my family even knew I didn't really even know. Like, I had, at one point, I knew that, like, some of my teammates were, like, reaching out to dude stateside to be like, what did we do with Alan? They were. While you were down there.

Because they didn't want the command to find out because it would be bad for me and my career. But it got, I know it eventually found its way to my wife. And, you know, my in-laws and my parents and it apparently was, like, this huge issue back home because it's like, I have a fragmented family. my parents are divorced and you know they're finding out that like wait a minute so john's taking drugs he's talked about suicide they're losing track of him at times he's basically can't even do his job and they're not telling the command the fuck is that like what are we going to do and it was like this crisis within my family of do we go to south america and like literally take him home no can't really do that

And so oddly enough, Dave and Pete were the guys that were tapped to get in touch with me. And the same guys that sort of helped find the vision to get me in were the same ones that they're like, dude, they like called me all the time while I was out in South America. I remember just like weeping on the phone to them. And I don't even know what we talked about, but they were just like there for me in a way. And they also just, there was no judgment being passed. It was like, this is sort of what happens, you know? And they were like, when you get home, you need to fucking clean your shit up and figure out this what you want to do. And so really, because of everybody around me, I survived literally that deployment.

And I come home and I'm just fucking broken. Like, I'm broken. And it came to a head and I love my kids. And at this point, I had a daughter. and in like the first year I was home, I had this feeling when I was alone with my daughter that I was going to hurt her. And I never did, and I never, ever came close to it.

But I'm telling you that one of the things that I would do overseas is I'd be in closed rooms, like hurting people. And I was trying so hard to, like, not be that person. And I, the worst times, and it's, like, so shameful. And I brought it up so many times to, like, my therapist, And it's actually what this, I would say this story that I'm going to tell you is what prompted my medical retirement. It was, I went to my therapist because I was told by my own team at this time. Because when I came back from that deployment, I was in a training cell.

They were like, dude, you need to go see somebody. We know what happened in Peru. Every fucking does. Like, you need to go see someone. And she asked me, like, how are you doing? And I was sort of like not really telling her stuff. like, oh, you know, downplaying it. And I told her, I was like, I have this thing, though,

where when I'm giving my kids a bath, I'm worried I'm going to, like, drown my kids. And I have to tell my wife to come in and finish the bath because I'm worried I'm going to do that. And I said it to her, like, you know. Yeah, it's a thought that everyone has this thought. And she goes, you literally, you have to find a way to, like, stop that. And if, I mean, she's like, I've had other people that,

similar shoes to you that are had to remove all the knives from their house because they're worried they're going to do something she's like this is this is trauma this is trauma playing out did you tell Amanda what you were thinking yeah and I can say that that was a that was an Amanda knew like I don't know what's going on with my husband like I don't know what happened to him I shared some details with her um more intimate details about sort of Afghanistan and behind closed doors stuff. And the fear of me harming the things that I would literally die for in a heartbeat, I love my kids more than anything.

I've never, ever, ever come close to laying a hand on them at all. But the fact that that thought would enter my mind and I had to like actively mitigate it, I had to like have a man. Like I couldn't do bath time. Dad can't do bath time because dad might drown you. Yeah. Like it was so fucked up. And so I began, as soon as I admitted that to my Navy psych, she's like, I don't think

you're fit to be in this line of work anymore. And she was like also like from a physical standpoint, like you have serious issues for your shoulders. You have serious issues with the shrapnel. Like that alone probably would be enough to start thinking about it. If you wanted to push through it, you could. But she's like, I'm telling you right now, like you're on a path that this doesn't end well for you.

It doesn't end well for your family. and you're probably not even fit to be a seal anymore. And I gotta be honest, I was like, holy shit, you're right. Like, I'm not fucking fit to do this job. And honestly, I was grappling so hard with like, what, why, why did we go to Afghanistan? Why were we doing any, forget the honor or dishonor of what we did?

It's like, I don't know why. What the fuck are we doing over there? I don't know. I was there and I don't know. I don't know. And it's like, but wait. Family who's there. We don't know.

But it's like, we fucking killed people. Yeah. Why? Politics. And then realizing that like I have potentially permanently damaged myself. Not to mention the damage I've done to other people, of course.

I'm saying like, well, that 16-year-old kid that still remembers that day. I bet. I bet. And family of that old man still remember the American with a knife. It's just. And so I, ultimately was medically retired due to like mental instability. I mean it was a there was an

attribution because they give you percentages of like literally this is why you were retired. I want to say it was like 20 or 30% like physical injury to legs 50% like mentally not fit to do this job. And I even if I hadn't been medically retired, I after coming home from that Peru disaster, I like was truly at odds with not only what I had done, but like with just the idea of what I was doing, like even if it did, like politics, you know? And so now it's like there's this part of me that exists but is fully suppressed all the time. And I, I described it to people, not a lot, actually really not a lot at all, but it's like I view in some ways, and maybe this is giving myself too much,

not credit, but leniency. The sacrifice that a lot of people end up making in the military is, of course there are people that pay the ultimate sacrifice that die or who are physically maimed in a really horrible way. But I would imagine that there's also like this thing that's called moral injury,

that's a term that gets thrown around a lot. There's like this, this sacrifice of fucking yourself up mentally in a way that'll never be, fixed. Never fucking ever because you did damage to other people in the process. And that is a burden that is in a way like it doesn't comport with society. You can't like let's think about it. If I said hey guys, I'm really struggling with PTSD because, you know, I combat was scary and like getting shot out was scary. People are like, wow, like I feel bad for you, whatever. I'm really fucked

up because I brutalized people that really they were like sort of harmless and literally probably innocent. You live in God? Huh? You believe in God? I certainly found God in Peru. He's going to be displeased. Yeah.

I, uh, but I think that when I think about the sacrifice of the military, it's, and I don't say it in like a, uh, an honorable way. I mean like the literal sacrifices at the end of it. I think some people, me being one of them, walk away a damaged person who did a lot of damage and it's not the the mechanism by which that happened is not something that works well in society to talk about. It's okay to talk about when your friends got killed. It's okay to talk about like being in combat.

It's not okay to talk about the time that you were going to go murder somebody, but luckily somebody intervened or when you fucked people up behind closed doors, frankly because you could. Like there's really not much more to it or like that you took great pleasure in the And when you rolled into villages and you watched the women and children run for their fucking lives out into the desert and you're going to go kill their husbands and their brothers and their sons, you're going to fucking kill them. That's what you're going to go do. And like, you don't even know why. And you're like, fuck yeah. That's a tough thing to live with.

Not only that you did it, but that you were fucking stoked to go do it. And so now being Mr. Paulin, I think one of the things I try really hard to do is like just. Even if inside there's this horribly fucked up part of me. Like, I try so hard to, like, just be like a good person now. And not like it makes up for anything I did or whatever. But it's like giving people an outlet, you know, weirdly about dark stuff. Giving them a distraction from life feels like, you know, sort of a service that's good for people, take their mind off things that are bad in their lives.

I think that's worth something. You know, the foundation, you know, I care a lot about what we're doing with the Mr. Ball and Foundation, but, like, the reality is, it's like, dude, I will always carry with me a belief that no one really knows what a fucking horrible person I was. There's a theme running through your story that's starting to emerge, and that's one of penance and conscience when we get in the third segment. I'm going to bring that up again with regards to your book. It's brutal, man.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember, dude, when I came back from Afghanistan, I was so fucking proud, so, so proud to, like, be a seal. You know, a lot of veteran creators allow their myth to grow. Yeah. And you keep correcting the record down. Nobody else does that. Why is it so important to keep the record straight? I've found that one of the times I feel most proud of myself now,

is when I'm being like self, not self-deprecating, but like, brutally honest about who I really am. I think that I have pretended to be somebody at times in my life, most notably the seal thing,

not pretended, I took on a persona. Now it's like I get a lot of, I would even call it fulfillment. Maybe it's penance, I don't know. Out of like saying the ugly, truth's about yourself, big or small. You know, like I, one of the stories that I tell that it's, like, really sort of humiliating

and in no way really makes me even look like I got anything good out of the story, but I tell it, I've told it for millions of people have heard it. It's, it's the story of when I'm at the tail end of seal training, and there's this, like, right of passage where you got to sit in a cloud of poisonous gas, CS gas, and you got to just like take it and not run you know and as soon as the gas kicked off we're all standing in this field and formation we're all like the 50 of us we're all crouched together and I'm on the outside of our flank and we're all kneeling in this field and all the instructors have these these pool sticks and at the end of the pool sticks there's the CS canisters that have been lit off

this huge white cloud of poisonous gas which makes you feel like you're on fire when you breathe it in and they're dousing us in CS gas and you got to sit there it's like 30 seconds or minute or whatever it is. It's a long, miserable time. And it's like, don't fucking run. And the instructors have the gas mask on. I began inhaling, this is late in training too. This is like everybody here's going to be a Navy seal. Everybody. And I began inhaling the gas. And it was like, fighter flight kicked in, completely kicked in. And I'm fucking out of there. Wasn't thinking. Nothing. I am up. And I'm sprinting away from the group. No one else did. Zero. grow others. I was tackled by an instructor and they said get the fact get get back with your

fucking class and I was like no fuck no no I not even consciously thinking I'm just doing I'm this is survival coming in right and so they held me to the ground as my class sits there and takes the gas and they don't even know it's happened yet because they're so caught up and being poisoned sure it's distracting and they afterwards they all ran to the ocean and jumped in the ocean and then we all had to run back out on San Clemente Island in Coronado we run back into the classroom

and it's like this tiered seating like a college classroom and everybody's sitting in there and no one really knows what happened in fact no one even is thinking that somebody ran because that doesn't really happen that doesn't happen and everyone's sitting in there

and I know what's happened and I'm sitting in the back and I had jumped in the ocean too so no one knew I did or did didn't do it. And our instructors, they come in finally. They show up after us. We're always sitting there waiting patiently with our notebook and pencil and water bottle ready to go. And they come in and the main instructor who was just, I fucking hated this guy. Not because of what he said or did, but he was just really diabolical. That's his job. That's his job. And he did a good job. He comes in

and he looks up and he goes, where's the pussy? And I know it's me. And I stand. And I stand. stand up and no one really knows what it's about. And he proceeds to go, Alan, I don't want to serve with you. I think you're a fucking coward. He was like, hey, guys, he ran during the CS gas,

I'm telling you right now, you don't want to be in a gunfight with that guy. Like, if he's going to run now, what's he going to do when your life's in the line? He fucking bailed on you. He's like, Alan, sit the fuck down, but he's like, I hope you do not get your trident. I don't want to serve with you.

Now, normally, it's like, you like stupid shit. This was like a stern talking to in front of my whole class. This was on like day five of 30 days straight that you train out at the island to wrap up your training. So you still with these guys another three weeks? I was like ostracized.

Was this a lesson or did he mean it? He meant that. I think he meant that. And I think the way he meant it was either you'll rise to the occasion and you'll overcome this or you won't and you should be gone. I had to wear from that moment. on for the rest of the time we were out at the island you wear camis i had to wear these you're called udt shorts like very short shorts like canvas shorts i had to put them over my pants to signify that i was a

pussy and you know i tell that story in part because it's like i did learn to i can't make people unhear what they heard or unthink what they think i i can only sort of bear this burden i need to just demonstrate that i am i am a good teammate that this is an anomaly and that it It's a flight instinct from poisonous gas guys. It's not the same thing as like my teammates dying. I'm going to bail on them. But the reality is, is I was so, so humiliated. I came back from the island and I didn't bring it up to my wife.

I didn't bring it up. I hit it. And it's like, it was like shame. Of course. Because I really took on this idea that I wasn't good enough, you know. and not trying to like create connections where there aren't. I think from that point on, I was on a mission to prove that I was going to be the number one Navy SEAL.

Like I might not be the best shot or the best at tactics, but I'll take that knife. Maybe part of his lesson was, I know this guy's not going to fucking run now. Very true. There's a connection there. I've heard you say that we don't rise to our expectations. we fall to

the level of our training. You know how that's attributed to? I actually don't, but I love that quote. It's attributed to Archilicus, who is a Greek poet, probably the father of Western storytelling, 7th century BC.

He was a warrior poet who was the first soldier to talk about fear and battle. He's famous for leaving his shield behind and saying, fuck it, this is about survival, I'll get another shield. I'm surprised you didn't look into him

because it's the same story, man. I definitely know the quote I have not looked into him though He's an anti-hero Like you like a lot of the people in your stories Which going into the break reminds me The ancient Greeks You don't use a prompter

You just kind of immerse yourself in the story And you tell it differently each time When you're live and so forth Sure Do you see yourself as This is like the world's second oldest profession Is the bard It's just telling stories like

This is home Yeah, and honestly, like, I can see why it's maintained its relevance for so long because it's, it's, I think one of the most amazing things about being a storyteller, a bard, is when you have an audience that you can watch as they listen to your story. I mean, there's, it's, humans are so predisposed to, to, to like, lean in when there's a story. and if you can master the art or if you can just get good at telling a story that has like those beats that people naturally pick up on just watching somebody be aware

that like I'm hearing a story there's a flow to it, there's an arc, there's going to be some sort of resolution or twist. There's, I did a, we did a live tour in 24 and we did several shows just live and it was just me telling stories to a crowd.

And it was just like the most fucking incredible thing. Nerve-wracking as hell. And there's lots of stress around like ticket sales and stuff. But like when you're in it, I remember I was at the Chicago Theater. And before I'm like in the green room. And it's like, this is where Frank Sinatra was before he went out. And it's like, what the fuck are I doing here? And then I went out on stage and just as the sea of people that are all wearing flannels,

you know? and it was like so cool but I remember like I was a little nervous it's intimidating just a little nervous but the show started and I like just got into telling stories and I remember there was this one moment as I'm looking out at the crowd of like thousands of people and there was not one at least from my perspective maybe there was but I couldn't see a single phone none just eyeballs just like looking at me because it's a story and it's like they're invested in the story and I also knew that like I have something I'm going to give them in this story that's so fucking good and I can't wait to watch the reaction as it like flows across the crowd

it's it's like the most amazing feeling like I it's hard to even put in words what it's like to have like a captive audience whether it's big or small just a captive audience that you're telling a story to is it's unmatched we'll be back in a minute we'll talk more about how jana Alan structures a story. You are famous for ethical storytelling with the true crime, meeting with the families, all that stuff. Yeah. Tell me about a story that you were researching.

You're like, I can't do it. Well, this doesn't, well, this doesn't qualify as what you're saying, but it's sort of us, and it's an important story. I almost didn't do this one. I did, and I'm really glad I did. But I said there's this, ah, it's so fucking horrible. That's what the people want. There was this girl Jesse, Jesse Blodgett.

She was living in now, I think, Illinois. But she was murdered in her bedroom by a friend. And it was a friend that was like known to the family. It was a guy. I believe there was like sexual abuse as well. But he killed her and like strangled her to death. like in in her childhood bed. She's like 18.

And it was their only child. Buck and Joy Blodgett, who are just very sweet people. And the reason the story, the reason I was going to tell it at all is because I found out that it was like the person you least suspected did it. They were like involved. They went to the vigil.

They were like, you know, it was like the most horrible betrayal. I had heard. I just, the, the, the top line of the story was like murder mystery slash like, oh my gosh, that person. Oh, you know what I mean? So it's like, okay, this fits the type of story I would probably tell. And I began watching interviews about, about it. And like some of the stories that you'll hear about in the interviews you see of like the family,

it's always devastating. It isn't like some or not. But there was this segment that I think it was Dateline did with Buck. and Buck he's describing the loss of his daughter and he was clearly extremely close with Jesse like extremely close it's his only kid

and there's this part where he's standing in the doorway of his daughter's room where she was killed and like you're looking at it from the hallway you're looking at Buck and you're seeing her room and his voice is like cracking

as he and he's very strong he's a strong guy. He's like, you know, I was right there. I was like next door and I couldn't save my little girl. She was right in here and I couldn't save her. And I just come in here and I stand right here and I look at the bed where she was murdered and I just, I know that I let her down as a father. I couldn't save her, right? Like, I mean, obviously like no one thinks about that with Bach. And he wasn't even home at the time. Oh, he wasn't even home. Or I should say, I think the timeline is such that it was a little bit unclear when it happened. Theoretically, he might have been just getting up for work at the time.

But listening to a father who's describing his child that he couldn't save. And even though, again, it's not entirely clear if he was literally home at the time it happened, your question about other stories I can't do, any time it reminds me, or I should back it up a little more, when I'm telling stories, I'm invested. I really want to ethically tell the story, but it's sort of disassociated from my personal life. The area that I can't help but have it cross into my personal life is any time it's like children, you know, and I have three.

And I was just thinking about immediately if one of my children were harmed in some way and I felt personally like I didn't protect them. And like seeing my child's bedroom, like this is the safest place they're supposed to have. And so I ended up telling the story. I spoke to Bacca and Joy, you know, it was with full permission, you know,

and we told the story. And I think that the rendition of what I told was very powerful because it was like based on really deep talks and sort of it was just a great episode. But shortly after we told that story, we ended up launching the Mr. Ballin Foundation. And that's our charity that helps victims of violent crime and their families. And one of the first grants we gave was to the Blodget family because they had a charity that Buck had started in Jesse's name called The Love is Greater Than Hate Project, where it's like he's trying to push this idea that love can cancel out hate if it's at scale. very small charity but like huge heart it's like he's transformed extreme grief into like action

and now we fund you know 25,000 dollars every year we give to love is greater than hate I have a great relationship with Bach like he and I talk and we text each other and like he came he was actually at that Chicago show just by happenstance he was there um but I think that uh when it comes to kid stuff that's extremely difficult I mean obviously but like There's another story I did that I told. So I guess I'm sort of being contradictory. That's right. We're still getting the stories.

Yeah, there's this guy. I think this was out in Washington State. This was back in, I want to say the 90s. And I think his name was Mike, and I'm pretty sure he was a pastor. He's a religious guy. He definitely was a pastor. And in his off time, he enjoyed going hiking. And he just, like regular hiking.

We're not talking like alpine crazy hikes. going hiking. And one day he decided he wanted to go on like a really long hike. And this was out like not really off trail but close. Like you know, it's it's a known area that people hike. You know, there are people that go out that way out into the sticks. But it's, it's pretty remote out there. And this is a ball and set up. I feel it. And so he heads out, which is going to be a three day hike. And he has, and not three days. It would be like four or five days. And it was sort of common that he would periodically do these longer hikes. And so he left and his family's like,

they're not worried. They're going to see him in a few days. And so I think his name is Dan. So Dan, he hikes off into the forest and everything's going fine. He hit a journal. This is how we know this story. Oh, okay. And at some point, he decides to really go off trail.

He just was feeling, you know, spring in his step. He's feeling good. And he ends up going like hours. like off like straight line into the wilderness until he reaches this like clearing, which is like a boulder field. Like if you're not familiar with a boulder field, it's exactly what it sounds like just like huge rocks like in all directions, you know.

It's like imagine like a stony beach, but like huge boulders everywhere. But it's like loose, you know, but big rocks. And he begins jumping from rock to rock just to make his way. There was a little river that sort of sat at the back end of this huge boulder field. And so he's hopping, rock to rock and as he's getting near this this river he slips or something happens where his foot goes down into one of the like sort of spaces between one of the many boulders and at the same time he

knocks one of the rocks it rotates in it does not crush his foot but it completely like perfectly locked his foot under what amounted to be like six or seven hundred pound rocks just like suddenly have collapsed around one leg he's not hurt, but there's no way to get your foot out. Oh, no. There's no way. And like, and so at first, you know, he's, he, he was afforded the luxury of he could actually rotate and sit. He was not in like horribly, his, his foot's not being even, the circulation is really not even being cut off. It's just before that. It's like having the perfect handcuff on your leg. And makes it even creepier. And so he's sitting there out in this field and he's got equipment to be out,

in the wild. He's got like a little rain tent and he's got like the ability to capture, you know, water, like evaporated water. And he doesn't panic. And he's a very spiritual guy. He like really believes that, you know, basically everything that happens is sort of happening for a reason. And he begins documenting what's happened because he he realistically is thinking what's going to happen here is I'm going to be stuck in this horrible position. But this is a well, this is a relatively well traveled remote area. I'm out in the open. I'm wearing bright colors. Someone's going to see me. And his journal entries over the coming days sort of suggest he he was optimistic. He was rationing his food from the start. He wasn't in a lot of pain at all.

He was even able to sleep the way he sort of could put his pillow or backpack behind his head. Like he tried whatever he could to get it off. He knew he couldn't. But he's like he's in good spirits, you know. He's starting to get sunburned. You know, he's doing his best to avoid it, but he's getting sunburned and like going to the bathroom's a big pain. Um, but like he's basically okay. And he's sort of looking at this as like, you know what? Ultimately, maybe this is exactly what I needed to be able to go out here and have this experience. Like this is my way of getting closer to God, becoming more spiritual. I needed to like have all distractions removed. It's like me against the world. And so it's like these really poignant entries in his journal that are like

not panicked. It's like finding meaning and suffering is what he's doing. And then around like the fifth day where he's just stuck out there, now he's like the journal entries sort of take a turn and he's very hopeful that quickly people are going to realize he's not made the rendezvous because he's supposed to be back like four or five days in. And so it was the same day that he knew they'd expect him home. And he's like, I really hope that his wife back home, he's got kids too, are going to quickly realize something's wrong. But he doesn't have a way of knowing. And he knows that like, okay, let's say they, let's say they figure it out today that something's off. How long will it take to find me? He's thinking it's going to take a couple days like max. They know where I was going roughly,

but he's also like, I went pretty far off off the beaten trail. But he's like, he's optimistic still. So a couple more days go by. And now, you know, he's able to still drink water. Not a lot, But he has enough that he's not going to die of thirst. He's basically out of food, which is more of like, he's not dying yet, but it's very painful. And the sunburn is like horrible. Like he's got blisters now. Like he's becoming pretty uncomfortable. Now it's like every second is pretty torturous.

And he begins to curse God. He begins to curse, you know, everything he thought he held so sacred. Like now life is really turned in a way that doesn't feel deep. It feels like this, why is this being done to me? And then it's like, like, you know, like 10 days go by, 11 days go by, no one's found him. There was a search party. He didn't know this.

Eventually it reaches the point where his handwriting is clearly degrading. And I want to say it's like 14 or 15 days in at this point. This is deep. He's been out there a while. And this is why I almost didn't tell the story. It's like it's crazy even thinking about it. So this is like this devoted father of like relatively young kids. And his entries go from initially optimistic to a little panicked to like, what the fuck, to like degrading handwriting to then like this just devastating calm where he's writing to his kids.

He knows he's going to die. Like it's the end. And he's telling them all the things that he wishes. He could have told them if he was alive to do it. He's like giving advice to his kids. And he's trying to remind them to like be strong and like that, you know, your dad loves you. and that like this isn't your fault and it's like in his final moments

all he cares about is his kids and his wife too and it's reading those entries and just honestly like I can't really envision myself in that position but in a way it's like it's universal as soon as you like have a kid or not even like when you have someone

you really care about suddenly like being like I'll never see them again and like Dan had days of 100% knowing like I'm on the way out and I will never see my children again. I'll never see my wife again. And so his final entries are devastating. And then as of course fate would have it, he dies and like literally, according to the entries,

it was like hours later he was found. Oh, no. And so like, you know, I told that story. Actually, I actually put it to the side. I wasn't going to tell it at all. And truthfully, it's because I didn't think I could keep it together emotionally telling it. But in some ways, I, and this is, it's earlier we were talking about, like, how it's frustrating it is when things get demonetized. And it might make the impression that it's all about that.

It's more like there is a business to this. There totally is. Like, I do make decisions based on whether or not things can be monetized. Will it get clicks? Of course, that's part of it. That's part of like being relevant this long. But like, that doesn't mean that I've lost sight of like the thing that really I do, which is I tell those types of stories.

And I felt like I owed it to Dan and his family to tell that story. And I did. And there were loads of comments from people that knew Dan. And it was like amazing to see like the memories flowing in about Dan and his wife. And it was like this communal thing of people reminiscing about how wonderful he was. Yeah, I think that that one, anything to do with kids has been a consistent, difficult one. Put us in the room with the family, and you don't have to name any names or give any information, but I'd like to know what they said to you that you walked out of like, all right, I got to make some changes.

What do you mean? Like, I don't know, were you always this focused on the victims? Oh, yeah. So, like, how did it come to be that I do it this way? Because everyone knows you meet with the families. Not always. Not always. Not always.

Not always. But you do from... There's like real intention behind it. I would say like in terms of how many stories that make it to the air that literally I spoke to the family with, I wouldn't say it's a lot, but it's a meaningful amount, you know? And I would also say that it's not uncommon to have a video that goes out that ends up connecting with that family that turns into a relationship with our charity, that turns into a relationship with our charity, that turns into a longstanding relationship

with the entire entity in that family. And we've seen that play out many times where we have people that we support through the charity that it started with their story that we got from public information. We told it as ethically as we could, but it's all there, it's all public. And then that was what bridge the gap

and connected us to them. But in terms of like why I tell a story the way I do, you know, you could make the case that it's because I'm trying to be ethical. And I think that's fair. I definitely am. but I would actually go to be

I told you I'm pretty shamelessly honest about stuff in the very beginning when I was thinking about how do I structure stories to make them really interesting something that I naturally do but I became much more conscious of it is if you really want people to pay attention to a story

I think it's important that you make aspects of the story relatable no matter how unrelatable the story actually is. Like, is it relatable, you know, to the average person of like what it's like to be a victim of a serial killer? Probably not. But is it relatable to be someone who's scared about someone tapping on the glass or like the fear that someone's coming in their house? It is. And so in terms of like purely a storytelling device, if you're telling a story about a serial killer,

if you want the audience to like really have an emotional connection to the story, you're far better off not going the route which most people do at least sort of generally speaking which is like you you take a perspective from like the killer's perspective or a third person perspective where you're focused on like the violence or the gore or like the horrible thing that happened because that is that's what happened right but a more powerful way in terms of just emotional connection to the story that that I have found has been effective put people in the mind of the woman who's running down the hallway because something's behind her how many of us have been scared even just running up our stairs from the basement because we think something's behind us.

It's like a human fear. And so when you're thinking about how to make a story really land and what I mean by that is to be like emotionally resonant with people, make them feel like they're in the story. And you can't do it if you're like, and then fucking Ted Bundy showed up. And this is the horrible thing you did. Then you're learning about something. You're not in it. And so I was telling stories naturally with like I knew people were more invested if they could

be in a story with you. And so I took that approach naturally. And then I also realized that the types of stories I'm telling, the people that don't get a lot of credit, or I should say the people that often are lost in the story are the victims. You know, it's like the blood and gore and like the tragedy is the thing that sort of makes the headlines, if at all. But like the victim themselves, beyond being, oh, they were a wonderful person who died, right? Beyond that, a lot of times they're sort of lost.

And I have found inhabiting the. victim or the sometimes we'll do it the other way around, but it's almost always the victim. It leaves a mark on people. Sometimes, if I've done a good job, it really leaves a mark. And I think from the lens, I think, of the families and the victims and the people left behind, it just feels far more appropriate when they're hearing a story that's clearly designed to, like, elevate the person who the bad thing happened to. But not in a phony way.

It's like you're learning about them. You're learning about what they were doing and potentially what they were thinking about and sort of what happened to them. And when the thing happens to them, they've become relatable enough that the audience is like, fuck, that's bad. Oh my God. I can't even imagine.

Versus like unnamed victim number three of a serial killer. It's like, yeah, that makes for documentary material, but it's far less emotionally impactful. So effectively from a storytelling, purely storytelling perspective, I have found get the audience to feel something and they'll remember the story. you know and oftentimes blood and gore feels like it might you might think it's something it's

emotion but I don't think it is I think it's it's just like it's it's it's like fireworks it's abstract yeah you know and uh I do also I I maybe it's just the shame I've felt from being overseas or something but I I'm so cognizant of the fact that these are real people in the stories not every story is a death or tragedy but it usually is. And I'm very aware of that. And I don't hide from that. That's an invasive technique and effective. And it definitely connects the audience. And it just happens to be ethical, just the same way that you don't really name the killers or idolize the killers. Not even until the end. That's very ethical, but it also is better storytelling because the fear becomes nameless. Now, what happens if the

story's better by naming the killer? Do you make that move? would you stay ethical? Truthfully, the way we every, literally every story we do this. So this is like, there isn't one that we didn't do this. So I can't even think of one where we broke the mold. We will not give something away unless it's practically required. Like if there's a story that literally requires it,

like a good example would be, and it's one of the very few times we did something like this. Like I told a story about 9-11. from the perspective of someone who was in the building when it went down, I interviewed him the whole thing. I couldn't disguise that this was 9-11. You know what I mean? But like we have done stories that are covered extensively. And we're not trying to trick people.

But if you tell the story the way that I've just sort of laid out, a lot of times you don't know what that story is going to be until at the end it's sort of revealed what it is. Like one of my favorite little short stories that is about a very well-known person, it starts with this couple, and this is back in the 1970s, there's this couple that goes on a date out in Utah. It's the first date. They don't know each other really at all. And they go to this like waffle house or something equivalent.

And they're having this like totally lame, no chemistry date. Like it's just not going well. and the guy who's not a guy who would do this normally, he's like realizing at the end of the date, like this is going nowhere, I'm never going to see this girl again. And he was a big hiker. He loved to hike.

And sort of on a whim at the end of this date where they're like, all right, time to go. He's like, hey, do you want to go on a hike with me right now? And she's like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, it's like 8 o'clock at night? Like, what do you mean? to hike right now.

Like what? But she's like intrigued. Sure. Okay. They're doing something new here. And he's like, yeah, there's a canyon that I love to go hiking in. It's like Provo Canyon.

It's right over there. It's like not far from here. There's a little pullout, quick walk. It's beautiful. So we'll go up there, come out and be awesome. She's like, you know what? All right, let's do it. Let's go.

And so suddenly the date has gone from being, you know, sort of lame to being like kind of exciting, you know? And so they leave the Waffle House. They hop in his car and they drive over the parking lot. And they're like giddy. Like, oh, this is so cool. And they get out and they're holding hands now. And they're like, they're walking into the forest.

It's a totally well, it's a trail. Like it's a trail they're on. And there's nobody else out here. And they're walking along. And they would later say this to each other. But at the time they didn't say this. They're walking along. Everything's exciting.

But they get into the tree line and they're sort of, they're leaving the comforts of the streetlights. and they're going off into the forest and as they get deeper and deeper into the forest there's very, very good illumination from the moon so it's not like totally pitch black. As they get deeper and deeper into the woods

like the sense of dread sort of washes over both of them and they didn't articulate it to either. Neither of them said this this is only in retrospect they realize they both had this feeling they're both getting the sense of dread and they began like sort of white knuckling like grabbing each other's

hand a little harder, walking a little faster. The giddiness is a little bit gone. Now they're like walking with a purpose just to like get to the turnaround point and just get out of here. It's a little spooked. But they don't know each other well enough to like really even talk. They like what the fuck are we even doing out here sort of thing? And so they reach this point of the trail that again, it's a it's a trail. It's not you're not off in the, you're like on a trail. But the trees were pretty dense over the over the top. It was like a section that was pretty dark even though the loom is pretty good. And they're like silently now, speedwalking along this trail and then at some point the guy he steps on something that he describes

as feeling soft just soft and he just stops and the girl who's next to him she doesn't step on anything but she sees him stop and she stops instinctively because remember she's on edge they're both on edge and like without any hesitation without saying a word they both just turned around still hand in hand and they fucking speedwalked out of there just walked out of there just walked out of there just were like, just going. Nope. Boom, they get back to the car, they drive home,

as they're driving home, like, man, like, geez, okay, that was fun. Wow, crazy. And so they have this date, they never really talk about what happened out in the trail.

They actually would get married, these two. Of course. They'd get married. That's how I met your mother. Like, this is great. So they get married. Years go by.

Years go by. And one day, they're at home and the wife, is like she has the news on. And I forget who is where, but like one of them is in the kitchen, like making food and the other is like watching TV or it's like sort of mindlessly watching TV.

And at some point, the one in the kitchen, here's the other call. Oh, hey, you got to, you got to come see this. And there's an interview that's playing on TV with this criminal, this death row inmate who's giving this tell all interview.

And it's effectively on the eve, if you will, of their execution. And it's sort of like this no holds barred, sort of like being upfront about what they've done to a degree. And at some point, this interview, which was like, really,

like the reason they had been called over is like, this is like powerful stuff, right? At one point, the interviewer asked this person, like, before you were caught, before you obviously got caught.

Did you ever almost get caught? Like, what was the closest you came to getting, to being captured, before you really were. And the guy's like, yeah, one time in particular. I was out in Provo Canyon

and I just killed a girl and I was dragging her across a trail to cover and this couple comes speeding around the corner and the guy stepped on her and I was getting ready to kill them but for some reason they didn't look down. They didn't say anything. They just turned around and they left.

It was Ted Bundy. Holy shit. The prolific serial killer Ted Bundy and they stepped on one of his victims' bodies. So that's an example of a story that like it sort of works because it's Ted Bundy and you only say it at the end. And I mean like that's a story that like I tried to get

like all the substantiating details. And like to be honest, like I think there's there's a story that exists where this happened like exactly how it happened. I don't know. But this is their rendition of what's happened. And it's a great story. And like, can I put you on the spot?

Yeah, please. I mean, because that's a master class you just did. I saw that class in the art of storytelling for Audible. That class, what I mean? That Ted Bundy. I don't want to give it away because it's so good. This is something you did with Evan like a while ago, a long time ago. Yeah.

Can you do another one that maybe we don't know? Oh, look, another story with a twist. Have you heard the... Or maybe something from the book that no one's ever heard. Those ones that are not... Actually, I have a story that maybe is not... not as great as a twist, but it's a fucking great story. Do it.

Great story. And it's actually one that I think it's on YouTube, but it's one of those like deep cuts that I don't think I did a great job telling it on YouTube. I really don't because I think that it's, here it is. All right. So in, it was March 2nd, 2006, there's this police officer, Sergio Pacheta, is his name. And he was a police officer out in rural Argentina in this, in this, in this, in this part of rural Argentina called La Pampa.

And he, I think he was part of a police department that was pretty small, but one of their main issues in the area was poaching. In particular, there was this intersection called Las Crucese de las Canas. And it was like this known just four-way intersection, sort of in the middle of nowhere, in a place that's sort of the middle of nowhere, where there was these little batches of forests, if you will, little crops of trees where these exotic birds and monkeys and like big cats would live and then and poachers would go out there late at night and they would they would, you know, capture the animals and poach. And so it was not unusual for Sergio to be out there on his

motorcycle, putzing along, you know, this area in La Pampa, Las Crucese de la Cama, looking for poachers. And it was usually pretty easy to find them. Like they honestly were pretty brash about it. They would just do it late at night. There's nobody out there. They just roll up in cars and just like, go set their traps or whatever. And Sergio is not a veteran by any means, but he's been doing this a while. And so on March 2nd, 2006, he's out on the road, on his motorcycle,

and he's driving along, and it's been a sort of nothing night. He hasn't seen any poachers. And as he's nearing for like the 10th time that night, because he's sort of doing a loop where he would always pass by that intersection, De Las Canas. He's coming down the road,

and you got a picture. It's sort of a beautiful, It's very middle of nowhere vibes, but it's actually, so La Pampa's known for its just unbelievable, like, mountain ranges and, like, cowboy culture. It's like the Wild West sort of. It's like this beautiful scenery. And really, as you're driving, other than the little splotches of forest, it's sort of like barren, but sort of beautiful. He's driving along, there's no streetlights, just some moonlight.

And he's looking way down the road at this intersection up ahead. But again, it's like several football fields away. And he looks down for a second, for no reason. He just looks down at his handlebars. And he looks back up and he sees it as a car that sort of suddenly is the brake lights are on. It's way off in the distance. But it's clearly coming to a stop at the intersection that is the sort of troubled area. Given what time it is, given how suddenly they showed up.

He's thinking they must have just pulled out. It's too odd that it would be right now. Like, I don't know. And so he's far enough back that he's like, I'm going to say, slow roll and sort of like creep up and see what they're doing. So he needs them to be doing poaching to get them in trouble. And so he's like putting along still keeping his distance. And he sees the car, the brake lights come off again or the red lights sort of disappear

for a second and it starts to roll forward. And like suddenly the car veers to the right. This is again, it's far enough off. He can clearly see it happening, but he doesn't really know what they're doing. They veer right and they appear to just drive into the, the forest that's right next to this intersection. Forest is a bad description of it. If you look at pictures online,

it's more like a crops of trees. But it's thick enough that you can't see into it, right? So the car is like vanished. And Sergio's like, poachers. I mean, what they're doing is a little aggressive because you're driving your car like into the forest.

You're going to scare away a lot of the animals. But like, okay, these has got to be poachers. And so he's not thinking there's anything strange about this other than I'm about to go catch some poachers. And so he speeds up down the road. Not too bad. He doesn't want to totally give away his position and, like, floor it.

But he goes down and he gets to the intersection. And when he gets to the intersection, he starts looking just past like onto the next segment of road. Because it was very quickly after the intersection, they veered off from where he was. And he starts looking for tire tracks to see where they entered the forest because he can't see the car. The car's gone. And so he's like, he goes past the four way and he pulls his bike over to the side of the road. And he gets off. He doesn't turn his flashlight on or call out

because he's still sort of trying to keep a low profile. You can't hear anything. All he hears is there are these birds that are really unique in the area called like song jars or like night jars. They're called night jars. And they have a really unique sound. And so there's like this humming of like cicadas and night jars.

It's like night ambiance, but there's no people sounds. There's no vehicle sounds. And there's no tracks on the ground. There's no sign that any car was here at all. And surgery is like, okay, like obviously there's an explanation for this. You know, it's dark. I can't really see too well.

So he's like, okay, there's definitely poachers. They're probably just hiding from me now. And so he pulls out his radio and he calls in for backup. He's like, hey, here's where I am. Unsurprisingly, there's got to be a poacher out here. But, you know, backup could be quite a bit of ways and who knows is going to show up. And he's not like that scared of this. He's like, I need to go in there and confront these guys, you know.

So he draws his gun. and he begins walking off the road sort of broadly into this forest where he believes the car has driven off to. So into the forest he goes. So he goes in the forest and like minutes later as far as we can tell, and this is a highly documented story,

like easy to look up, all the information is there, police reports, you name it. This is considered, well, we'll keep going. At the same time he wanders off into this forest, one of his,

I think it's his friends, but it's another cop who works with Sergio. He's at home. He's nowhere near Crusade de Las Canas. He's home. He's about to go to bed. And his cell phone rings. And he sees it's Sergio calling.

And like, you know, it's not his close friend, but it's someone he would pick up the phone for any time of the day. He answers the phone. And it's Sergio. And the guy's like,

hey, what's going on? And all Sergio says, and he says it twice is come to Las Canas, you know what to do. And the guy's like, what?

He's like, come to Las Canas. you know what to do. And then he hung up. And so the friend is like, what, what did what? Like he's trying to put together what he could mean. He knows that area is known for poachers. So like I guess that could be.

Why are you calling me? Like I'm off duty. It's a weird. It's a weird thing. Weird enough that the friend is like, you know what? I feel like I got to call this then. This is weird. And so he calls like headquarters and says, hey, you know, I know Sergio's on patrol.

I think he's on patrol. He just called him this weird thing about Las Canas. Maybe he's got poachers or something, but I'm sort of worried about him. And I just want to make sure that you guys know about this. Maybe you should go check on him. And dispatch is like, actually, we're worried about him because he called us and said, I need backup because there's apparently poachers in the area. The officers have just arrived unseen and they found his bike, but they haven't found him.

And so the three officers that, the backup, they're there. and they find his bike. It's on the side of the road. All they were told is that he had called in poachers and that they needed whatever help or something. And so now they have their flashlights out. They're not trying to be secretive. They're scouring the area near the bike. And there's quite a decent margin from the road.

Like there's a sloping down of like grass and scree. And then there's like the forest where like presumably the poachers could be. And no one's gone in there other than Sergio, but they don't know he's gone in there. And so they're looking and they're like, what in the world is going on here? Like there's nowhere else for him to be, really, beyond this forest. And so they do, so let me back it up.

Make sure I get this detail right. They start scouring the area and then they find on the side of the road there's like this little glint of like metal. It's the only thing they find. There's the bike. There's no tire tracks. There's no Sergio. They find like metal in the side of the road. They go over and they look at it and they just,

discover it is Sergio's gun and it's his radio, but they've been disassembled to their component parts, which like, you know, anyone could do that. It isn't like they've been shattered. They've been disassembled. They're just like sitting on the side of the road. And that's it. Okay, so that's, I remember I want to make sure I had that right. So that's all they find. And so at this point, when they discover the radio combined with the call from the friend and like all of this, they're like something's wrong. Something's wrong with Sergio. We don't know where he is. And And so before they go into the forest, they're like, we need to legitimately treat this like there's like a big emergency here.

Let's call in more reinforcements. Let's really search the area. And so this huge search party that night is set up, like very quickly. And they go into the forest. Again, they don't really know. They definitely don't know he went in the forest. They don't know really anything. All they know is like he called it in.

So they're looking everywhere. They can't find him. They cannot find him. And it starts like pouring rain and they're like staying out there. They don't care. They're looking for their partner. They can't find them. So all night, there's this big effort in this relatively small area.

And other than the crops of trees, there's nowhere else to go. And Sergio's nowhere to be found. There's no poachers. There's no vehicle. There's nothing. Disassembled gun, bike, the various weird radio calls. That's it. The next day, it's now been like 18 hours since Sergio called in.

Hey, any backup, I believe there's poachers. There's this farmer. has no fucking clue what's going on with Sergio or anything. He's totally disconnected. He's 12 miles away. He's at his land. And he walked down to the road, like his long driveway connected to the road. And he looks down the road and he sees there's someone sitting on the side of the road.

And they're sitting on the ground and there's no vehicle nearby. This is rural Argentina. This is not normal. And so the farmer, he walks over and it's been pouring rain all night. So it's like sloppy and wet out. He's like, what are this person doing out here? And he makes his way over to this person. And he discovers it's a police officer who's sitting in the fetal position on the ground.

Dry as a bone. Like whatever the expression is. He's completely dry. And he's sort of like rocking back and forth. And he looks very distraught. Like immediately it's obvious something's wrong. And the farmer asked him like, who are you? What are you doing here?

Like what's going on? And he didn't say anything. And so the farmer was. like something's off, calls the authorities, the police show up, and they're like, oh my God, it's Sergio. And Sergio, when he looked up, like, there was paramedics that showed up and, like, he didn't really react. And then he saw, like, his boss who he was very close with.

And when his boss got there, Sergio got up and rushed over to him and just hugged him and began weeping and just sat there weeping on his shoulder for like several minutes. And everyone's like, what is going on? So Sergio doesn't say anything to anybody. They're asking him, like, what are you doing here? We've been looking for you. Like what happened and he's saying nothing like he's not it's clear he wants to say something but he's saying nothing he's just like shell shocked and so they bring him to the hospital they're like let's just focus on make injury is okay they're assuming that at this point he's been kidnapped by the poachers and he's been dropped off here he's likely been tortured they're definitely anything's wrong with him like this guy needs a medical evaluation so they bring him to the hospital and at first he's like sort of unwilling to be touched but then eventually he sort of he's sort of unwilling to be touched but then eventually he sort of of allows them to do an exam.

And they check him top to bottom and he's physically fine. You know, he's actually, he turned out he was hydrated, he was fed, he was, he was healthy. The only odd thing is he had these not severe but pronounced burns on the underside of his feet that were like in his boot. Like he had burned feet. But other than that, you know, he was fine. And so for a while, like the police and the nurses and the doctors, they're just like, you know, whenever you're ready, like,

tell us, you know, what happened to you because, like, we really can't put this together. It doesn't make any sense. Eventually, he would, he would begin to tell his story. And it is today regarded, at least in Argentinian paranormal lore. This is considered one of the most credible accounts of paranormal activity that exists. And you can look it up for yourself. So Sergio, who would retire specifically because of what he saw this night, He said he was driving down.

He saw the car up ahead, called it in. Poachers, right? And he said, I pulled up. I didn't see him, you know, I didn't see tire tracks, whatever. And so I called in back up and I drew my gun and I walked into the forest. And as soon as I'm in the forest, it was like eerie, like quiet. It's so loud normally with all the insects and the bugs and the nightjar birds and everything. It's like eerie and quiet.

it and it's like very dense in this little pocket of trees. And he's, he's moving forward and he's like, as I'm walking, I'm really aware of the fact that it doesn't make sense that a car would have plowed in here and vanished. Like there'd be signs of it and there's not. But then all of a sudden he looks up ahead and he thinks he sees something that like might represent like metal like a car somewhere in the distance.

So he like wills himself despite feeling sort of uneasy to keep going. And he gets like, you know, well into the crops of trees only to discover that like, oh it's nothing. But as he's standing effectively in the middle of the trees, he said that I heard something behind me and it's dark. And he turns around

and there are these two sets of glowing red eyes that are looking back at him in the forest. And they're like looking at him in such a way that it's clear they're moving towards him. Like he can tell that there are these eyes that are set, they're moving in his direction. And he said he immediately felt this pressure in his chest that it was so powerful that he like he couldn't

speak, he couldn't move and he's just stuck there staring. And he said these two figures emerged, like from the shadows, like from the moonlight, that these gray slender figures that are walking like a person bipedal. And they got right up in front of him. And he said that I just immediately felt like my chest was going to cave in. And it was just so clear that these these figures with red eyes are in control of me. I can't control myself anymore. And sure enough, he said that he felt himself suddenly begin to stiffen up and he's just staring at these eyes and he began bending over backwards like in a grotesque way until he was folded halfway over backwards not like broken back but fully contorted and then he turned and he's like I wasn't doing it and I began walking

in reverse bent over backwards as he's staring at these two figures as they sort of corralled him as he backtracked back onto the road and the whole time he's looking up at these two looming figures with the red eyes that are just not saying anything moving towards him. He goes out to the road and he's still bent over and he said he felt his hands come out of his position he's in and he reached down. He pulls his gun, which I think at that point he had reholstered and he disassembles his gun, drops it to the ground, disassembles his radio, drops it to the ground. And then after that, he was like, suddenly I was standing back up again. I'm staring at these two figures and they're like maybe in between doing something to me.

And I left that a key detail, which I'll fill in now, but it's a okay. He's like, I took a run for it. I just started running back into the forest. Backpedal, backing up very quickly. When they did the search for Sergio, they found a single set of footprints that started somewhere in the tree line. And they followed them and it went out to the back of the crops of trees and then it carried off into this field. There was a crop, a field of crops off in the distance and they found the footsteps. They went out like a mile into this field. But the footsteps, they were like clearly human footsteps, and they began getting further and further spaced apart.

This is during the night of the search when they can't find him. They found these footsteps that were like three feet apart, five feet apart, like so far apart at certain points that they're like, well, we must be missing footprints. Like it looked like he was sprinting and leaping. Right. But then eventually it reaches the edge of this field, this cornfield, or whatever crop it was.

And there's one final right footprint in the ground. and then nothing beyond it. So that's the other detail that they had of where the fuck is Sergio, right? So now he's telling his story. He's like, I'm out there. I've disassembled the gun and the radio. And I made a run for it.

And as soon as I ran, I like jumped practically to get into the forest, to get out of the tree to have them not see me. And as soon as I jumped, I felt like I was going to hit the ground, but I didn't.

It's like I stopped and levitated over the ground. And then I lost control of my body again. I was put back up into an upright position. And as soon as my feet touch the ground, I start running, and then suddenly I'm being thrown into the air and I'm crashing down.

It's like this, he knew the red-eyed beings were chucking him into the air over and over, and he said he made it out to the back of the crops of trees. And he actually got a pretty decent stretch of running. Like he's, okay, they're not going to do it anymore. They're going to stop chucking me in the air

with their mind powers, right? And he said, I began, like, taking a stride and they'd like push me in the air. And that's what started to account for these gaps. It was like they were chucking him an actual five or ten feet with each step he took. And he'd come crashing back down. He's just sprinting along. But at a certain point, when he neared the edge of this cornfield, he was so exhausted and he knew like they have full control over me. Like, I don't know what they're going to do to me, but I can't, I can't combat whatever it is they are and what they're doing. And so he just stopped. He just stopped. And he knows they're behind him because they've been behind him. He can feel their presence. And he's run off now into the back of this cornfield. And he finally just turns around to like confront whatever or whoever this is. And he turns around and there's nothing there. And for a second he's like, where are they?

And then he like feels something behind him. And then he turns back around. And now it's like he's on the edge of the world as if the world disappears beyond where he's standing. It's like a cliff and just a black void where the edge of this field had been. Like the world vanished in front of him and in the void in front of him now. are these two sets of red eyes and he felt himself being pulled into the void and then he has no memory and then he woke up on the side of the road 18 hours later and to this day there's two things about this that are crazy one is they did an extensive because it was actually pretty humiliating

for the police force sure and the story came out because Sergio was like yeah that's what happened like aliens are throwing me around you know like that was the official report and it was like this big deal and it was sort of humiliating for the local cops and the stupid story about like how aliens did this to this guy right they're like obviously you got duped by poachers was sort of the running theme sure and so they ran like as extensive of an investigation as they could really on sergio like trying to catch him and misrepresenting what happened and there's just he stuck to the story they went out there i mean they couldn't find really any details that were either corroborated or or rejected it but they couldn't find a better explanation and then more than that

that that particular set of trees off of the Crusoe de Las Canas intersection, historically, for years, tourists, authorities have pointed out there are strange lights, red lights in particular, that are constantly seen in that forest that are often accompanied with silence inside of the forest. And to this day, that's known as like a hotbed of paranormal activity and people still report seeing strange lights, red lights in those trees. And if you look at the image of that little crops of trees, the fact that it's like this one, like sort of little crops of trees in the middle of fucking nowhere and the idea that like some crazy shit's happening in there, it's like terrifying.

Yeah. So it's a good story. It is a good story. Do you believe Sergio? I believe that Sergio is telling the truth of whatever he thinks experienced. So that, that's the thing. It's like I am, I would say I'm far closer to like a full send believer than I am a skeptic. And it's really easy to say as much because it's like, okay, let me.

get this straight. So we're on planet Earth that's in this ungodly big universe and we're it. There's nothing else. We know all the stuff. Like give me a break. We don't. Yeah. Like so like just logically that's impossible to me. The idea that there isn't stuff beyond our comprehension. There aren't entities beyond our powers and our under like that to me that's crazy and would be devastatingly depressing if that were true. And so I'd rather believe there's more out there. but I think that with Sergio if you just like look up his account it's a guy who's grappling with like

I don't know what happened this is the best this is my limited human understanding of what happened to me and I don't know what happened to me I mean the way you tell it is so good it's a master class in withholding and definitely definitely good for watch time

so yeah when I tell an urban legend or a mystery the first two acts I tell the story as it's true and then my third act is break it down. Yeah. What did I find out? And I can see on my charts, people just draw, when I say, what is it true? People just drop off. They're like, I'm out.

They don't want to hear it. And I hear it in the comments, you ruin the story. You know, you should do it Mr. Paulin does. You know, we're just here for the fun. Yeah. Am I making a mistake? Depends because like there's there's two ways to look at it. Like if you are looking at it from the perspective of your job is ultimately, if, if you

believe your job is to be entertaining, probably shouldn't do that. Because what you've done is the first two acts, you're allowing them to suspend their disbelief and they want that. And actually, I have a question for you that's going to follow this. Wait, this is in your show. I wanted to ask you this. They are suspending their disbelief or they're just, or they choose to believe, whatever it is.

But it's like they want that. And so even if they fully wholeheartedly agree. with any of the dissenting opinions or whatever in the third act. Like they don't want that because it hurts like the feeling they get about it. Right. And so my question, and this is a broad question, it's like there are like there are millions and millions of people that tune into you and tune into me and other people that tell stories like this that are smart, logical, rational people.

Why are they drawn to things like this? And it's it's not a gotcha. think about it. I would venture, my answer would be people like to be scared in a safe environment and the unknown is scary. And it's cool to think that there's something else out there and it's like safe and controlled. But there might even be something more to it.

Like it's maybe the thrill of like, I don't know, like the idea that there are things out there that are scary or stronger, bigger. Like I don't know. I think that because I don't think paranormal is often tied to good stuff. It's tied to like scary stuff. It's tied to like dark. Well, you're the philosopher. What, what, what, not the mechanics of the roller coaster why, but what's the psychology?

Why do we need? Because we need it. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I always, that something that was profound that I learned that is so simple. And maybe that's the most, the most profound things are often simple. They are. We only understand, this is what someone told me.

We only understand things in terms of like relatives. For example, like, I really. only actually know what hot is because I've experienced cold and vice versa. I only really know what like tall is because I've seen short. You get the idea. Everything is like in contrast. Somebody once was in one of my philosophy classes was talking about this idea that like we don't even realize how limiting that really is.

Like you know, there are what. It is entirely possible given the way that humans only understand things based on like clear contrasts that there could be let's be cliche about it aliens amongst us that you wouldn't actually be able to recognize as anything because they don't contrast with what you know and it's like your brain wouldn't necessarily be able to interpret them because there isn't the natural contrast for it like we as humans are so like literally known to be egocentric sure everything we do is sort of like self-interested to some degree and like i've neal degross tyson the astrophysicist he he gives this amazing thought experiment that sort of it touches on this element of humanity that is

often overlooked, which is like, okay. So let's talk about like the likelihood of their being life outside of Earth, right? And he's like, okay, so on Earth right now, you know, humans have DNA, you know, and he's much more poignant and more accurate what he says, but I'll give the spirit of it. He's sort of like there's a hundred pieces of DNA, let's say, that make up a human DNA strand. And like that, that, those hundred pieces, and that's not the right number, but those hundred pieces, that's what makes us human. You got to have all a hundred. Boom, that's, that's, that's a human. He's like, what's our, what's our closest and just purely in terms of DNA? And he's like, it's probably the chimpanzee. And they have like, and he actually

had the numbers. It was like 97. They got 97. They don't got 100. They got 97, though. They're really close. And like, we can see that. We, we know that there's, there's closeness there. They're like similar to us in the way they move. There's like a similar like family bond there. They even kind of look like us. And he goes, what do we do with chimpanzees? What do humans do with chimpanzees? Science experiments, zoos.

He's like, when was the last time you're like, you know what I really want? I want to go talk to a chimpanzee. I want to go learn about chimpanzee. I mean, maybe you do that through a documentary. But it's like we mistreat them because they're not human, right? Right. And those are the those are the high ones. He goes, what about, what about like an ant or like a worm?

Forget like interactions with them. Their DNA is like, you know, 90 versus R hundred. He's like, when was the last time you're walking down the street and you're like, oh, there's an earthworm? Let me try to chat with this earthworm. No, you might step on the earthworm and not even know. He's like, when we as humans think about what could be in terms of life outside of planet earth, right?

He's like we automatically sort of act like that they'd be like us, you know? They'd be just like us. I mean, something similar, right? I mean, maybe that could totally be true, right? But what if we're the fucking worm? Yeah. What if literally they don't give a shit about us that they don't need, it wouldn't even register? That makes more sense to me.

You know? And it's like, oh, wow. We sort of have come at this like, well, if there's any life out there, it will be nearly identical, probably worse. You know, because we're pretty good. and like we'll be able to talk they might speak like some form of Spanish or something but I'm being obtuse about it but it's like there is an inherent

human like bias towards we'd know what they are we could sort of see what they are and we'd get it what if what if you can't what if you lack the capacity because you're so low on the totem pole to even see them for what they are

and that they don't even register what if you're lower than a worm so it's just it's an interesting way to look at the world it's depressing in a way it is I had to Daniel Whiteson here, who was a physicist at CERN. Oh, man.

Jesus. Yeah. It's like heavy prep week. So we were talking about, you know, what would aliens look like? It's kind of a specialty. He said, what if the aliens get here and they don't even do math anymore? I'm like, what? It's like, maybe they don't even have math.

Maybe they're never discovered. Maybe they don't need it. Yeah. It's because we look at everything through this lens. But the odds are probably not. It's probably nothing like us. I am fascinated with like the what is it the pale blue dot the Carl Sagan it's like I find myself and this is probably what drew me to philosophy in the first place I have always been so deeply fascinated by it's so like the unknown is sort of the catch all but it's like I think about this a lot right now forget like the limitations of like time and space time. and our ability, just think about this purely simplistically,

independent of whether or not will ever be able to verify that there is or is not other metropolises on alien planets off in the universe somewhere. It doesn't matter if you can verify it or not. It doesn't matter if it truly exists or not. But let's assume for a second that it does. In some capacity, maybe we wouldn't be able to see it for ourselves, but let's pretend it exists somehow some way out there, right? right this second, again, putting aside the limitations of time and all that, right now,

like whatever's out there is living their lives in their, in their spaces, doing their things. There's a, there's a word that I wish I had right now that I actually experienced a lot when I was in Peru. I would like be wandering the streets of Peru. This is when I was actually less fucked up from substance that I was more sober, like having these sober walks. And I would look in the window at night because the windows for like the family rooms were usually right at the front of the house and you could like see people having dinner. And I would look in these homes. I'm sort of creepy of me. But you'd see these people that are like laughing and like having their, or they're arguing or whatever it is. And like it's so foreign, but it's right there. And there's

a word for the sudden realization that other people have just as full lives as you do that you don't ever see or have access to. Like they're everywhere. Like just because you don't know Martha who lives in Kansas right now. It doesn't, doesn't change that she has a full life that matters as much to her as your life matters to you. And so I think about that and apply it to the distant, like, alien species. And it's like, that is so intense to think that there could be other species, other, like aliens that are just simply living in whatever capacity they do right now. And it's like both infuriating and just infinitely intriguing that we probably won't ever know. Us, our crew.

We won't ever know. No. At least not the way we believe we will know. And so I find that to be really interesting. I am so drawn to the, like there's the other thought experiment that sort of touches on this, which is like, and this is a famous one. I forget the name of it. It's something like somebody's arrow.

And it's like, okay, pretend, this is to get you to think about the scope and size of the universe. imagine you have this arrow and you fire it and it'll travel you know infinitely in any direction. I'm sure you're familiar in it. Like nothing can stop it. It'll go, it'll go through the earth. It'll go through black holes. Nothing can stop it. So you shoot this arrow and basically, you know, the professor's like, you got to, you got to just be simple about it.

You got to choose one or the other. Does the arrow, you know, whatever direction you fire it, you know, does it at some point reach a wall where there's just nothing beyond it? because that's the edge of existence, right? Because that would be the one thing that would stop it. Like nothingness, right? Does it reach an end point where there's literally nothing? Or does it go on forever? Which would, you know, that's the infinite universe theory.

And it's like sort of a simple thing to think about it at first. And, you know, I'm like, okay, it probably goes on infinitely, I guess, you know. But then it's like, I don't know. And he's like, okay, well, how many people think that it hits some sort of, you know, wall, so to speak? It doesn't matter what direction. It could be billions of light years away, but it hits. some wall, right? He's like, okay, there's a problem with that because as humans, going back to the whole contrast and understanding things, he goes, if it hits this wall, so to speak,

you're implying that there's nothingness beyond it because it's not really a wall. It's like it's the end of existence. Well, imagine that there's literally a wall there, whether you see it or not. As a human, based on our lived experience, we have to naturally ask the question, what is on the other side of the wall? And you're like, okay, well, don't worry. It's, it's, it's not. nothingness, problem solved. Well, then the question, define nothingness. What is it? Well, it's a void.

Nope, that's something. Can't be that. Okay, it's blackness. It can't be that. It's clear. Any example we give doesn't work because we only understand things that exist. We don't understand that the only, the only thing we know that didn't exist that we sort of know is our pre-existence.

I know I didn't exist before I existed, but I don't have any feelings with it. No. But it's the closest. thing to nothingness that I have. And so we can't conceptualize of there not being something on the other side of that. Well, we can't do it. As humans, we can't do it. And so the natural next step is to say, okay, well, you know, if I can't do that, then it must mean that it's the, the alternate, which is the arrow just continues. The universe is infinite. But then that implies that in any, in order for the universe to be infinite, it means everything in the universe has to be duplicated

and iterated upon an infinite number of times, which is like string theory, I think. And it's like, that means there's an infinite number of you and I having this conversation, but like, you know, this cord is pink. Right. And that's a different earth. Everything else is the same. And it's like it opens up all these lines of like, wait a minute, like we don't really understand stuff. We don't really get what's out there at all.

It's like so rudimentary, but it feels like we should know and we don't. I love that and it frustrates me and I'm constantly drawn to it. I love that too. And you know, ask a physicist or ask someone who's religious what happened before the Big Bang and you get weird answers, man. Like, it just happened in what? Well, it doesn't work like that. When I hear your stories, I see like Robert Stack in a trench coat. I see Art Bell in the middle of the night.

Paul Harvey. Yeah, legends. Always saved to the other side of the break for the rest of the story. Who are your artistic inspirations? And don't say Evan Allen. My sister, Evan Allen. You know what's funny is I always want to reference him and I always forget his name and that suggests that I don't know him that he's a

dateline host gray-haired guy and I'm I can't believe I always I should always have his name on hand but he anytime I I find myself watching datelines with this I need to look him up these comments are exploding right now I know anyways there's a dateline host like real wrinkled face gray hair guy he's just a brilliant storyteller like truly Just brilliant. Like you listen to him and you're like, oh my, anything you talk about,

I'm drawn in. I obviously forget his name. That's great. What's so great about him? There is a calming feature to his voice. Yeah, you do that. I find that when I listen to him, not that other people have grading voices.

I think a lot of people have, voices are fine for storytelling, but there's something about his that's, it doesn't even lull you into like a stupor. It's more like, I just like listening to him. And he's just really, really good at like understanding the beats. And like you really, like he, unlike the other hosts who are great,

Dayline obviously is great host. He really leans in when it's time to deliver a beat. And I think that one of the things that I tell people, if I'm talking to a pure like regular person, it's like, how do you tell a good story? Right. I probably wouldn't get into like the technicalities. what POV I use or like how to structure it.

It would be like a really good story oftentimes comes down to like how committed the storyteller is to delivering that story. That's right. You know, it's like you can have sort of bad material, but if you're really committed to the bit and you deliver it with the pizzazz and charisma, you can, you can, you can really command an audience. And I find that anonymous gray haired amazing host from C from Dateline who now, it's killing me, I don't know his name, was so. good at, is so good at it. But I mean, this is one that is, you know, I was around incredible speakers, namely my father. He, you know, we don't have the greatest relationship. I'll be candid.

But he growing up was like a profoundly talented public speaker. Not that he did a lot of it, but, you know, at Thanksgiving, who's going to say grace, my dad or like if there's a eulogy and he was the guy that was tapped to do it or like so jealous of that gift he's an incredible speaker and i find myself not even intentionally but i i know i sound like my dad like the way he spoke there was a he would look at you and like say things with like so much confidence that what he is saying is he's like imparting it on you and you better pay attention but like it worked just there's a way he tells stories the way he speaks that's just really, really powerful.

And as a kid, I was, like, so impressed by it. That it isn't that when I began telling stories that I, like, looked up to him. It's that I naturally modeled the way I spoke around somebody that I thought was really good at it. So I would say my father is someone that I sort of naturally have probably sort of mimicked in a way. My dad was a great storyteller.

Yeah, that's cool. And it's just like you're around it. And then I can't believe. We have to look. I'm sure someone will put in the comments. Italy in the comments. He's great, though. When you were telling the story about Sergio,

there was that one beat where you're like, you had to backtrack. So when you're doing live, I'm assuming you're telling the same stores on a tour, do you watch the audience as to like, I'm a former stand-up? So you're doing material and you're like, all right, that didn't play.

Next story, you'd make adjustments. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, in fact, I had done a single live event in Texas in in 2023 to like test the waters. It was great. But like it actually doesn't give you a whole lot of data. It's like one time.

But what I found is when we did the tour in 24, we did 15 stops across the East Coast, but we sort of hit a range of locations. There was like D.C., Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philly, New York. But we also were like in North Carolina. And I say that because North Carolina, you know, I lived in Virginia Beach, right on the border of North Carolina.

they're like such nice people and it was towards the end of the tour we went to North Carolina and I had really dialed in my material I was very confident in just like what I was doing each night and I remember being like this is not going well the two nights in North Carolina

I'm glad you're telling this because I was going to ask you to tell me when it didn't go well dude I was up there and there's a couple of like beats in a few of the stories I had four stories that I would I knew the points that were going to have a big impact. And it was just like a subdued audience. Like just very subdued. And it was really hard.

Oh, when that first one doesn't hit, you're like, oh, oh, man, was it hard? It was so hard. And I came to realize on the second night,

we were in North Carolina, and I don't even know how I came to this, but it suddenly made sense. The audience was being polite. Oh, no. The audience was being. being like unbelievable because that that group of people that I thought hate it, not hate any of it, weren't interested were like there's so many people after the show that stuck

around to talk with me like more than anywhere else. How does that work? You know what I mean? And conversely, I had when we were in Washington, D.C., there was a really rowdy crowd and not in a good way. Not like in a we like, no, like not in like a we love these stories way. Like it was like drunken BS, which is sort of funny because it's like, This is so not the place for it. I'm like telling these intense, like, stories require focus. You got the campfire going. And the hard part was if I'm taken out of the story by someone, it takes everyone out of the story.

And I had to, on two different occasions, not kick anybody out because I didn't do, I allowed security to do that. But I actually had to specifically tell people in the theater to stop what they're doing. really for the benefit of the whole crew. And it's really hard to get back into flow when you do that because you sort of feel like, did I overreact? I'm sort of up here by myself. You know, they paid to be here. That was hard.

But then conversely, like there have been audiences that were like Chicago was one that was really good. And that was actually the most intimidating of all of them because it was the biggest theater of the whole one. There was like, I think, 2,900 people there. Wow. I mean, it's a sellout? No.

Sellout would have been 31. 100. Still. The way they did it is like so the entire lower level was sold out. And then the upper level, it was like, to be honest, it pretty much looks sold out. It wasn't. But it was like, you wouldn't look at it and say, no, it's here. You'd be like, wow, this is full.

Maybe the lighting or something. But it, from my perspective, when I was out there, it was like, holy shit. There's a lot of people in here. You know, the other venues we were doing were sort of a little bit more narrow and like maybe 1,300 people, 1,500 people, which is a lot. but Chicago theater is like this huge wide theater and the ground floor is like 2,000 people alone and it's just like a sea of people in the lighting as such there's not a good way to like black out the crowd and so you're really kind of seeing the whole crowd the whole time

but the crowd was so good like they were like so into it and I it's funny I went on stage for Chicago and I I had been told before I went on stage like by the people that work there. They're like, hey, you know, you're welcome to have a drink out there, like water or whatever. But just keep in mind, you know, this is a really old stage. If you're really carefully, you don't spill anything. It's very hard to clean this. I'm like, no problem. And so I bring my mug of scalding hot tea with honey in it out there. And I'm like nervously walking on stage. And I immediately kicked over my mug of tea. And it spills all over the stage. And I'm looking over at the side and everyone's like, God damn it. And like they can't come out and clean.

It's just started. That's how you always started the show. It's just sticky. And so I like knelt down and I sort of made a joke out of it. And I began sopping it up because I had a sleeping bag that was on a set prop. And I just, I began the show like as if I wasn't really doing this. I was like cleaning tea. So guys.

Like I'm here tonight. And then people thought it was funny. And they were like laughing at it. And so it like softened the crowd a little bit. And it was a great show. But man, yeah. I would say that in terms of the, I've done, I guess a total of 16. live shows where like, okay, there's a legitimate audience that I'm telling a story to. And I would say

that the set list was basically the same, but the way it was delivered was 100% dictated on how's the crowd reacting? How good of a job did I just do on that story? And like, if I did a crappy job, I really got to change the way I do this one and really ramp it up and nail the beats. But like, that's sort of what makes storytelling fun is like you really, you can alter the way it comes off just depending on how you deliver the story. So it's like how you deliver it is key. and so being the advice I give people if you want to be a really great storyteller is like commit to the story

even if the story sucks if you're committed to it that's what they'll remember when you tell it I'm going to close out with your book before we do that are you going to fly in the flannel fly in the flannel are like when you leave here

are you going to change into civilian clothes I'll change in a civilian clothes so tell me the first time you're recognized oh man well the funny the thing is is if I'm not in uniform I am totally unrecognizable, you know. But in uniform.

In uniform, it happens. So what about the first time ever? Ironically. Mine was at the urinal at a restaurant. Oh, really? I was recognized behind me while in a very vulnerable state by the toilet attention. Nice. That's pretty good.

White pilots and I'm like, I need a minute. Thanks, dude. Nice. Yeah, let's take a picture. He wanted one. I was in Doyles Town, Pennsylvania, where I was living at the time. And I was, this is like TikTok days. This is like the height.

of my TikTok early days. And people were not really sort of like going out, but I was like in an outdoor seating area, like a mask on the whole thing. Oh, yeah, COVID, right. Yeah, COVID. And I, uh, we were at this like little restaurant in downtown Doylestown. And not an ounce of me or my radar in no way am I thinking people are going to know who I am. Like it's never has crossed my mind.

And I'm sitting at the edge of like the seating area that's outside up against the fence. There's a sidewalk that's pretty well trafficked. I'm just sitting there talking to my wife, my kids are there. And some dude stopped and he's looking at me. And I'm like, what is this guy doing? You're really in my space here. This is like uncomfortable. And he's like, Mr. Paulin?

And at first I was like, what? I was like, oh my God. I was like, you follow my account? And he's like, dude. He's like, hell it out. Like, whoa. Yeah, that was the first time. But it was like, oh, that's right.

Like there are real people attached to these numbers of views and all that stuff. Now it's like. I don't think it happens a ton, but when I'm like in uniform, I would say it's, it's relatively common, but not like not a lot. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's, it's like Mr. Ballin, you know, like I was in the airport waiting at the casino. Yeah, the airport, the hotel, hotel. And I'm waiting to get picked up to come over here and someone walked in. I had my head down in, in Brigalia, you know, and someone was like, dude, that looks like Mr. Ballin. And I heard it.

And I turned around and looked at him and he's like, wait a minute. And I was like, yeah. He said, oh, we're huge fans, but it's rare. It does happen, though. That's fun. What makes your channel so good is the way you tell the story, and it's theater of the mind, but you do graphic novels. By the way, shout out to Vendetti and Moody for amazing work.

Rob Vendetti, Andre Amuti, awesome team, and Evan Allen, my sister, chief creative at Ballin, and huge influence on these books. So what does having a drawing of the story ruin, and what does it unlock? Hmm. Yeah. Well, so the reason we went with, so what does it unlock, I think the reason we went with graphic novel versus like trying to do some, you know, just sort of text only book is, you know, I started as a visual thing. Like it was TikTok and then it was YouTube. And even though it's always been straight to camera, green screen and like some pictures, it's not like a huge production. It's always been you're sort of looking at someone who's telling you a story. And then you're also being given glimpses of the story through images. It's simple, but it's visual. And as much as it's theater of the mind, and it definitely is, it's just, there's always been a visual component to it. And when we were thinking about how can we make a book feel like Mr. Ballin, we came up with graphic novel. But at first, when we sort of tested it out a little bit, we like put out some comics, like little clips of it, like in our Discord and Reddit.

People weren't like, this is bad. They really, it's great. Like, oh, it's great. It's all right. But then I was like, you know what? One of the things that we can do with a graphic novel that's visual as well, that would make it even more Mr. Baleney is they're used to me in my flannel in backwards hat, like literally in their purview, in their view telling the story. And we were like, why don't we add a little avatar of Mr. Balin's face in flannel with the backwards hat in the book? Just like periodically remind them that like your narrator is here.

Like the text is meant to be my voice, but like the little bubble with different caricature animations, it's designed to like remind them that like this is the visual representation of like where it all began. And I think it translates well. I think people get the vibe. Yes. Much more positive remarks as soon as we added a little avatar. New York Times best soloist is a,

yeah, no, very successful. But in terms of what it's what you lose, and I think that comes to the thing I was just saying, which is like there's, there's power in the storyteller themselves. You are the storyteller if you're reading a book. You're internally narrating it.

And I hope I come through in your internal narration, but you lose like the person controlling the story, which is the bard, the person telling the story. So I think you do lose that, even if there's a little avatar in there. The new book is The Terror Within. The marketing copy is,

what are you capable of? So we heard a lot of dark side to Mr. Ballant today. So what are you capable of when no one's looking? Yeah, well, I mean, that's the, that's the primer. If there's no ramifications, what are you, what, what are you capable of? Hey, well, you know, I've sort of seen it in my own life. But I think that like this book, it, it, it sort of begins to examine stories about people that demonstrate they're capable of a whole lot of stuff.

It's not so good. And I, there's, there's some other statistic that is not included in this book, but it's, it's definitely one I've read that's stuck with me. It's like there are some ungodly. of uncought serial killers that are just walking amongst, like a large number of them. And they're just, they're your barber, they're your grocer, they're your Dordash guy, you know, whatever. And that's horrifying, but like, of course that's how it works, you know? And it's like, so this question of like the terror within or this premise is like, it's not just a thought. Like,

there really are people out there right now that you might think you know, but actually you don't. There's something inside of them that's pretty dark. Is there anything you wanted to touch on before we say goodbye? No. Other than I really appreciate the conversation, and it was cool to get into some stuff that I've never talked about, in particular, like the military stuff that was heavy. But I felt like you were a good person to share that with. So thank you. Thanks, John.

I thank you at the beginning of the show for helping my channel. And tonight you have reinvigorated me for this medium, honestly. Hell yeah. That's awesome, dude. Awesome. Mr. Baldwin. Thank you, man. That was Mr. Ballin, John Allen.

John's one of the nicest guys I've ever met in this business, and instantly became one of my favorite people. Now, there's not much to break down here, but a couple of things. The Argentine cop story is real, so let's start there. His name was Corporal Luis Sergio Puchetta, and the case files Adela Pampa from March 2006 read almost exactly the way John tells it. The disassembled gun on the roadside is in there. He turned up 18 hours later, bone dry, after a night of rain.

People have spent 20 years trying to break that story, got nowhere. It's a great case. Now Ephraim, the buddy who left the seal teams to fight ISIS? That's real. And the rescues on video. His charity posts it on their own site. One detail drifted. The footage shows the team leader carrying the girl while Ephraim laid down covering fire, but he took a bullet while doing it. The man is exactly who John says he is, and I am going to support that charity. The Ted Bundy story? Well, John flagged himself before I could. There's no interview where Bundy says any of that. The story lives in the University of Folklore Archive filled with Campfire Legend. It's a campfire story about a campfire killer, because of course it is.

The military stories. The flattering version of John's record is out there, but he spent an hour of our conversation replacing it with an uglier one, on camera. That took bravery. John's book is The Terror Within, out September 29th. Four of the stories in it have never been told anywhere else. And everything I mentioned is linked below. I covered those nine dead Russian hikers that started John's second life.

It's the Diath-Pass episode. and I break down how I think it happened. It's pretty interesting. And if you like the Pichetta case, my Pascu Gula episode is another abduction story that the police believed. Until next time, be safe. Be kind.

Another you are appreciated. Scenario 51, a secret code inside the Bible said I would. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music. So I'm singing the like I should. And it never ends No, it never ends That guy got stuck inside Inside male's hole

With M. K. Altru Are being only two of With the shadow people The name was cold Sidings and the soul The secret city under missions, planets are boat And with the dark watcher