Navy Seal “MrBallen” Reveals Near Death Experience, Rescue Missions, & Millionaire Mindset

in the flash I saw this grenade I'd see it and it would disappear in the darkness and then it hit my shoulder and I remember like distinctly thinking please let the grenade detonate below my head it it detonated and it just felt like someone took a big handful of rocks and just like threw it at at my the back of my legs and my my back Navy SEAL training offers you this great chance to kind of like reset who you are because whoever you were before you became a seal gets replaced with the person who becomes a seal thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour you got me through several plane trips on the way here to Austin yeah I've been downloading your videos and just listening to them all the way through they're incredible I mean your ability to storytellers that you pick are just like it it it screws with my mind a little bit it puts me in a trans like State when I'm watching your videos time just goes by like this and I'm not just exaggerating like you are The Channel that I binge told my mom about she binges it tell my brother about he binges it it's like you can't watch three and not want to watch 10 more it's crazy well thank you it's so funny like there's lots of people ever since I started making content that will say you know I I binge your content I share it with friends they binge it and there's nothing that I'm doing that is designed to do that it's just like the the natural way that I comprehend stories and tell them yeah like the way I told stories in the first video is very similar to how I tell stories now and how I'm talking to you right now it is literally how I speak but it's some crazy skill now this is a a bit of a tangent but in conversation with people throughout your entire life were people always just completely like enthralled in it were they just like could you see like a trans trans like State when you're just talking to them must have been good with this for a long time I would say that I I've known that my superpower of sorts is my ability to tell a story I've known that for a while um namely because I I used to I used to run I I was a co-founder of a charity that helped veterans get jobs jobs I'm sure we'll dive into all sorts of stuff but the short version is I periodically would need to give you know Little Talks at dinner to raise money and and just like little public speaking engagements and I was really nervous about doing them but I discovered if I put whatever I needed to say into story format suddenly it was like my brain was just it relaxed and I could very easily take the stage and talk if I was telling a story and so from the time I was like I don't know mid 20s I knew that like if I was ever going to do any public speaking just turn it into a story and you'll be fine uh and then just generally speaking it's just the one thing I knew is that I can I can retain huge amounts of information if I can put the information into a story in my head yeah so and and for background my my father is an incredible speaker he's a pullit surprise winning journalist my my sister is as well bunch of writers and speakers and very talented people in my family so I'm sure they kind of it rubbed off on me speaking and storytelling what was that like for you growing up did they set really high expectations for you yeah so I I grew up in uh just south of Boston Massachusetts in a town called quiny not to be confused with Quincy as it looks if you're from the area it's quiny Quin Qi NC y Quin quiny so yeah my my family were they're they're very educated very smart people like very academically minded and so growing up the you know success was doing well in school and going to a good college and I just like didn't want to do that cuz I felt like I I didn't want do what my family was doing like my my rebellion was I'm going to do I'm going to do something else I'm not going to be like an academic but my rebellion was like just being a bad student and like not why did you want to rebel in the first place I don't even know I to be honest like from the time I was young I just I I I think I think I have like a problem with authority if I'm being C does this guy so does guy yes you do don't act like you always have a problem with authority I think it's a good tra it's taken you very far I think it's something to be proud of I I for me yeah I think that I I didn't like the idea of Conformity and like you know in a way like my my parents and my fames kind of like pushed to be a good student and to succeed in Academia like I didn't like the idea that I was kind of being pushed to do that even though it's a perfectly sensible and very respectable path and so I just naturally was like I don't want to do that and so I my rebellion was being a bad student so it didn't get me much did part of you think like I should listen to my parents or was just like ah you know I know what's best for me like dude I was I was so dumb like just I I made so many bad decisions all the way through like the time till I was like 19 I like from from like the ages of like 16 to 19 I just like blew up my high school career just like how so like what would you do well getting in trouble you know like like out on the streets with my buddies like stupid stuff and like you know anything serious or just nothing on my I do know you got into a little bit of a scuffle right a little bit of a scuffle yeah oh my God yeah so like my my your first fight H so my the my big first fight so I uh when I was a sophomore in high school U well actually you get the context is key so in quiny uh street fighting is is a big deal it's kind of like a right of passage uh in quinsey it's not like no one's beating each other up to the point where you're like badly hurt it's it's truly like scheduled like bar knuckle boxing fights that that end with people getting up and like shaking the hand of their opponent type of thing um and so I my group of friends in quiny were like notoriously tough they were like the guys that like won these street fights and I was like I I didn't get in street fights but I was around the guys that did and so I kind of earned a I I was given a reputation for being tough as well even though I I really wasn't I was like just a strap hanger like with the other guys um and then at some point uh in my sophomore year I was one of my periods in school I was like in a study hall with this girl named named Sarah who was friends with my sister my older sister and I just like sat with her like talked to her during study hall uh but it turns out her boyfriend took exception to this he thought that I was like hitting on his on his girlfriend were there any flirty Vibes I don't no I mean may maybe if you're like find her attractive no she was just like my sister's friend you know okay and and so I found out through the grape vine that Paul was really upset with me that's the boyfriend and he's he challenged me to a fight and you you must accept there it is like you know you'll be outcasted if you don't and so I'm like you couldn't just apologize no there was no attempt made there no apolog to like Smooth this over I could have just been like bro like I wasn't doing anything but instead I was like time to defend my honor time to live up to my like my reputation of being a tough guy and so it was uh it was right around Thanksgiving and the scheduled fight with Paul was the day before Thanksgiving and there's this huge uh like the the girls from the so I went to North quiny High School and then there's quiny High School these are rival high schools right big rivalry and the girls from my high school would play this flag football game against the quiny high school girls but it like quickly turned into like really aggressive tackle football and it was a whole spectacle but also at this like illicit football game that's happening that's totally unsanctioned there would be all these like scheduled fights between the two schools like it's a whole thing it's a whole culture and quinsey um and so my fight with Paul was like the equivalent like the what's the the to the main card for this day Paul got it and so I uh this was like weeks out too it was like two three weeks uh before this fight and and I remember I was like I in my basement in my house I had like an office chair and I'd like Spar the office chair like getting ready for this big fight against Paul uh and then the day come leading up to this like in school like in North quinsey High where I went like people were very aware of this fight they were like how do you schedule a day day in a time with this person it's how does how do you know weeks in advance well yeah it's like I'm so mad at you in three weeks we're going to fight by then I just wouldn't care anymore i' be like y you know I cooled down a little bit my dad but so leading up to this this fight in in the hallway like walking around the high school like people would come up to me be like hey man like you you'd be cool to Paul man he's the captain of the hockey team I don't want you to hurt him cuz people thought I'm like this really tough guy cuz the guys I'm around and so I was like totally playing into it I'm like yeah I won't hurt him I'll try to be nice to him like acting all tough and then finally the day comes and we go out to this field where this this fight's going to happen and remember like lots of people are at this location for this girls football game there's other fights that are scheduled uh and so I get there and I straight up have like a posi with me like 50 plus people have like come to support me these are like my guys and I'm lit I could like see myself it's so cringey I'm like standing in the field like literally Shadow Boxing getting ready for Paul to arrive and like I'm there pretty early you know ahead of the fight the scheduled fight time and the the time you was supposed to be there rolled around and he wasn't there and I'm and and so I was like oh I guess Paul's afraid of me that was my whole narrative and I'm like telling other people they like dude Paul's he's so pathetic he's afraid of me again I'm like Shadow Boxing still in the middle of the field and everyone's like man John's gonna kick this kid's ass if he ever comes here and then Paul shows up like 30 minutes late no posy I think he had like one dude who like rolled up with him and Paul walks up the hill and I I see him coming to me and everyone's like oh here we go here here comes the fight and I have this line that I drop he gets Clos to me and I'm like well we're young motherucker as if it had taken him so long like you're going to make me wait and he comes up to me and proceeds to beat the out of me what was his first move what did he do he tackled me the ground like meting a tackle no I'm like stand up fighting and he he beat the out of me in front of like not only my school but the entire rival school there was like hundreds of people watching I like woke up and everyone's like you got knocked the [ __ ] out and I'm like all right did you get a punch in did you get anything nothing just completely you were just a rag doll you were his punching B that was it yeah he showed up and just beat me up okay but that the the things that that has to do to your confidence I mean like didn't help like I cannot imagine one thing that would destroy my confidence and just will in general more than just getting beat up like that especially after everyone's like hyping you up and you're friends with all the tough guys you know like it was break nose or lose teeth or I looked horrible I didn't have any like structural damage done to me but it was like the classic like double black eyy look like you got beat up kind of thing uh but yeah honestly it was so it was so absurd the way it happened because really because of that line like it would have been okay had I not said the line not famous line but you weren't expecting him to tackle you that's a move that you can't that's true that's true that's true uh but so I remember like the after the fight like days after I'm like in school and like literally my teachers would say the line to be like hey John While We're Young [ __ ] my actual teachers how they encourage this it's it's a culture I'm telling you it's a culture within quinsey is like street fighting is is a thing and like everybody knows about it but uh in a way it was it was actually a good experience it's funny now but it was good because it's like one it shows you that you can't parade around like a tough guy if you're not or or you should have like serious protection around you but also like it it just put me in check I I I I had come to believe that I was like truly you know a street fighter I'm a tough guy uh but I was not and it was it it humbled me I think it was good for me but then you compensated for that in basically like the largest way possible becoming a US Navy SEAL like that's not just like you know what I mean guy gets beat up at school oh yeah check this out Paul Navy SEAL years of training what's up now Paul while we're old mother you could go in and just like would you fight him today if he offered you a rematch I mean probably not no I wouldn't even be fair i' like trained how to do it now see him at the reunion just like shoulder check we actually we talked somewhat recently I I hadn't talked to him since like the the fight you know since I was like 17 years old but he actually watches my YouTube channel it's so like we've actually talked and he thinks it's hysterical he he watched the video that I posted on my channel that talks about this thought it was hysterical yeah so that's amazing so what led you then after that fight to then going in the Navy Seals I'm sure there's a lot that happened in between sure I think that there is some truth to like that moment as kind of goofy as it was you know and kind of funny as it was it very likely did like spurn something inside of me to like okay you got to do something to like make up for this in a way um but like you know for the rest of high school I I really I really was just like kind of not taking School seriously I I really wasn't even pursuing College as an option I actually only got into college because my mother who was a professional writer she wrote my college essay and it was like it was so good like the college contacted me to be like you know you're not a traditional student but my goodness that essay was something else you're in so I got to go I got to go to school how is she okay with that she well she knew she's like well John's not gonna do I had like I had put off doing the application I was like I was a terrible student with no motivation you know and so she felt like if I can if I can just get him in the door do you remember what the essay was about yeah it was about um so I had a very close friend of mine who passed away not to turn this into a dark conversation but it was basically about like my last interaction with him before he ultimately overdosed and so it was like a very poignant essay written by somebody else about my experiences but it was it was like a very powerful essay that clearly spoke to the admissions board and they let me it wow and then I promptly in my first semester in college I've been given this golden ticket John here you go go to college uh and I I think it was like I had 36 violations of just bad behavior nothing significant all minor noise violations like leaving trash in the hole like just being a stupid kid in college that's not taking anything seriously I had a at the end of the first semester I had been telling my family that I was getting like all B's and A's going to the library all the time doing so well grades come out 1.016 GPA and they found out about my GPA at the same time that the Dean got alerted to how misb how badly behaved I was because I I had apparently crossed a threshold of a certain number of like writeups in your dorm the 36 some write-ups apparently you cross a threshold and it goes to the dean and they have to like review whether or not you can stay in school and so I found out that I had a 1.016 GPA and the dean contacted my parents to be like your son is very likely going to be kicked out of Housing and there was also a riot at at the school I was at that because our football team that nobody cared about lost the the big game that nobody cared about but it was an opportunity for the students to Riot about the game we didn't care about and so there's this huge Riot that t that takes place on campus and I I really didn't do anything in the riot but I didn't go in when all the police are like running by shooting rubber bullets at us they were shooting rubber bullets you stop full right that's a r okay cuz that's different gas and stuff right it was oh yeah like rubber bullets put it this way I got shot so many times by rubber bullets that there were rubber bullets in my pockets just out of the like I got hit everywhere but I got hit enough enough time yeah what does it feel like it hurts what what does that feel like uh I was like a sting I don't even remember it remember it's stung but you're like you're so jacked up you're like this is so much fun like running around from the police so what was the riot like were you guys like breaking windows and like you know it was like what was it yeah there was some window breaking for sure but it was mostly like this map mass of so there's so the school I went to is UMass Amherst it's out in western Mass and it's they call it zoomass slam Hurst it's a complete party school and like there's definitely an attitude within the school uh there's like 30,000 undergrad students and nearly all of them live at UMass so it's like this huge population of students that are in this part of Massachusetts that's like very rural like this is It's like a city it's like a city of these kids that are like at a party school nice and there's like a a a sort of culture amongst the students to like just rage and be wild like at all times and rioting has been a thing at the school in the past it's not like a new phenomenon like anytime like the Red Sox would lose like a a big game there'd be a riot at UMass Amherst like that would make the news and and really all it is is the students would pull into the middle of this area called Southwest it's there's these different housing areas on Camp huge campus but Southwest they have these towers these 26 story tall towers that the students get packed into I was in one of these and I think it's it's actually literally the most densely populated area in the entire country like per foot is UMass Amherst Southwest area uh but these 26 story tall towers all closely clustered together and then in the middle there's like this paved Courtyard people just wouldn't go to bed basically they just stayed out like yelling and screaming it's the middle of the night you know and what started is like all right guys time to go to bed like no one did and then the the riot lights came on there's like Riot lights set up on that sounds like they're asking for it that sounds like into a riot the ri we're rioting right now Jerry Springer the ding ding ding and they just go to F the lights to come on like but yeah the riot lights came on and it like it riled up the crowd completely uh and so there wasn't like it there was really nothing other than like we wouldn't disperse and so like the school is accustomed to these riots taking place where like lots of damage has been done in the past and so they were like full send like Riot police on on you know horses like everything so anyways uh I was just out for the bulk of the time like I was one of the last people like a shirt wrapped around my head to fight off the tear gas that's like clouded in the air uh and I'm like oh cool went to bed like no big deal and and then it turned out like the school was super intense about figuring out who was a part of this Riot and they have cameras everywhere and they set up this website the the UMass police where they just posted all these pictures of just random people who were out during the riot and anyone could anonymously say who was in the picture and they would get like expelled and I was in all these pictures and I've made so many enemies at the school already just from being a nuisance in my dorm that like I'm about to have a meeting with the dean with my father who's just found out I'm failing completely at school I told him I was getting good grades I also have to break the news that I'm almost certainly going to be expelled if I get named for one of these pictures uh and I have like these horrible grades so it's just a really pathetic situation I had completely put myself in remember I've also been gifted the opportunity to go to college my parents were paying for it my mom got me in and so I remember my dad came up to like go to this meeting with the dean with me and he was like so mad he just like didn't even talk to me and I was like I've really [ __ ] this up uh and so I ended up withd drawing from the school to avoid expulsion essentially and because I was like not going to be able to continue in housing and so I went back home to quiny and I was living in my mom's basement and it's so funny like I look back at this moment and initially I was like actually so annoyed with my parents I'm like why'd you make me leave school I I could have stayed maybe I wouldn't have gotten expelled you know like my friends are there that kind of thing but then it like dawned on me like no you're 19 and like you've done this you're a joke and you're in your mom's basement with no options now uh and I think that was probably the first time that I like recognized that like okay I got to take accountability for my life and I I want to like not be this totally mediocre person who certainly had the aptitude and and you know the you know whatever to to be successful in something like I don't want to blow all that and so I decided I would start by just like going to school locally and like get good grades and so I I didn't get great grades but I was like getting be's at this local school in Boston and it was like satisfying to get my life back on track to a degree I'm like going to I was I was working at a gym I was like biking at 5:00 a.m. to the local YMCA to work at a gym and then I'd like go take classes at this local school and so I was like kind of doing the things to like get my life back together um but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and it was around this kind of time for these like couple of years I was living at home that uh I began thinking about the military mostly because a lot of my buddies had had left high school I graduated in '06 and a lot of them joined the Marines and went immediately overseas to the Middle East and like there's a part of me that just felt like a calling to go serve and so I began thinking about it and it was around this time that my mom uh she was like hey you should talk to her best friends too two brothers I knew they were in the military and my mom was like you should talk to them they were both Navy Seals and I'm like what like we family friends yeah that's not like a common thing like when someone says they're in the military you you don't like and so they were retiring and so I'm not going to give their names but they were like very very big deal Navy Seals that served on you know SEAL Team Six like the most big big time like big time what is SEAL Team Six I was never on Team Six which is an important distinction for the people that understand how the teams work I was on what's called a whide team so all Navy Seals go through there's Navy boot camp there's a prep school there's like effectively seal boot camp which is another six months there's all this Advanced Training it takes about two years and then you become a seal but you're a whide Navy SEAL and after you do one or sometimes two rotations so work up and deployment uh you can have an opportunity to basically go through a whole new screening process uh to potentially go to Team Six and again I've never done it but from the people that I have very close friends that have gone over there that are there now that are there now it is like Navy SEAL boot camp times infinity because now you're you're literally competing against other Navy Seals who likely have combat experience who know what they're doing and on Team Six it's a bigger deal than even I think most people even fully understand like when America needs to do stuff those the people you ask to do it and you can't [ __ ] it up you are like 100% successful otherwise you're not allowed to be on that team they took out Osama correct oh yeah that was Team Six yeah basically the the highest profile the highest stake stuff goes to that team and so the the screening process is otherworldly like if you are not basically perfect you don't get to be a part of the team and so those dudes are like superheroes is that something that they have to dedicate their life too like I'd imagine having a family and like trying to raise kids it would be almost impossible going through that sort of training with that just being on call I'd imagine 247 yeah uh I mean again I since I I've not done it myself this is very secondary but from what I understand uh they literally have like you know beepers or something and they're on they're on call effectively I don't know if it's literally beepers but that is the idea I mean when there are operations that kick off that are super duper serious a lot of times they're not necessarily known until very last minute and so these these operators are like constantly needing to be ready to execute insane stuff how many people are on that I actually don't know uh it's a very small number it's probably if I'm in a ballpark it's probably less than 100 you know they're actually operators that's a complete madeup guess I'm probably wrong but it's not much more I'm probably off but it's it's a small number of people and if you think about it like I think that in total at any given time I want to say there's like either 2,000 or like 2500 active duty Navy Seals across all teams that includes the wh side teams so I mean it's a small number of people not many I thought it would be way more yeah I mean it's a small community I mean every year the out in Coronado California where they do the initial training to become a seal they run five classes a year unless that's changed and even though each class will graduate something like 50 people um which virtually all of them will go on to become seals a lot of them are actually from other classes that they got rolled out of for injury for failing something and so it's not like those 50 people started with their class and finished it's like over the course of the year you have all these people that get hurt along the way that keep getting rolled or pushed around and so like the true number of like new recruits that get through is is relatively small each year it's like couple hundred people each year that that get through it and when you meet Navy Seals is there a certain like even if you haven't met them in person like a certain like eye contact or a bond that you immediately have now I'm not comparing this to something that I've done but I did run cross country in high school okay and when people tell was on the bowling league that's true that's true people tell me they've ran cross country I'm like okay so you've pushed yourself to a limit not like the limit cuz you guys are like the limit but a certain limit where you're like okay you're you're you're dying on in a run and then you push yourself even further you know like I feel like there's a certain like Brotherhood there but obviously nothing not even 1% of what you experience I'm guessing with other I think that actually you're you're really not that far off I understand that like there's this even I just did it talking about Team Six like you're constantly trying to make sure nobody thinks you're trying to misconstrue things here yeah um but I think ultimately all it is like when you become a Navy SEAL really what you've done what you've demonstrated is you're able to do what you just described like hit barriers mental physical whatever and then keep going and really I do believe that virtually anyone can do that but few people will do that and so what you're describing is really the same phenomenon that like if you have if you're someone that has pushed yourself Beyond a certain boundary and you you see somebody else that you know in virtue of being a CrossCountry runner at a fairly high level they've done the same thing there's going to be a kinship there there's going to be a connection um but definitely with Navy SEAL specifically I mean it's actually funny I I'll go to airports and I'll literally spot one like cuz their seals are kind of all over the place they're traveling a bunch and I remember I was like at the airport in Atlanta and I like spotted a dude from like that's so crowded super crowded terminal and like across the heads of all these people it was a quick glance never met this guy in my life but I knew immediately he was a Navy SE I don't even know but there's definitely like a it's got to be a posture or body language definitely something there there's also did you talk to him oh yeah it's funny I walked up to him and it wasn't like are you it was like hey dude what team are you on he's like well I'm on this team like cool man good to see you there's no way I swear to God did he know who you were just he could tell that I also was a seal not that he there certain perception there's something that's like trained I feel like in the back of your brain while you're going through the academy where you're like so perceptive of being in like public settings I'm I'm guessing also this translates to like okay like is this a good guy bad guy like what's going on like you know you're walking through a grocery store and you're constantly like looking around and is that a thing that that you have hypervigilance yes you have this oh yes so as you walked into this house by the way shout out to Caleb Hammer this is his house thank you for letting Studio Caleb were you like looking around and like being hyper observant of all of like everything in the house I mean I'm not going to say I walked in and like literally identified every exit but I definitely took the time to like poke my head around the corner and look around is that is that a trained thing or have you always been somewhat like that I definitely was not always like that that that's definitely more not not even trained it's more like yeah I guess I guess trained is the word then because definitely in training your instructor to be super attentive to detail in fact that would be if I were to try to like sum up what your instructors through Navy SEAL training really try to emphasize it's this whole it's not hey push yourself beyond your Borders or whatever it's attention to detail in all things like it doesn't matter how tired you are doesn't matter how complicated how stressed you are you must must pay attention to details like you must and even the slightest infraction will get you kicked out of training not literally every time but that's the stakes they're playing what is training like it's described as the best time you never want to have again uh because in many ways uh when I look back at the uh the six-month long course you so it's you go to boot camp this is the this the pipeline for the enlisted side anyway so not to get complicated but the bulk of people who become Navy Seals they enlist so they they're not commissioned officers they're like the sled dogs they're the the workers of of the team uh you got to go through boot camp which is just typical Navy boot camp that's 2 months long it's in Chicago um I don't know if it's changed but when when I went through there was a a mandatory preparatory school that you go to immediately after boot camp where for two more months you stay in Chicago and you train with like literally professional athletes and coaches and Olympic athletes who have been brought in by the Navy to not like beat you up but to like actually build up your strength build up your confidence because that you're your next next phase is actual like Navy SEAL boot camp um so you wrap up your two two months in in the prep school and then they send you to Coronado California which is it's so funny it's like the most be have you ever been to Coronado California it's like the most stunningly beautiful place ever and like in this like iconic like idyllic place there's like the most treacherous military training like ever taking place and it's very public you can like watch it but you go out there and then you go through a few weeks of like what's called indoctrination which is a few weeks of like you're not technically in uh the training yet but loads of people quit because you're actually working with Navy SEAL instructors and it's very intense you know you're being treated really like what's intense about it well one you're you're there you're at like the story compound where like by the way where you train in cornado is also where the West Coast SEAL Teams are and so you're like this pathetic like have done nothing and you wear you wear a white shirt with your name stencl on it that like signifies you're you're a recruit you're nothing and when you go to training it's like you're literally surrounded by actual like active duty Navy Seals that they just Haze you and it's like so it's an intense place to be what's The Hazing like it's it's mostly just like you know goofing around with you like they'll grab you and like make you come over and like give a speech to like the like they'll literally hey come over here talk to these guys and it's like 10 active duty Navy Seals and like hey introduce yourself and like you start talking and they start like cutting you off and making fun of you it's like stupid stuff but so it's an intense place to be and then I mean just the the actual training is is in incredibly difficult um physically you know it's like the it's famously it's famously challenging that's the whole point they want it to be borderline impossible to do so that if you are able to complete the training you've demonstrated that you can kind of push Beyond you know what most people would consider an impossible limit um so anyways you do six months in in Coronado it's called basic underwater demolition SL seal school or buds for short um and uh if you get through that you're virtually guaranteed to become a seal like the attrition rate Falls to near zero at that point but you have another six months of Advanced Training and then you go on to um like we went to language school no way no I can't I can that's the line I say I was just about to say I'm like you know can only way go no so but you you go to like a follow on school and then you uh you go to your team and then you go through a whole work again so but in terms of like the actual training um sleep deprivation is horrible it's so bad what does that feel like I mean you lose your mind like really you actually become an insane person that's that's the gist there's there's one week of training early on in actual buds so so the six months are broken up into three phases the first phase is called first phase and it's the gut check uh it's a lot of soft sand running and laying in the ocean when it's freezing cold at night and doing like a billion sit-ups and jumping jacks um you carry around this thing called an IBS it's an inflatable inflatable boat but it weighs like 200 200 someone pounds and you and your boat crew uh have to carry it on your head and it's not that heavy it isn't like you put it on your head and you're like wow that's that's so heavy but you run everywhere with this boat either by your side or on your head think about this running on Sand it's uneven and the boat's jostling around and it hits the top of your head so often that you actually develop a bald spot in your head um guys like will break bones just from compression of this boat on their head like if you fall when you're in the middle of a run this boat just comes colliding down on you it's gnarly like it's a it's a gnarly thing so yeah but I'd say that the worst part is sleep deprivation U and then there's a week early on in first phase called hell week where you don't sleep for five and well you sleep for a total of like four hours broken up into little naps over the span of like five and a half days oh my gosh um yeah so anyways it's just it's a it's a very physically grueling I am so curious like are how well are they compensated afterwards as a seal cuz going through that training I mean to be like the top .1% I'd imagine it's like it's got to be like a high pay or do people do it just because they they love it if you look at like the entirety of like the enlisted ranks in the Navy so all jobs Navy Seals CBS you know whatever um you are the most well compensated for sure but you're not well compensated you you can look it up I think guys make uh like 50,000 gross maybe 60,000 when they get to a team which amongst like typical enlisted folks that go into a if if you show up to your your first command as like an an E2 or an E3 it's it's like an enlisted rank the junior enlisted rank you're making like I don't even know it's probably 20 or $30,000 a year um and you have you obviously get like health benefits and all that stuff but within the confines of what the Navy is actually able to give you they pay seals let's say the best but it's not like you're not making a lot of money you're not you're not at all um but then when you deploy uh they pay you a whole bunch of money but that's not really and and that's relative it's not a ton of money but for the military it's a good amount you'll make like an extra I don't even know I mean a couple 100 bucks Grand shout out to my my manager Nick whts who's off screen he's a combat vet as well ni um yeah so you you get paid for deployments and so if you deploy a bunch you get more money but yeah it's not it's definitely not something you would do for pay um I think that you know I I think that a lot of people ultimately decide to be seals uh because of the challenge of of becoming a seal it's you know it's I tell people that when I ultimately made the decision to want to be a seal you know it was it was shortly after I my mom had said hey why don't you meet why don't you go meet up with our family friends here the the Navy Seals and I met with them uh it's a funny story actually how I met with them uh I went to this place in New Hampshire where we were going to meet um and my mom's best friend uh whose brothers these were she has this camp in New Hampshire that's for kids it's like an art camp and it's beautiful there's like little cabins there's like a little Lake and it's so it's this nice little area uh and just up the road there's this gravel access road that uh it leads up to this like ramshackle like plywood Hut that's like not in any way like permited it's a crappy like Hut uh and when I was told to meet with these two guys they were doing like training uh out of this Hut so this is like the secret like Backwoods training center for like tier one operators and so I like go to this camp and I go say hi to Susan my mom's friend at like the camp the kids are all running around like having their barbecues and coloring and then I walk up the road like by myself uh to this to this Shack and it's shut I can hear inside like the sound of like you know intense alpha males like having some conversation like and I just like open the door and walk it's all these dudes that are like covered in tattoos like super jacked all sitting on like upturned buckets and it's like it's just like dirt on the ground there's like no furniture anything and they're just like in a circle bullshitting with each other and I walk in and they immediately go silent and all of them just turn and they're like who the [ __ ] are you I like I'm John I'm the I'm here to meet you guys but it was incredible getting to all Navy Seals and these like active dudes who were like in between their rotation Cycles what was impressed upon me from all of them is this notion that Navy SEAL training offers you this great chance to kind of like reset Who You Are because whoever you were before you became a seal gets replaced with the person who becomes a seal no one's going to be like oh there's John like you know the guy who flunked out of college it's going to be there's John the guy who became a Navy SEAL and I loved this idea of you know SEAL training is such a meritocracy it's it's actually open to lots of people as long as you're an American citizen and you're in decent enough health I mean there's there's more to it than that but a lot just about anybody just about anybody can go try out and that's whoever is at the end is is an Navy SEAL and and I Lov the idea of not only serving because I wanted to serve but I love the idea that the challenge and then the kind of great reset that would happen if I became a seal all my stupidity with college and and just kind of being a general like flunky would be replaced with something that was honorable and I could be proud of and I also fundamentally believed that if I could get through the training itself that I would literally evolve and well not literally evolve but become the best version of myself and I do think many ways that was true and so you know Mission success do you think there's a personality trait that's that gravitates towards that more than others and what do you think that is I it's not so much a personality trait as it's lots of people that show up to training have the same story roughly that I did yeah I kind of screwed around didn't really do anything out of high school you know screwed up College got kicked out didn't have a job you know no one in my family has a history of being in the military just seemed cool decided I'd go try out like that's like the bulk of people who make it through are that and I will say that there's loads of people that go to Seal training that are like super intimidating people like when I was in my class there was a dude who I had like played with in Madden like he was a professional football player I'm like D I played with you like on a video game that's like huge hulking like linebacker or there's like professional swimmers and professional rugby players and like really incredibly accomplished people but they wash out really really quickly and I I think and it's something that a lot of people agree with that the folks that come in that are like I've done nothing with my life and this is what I want to do I'm going to reinvent myself they got nothing to lose because they've never done anything they if they don't make it through training no one's going to be surprised they're going to say yeah John's a ding-dong he didn't get through training that's not surprising but if you're the professional swimmer the professional rugby the professional football player people expect you to become an AB seal and as soon as it gets hard the instructors Focus really intensely on the dudes that are really successful before coming in and they remind them that this doesn't matter it doesn't matter what you did before it only matters what you're doing now and it's like a lot of people can't handle that and and also the people that have been massively successful before becoming seals they're not used to failing I'm generalizing but a lot of people like to become a professional baseball player pretty good chance when you were younger you were way better than everybody else and it wasn't even close and then in high school was the same and then in college you were probably one of the best people on your team I mean even the people that get drafted last in like the MLB draft are incredible baseball players that were way better than everybody else and so imagine if your whole life you've been the guy you're always the best at what you did and then you get to training and you're like you [ __ ] suck you are pathetic and you're not going to make it through the training the guys that have nothing to lose are like well that's probably true I do suck I'll just keep on going though but the guys that are used to success they they do not handle it well like consistently drop out really quickly that is an interesting archetype in the seals and I bet you that that hit you very hard when you had to move Mo back into the basement because I see this theme of your life of like not taking responsibility being slightly entitled and just given things you were given the role of like hey I'm the tough guy you come up to me I'll beat you up like you were given that you didn't have to earn it you didn't have to fight people you were given admission into a good college you didn't have to earn it your mom just wrote it for you and you go to college and you're like you have this entitled kind of thing and then all of a sudden you get sent back home that must have been incredibly hard for you to flipflop as much as you did yeah I mean I think that there's an element of uh the entitlement you talked about um I I also definitely came to learn that taking accountability for the things that you've done wrong is actually a very empowering thing because suddenly nobody gives you any crap about it when you're just like fully owning your missteps it allows you to just kind of move forward unencumbered versus trying to hide whatever missteps you I like that I've noticed that as a theme as well in your video like you'll bring up certain things like getting beat up by the dude the fact that you didn't have to earn getting admitted into college like you're very upfront like yeah just kind of happen it's a way to be just being direct so here's kind of a novel question let's hear it how do you feel when people come up to you oh thank you for your service is it like a genuine like oh thank you very much and you might have to give a diplomatic answer to this I don't know or is it like a like a h you know I appreciate it but it's kind of like you know I hear that all the time you don't know what I went through like what is the the response to this well one I I I think that I and virtually anybody else who served would likely say the same thing I'm sure Nick over there off camera would say the same thing that like we understand that when people come up to us and say thank you for your service what they're really doing is just that that's the phrase that we've come up with but it's just meant to be like I hey I'm I respect that you volunteered to do that you know and like I'm not really supposed to actually be like you're welcome you know and so I I I I think you know I there's not a good response to it but I definitely appreciate that people you know recognize that you know I I Rose my hand when I didn't have to but I also don't take it so seriously that I'm like and I'm a hero you better respect me it's more like yeah than appreciate it thank you my honor you know what was deployment like well they've only deployed twice and I say that because in the Special Operations Community like there are folks that deploy like an ungodly number of times to places that are just the worst places in the world so just it's important that people understand that my experience with deployments is as minimal as it gets within the seal Community I I did the minimum Tour of Duty um but I had you know I'm not going to get too into detail about what I did but you know the the two places I went was Afghanistan for the first deployment in 2013 2014 uh and then I went to South America in my second deployment in 1516 the one thing I will say about Afghanistan is uh well there's context so when you become an AV SE or really when you become any sort of uh person in the military that is a designated combat role or you have designated combat capabilities because not everybody does there are plenty of roles in the military that are administrative or they're legal or or whatever but if you've been trained to like go to war it isn't that you pray for war it's that you you you hope for an opportunity to actually put your skills to the test that that sounds barbaric but it's a very natural thing think about it you've been trained extensively to do this you want an opportunity to do it when we were given the opportunity cuz it's a it's a weird thing with how deployments happen it's not you don't necessarily know where you're going to go and then it kind of ends up being like which platoon of seals is doing the best they get the better deployment which again would be war and so our platoon was I think that I think that we actually were the second best platoon so we were not up for getting to go to Afghanistan but there was some issue with their chief on the other side so we got the opportunity to go I was so excited about going to Afghanistan for the reasons I said to you not out of blood lust but out of like I'm a professional Navy SEAL I want to go do my job but man it was terrifying you know coming into it because we knew and I can't get into too much what we did not cuz I'm so cool but just for sensitivity purposes we knew where we were going was a what they would call a Connect IC site like there was the opportunity for actual combat cuz there were people that deploy to the Middle East where they don't necessarily get into any sort of combat um but where we were going it was kind of like a known thing that you will see combat that will happen and I remember we were in this uh we wereing doing some training in Nevada leading up to our deployment and we had just found out that we were going to get to go to Afghanistan and this is like maybe a couple of months out from deployment and one of our more senior guys his name I'm not going to say his name one of more senior guys who had done several deployments all to Afghanistan and Iraq he was like you could see that he was kind of crestfallen like you I remember looking over at him and he's like a big intimidating guy he was like a leader in the platoon and it just looked like he was really disappointed to hear we were going to Afghanistan uh and so I walked up to him afterwards and I was like why aren't you excited about this I'm a brand new guy I'm like wired to go do these things uh and he's like because someone's gonna die that's what happens you go to these places someone here right now is gonna get killed at least one like every time that's what happens and he was in no way like a coward he was just he's done this before and I think that was the first time that it dawned on me that like to that point my whole like journey to be a seal was very Charmed I mean like it's pretty incredible to say I'm going to be a Navy SEAL and then go through all the training and become a Navy SEAL there are few moments as [ __ ] unreal as having a Navy SEAL stamp your Trident into your chest because you've earned the right to be called a Navy SEAL it's like it's unbelievable but it was like now I'm seeing the reality of the job like I haven't gone and seen it yet but I'm I'm seeing someone that's done this before and they're like I'm not excited about this I'd rather go somewhere else I'll do my job but that's the reality um I will say fortunately our platoon did not lose anyone on our deployment there were several people hurt actually including me that set the tone for me going into the deployment I I started to look at it more not uh scared but more realistic yeah and um I remember before I actually deployed my my family was definitely on on the fence you know like worried about it you know and I found myself going out of my way to reassure them that it was going to be fine like dude I'm I'm a trained Navy SEAL I'm surrounded by Navy Seals I'll be fine what it did is it didn't really allow me to be honest before I deployed about how I was feeling because I was constantly putting on this act of like everything's going to be fine but internally I'm kind of like freaking out a little bit about what we're going to do and I remember I was one of the first people in my platoon that actually got sent to Afghanistan they they they send you out in waves they don't want to send you on the same flight at the same time for security purposes and I arrived in Afghanistan um with like two other people on my team so there's like literally two or three of us I think and the way it works is you do like a turnover with the team that's you know on site and there's a lot to explain but basically imagine like out in the middle of nowhere there's like these Hesco barriers set up it's not even a real base it's like a it's called an outstation where you're you're on the Leading Edge you're you're basically near the enemy so to speak uh and we got out there and first of all just the drive from where we landed at this huge military base which was like 45 minutes away just driving to the out station was like surreal because first of all there's like we weren't allowed to slow down because of the IED threat so like once you get going you can't stop which is hectic when you think about what that implies it doesn't matter what's ahead of you you have to keep going um and you're driving through these bizaar in in Afghanistan that are like full of people from Afghanistan naturally who hate you and they're looking at the cars as they're passing by and they're not scared of you that's the other thing that you have been in that country for so long nobody's scared they're just staring you down and you're in this like very up armored vehicle and it's very cramped you got all your your kit on and we get to the out station finally and it was like such a relief to be behind these Hesco barriers and we met the team we were turning over with and they had been there for 6 months these are like seasoned guys they're they're getting ready to go home and all they wanted to do was get these turnover operations out of the way as quickly as possible because they you have to do a certain number of just like patrols together like show them the area and then they get to go home and they're like we want to get out of here and so we're going to do an operation tonight and I'm like I've never deployed in my life I'm like so sketched about everything I arrive at this out station my Kit's not even set up my my body armor and everything and like literally that night I remember we we went through this whole mission briefing of like what we're going to do and it included like being on foot like wandering in this area where like they were like just make sure you carry a knife because it can get hairy out there and it's like okay and I remember after our mission briefing of what we're going to do which was really just a patrol but in a very contested area I went back to my it's called a chew it's like it looks like a a the trailer on a tractor trailer truck and it has like an AC unit in it it's really it's it's it's kind of an awful place to live but either way I went inside there and I had all my gear on cuz we're getting ready to step out out for this operation in like an hour and I got down on my knees and prayed that we would not go on this operation I was certain I was going to die you know what I mean like not because the threat was so high but because okay now I'm really going to go do the thing I've been thinking about and training for and it's no longer like a game it's like the real thing um and as as it happened we didn't go on the operation that night it got cancelled but we did go out the next day and uh on many operations nothing happens like doesn't matter how contested the area is you get there and nothing happens um but I would say that over the course of the 6 months or 5 months that I was there uh we did get into things that very much fit the job description of what Navy Seals do and it was a mixture of both exactly what I thought it would be from just from a training perspective you do so much training that when you actually are in you know a situation where you're using your training it's just muscle memory and everybody's so good you're looking around at your teammates and it's like it's it's gives me chills even thinking about it like guys are fearless they're doing all the right things guys that you thought were like maybe a little slow on the uptake of like how to do certain things when when bullets are flying you know they're pretty good at it and I remember just being astounded at how well- trained we were which was really confident building but it was also like like to say it was ADR adrenaline rush is not even close the first time we like got shot at I remember like being immediately completely out of breath but I hadn't moved like it was like my body had tensed up so intensely that I suddenly was completely gassed that's another thing like in actual situations you're like you can become winded really quickly the thing that I always think about is I've only done like the one tour where we had you know a limited number of actual engagements With the Enemy and I think about these other operators other seals that have been in for like 20 some years through the bulk of like the war on terror and I just I can't imagine what it would be like to have done back to back to back to back deployments to these combat zones like doing one was like life-changing and terrifying and and all these different things but yeah so it it was uh it was intense it was really intense were you afraid of dying at first but that quickly Fades um people ask you know what did it feel like to be living in a place that you know you're kind of in theory like facing your death periodically um and I will say and this is probably not unique to Navy Seals I think it's more of like a military deployment thing um you you you you're not stressed you because you're in kind of like survival mode you automatically your brain just like filters out everything else that could possibly stress you out and it becomes just like very simple you know it's like I have my teammates who are like my friends I care about them I need to eat I need to sleep I need to like you know train but that's it you there is no space in your your mind it's like you the idea of stressing about something from back home it's like it doesn't compute when you're over there you kind of enter this almost like like Primal mind state where it's just very simple and I remember I I have and this is not like a I'm so cool but like I've never slept better in my entire life than I did after a couple of weeks of being in Afghanistan not at first it was very stressful but then you enter into that kind of like okay like you got just got to do your job and like support the team and you're just like Carefree it's very hard to come back to reality though do you ever miss it sometimes yeah not not not like miss anything to do with like the military operation side but definitely miss the the camarad and being around my teammates because it's like there there are few things that that come close to what it feels like to you know be risking life and limb with other people in such a like really intense and specific way um and so yeah I'd say I miss the camaraderie but I don't miss combat at any way what was that like to be shot at or to get shot uh well I never got shot I got shot at um but uh you know I I I did get hurt on that one deployment um a grenade Deton next to next to me and the people I was with um what hit you it did uh yeah I went down this or not I I I was not a team leader or anything I was just part of a group and we were LED down this Alleyway and it's the middle of the night it was after of a day of a lot of fighting back and forth um and we basically arrived at this te intersection uh in this fairly Urban Village uh where we were anticipating coming to this tea like walking down here and coming to this tea where there was this wall and we were expecting to look out across this field and and see potentially some enemy combatants and we were just going to see what they were doing but we ended up walking down and we have night vision on we're walking silently you know maneuvering down this Alleyway and we get to the wall and just stuff happens the the intel was backwards they were actually on the immediate other side of the wall versus you know 100 200 yards away and so we were kind of put into a position where we ran the risk of being heard if we turned around and tried to leave U you your footsteps make noise they hadn't heard us yet and so in short it turned into a an Incredibly Close Quarters contact and the the folks on the other side of the wall uh we believe they were holding grenades with pins out like literally for this actual moment in case we get compromised we're taking them out with us and they lobbed the grenades right over the wall right after the shooting began and I remember um I was like right behind somebody who was engaging them and I watched like it was in slow motion it wasn't but I will tell you when you literally think you're going to die it does you get like weird like tunnel vision or something I remember in the we had a a drone overhead that was sending down an infrared signal that was like flashing so on night vision you could see this it's like a spotlight imagine if God had a flashlight shining it down on the earth that's what it looks like it's actually bizarre but only on night vision you can see it and it was a flashing strobe and it was like right over us and I remember the flash was like going like this but but in the flash I saw this grenade like I'd see it and it would disappear in the darkness see it in the flash disappear in the darkness as it's like coming over the wall and then it hit my shoulder and I remember like distinctly thinking please let the grenade detonate below my head so that it it'll kill me but it won't blow my head off and that at least my family will be able to identify me and so this again this happened in like a split second but it's like it hits my shoulder and then it fell down towards the ground and as it followed down my body I'm like okay good maybe it'll hit my legs and it'll just take my legs out out uh hits the ground and I was able to turn and everybody just kind of turned and and it it detonated and it just felt like someone took a big handful of rocks and just like threw it at at my the back of my legs and my my back um my sense of what happened there is or my memory of what happened is completely backwards it took years to piece it all together but the short version is I was basically down on the ground bleeding to death um we're also in the middle of like a very intimate engagement with people on the other side of this wall uh and my medic uh who's also a seal uh he was the only guy who was not directly injured by the frag of the grenade he was concussed he was not himself but under Fire like from this close and it's people Miss from this close when you're that jacked up on adrenaline so you're not like getting actively shot a million times he like began dragging people out uh he literally saved my life he pulled me I I I was in and out of Consciousness couldn't put my tourniquet on um you know I was bleeding pretty bad for my leg and he he dragged me to to cover as much as we could and he literally laid over me and put my tourniquet on and he was like so calm you know he's like hey it's going to be fine like literally R trained for crazy yeah and so but the crazy part was is it was kind of quiet in the city at the time but once all the shooting started the other fighters in the town they just began like arbitrarily firing like rockets roughly in our Direction like they don't care if they hit their own people they're just trying to hit us and so like rockets are coming in and like gun fires coming in um and we actually uh we had to call no I didn't I'm I'm down and out for the count basically but the guy who's a jtac they control uh overhead planes and stuff calling them bombs they called in an air strike like 10 ft away from us to like take these guys out but it was like how 10t away don't don't they explode and couldn't you get 10 feet might be an exaggeration it was on the other side of that wall so the fragmentation was the wall see through was it like a fence or was concrete con no it was like a mud bricks okay you know kind of like a cement wall uh but yeah I I ended up uh getting Medevac out along with another guy who uh his lung collapsed from the frag but we got medevacked out and I I literally within like you know 48 Hours had been pulled from the battlefield to a field hospital and actually when I got to the field hospital um this the first stop we went after getting medically evacuated a message had come out to the base where this field hospital was it was like 30 minutes away and there was a bunch of seals that were stationed at at this base and they didn't know necessarily how badly injured like me or the guy that was also getting metav how badly injured we were and so there was like a potential that in theory we could be being brought to the hospital and we could already be dead or we might be we might die right and so out of like respect all these seals in the middle of the night put on their best uniforms which nobody had nice uniforms overseas they're ratty but like guys put on like the equivalent of their dress uniforms and walked into the tent and they were lining the back of this like imagine like literally what a movie would do with like a a field hospital it's literally a big tent with all these surgeons with like white suits on gloves on and then in the back behind all the medical equipment was like 30 Navy Seals in their uniforms which were all mismatched you know cuz no one brings those and I remember I got I got wheeled in before I was put under for surgery and it dawned on me that like I didn't know the extent of my injuries I thought that I was going to be okay cuz I'm like I'm alive I got the tourniquet on uh but I saw the looks on it's a very small tent too I'm seeing the looks on my teammates faces and they're in their uniforms and I'm like oh my God like this might be it I might die in here and I remember trying to reassure them that I wasn't going to die but I had no idea I have no no idea what's going on and I remember that they looked at my wounds and they were like yeah you were very close I guess the the way the shrapnel went into my leg and my back was just narrowly missed fatal um but anyways I I I got shipped to uh Germany uh was there there for a week and then I was home and in Home Depot like two weeks later like how do you assimilate back into society after that that's what I I I can imagine that nothing is the same it's like how do you just go about daily life having just experienced that well I I I actually was talking about this with my wife um I came back and believed very much that I was going to do a I'd be fine kind of reassimilate um but I they call it being in the red is the description used for what it's like to come back from a deployment um where it's kind of like you're still in that almost Primal state of living where like you've pushed aside everything else in your life except for you know fight live you know and and just be on deployment and so you come back home and it takes a little bit to get away from that that feeling to become less Primal to become civilized again but you totally are not aware of it even if you've been told hey you know you just came back from a deployment you need to calm down you don't think you are you think you're perfectly fine but you're so like wound up I'm sure you're prob smiling about this you're he he did a combat tour was it in Iraq yeah he's he was a he was a okay so let give Nick a shout out even though you can't see him he he did a tour in Iraq where he was one of the last people to do like manned turret gunning now we use remote control weapons on the top so he was like fully exposed like driving in the most contested and urban parts of Iraq getting shot at anyways gnarly deployment um we had remote controlled guns in in up armored vehic icle that was completely bombproof so if we got shot at we were like completely safe but uh I was just like really really mad like there's a funny story within like a couple of days of getting back to my house in Virginia Beach I'm like literally limping around I'm like I'm like still hurt and I remember so we lived in this house that was part of a homeowners association like an HOA you familiar with how I'm in one yeah so am I of course of course you are of course yeah do you know that works dude and uh what's what's hway I'm kid and uh I got back and my wife uh Amanda she's like hey John just you know like we got an email from the HOA saying that our our Chimney Cap is Rusted and we need to like replace it right and I'm like no we not and I called the HOA and I was like do you have any [ __ ] clue what I've just been through and you're going to tell me I need to change my Chimney Cap and they're like sir we don't know who you are we don't know what you've been doing you know what I mean like what how would they know what the I was doing it was like so like unhinged that I believed that I could just throw it in everybody's face that like I served you're going to be nice to me you know uh and they still made me change the Chimney Cap um but uh yeah I just was like hair trigger temper for a while um but then you kind of like just reassemble or you re you get back into it but I would say candidly the the injury uh totally changed my desire to want to be in the military um I remember we I I did I was able to heal up and get into another platoon so do another work up and deployment but I was like not healthy I I I I so the the the blast of the explosion um it dislocated both of my shoulders and created a SLAP tear so just like the shock of the the blast wave it dis keep both my shoulders uh but so it tore both of my my labs which is like a it's a very fixable thing if you get surgery for it but I didn't have the time to do the full surgery and Recovery I'd miss a rotation I wouldn't be able to deploy again and so I got what's called a biceps tendis which is like the equivalent to putting a Band-Aid on your your torn laum um but it's like permanent they cut a portion of your bicep they pull it out and they staple it or something onto some part of your B I don't even know how it works but it's it's a permanent Band-Aid uh which means you deal with like pain but it's more functional uh so I had some shoulder issues uh I still have 26 pieces of shrapnel in my hip and my ankle that are like depending on the weather it'll like you know it's hard to run you know because of the pain from the the shrap yeah um and so over the course of the second deployment uh I just like deteriorated physically mentally emotionally um and I was already thinking about getting out of the military by the time we got back from South America and I was already talking to like my my medic and uh I forget Corman that's like the the person in the military who does medical and they're like look you know you were able to deploy a second time but you know we're going to push for a medical retirement based largely on the injury from Afghanistan which clearly has had Ripple effects physically emotionally mentally I I was a [ __ ] show I was just like not a happy person and so I got medically retired uh so I don't I don't know how got an award you got a medal right well yeah so you get you get an award for getting hurt if you get a purple heart which really just means you got hurt uh it is an award and I'm not there it's it's it's definitely one that I'm you know proud to have I think that technically to get the Purple Heart the purple ribbon I think you literally have to bleed in a in a war I think there's like the stipulation is you literally must bleed in a foreign war so it's like kind of gnarly to have a purple heart so that that was cool and you know it was honestly the the whole experience now was a was a good one I I feel very well adjusted now but I've I've done extensive therapy and still still go to therapy to keep myself right was it difficult to keep your relationship together throughout all of that because I'd imagine you deploying and coming back it's like how could your partner know what you went through and like psychologically what you had to put yourself through to be there and feeling like everything in comparison is so dull like I I would think everything is Trivial after that yeah I mean my my wife is the best uh shout out Amanda uh she she and I got together in college I actually so the to finish off the college story I I actually did end up going back to the college that I withdrew from I did a couple semesters locally in Boston got my grades up I met the two seals and really found calling I'm going to be a seal but I did finish and I did graduate but I went back to the first school UMass samher and I finished out my degree there uh and when I went back I met my wife Amanda and I actually was telling her like I'm going to be a seal that's what I want to do and she's like okay and so like I she was with me from like the Inception of the idea through training deployment everything um so she really understood like I guess what she was getting herself into as best as she could it's a really really tight group of people like the community of uh the other seals you're with and the the wives and just the partners like it's so so tight that like when you deploy like the the significant others all are like constantly in contact and in many ways they have information about what's going on overseas because we're relaying it to them so they're actually pretty well kept up to date with what's going on which I mean all the stuff we tell them is okay they they know what's going on but you're a different person after all of that experience like you said it's like a whole personal transformation yeah I think you I think think that's right I think that uh I yeah I think you definitely do change as a person and it's not Amanda was she was on board for all of that yeah well I think that she was I was a I was a very like angry person for a while and I didn't you know mostly just like I was frustrated with everything that was kind of my yeah yeah very much so but my wife is just very understanding uh and always has been she just understood that I was going through some stuff and didn't really give me a hard time and was just kind I mean like I when I came back I mean I I had some serious injuries on my leg and my hip like gnarly stuff and my wife took care of me she's like packing my wounds like I remember I got I got back to the to the states and they like wheeled me in to like see my wife and I I could walk at this point it was painful I could walk and I get I get wheeled in and I'm I'm in the most compromising position ever I'm like on my stomach and like my my butt cheek is exposed because they've just been doing all this like you know treatment for me and my wife's like seeing me for the first time she's and I have this horrible like long hair like this shitty beard and and she's like oh my God and the doctor's like come on over here and he's like packing this wound in my in my butt cheek and it's like it's a significant hole and he's like showing her how to do it CU like you're going to have to do this and she like nearly faints and she's like watching this happen but very dutifully like from that point forward like multiple times a day she was like taking care of my wounds and like bathing me I mean she meet her just in college just uh through friends we just connected and I uh this it sounds corny but like literally within like 7 72 hours of meeting her I was like 100% I'm going to marry her that is incredible Okay so we've been talking recently with a lot of different people about different relationship advice and a lot of them say you know off the rip like if you don't know in the first like 3 weeks that this is someone that I mean obviously granted there are exceptions to that but a lot of the times you can be right if you just know off the rib I actually I remember telling my friend I was walking across campus with him like literally a couple of days after meeting Anda and I was like this is going to sound extreme but I'm pretty confident I'm going to marry Amanda and he's like what what are you doing dude I'm like I don't know I just got a feeling about it and she we got married like very quickly I I got married before I went to to buds she got married when she was a senior in college how quickly did you get married like we were together for like 10 months or a year but we got married when she was still in college and I'm like you know 21 years old 22 years old and we're still married got three kids now and I'm 35 so amazing that is crazy wow shout out to Amanda yeah she's awesome super she's like the opposite of me like super introverted private like doesn't want to be on any camera nothing uh but I every story that you hear on the internet I've run by Amanda like she yeah oh yeah she's a huge part of it yeah so we do want to get onto all the YouTube stuff the True Crime stuff but first I have to ask this question I was talking with some some Navy pilots and they they worked very intimately with the seals they said that through training through everything that it's not a matter of if it's when you will break as somebody is this true when you what do you mean by Break by Break by let's say give up information or just like like succumb to something or like like if you're captured do you mean yeah well I mean you go through and and it's not just a a seal thing it's like a did you go through sear school didn't Washington so sear school is is a school that the military puts on for basically anybody who could potentially be they were telling us about it yeah Pilots for sure cuz they get they eject an enemy territory you're going to get captured um and it stands for survival evasion resistance and escape and it's a really really like highly choreographed two weeks of training at least the one that I did but there's four levels of the training you go through there's like level one uh which is like you know it's the most minimal amount of training and then level four is like we're going to simulate you getting captured and it's going to feel real uh and they hire like role players that are very aggressive and are very good at playing the role of cap and you go through like a miserable it's hard so even from a seal you're saying this after SEAL training you are you are a Navy SEAL you have gone through all the training and sear school was the [ __ ] worst it was the worst it was like that is crazy to hear I you know I I think that there's quite a bit that is unfortunately confidential but I I will say the couple things that I can put out there are Imagine just like being put in like highly uncomfortable stress position positions that no one's doing anything to you like you can't quite stand up you can't quite sit you can't quite lean over you know it's it's a little bit too warm you know like that kind of situation and then like you know a loop of like scratching sounds or like high-pitch sounds and then periodically being dragged out and like manhandle yeah really or like you know we had to um like sit in a circle on the hardwood floor which seems like nothing oh just sit on the ground right but for like 18 hours don't move like you can't move for like you're just sitting like cross-legged it gets so miserable so are you now one to never complain about anything because the guy sitting right beside huge complainer you complainer there we go the guy sitting next to me I mean if it's like you know 69° in a place he's like oh it's it's so cold I'm like I'm like the you know the memes that it's like I survived a tummy ache making fun of men who like their wife meanwhile is like giv birth like the guys that got a tummy ache like I'm the guy with a tummy ache I'm oh yeah I'm like a Shameless that even but they I don't know it's just probably who I am and like I've been through stuff that's like tough and everything but I still am the person I am you know it's like oh geez I don't want to do that that's horrible so that's amazing but yeah to your question though there's actually like tactics that are employed that I'm not going to get into uh that literally are like a way of deflecting giving up information that are remarkably silly when you think about what you're doing but they apparently because I've never been caught or anything but they work and actually one of the most profound things about sear school at least when I went through is they bring in someone who has been a very real p and we had this guy that was kept in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam war who spent like a year in captivity gosh and and they will emulate what they've been through he just told us what he went through and it was like everything he said was like that's the worst thing I've ever heard and then he'd be like and then this happened and you're like oh no that's the worst thing that's ever happened like every torture technique you can imagine but like this the guy's like you know his spine's crooked like from what happened to him but he's like so positive he's like come on guys take this training seriously you can do it and we're all just like sitting there like in awe of this person who's been through like the most horrendous experience so um it's a very very good school uh in terms of like what it gives you and it definitely arms you with I think it would definitely at least prolong until you give something up but I think that maybe at some point as a human being you might you might I don't know this might be too much but I'm curious why his spine was crooked or what well he walked in and he looked like a guy who had like gotten run over by a train you know what I mean like he didn't say hey my spine's crooked because of what happened he walked in and it was like obvious that he's like unable to move correctly and he immediately addressed it he's like a lot of the things I deal with now are from being held in captivity and he's like literally crooked as he's standing there and so we kind of put it together wow yeah so he he was like yeah like all his friends were killed and he was the last one oh can I can I also ask how he was able to survive captivity for I think he was there till like like the the area was liberated I think until Americans came in tough dude yeah he like he like lasted yeah wow yeah gnarly so that's a jeez but yeah so I I luckily only had to do the the training never did any of that stuff in real life how do you make the transition from all of that to then starting the YouTube channel talking about True Crime you know completely random um I uh I've always been a big Storyteller for sure just in my life um and I uh when I got medically retired from the the SEAL Teams it happened kind of abruptly like we knew or I should say I knew that I would be being I would get medically retired I knew it was coming but the date that I would be released from service was not entirely clear and then it was kind of like all of a sudden I was told that actually your date to be you know kicked out of service is like right around the corner like super quick and so I I I had this kind of frantic like now what do I do like I you get like a retirement uh you get paid if you get mically retired it's like it's not it's not really enough to live on but it's definitely enough to like survive for a little bit but I needed a job you know I needed a civilian job I got really no sense of what I could do I mean as much as um you know people are naturally inclined to think that Navy Seals bring a lot to the table and they definitely do beyond the battlefield you know like just as people it's very difficult to think about how you would translate those skills and experiences to like business especially when like when you're in the military and it's not just a seal thing it's a milary thing you kind of live in a bubble you're living in like the military bubble and you're not really exposed too much to like modern technology like as an example I I get out of the the military in 2017 and I didn't understand like what a a Google sheet or Google doc was and like I I'm I'm a I was a fairly tech-savvy person before I went in the military and I like didn't understand like what what are this what are these sheets these like Google Sheets that people are sending me and like Google documents I none of it made sense but like there's all these like simple things that you don't think would be hard to learn but in the military you have like your own software systems and your own Hardware like all the technology is like military you're not touching civilian stuff and so you get out and you're like not only do I have no idea how to talk about what I did in a way that's meaningful or that fits you know the job description you're looking for but I literally don't understand how to use modern technology and so it was it was this mess where I just kind of knew that what I would need to do to get a job and this is all leading to YouTube Don't worry um I knew I needed to like meet people and so I was like oh Network you know meet people through Linkedin or something um and I wound up connecting with this guy named Jordan celic who's this former investment banker turned entrepreneur in New York City uh and I don't even know how we connected but it was this random like he was looking to help veterans and I'm like a veteran looking for a job and he was this big proponent he believed in networking as like a thing you should do and I brought up I was like I want to meet some people and he's like oh come to New York I'll I'll I'll introduce you to some you know know investment people or whatever some Finance people and whatever and maybe you get a job out here and so it it quickly turned into the there's a Snowball Effect where I was like well you know can I bring some of my buddies that are transitioning out of the military as well and it quickly over the course of like six weeks went from I'm going to go to New York and meet with Jordan and like meet a few people to like you know 15 people on my side all seals that are transitioning or spec ops guys and like a whole bunch of like hiring managers and folks from different Industries in New York like having almost like a conference um it it like very uh spontaneous in a way but it was this really cool thing where like I remember looking out at this like sea of like networking happening amongst elite special operators and like these Elite firms in New York and Jordan and I were like this would be a really cool like business like create a charity that like hosts these types of events because clearly there's a need for like veterans to like learn how to assimilate and so we ended up starting this charity called Elite meet that we held these these events where like Elite Spec Ops dudes and gals met with business people and they got jobs and it was great and so ironically my job became running a job search service if you will but we use social media to to drive attention to both get donations and to get other hiring you know companies to come to these events but there was this goofy thing where you know Special Operations soldiers Warriors whatever like they are notoriously not willing to promote themselves now I will say there's a huge caveat there's tons of sealed content there's lots of but like those represent the minority of people that are like in out of that Community the bulk of of folks that are seals for examples will like literally barely ever talk about it they keep it to themselves it's like the whole silent professional thing and it almost goes against like a code of ethics to even begin to talk about it and so really there's a challenge getting these guys to self-promote to like get a job even when they're in the even when they're in these networking events that we're setting up and so I began using social media to tell stories about either specifically members of these units I'd get the permission and I would tell a kind of watered down deployment story where there's some sort of like you know takeaway that shows that they're a great leader or something but it was really hard to get permission from people and it was just easier if I talked about my own experience and then relating it to how this applies to a wide swath of other special operators that like I'm the representation of the Baseline and so if You' hire anybody you know this this story showcases not just what I can do what all these people can do and I was really good at writing these stories like they were like LinkedIn you know like little like several paragraphs long um and so that was when I began thinking about like social media just as a thing it was like fascinating to me that just telling stories written stories on LinkedIn could drive donations like hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations uh and like very big businesses were coming to these events these like little events who are hosting from social media and so I I ended up going off the deep end a little bit with with social media where um I ended up not so much posting about how to how to drive attention to the charity but more like how to build my own personal brand as like a Navy SEAL like a former Navy SEAL and I like broke the the C the cart I committed a cardinal sin uh in the sealed Community which is like aggressive self-promotion like above and beyond just trying to get a job like I was posting stuff on social media that in no way was sensitive information it was nothing like but it's more padding yourself on back like look what I did and it's in the seals it's about the team and and I'm also like I did the minimum amount of time you can do in the teams and I mentioned earlier like there are people in the teams that do like 20 deployments you know what I mean I'm I'm I'm giving you my experience from like two little deployments there are people that have done so much more and I'm on a wh side team I'm not even on on Development Group it just Team Six and so it quickly I became like a piece of crap in the eyes of the active duty seal Community for the stuff I was putting online where I was like you know I think I had like 50,000 followers on on Instagram all in the strength of like talking about being a seal I thought that I wasn't crossing any lines but at the same time I knew that it was like you know you're you're making lots of enemies and I remember when I started getting messages from people that I served with like directly like literally was laying behind a wall taking incoming fire with this person and they're sending me messages that are not anonymous they're like [ __ ] you don't ever [ __ ] say that [ __ ] online again you're disowned from the community no yeah and so it was like heartbreaking so you want to talk about like The Humbling moment of when I got my ass kicked in high school it was nothing compared to like the barrage of hate that I would get nearly every day what didn't they like because I would see it as an outsider and think this is in a way inspirational for people who might want to get into this a lot of people would see your story and think this is a career that I've never considered before but I think I have what it takes I want to be able to serve um to me it comes off as something that that's more so positive is like sharing these experiences in such a way that that can Inspire other people so objectively that's all true and if you and I deleted a lot virtually all of the stuff if you were to go back and look at all of it I would probably cringe reading it but you would not read any of them and be like I don't get it you wouldn't you wouldn't read it and be like oh yeah I see that because objectively all I'm doing is sharing real experiences that are my own I never acted like I specifically was like the leader and I was the guy doing this it was always really my actual POV it was never meant to to prop me up as being more than I was but it's almost like if you start kind of pointing at yourself and saying like I'm the guy the SEAL Teams are just not cool with that at all like you with with very rare exception guys are get like all all seals that are pretty public right now are facing some level of of hate from the actual active duty Community how they handle it is it's on them for me personally I became so depressed it was so so I had I had to leave Virginia I literally left Virginia Beach where I was living which is a hot spot for seals because I would go out and nobody nobody acted inappropriate no one like but I'd see people that I know I mean every freaking Navy SEAL is like here in Virginia Beach it's a small town and I'd like get death stairs from people that like personally knew me not like Anonymous like staring me down like at the gym or at the grocery store and it's like dude I can't do this I can't be here and so I like fled Virginia and went to Pennsylvania to like literally get away from people that hated me um and then I made the decision you know I'm like I I'm in a way building a strong brand in the sense that I'm growing my followership uh on Instagram and across social media but it's again it's all on this like I'm the Navy seal narrative and I remember talking to my wife and I was like I can't [ __ ] do this anymore like I can't handle the level of hate I'm getting like I mean really these are deep cutting things from people that really know you well uh and so I ended up deleting everything but I was I was thinking to myself that I still really loved the like what social media represented um I loved that that I Lov the idea that anybody could post something to the internet and in theory they could like go viral and they could become a thing I really I just love that that was a thing it reminded me in a sense of of like Navy SEAL training where it's like you know anybody can try out to a to a degree and it's whoever makes it to the end gets it and so kind of like a shot in the dark there's a this this a condensed version but Tik Tok was becoming a thing right around the time that I was like okay I'm done posting about seal stuff I'm giving it up I'm going to get like a job at you know Panera until I figure out what I'm going to do um but I noticed that Tik Tok was becoming a thing it's the beginning of the pandemic and I was like well there's probably not any seals on there you know it's probably just like kids doing dances and so I went on Tik Tok and kind of like I remember I had on my computer I had these documents these Google documents I learned how to use by this point nice uh and I had this one sheet that had like all these ideas for like types of content I could do and not just for Tik Tok but for anything and it was all like kind of rooted in the military obviously or like you know patriotism it was like all kind of stuff that was in the world of military is stuff and then I had this other document that that had a single word on it that I I I always wanted to cover this one but I just I couldn't do it it was like so random and off the- wall I was like what are people going to think if I do that one and it just said deat love deat love standing for the very famous deat love pass there's are you familiar with the deat love P story okay well when I tell you what I did with it I'll tell you the story and so I remember I I've deleted all my content the military content and I just built this brand new Tik Tok account and it wasn't literally my first post it was actually after several very cringey like I'm doing like all the trends with the kids dude it so bad like things are popping up dude I was doing all that stuff and I'd like watch it and be like this is is this good no no no that's even worse we I was just like an adult like doing these like totally lame like kid stuff like the the this one this one the worst one I the worst one I did was the there was a trend where it was like you do the the autotune voice and you like kind half sing a story in autotune it's so cringy that I can't even replicate it now but I was doing all this horrible stuff but finally it was kind of like well you know I tried Tik Tok it's not really working and I remember I I opened my computer and I I happened to have these two Google Docs up the one of like my exhausted list of like failed content types and then the one that was just like it Unsolved Mysteries and then my one topic was diatlov and I was like you know what whatever I'll just I'll tell the diatlov past story um and so the story goes and this is what I told in a 60-second burst on Tik Tok in the 1950s there were these hikers these incredibly talented hikers there's nine of them um that were going to take what's called their level three hiking test which sounds like nothing but in the world of hiking in Russia at the time these are the guys these are like the professional hikers okay these are the people that can like scale Mount Everest and to get your level three is like a really big deal um at the time in the 1950s they didn't have cell phones or anything so to in order for them to take the test to prove their level three they needed to go through a fairly treacherous route up into the Ural Mountains which are covered in snow very icy and steep but they didn't they can't talk to these hikers while they're out there and so they the the team that puts on the level three test they they organize these checkpoints throughout this this this stretch in the eural mountains that are spaced apart by like several miles and it's just like random hikers and camps and at at certain intervals they would have to reach these checkpoints in order to not only be accounted for but to prove they're going the way they're supposed to be going and so these nine young super athletic super happy and it's this is also very well documented it was all filmed there's loads of pictures they're haunting by the way these nine hikers they take off and they begin this journey into the Ural Mountains and they they reached their first checkpoint I believe and then they reached this mountain pass and a lot of this stuff is speculation but it's believed they reached the foot of this mountain and it's all everything's snow there's no there's nothing it's like this wide open snowy canvas and there's this huge mountain that's covered in snow and there's a storm coming and it was late enough in the day where they either had to Sprint basically to get up and over the ridge to be safe on the other side or they had to wait for the next day for the storm to pass because if they began going up this mountain where they did need to go eventually and the storm hit or it got too dark they'd be completely like wide open there's no trees there's nothing stopping them like you never want to be on an open face of a mountain in the middle of a storm and so so they believe that the group remember these are highly skilled hikers these are like the best they decided to make the journey up this mountain and they stopped halfway they picked the most exposed spot ever and so the assumption is they they gambled they gambled wrong they had nowhere to go and so they pitched their Camp these little crappy tents in the middle of this mountain and they weathered the most horrific snowstorm ever but at some point in the middle of the snowstorm the hikers were broken up into I think three different tents this is based on what they found they cut their tents open from the inside and they left like 75% of their clothes folded neatly inside of their tents and then they walked out of their tent in a group almost in a line and they walked down the mountain where there was this this gaggle of trees it was I guess you could call it a forest it was more like crops of trees and we don't know what they did down there but three of their bodies were found up in the trees like naked and like up on the tree and there were all these scratch marks on the base of the tree to indicate like they maybe even tried to go up in this this tree to hide from something that was trying to attack them um then the footsteps continued about a half mile like down like parallel with the mountain to this cave where they found the rest of the the hikers and all of them were deceased but the ones in the cave they had exchanged clothing so like the men were wearing the women's clothes women were wearing the men's clothes uh and several of them had pieces of their face they they looked like they had been bitten off like lips nose ears and some of them were radioactive like their skin was radioactive their clothes were radioactive and so they're all dead and so there's just no clue what happened to them at the same time the Russian military was doing an exercise in the eural mountains and that night the one of the senior people of of this military command noticed overhead there were all these strange lights which coincided with where these hikers were like these really in like think UFOs basically all these lights over the mountain and he actually called it in that he thought there was potentially another military unit like potentially an enemy like operating in the Ural Mountains and it was officially documented that there were these unidentified objects floating around the area where this all happened and so when they found out that these hikers were all found dead and there was this sighting the Soviet government they investigated and then their conclusion was an unknown unnatural Force killed them case closed and they didn't give any more information about it it was immediately swept under the rug and no one was allowed to invest instigated it was literally kept under like lock and seal and then they they reinvestigated it ironically like literally in 2020 and they think that perhaps an ice uh shelf had like broken off and killed some of them and then like extreme hypothermia could have led them to act a certain way but like it doesn't explain the radioactivity it doesn't explain the lights in the sky it there's a lot of things that go unanswered and so it ends up being this like fascinating unsolved mystery that's kind of stood the test of time and I told that in a 60-second version with the pictures included the pictures of the tents are totally bizarre it looks like they folded up half their clothes and left them in their tent cut it open then walked off um but so I was at this uh indoor water park in Pennsylvania with my kids and I shot this little Tik Tok video with no format I just kind of did a 60-second version and since we're going to be in the water park where it's wet naturally I wasn't going to bring my phone so I post this Tik Tok and I leave my phone in my room and then I go with my kids my wife down to the water park we having fun and I back and my phone is like practically broken it's got so many notific notifications popping up on it the video that I posted had like you know 5 million views in like literally a couple of hours uh and I everything i' posted to that point had never gotten even like a thousand or 2,000 views and so it was like Mega virality and like all of a sudden and it was like the I've always been so fascinated with like strange dark and mysterious tales and like that story in particular always interested me and so I was like oh my God like this is the coolest thing ever it has nothing to do with like being an NA seal it's something that I'm really interested in and I was like dude I'll just I'll do more of these and so I I like enacted this like really insane schedule of I I I I posted three stories like that one a day for 30 days which was it sounds like nothing but putting together in 60 second dude it's a beast yes you know uh but I it GRE it grew my Tik Talk account to like a million followers in 30 days and I was at the time I was very likely one the the very few creators that was not doing just kind of typical trendy stuff on Tik Tok I was you could make the case that I was one of the first big storytellers on there and it just gave me like first mover advantage in a big way like Tik toks reaching out to me and like I got my my partner and my manager and like they're all like oh post more content we'll promote it and like the account just went huge it got to like seven or 8 million followers really quickly and then I I was doing a live stream on Tik Tok I was was doing that a bunch and I I I guess I brandished a weapon that's what they told me the algorithm said I brandished a weapon I didn't I don't know how that came up but it it gave me like a 7-Day ban I couldn't it was the first time from starting Tik Tok that I couldn't post anything um and I decided that I would shift to YouTube because it's a monetized platform it's stable and I've wanted to do longer form content and so I moved to YouTube and I posted a video that's actually my own personal like ghost story I have exactly one uh and it's it's barely edited I literally sat in this room in my house that has the worst Acoustics imaginable it's this yellow awful back my my walls are all like mustard yellow you can like hear lawnmowers outside and I and it's like unedited I'm just like sending the story and it went massively viral on YouTube and it wasn't because of Tik Tok because I didn't there was no one going over this was like YouTube algorithm you posted something it went viral and I think that that was probably the moment and also based on comments a lot of people were like who is this dude like what is this and it that was probably when I realized like okay the way that I tell stories works for the for the social media gods for the algorithm Gods uh and that probably was when I was like all right full send just just do this now why do you think people have such morbid Curiosities for some of the stories because I listen to them and I have to sometimes it screws with my mind a little bit I I stop listening and I'm like that kind of [ __ ] with me a bit I I I don't feel like more positive at like I'm curious about I love it for what but it's like True Crime stuff it's like yeah I do struggle with it it's funny um a lot of people that I speak to that are fans of the show or the genre talk about it being their like Comfort show which seems totally backwards because the content literally is like 99% somebody dies in some horrible way like that's the gist of the content but I think that as humans there is a there is a desire to be frightened in a safe control environment and what's more terrifying than seeing real people that had something kind of random and abrupt that could happen to anyone happen to them someone breaks into their house or they like you they go to some off limits part of a park and like they fall off a cliff or something it's like it feels like that could happen to me and I can learn about it and kind of almost live vicariously through this story but I'm safe I'm like my my guide in this case me is like telling me like buddy tuddy telling you a story about this horrible thing and you get you almost get like the thrill of fear and anxiety but it's not real it's this it's the same reason we flock to like scary movies in movie theaters it's because you want to be scared but only because it's it's actually not real but your brain processes fear the same way but you're in this controlled environment so you get real fear real kind of shot of adrenaline but the comfort of real safety um but I do think it's kind of like a human trait I don't think it's I don't think that the the genre is like been forced upon people I think that humans have a morbid curiosity and I don't think that's wrong I think it's part of Being Human do you think that seeing and experiencing obviously with your your tour or your Navy SEAL stuff and then also with like constantly being subjected to all of this like very morbid very kind of almost like gruesome horrific stuff do you think that has any effect on you in general sometimes it does but it's pretty it's pretty I I I think I stay pretty disconnected from the material when I'm not like doing the job of creating content and being Mr Ballin like when I'm with my kids and my wife like I'm I'm just John I'm dad it doesn't feel like one world kind of comes into the other however I would say when I cover stories that have distinct parallels to my own life and my own loved ones it's really hard to to like I barely ever cover uh content about kids getting getting harmed because I just can't do it it's too close to home for me um I also you know periodically will cover you know I covered the story about this woman who um now I'm forgetting her name unfortunately but she was this wonderful woman in her 60s she went hiking she's like a great hiker you know did it all the time for exercise and she got lost in this park broad daylight like this is not some gnarly place like in Pacific Northwest it's like Somewhere In Like New Hampshire or something um but she gets lost and being a season tiger she decides to stay put because she knows someone's going to come look for her she's got a family that knows she's out here she's going to wait it out and so she just sets up her Camp she's got food she's got water and she just sits there but unfortunately no one ever finds her and she say she stays there for a month and she didn't know it she was only like less than half a mile from the trail um but she didn't know she was that close and over the course of her time in this tent where she really never moved she she you know she kept a journal of each day and she was just So Graceful like dealing with what was actually happening happening to her she clearly recognized about 3 weeks into her stay that she wasn't going to be found and she now was too weak that she couldn't she couldn't realistically attempt an escape and so she knows she's going to die but the way she wrote in the journal was it was so profound it was all of it was for her kids for her husband the language was so like positive and reminding them that she's she's fine she's safe you know she's no one's going to harm me I'm going to pass away in my bed but it's like the grace that she handled the ending with is just it was incredible and she reminded me so much of my mom my mom it was like it was it was like telling a story about my mom dying in this horribly tragic way uh and that one just really messed me up it's stuck with me for a long time and it's not nearly the most gruesome story I've told it's just it it it feels like I'm seeing a bit of my life in the story and those the stories that stick with you the one that kind of messed me up was the one actually it was like a mall and the guy goes through this one door and gets sent into this Corridor where it's just like like a catacomb of just all these different it's just like cement walls cement floor cement ceiling and he just sits down somewhere in this chair and he never gets found yep that was the one I still think about I'm like jeez I know no that that yeah there was like there's a mall in Australia that had it's fam it's this huge huge mall and they have like eight miles of like imagine here's like the the outline of the mall pretend it's a perfect rectangle like bordering it but unseen to the public are all these passageways for staff and storekeepers to move around away from like the main walking areas you can like access store and whatever from from anyways but there's 8 miles of it and it's really not patrolled I suppose there's not much there's not cameras there and this guy was scile and he wandered into this area and there were enough doors that were locked around him that he just sat down thinking okay someone's going to find me but they didn't and it was just like again just like so sad you know and then when he was found he's like just hunched over on his chair just sitting there for like a month where do you find these stories I mean honestly the the beginning so I would say like call it early 2020 to relatively recently like within the we we we've professionalized in in a huge way in everything now but for the first like year and a half two years I literally was just on on Google you know trying to find interesting things to look for um you know one of the one of the the traps that people fall into that cover content like that I do is that there's loads of stuff that's like on Reddit but it's personal people's stories and technically it's like a copyrighted thing cuz well it's unverified one but it's you can get in trouble for using somebody else's story without permission this didn't necessarily happen to me but it's Reddit is is a place that people go and find content uh but you really it's not a it's not a successful way to find content but a lot of people do it it's a little little sketchy I I basically wanted to find news I wanted to find stories that you could basically you would public news sources about them uh and that it's a it's a chore doing that like the easy way is you just go to Reddit and you grab some crazy story somebody told uh but early on I I really wanted to make sure that I was not going to get sued and so it just became looking for really obscure news stories I'm wondering how do you approach something so delicately especially if it's something that occurred recently when maybe the victim's families are still alive or the victim is still alive but just you know out of commissioner not not doing well like how do you approach that in a way that doesn't come off as like in you know offensive or something like that I I think that there's probably an element of just literally the way I carry myself and my demeanor and the way I speak is I I guess it comes off as not disrespectful to most people listening and I don't think it's something I'm necessarily attempting to do or like I put it this way I'm not uh telling the story I'm not putting on an act I'm telling it the way that I would tell it which is like with respect it's just that's the way I would do it and I think that it comes off very authentically just based on feedback I've gotten that it does seem like I'm being very respectful of the fact that these are real people involved um so I think it's I guess innate that's just the way that I tell the story it people think that it's respectful um I also I do when when we're writing these stories it's we never we don't want to write a story where my opinion is coming out even if it's something that universally we could agree is a bad thing like serial killers are bad and they're bad people and they've done bad things but I don't want to tell a story where the focus is how bad they are from my perspective I want to tell you what happened with that person and you can form whatever opinion you want and so that is probably one way that it comes off as more respectful because it's if you if you if you watch any video that we've put out or listen to podcasts it's very difficult to find an instance where you can tell how I feel about a particular subject and that's that's because the writing is done to be very neutral and the story carries the whatever opinion you want you want to have um but then you mentioned about how do we handle more recent stories we do actually try to stay away from stuff that's either developing like that we don't have an answer yet it's ongoing or it literally just happened it's just it's it's tough to sensationalize something that's literally playing out live um and so when we do that we we'll reach out to the to the families to the victims like especially now I mean not to like toot our own horn but we're we're big enough now where like if I post a story about someone and it's ongoing like they're going to hear about it and so it's pretty routine to post a story and then get feedback from family members and people involved and publicity on such events could also be beneficial to solving them as well I feel like that could help getting all these eyes on it yeah I mean we we not not to some extent not we've we've not done this a lot but there's been some instances where we've covered a story and intentionally drove viewers to like a GoFundMe page you know yeah we did one for this this guy who was sky instructor oh my gosh that was a sad story man he flipped himself around and he took the fall and saved the student who was strapped to his stomach wow they they teach instructors this move that you do if you cannot get your shoot to open and you're doing a tandem jump where you basically flip yourself over and you take the fall to try to save your student and he did that and he totally saved his student but he's paralyzed you know neck down um so he got loads of publicity at the time it's this heroic story but this guy has massive medical problems for the rest of his life and he's not that old and so I we told the story but we preemptively got in touch with him and we said we want to cover it and we're going to push people to your girl fundme page and I forget what it's at now but he's probably we raised like 400 plus yeah 4 unable that's the one Andrew cried during really the one I was telling you to listen to yeah I got to listen to it it's a good one what does your team look like today how many people are on it how is it structured well it's very important to understand the way the business is structured because one of the things that I'm not trying to do is be like the boss because I'm not I I I a I'm a really good speaker Storyteller like on the creative side I got that down but I am not really a good manager I I've had experience managing and leading and to a degree I'm decent at it but it's something that I'm I'm I'm not good at regular communication with people I'm kind of like like uh bipolar with people I'm like super cool with you and then like I'll like I'll see like one thing that I don't like that you're doing and now it's like well now I don't like you at all anymore and and like unfortunately it's like that's that's horrible like you can't run you can't build a team that way uh and so uh I knew that about myself and so when I when the YouTube channel was doing really really well like early on I was starting to get like you know requests to do sponsored segments and and all that and I just didn't really even know what to do I just like kind of ignored everything um and then I I uh I I got reached out to by this company called called uh night media they do all this talent management fantastic yeah yeah yeah I had been approached by a couple other people that were in the talent management space to like be my manager uh and it made sense you know I need a manager to deal with these sponsor segments and stuff and I just I didn't want to work with anybody because I'm like so worried about how I'm going to handle like being around these other people uh but Nick uh he hit me up and he was like the only dude out of all the people that reached out to me that didn't really have a pitch everybody else was like oh I can expand your business this way and do this this this this and he was like hey dude like I was in the military too you know I don't really know what you need you know if you need help be happy to help you like let me know and I was like that dude seems cool and then I proceeded to immediately blow him off completely when he was he asked me to take a call with him and I blew him off just I was like busy but then I called him like cold called him uh and I was like I was at that point where and I'm maybe you can relate to this I don't know but like I knew that I was like the YouTube business was a real business but it just felt like I was running around with my hair on fire like I'm like last second getting uploads done like so stressed like just working 24/7 but making you're not really getting ahead you're just like trying to keep the lights you're just trying to keep things yeah and it was like I could feel myself starting to slip like I was missing uploads and I was like really burnt out and I like poured my heart out to Nick I'm like dude I don't know you this is my first interaction with you but you seem cool but I'm like falling apart here dude and I I have like trust issues with like other people I've worked with I'm I'm not good at like leading teams like I'm not good at it I need someone who can like really step in and and like do everything else so that I can just do storytelling and Nick's like all right cool man and like true to his word like the dude he's right over there you can't see him he's a looks like a viking to give you a visual I mean that's atimidating right there yeah bodyguard really yeah literally he's doubled as my bodyguard several times um but yeah no he uh Nick is so his background is he's combat vet um he was a lawyer and he also worked at WME talent talent management so the best stars in the world he came over to night media doing digital uh talent management he was uh one of the managers for Mr Beast and so he'd like done like the highest level of digital management uh and we just like hit it off and I could just tell Nick had all the skills that I didn't in terms of building a business and so we went from uh me an editor and a topic finder who didn't even work out the topic finder was Finding like zero topics so really was me and an editor uh to now we have 37 employees no is that fulltime or is that like some what we have 37 employees we have um my gosh how many are in the United States all but two all but all but two my gosh what in the I had no idea I would assume it's like you and like five people Max well so there's there's so there's there's there's a lot of facets there's a lot of stuff just a lot of moving so we have like on the only so the only thing I do is I take scripts that are written and then I work with them to make them sound like me because I have a very particular way I want to sound and then I tell the story and the way I tell stories is I like study the story and like embody it and then I tell it it's not a I'm not reciting a script you know uh and so that takes up like a lot of time and mental space and like but that's what I do I go to my studio and I record stories I don't do anything else I I don't hire anybody I don't fire anybody I don't sit on meetings I don't I don't do anything I'm like a I'm an employee of the company because like I know my strength like I I know what I'm really good at and I know what I'm not and Nick came in and he has all the skills to like build a business and he has all the relationships and the drive and so he we ended up leaving night media to form our own studio so ball in studios since August 2022 we formed Ballin Studios and Nick just went he hired and fired so many people and now we have like it's like a worldclass team of people it's it's I sat on the first Friday meeting last Friday the first one in a long time uh and like the the last one I was on there was like five people on it and now it's like there like 80 all these different blocks of Zoom people and it's like all these like brilliant people that are like doing these incredible things within our organization and it's like I noticed you're posting everywhere like even your Facebook has like almost 4 million people on there yeah so I'm sure a lot of that's like syndicating to all these platforms and building these businesses off of it yeah I mean the thing the thing that it has we're still working on but I think we're pretty good at doing is everywhere things get posted whether they're being handled by a third party or they're being handled by a team member or whatever they have to feel like a genuine like Mr Ballin post it can't become like you know random crap that nobody nobody thinks I'm posting it they think somebody else is and so to do that requires an enormous amount of training like you you don't get to just come in and oh hey write a script or oh oh like do some resar search over here like no there's a formula to it and like you know the right now the the head of production for us is actually my sister who's she's she's a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Brainiac she's super smart but she's developed like a course that people go through just to learn how to like begin to write you don't even you're not even a writer yet you go through three months of she's editing you you like the Seal of writing that is impressive so she's editing you as well as uh my dad who also is a pullit surprise winning Journal and he's he was the head of the spotlight team so like the movie Spotlight where Michael Keaton's the lead so Michael Keaton like worked with my dad to like learn how to play him in the movie oh my gosh and so we have these like incredibly talented professional writers and editors that like put our writers through like the Mr ball in boot camp and it's we've only hired like a handful of writers after the whole thing and they're so good and the topic finders are so good what I love about your style is it still seems like I'm just talking to you you know what I mean it seems like a Campfire Story it's very intimate it's not like all this crazy editing all the it's just so real you know what I mean and I think that it fits the theme so well so it's very shocking I like I wouldn't say I'm super shock because I I can see the views I could see you know how big you are on all these different platforms so I assume it's a massive operation but it is still like a little bit shocking it's 37 people and you know what the thing about the 37 employees is that nobody has and I'm not just saying this because I'm on this podcast nobody has a job that you're like why why are you doing that or like why do we have someone do that like those positions are gone like you have an opportunity when you come in to work with us to like we want people to like come in as like an assistant and then have blue sky as it's yeah Blue Sky you can become a writer if you want you can become an onscreen person for a new show like no one's stopping you you got to do the stuff you're responsible for and there's intense training for it that's all filtered through Nick yeah but like everybody knows knows that like we are expanding in every direction I would love to see different offshoots of just like different stories and different segments I mean as it is we you know we have uh Bedtime Stories the the amazing YouTube channel that they now are under the Ballin Studios umbrella doing a podcast with us we just launched that uh it's like top 20 across the board I think at one point it was top 10 it's kind of hanging around the top 20 Mark uh we also uh I say we very liberally Nick is the one doing all of this I'm just staying in my studio telling stories Nick understands Talent management having been in it and so he started a talent management business so we have like nexo and we have Nick Crowley who are being under they're under our management wing and they're loving it like they're we're helping them hire writers we're going to researchers everybody is actually playing a pretty meaningful role and there's like department head meetings every Friday and like everybody better come to the table with like what you're doing because it's can be really obvious if your Department's not doing anything not that I would know cuz I'm not on those meetings but Nick tells me and that's what happens so you need to do more podcasts I don't know know why you haven't like CU I this is like my first one I know I we I mean obviously we did research but I couldn't find enough on you to research nice like you're still you know what I mean I think you as a person to me is more captivating than all the stories I mean the stories are great but I think you as a person that to me is what's most impressive is like the background of who you are and I think it makes the stories that much more impactful just knowing like just what makes you tick and your interests and and the business side of things but it's not only that but it's like how you met your wife you knew it was her and like that's also in and of itself something that just doesn't happen that's super rare what relationship advice do you have for me who's engaged and Jack who's single I'm a bachelor he's to be you know I I actually have something that I said to myself that I still say now and it seems simple but I I I always say to myself I will always be good to Amanda and it's just the simplest phrase but it applies to everything like there's really very rarely a fight that you get into that can't be solved with just stepping back and being like you know what I'm going to take the high road and be good to my partner like when I when we first got married like I'm like 22 going through the most stressful training and it was like the only person I was around when I wasn't training was like my wife and I was like kind of a jerk you know half the time because I'm just like so stressed and I just like saw like if that's the path you're going to go you're not going to be married for very long and so I I like literally adopted this mindset of when in doubt like always be good to Amanda and like even now like I literally say it's myself if we're arguing or upset about anything my bottom line is like that's the person I want to be with and so why would I like soil it by like focusing on something that's kind of asinine was there something that she did in those first 72 hours where you're like okay like that's that's it I saw a picture of her I I saw so I I obviously saw her and I was like hanging out with her but there was a picture of her she went to South Africa like for this like school trip or whatever with the college like right before we met and so all her friends that went like went out and like partied and had a great time but Amanda is like this totally like motherly person and she found these like little kids that were in South Africa that were like playing at the playground and all Amanda wanted to do was like go like hang out with these like little kids and like go pet the animals that were like Strays on the roads she's just like a very wholesome person and there's this picture of her where she's sitting on a swing and she's holding this little girl who clearly she doesn't know it's this little kid that's like flocked to my wife uh and she just like looks like the perfect Mom I don't know I was like that's like I want I want that person I want like that soul to be around my kids who's just like naturally loving and caring and just like an old soul I suppose and I still like look at that picture all the time like CU that's when I fell in love with my wife it's like I saw that picture and I was like that's the one how do you find someone like that I don't know I don't know I think it was just luck that I found her uh she was just a a friend of a friend you know yeah I don't know I think I got lucky that I met the right person you know and I think now like you know it's probably really challenging to meet people or I should say it's it's almost like uh with the dating apps you can meet so many people not I haven't used a dating app I met her you know normally in college or whatever but like you have so many choices it probably makes it really hard to like I'm going to stop now because it's the Paradox of choice but the problem is you do have to make your decision at some point you know what I mean so you can't just continue to go on new dates meet new people forever that that is something that I'm I feel lucky to have just met somebody and it worked out I think that's partially luck you know I have a question feel free this if you want to cut this let me know if you don't think Amanda looks great in a dress and she asks you yeah do you tell her oh no no way dude she she's beautiful no matter what you know respect I respect that no she I I'm obsessed with my wife like she would look good to me no matter what she was wearing I want to be at that level I want to be at that level we always get conflicting answers some people are like absolutely honesty is 100% if she if if she doesn't look good in that dress I'm going to tell her and then she appreciates it because when she does look and I tell her she looks great she knows I mean it yeah but then some people they say it's not the suit that makes the man it's the man that makes the suit you know what I mean there you go I I think that uh the one thing that's been great about uh this career path that I'm on now is in a way it's well it's it's candidly it's very isolating being I'm sure you can relate to this Gram I'm sure you both can uh like a as you become I guess more of a public figure within the YouTuber space it's you you don't really feel like that's happening you feel like you're just making videos and like it's cool and it's like you're making a living off of it and it's awesome people like know who you are you like go out and they like know who you are and it's like so flattering it's like the coolest thing but it also like it it's very isolating because you're not really it's it's harder to relate to people in a way uh maybe I just react that way to it um but I found that like because I met Amanda way before I was Mr Ballin like she knows me as John and it's like the purest relationship you know it's just just me and my wife and so as like the whole Mr Ballin thing has grown and I've definitely had some people aggressively take advantage of me and like it's there's been some rough stuff I've I've always had Amanda to like be real with me you know I can be completely unfiltered and real with her and it's helped our relationship tremendously that like she's my number one and she knows me for me I'm not Mr ballin I'm not a nav seal I'm like the dude she met in college and so it's strengthened our relationship tenfold how often does she shoot down ideas we like I think this is great and she's like oh could you give us an example does she have veto power uh yeah so she she like so we're doing uh our first live show in a week actually a week from today um and all the stories that I've selected for the show have been run through Amanda and like she told me like a few of them she's like no don't do that one like that's no one's going to like that one like don't do that one I'm like all right yeah I completely wanted to do that one but because you said so I'm not going to do that um but definitely story selection she yeah if I if she doesn't think it's good and she's Shameless about being honest if the story is good or not like she'll like literally be like no that's boring like halfway through the story so is it just you internalize the story and recite it to her as though you're filming and then she tells you if it's yes or no it's just the concept so no I I like literally will be out in my studio like researching it and like internalizing the story and then before I'll film it uh I'll say hey man let me just run the story by you and I'll literally do like the whole thing it's not that's the coolest coolest thing I would love to be a fly on the wall where you're just I just tell her the story it's like in the kitchen she just listens and then she gives feedback it should be a side channel of just you running the stories by her and the stories that don't make it on your main channel should be the side Chann there are many I'm sure they're good but they're just not like top tier yeah she's she and she'll be very honest that's that's the key she's very honest with me how many of these stories do you tell your kids zero really do you let them watch the content or no no when will you I don't know it's a weird thing like it's funny like my oldest uh she's eight actually oh my God yeah she's turning eight soon she um she's seven now anyways her classmates have not not many of them they're seven but there have been classmates that when I pick her up they recognize me and it shows there are seven-year-olds that are watching this content they recognize you yeah seven-year-olds well I think that my daughter very likely has tipped them off but they par they think a superhero like they they walk around with you daddy goach you don't think so I don't think so I cuz my kids like they're young enough that they don't really understand what I do Ella my oldest definitely probably does she wants to be a YouTuber and I think that's probably part you know but like my youngest Henry who's three like he knows like there's such a thing as Mr Ballin but doesn't really understand what that is and like my middle same thing uh that is so funny but yeah no they they don't watch any of it in fact the live show they're going to be there for it and it's the first time they're going to hear any of this stuff like they don't they don't even know what they're walking so they just think like dad's going to come and like tell a story to basically and it's f so at night every night I I tell my son a story but it's like completely fictional and it's so I lay down with him every night and I say okay Henry What story do you want to listen to and it's like a T-Rex story and I'll tell the story of like Henry and the T-Rex that's like made up on the spot like so see just make it all up making them all up on the spot yeah I just like make story and I tell my kids stories all the time but they're like happy friendly stories ponies and princesses and stuff I couldn't do that I don't think I could just make up a story on the spot like that professionally tell St all do little I know but but there's there's difference in reciting something that you've internalized versus like making something up on the spot yeah it's fictional yeah well I mean luckily it's a three-year-old he's not going to judge the story too hard inconsistency he pointing that out so you you haven't picked out a time where maybe you'll be comfortable to share these stories with your kids I don't know I mean you know it's it's like there's the two parts of my life that we've discussed at length like the the Navy side and the YouTube side they really don't know much about it all uh mostly because I I probably am over Sheltering them to some degree like they know dad was in the military at one point but like what does that mean um they don't know what a Navy SEAL is they don't know what war is you know uh and similarly they don't really understand that like the world is a scary place and horrible things do happen and that's what's covered on YouTube and I think that like I'm probably resistant to the idea of like I don't know showing them the reality of of the world not that like my YouTube videos are like that's the world like that's the worst part of the world that's not the world but yeah I think I'm just I'm just a little protective of my kids I do wonder is it important for people to know about the evil that exists in this world like is it important to understand that you can go out and something bad can happen to you to contemplate your own mortality to know you could be driving and someone can just come and hit you in the car and like like do you think that it's important that people don't live in some sort of state of blissful ignorance but they're aware that bad stuff happens yeah I mean I mean I think that from a I don't know vigilance standpoint I think it's important to not be totally naive if you're out in a public place you should be aware of how to leave that place you should be aware there are probably people in the in the crowd that might want to do you or your family harm I mean that's that's that's life so I think that like you you shouldn't be like at all times thinking someone's going to kill you but I think that the reverse of that is is far worse if you think that everything is sunshine and rainbows you're wrong that's not the world we live in no matter what you think it is when you go and sit down at a restaurant I've heard of this thing where like you can't have your back facing the door is that true or is that a bit over like well I would say the people that I know that have done numerous like intense deployments uh are much more likely to have that kind of a I guess tick of some kind um I don't think it's Universal I I I would say that if I was given a choice I'd probably opt to be able to see an exit but I wouldn't be like oh I can't sit here you know so it's probably not me me but there are definitely people that act that way I mean if you if you are on edge because you've seen some stuff that's like screwed you up whether that's military or in your life I think it's natural to see the exit and that makes you feel comfortable why do you think you did such a good job assimilating back into society where a lot of people go down the path of alcohol drugs destructive behaviors sure well I didn't I I I didn't do a good job I I went to extensive therapy for a long time and and and that literally saved my life I mean I was I when I got out of the military when I was medically retired I was really struggling with identity like with my now that I'm not a seal what am I um and then I I TR I went into the I'm going to be the token Navy SEAL online and do all this content that makes me look I'm getting all this hate from like my literal what I thought were my best friends that was that's deep cutting stuff I was so depressed I was miserable and depressed in like 2018 it was like the lowest point of My Life um borderline suicidal like that that was how bad it got but fortunately um I actually was I was I had these like flashes of anger all the time like completely like random like things that shouldn't make you upset or making me mad and it stood out enough to friends and family they're like dude like you got some issues you got to go see somebody um and so I did I I I went and saw therapist um outside of the military and I will say I'm not Shilling for anything right now but like therapy works uh and it's not just something you do when crisis hits it's something you should be doing preventively uh and so like I I would consider myself incredibly well adjusted now but I absolutely still speak to someone because it's like that's part of your health yeah you know so I I think I was able to pull myself out because I had friends family support I had a professional therapist I think that's the reason I hope I'm not prying but how are those relationships now with with the Navy guys horrible still destroyed gone have you ever tried to mend that or is there no point at it respect I just I think that now enough time has passed since I was posting the stuff that ultimately triggered the reaction I got like it's been so long and and dude I this is the first time I've spoken about my military stuff publicly in like years and this was frankly even watered down um so I don't think that these people necessarily are holding vendettas against me I think a lot of them probably forgot don't even care because it didn't affect them personally it was like oh screw that guy um but uh no I it frankly it's it's a it's a troubling part of my life that I have people that at one time I would have literally died for and who would have literally died for me that I am I don't talk to at all like people that meant an enormous amount to me that are no longer in my life and yes I'm sure I should probably be the one to to reach out and do and I've done that with a couple people but it's painful to to even breach that I think that I've just kind of a avoided it and maybe one day you know our paths will cross again but not holding my breath so I've heard this theory that you experience a range of emotion on a scale of 0o to 10 and then you get married and then the range of emotion extends to10 to 20 and then you have kids yeah and then there's no range it's just negative Infinity to Infinity as someone who's probably experienced a very intense range of range of emotion while going through the academy at different stages of your life would you agree with that statement that even that range of emotion you were experiencing in those Hard Times PED in comparison to when you became married and when you had kids I I would say having kids is the one that does it for me uh the range of emotions I felt were 0o to 10 and in all in all the ways up until I had kids and then you have kids and it's like I can't believe people do this I can't believe people have like children this is so much work and it never stops and it's there's this funny meme that it was like like the highs and lows of parenting and it was like the low's are you know your kids destroy an international vacation and they like you know they like break a window at a restaur restaurant or they like you know peel over the carpet but the highs are like oh Johnny caught a pop fly today it's like why do we do this you know but it's it's it's it's so rewarding having kids they you just you it's funny at the end of the night my kids all they go to bed and I always like go into their rooms and like look at them sleeping in their bed and I'm like oh my God I love my kids so much they're so wonderful I I do those are all true sentiments but it's like then the daytime rolls around and it's just like chaos like everywhere and that would be like there are days that are so stressful that you're like how and so parenting is a is a tough task and my my wife does the bulk of it so I'm this is me complaining this this is my complaining side uh but yeah know having kids is is a is a whirlwind to say the least I respect your humility I would say that's a a theme that I've seen through this entire thing is your vulnerability and your ability to acknowledge the fact that like you messed up yeah certain times in your life and you messed up bad and uh I respect that I think a lot of people could could take note of that and learn from that thank you yeah I I would say that that's a conscious thing that I do it's a conscious thing it's conscious in the sense that I I think it's important for me to be I I can get carried away and and think I'm really great at stuff and like become very egotistical but I the way I I don't do that is just being real with myself and taking accountability for my missteps and not being afraid to talk about them because I think that it actually makes you a you come off stronger and more competent when you're willing to be honest about your missteps and I think that like you you picked up on it I'm not sitting here trying to play The Humble card but it's it's it it makes people respect you and they want to engage with you they want to be around you because like you're being a human a lot of people hide the things that actually are the most they're the biggest parts of humanity like being a screw-up you know and I show mine to the world and I think that that's the good way to do it so so you mentioned the live storytelling event that's kind of crazy you're doing now are you are you nervous yeah of audience yeah no I one of the questions leading empath this I saw in the email was like what what's your um values and philosophies in life and I actually I I had an answer planned I'll tell you oh okay good because that's something I meant to I meant to ask you because you studied philosophy I did I did I did but this is actually more just like life experiences led me to have one really specific thing so in addition to in my marriage I have the Mantra of I'll always be good to Amanda in my life and the thing that I'm literally teaching my kids is like you got to do stuff that scares you because often times and this is not something I coin but like the best things in life are like on the other side of fear as I think Will Smith said actually in my life the things that scared me the most that I actually went and did like being a Navy SEAL there's so many tests you got to take through SEAL training they're horrifying they're so scary but I did them and I I accomplished those things and each time you get through those scary test Gates it like it your confidence grows like your your your knowledge and experience GRS and I I've just become someone that like even if I even if I kind of don't want to do it I'll like push myself to do something that makes me so [ __ ] uncomfortable like for example in a week I'm going to step on stage with a mic in front of 1300 people 1300 people tell stories that's a lot of people it's in front of 1300 people it's sold out Paramount Theater down Austin you sold it out yeah it's a good idea is it just you oh yeah I I literally I told Nick and my team I said it's important for the first show to be all on me I don't want a highly produced show I want it to be like give me a mic and a stage obviously you know what stories you're going to tell and you've rehearsed this I'm sure how do you feel about that terrified but that's why I'm doing it like literally that's the reason I I am scared to do a big public speaking event so I'm doing a big public speaking event but it's so it's it's impressive I'm I'll I'll be psyched about it when it's done right now I'm like what what the [ __ ] You' been through so much to me this seems like this would be an easy thing it's like oh yeah story it'll be good and there there is some truth to that I think that like you know in my moments of insecurity about this event because I've known about this for months and months you know I do remind myself that I have literally done things that are life and death at times I've gone through the breach you know uh and I've also done I've done public speaking not a lot of it I've spoken like 50 people like a couple times but you know I I think that like a lot of stuff that scares us is is actually not nearly as scary as it seems and and I think that that's what I'm almost addicted to is like I like doing things that other people assign a high level of fear to or a high level of risk to you know like I'm literally drawn to those things I think I think naturally I think it led to some bad behaviors when I was younger I was drawn to stuff that was like risky but in a bad way but then as I kind of course corrected my life I I began gravitating towards these challenges and things that like were terrifying or or carried a high amount of risk with them but I just wanted to do them but like in my brain It's a combination of I don't want to [ __ ] do this at all and that's why I want to do it and so I'm totally torn at all times and then as soon as I do it like I have to find a new thing to do that's also scary and so that's that's just that's how I'm wired uh and I've been able to harness it to help grow you know my end of the business um and I'm preaching it like like crazy to my kids like we go water parks are a big thing that's our our vacation our water parks and my oldest is like obsessed with slides like water slides is always on YouTube like watching different slides like in Dubai or whatever but then we get to the parks and she's like super nervous about all the slides you know she she like she seems really confident get and she doesn't want to do it and I'm like you got to do things that scare you buddy you got you got to do it and she'll like say it to herself she like yeah I got to do things that scare me and she'll do the slide and it's like at the end she's like glowing she's like I can't believe I did that and so it's like rubbing off on her you know I think public speaking is like the most common fear people are like I'd rather die than speak in public you know it's like yeah yeah it's yeah I'm I'm not a public speaker I am in a studio by myself speaker but are you going to do great oh thank you I heard a quote that was turned nervousness and anxiety into excitement because they're very close emotions but excitement just has like this positive over and undertone true I think that like I think it was like Michael Phelps maybe was it him that said it I think so because someone asked him how are you able to stay So Cal given like the stakes of what you're doing and he's like well I just yeah nervousness and excitement are kind of the same emotion and my coach tells me to just like turn your nerves into excitement and that's what I do and it's like really so it's that simple but it's like that's why you're a world class Olympic Athlete because you can do that not everyone can do that you know so I don't think I can do that I think I I ride the fear train doing it I just do it anyways yeah Ballin management is that something you'd like to talk about yeah I touched on it briefly yeah we we have a couple of creators that were managing that Nick uh built out Ballin management the analogy I give uh I've given to Nick and he's used this it's like if if you're playing if I use B B I'm a big baseball fan by the way oh cool me too yeah huge baseball fan uh so if you're a really good baseball player and and you can go pro you want to go pro you want you want to play for like you know whatever your best team is like for me the Red Sox like if I if I'm like the best collegiate baseball player like I'm not going to be like I'm going to go to like you know some random country and go play baseball there no you're going to go to like the show you're going to go to like major league baseball that's where you want to be and so we want ball and Studios to become the equivalent of like the Boston Red Sox but for storytellers like the the place you want to go if you're a Storyteller and you want to like expand and be the most noteworthy and have the most resources and the most reach you go to Ballin Studios and they get access to your like 37p like like assistance on script writing and like edting is an enormous amount of support that is both current and being built I mean Nick is very aggressive about hiring early and like establishing different ETS of people that are ready to support these new people when they come in so that when they arrive it's not like don't worry we're going to help you it's like here's all your brand deals that that Nick already got for you here's the people that are going to help you write research edit like what else do you need like we'll pay for it you know left and so we want it to be like you've made it if you're a Storyteller we're at the early stages of that but like that's we have a very high threshold of quality for everything we're doing which is why we have super intense hiring processes and boot camps you got to go through because we really want this to be like the creme de La Creme of like professional storytelling also in order to really grow up we need other hosts I cannot do all the different shows and so we need like an army of hosts you know what you need honestly I think a kids channel where you tell uh fun stories for kids definitely is is one for sure and I think that that's it's a delicate area because one of the things we've been told by people we've spoken to is like once you go kid once you go Ju it's very difficult to like keep the brand relevant for adults that it almost taints the brand for adults even even like a separate Channel separate person part of the ecosystem I would be nervous about a little bit of cross contamination yeah I mean it's one of those things that we've kind of like put on the back burner but not like we'll never do that more like okay we'll keep it 18 plus at least in theory one of the things that it is is uh so we have what's called uh aspirational is that the demographic where like even though the content is absolutely Ely designed for adults we're not I'm not telling these stories for kids they're for adults but undoubtedly kids are watching this content and there's like there's I don't know like coolness to you're watch you watch an R-rated movie when you're not 17 like I've done that you know what I mean and so I think that we're actually already capturing a slightly juvenile audience not kids kids but like you know teenagers and stuff um if we ever get into like true kids content I think it would just be a very deliberate move that would be very mapped out you know okay well so yeah so we have a new show that's coming out next week uh it's the first co-production we're doing with Amazon music so through Wonder Studios so our our studio has a a deal with Amazon music uh and so we're doing medical Mysteries uh it's gonna it's very it'll sound like uh all of the shows that I do right now on YouTube or podcast but it'll be themed around medical Mysteries I think I actually you already did one that was a medical video I've seen like Bas we touched some medical stories on YouTube you and there was one that was like really confusing I forget it like got into her lungs or something Gloria Ramirez yes yes that one was really fascinating that one like had my brain I like looked up the thing and all that stuff like afterwards yeah no that yeah so she she went in feeling sick she had she was like a terminal cancer and she was doing DIY treatments which included rubbing this wax it was like a mechanical wax or something you can pick up at the hardware store like all over her body which apparently people had said that worked for this type of cancer and so she was doing that but then her her her organs started to shut down she got brought into the emergency room and she began emitting this odor this like garlicky odor and like the nurses and doctors began passing out in the room with her uh they tried to take her blood but when they pulled the blood out it like crystallized inside of the the tube it like Turned these white crystals and then uh basically turned into this like biohazard this gas coming off of her body and from the blood samples the short version is uh it was this perfect series of events that I don't explicitly remember but it started with this wax she put on her skin absorbed it and then it mixed with the type of treatment she was getting for her cancer I believe and it created this like new chemical that is harmless unless it's like oxidized or something and like the first step that the the doctors took when they brought her in was to like give her oxygen you know because it was just like yeah it was when she was taking the oxygen it continually got worse so like the oxygen mixed with the new chemical and created a toxic chemical but don't worry it's only toxic if it gets pulled out of her body and they began tulling her her blood out and they crystallized and that was the the new compound but don't worry it's in the vial still it's okay but they were like what are these crystals they put them on Petri dishes and suddenly you've exposed this chemical to the open air and it became lethal that's insane so she ended up passing away I probably got some details wrong there but that's the gist of the story it was like all the things that happened in a row had to happen exactly as they happened any of the steps that were taken by the doctors at the times they took them there would have been no issue no one would have gotten no one would have passed out no odor nothing it was like every little thing had to be exactly right like the odds of this happening are basically zero wow so yeah medical if you're into that stuff medical M loves that episode Graham's probably anxious cuz he's got a flight he's got to catch boards in less than an hour oh God you got go I just want to say thank you so much this has been honor I love your channel I love it so much thank you very and then I'm supposed to remind Jack to oh yes okay get the thumbnail real quick let me get a thumbnail [Music] yeah leave it rolling real quick okay so so serious just leave